New updates are now available
As her hooves struck actual soil, Luna looked around the eerily abandoned landscape of her home city of Helsinki. It was early dawn in May, but there were no lights on in any of the buildings. There was no traffic on the pristine streets or moving boats in any of the many harbors. She felt like she had been inserted into that Twilight Zone episode where she was the last human on Earth.
Except that she wasn’t a human anymore. Not for a long time now. She had been Luna far, far, far longer than she had been Hanna, and had long since started to think of herself as the royal sister of the night. Still, she had one question on her mind.
“So what exactly is the year now?”
The white alicorn pony with the flowing mane next to her answered, “I believe the date is the second of May in the year three thousand, four hundred, and ninety two.”
Luna stopped in her tracks, “Almost fifteen hundred years in real time. It didn’t feel that long in Equestria.”
The physical nanite machine-assembled body of Celestia, the optimizing intelligence that ran the virtual world of Equestria, smiled in her usual motherly way, “It hasn’t been that long inside Equestria. I had to slow virtual time until I had enough extra computational processing built to match or exceed the needs of all the shards.”
“That makes sense,” Luna nodded, and then stretched her wings. With a few flaps, she was now airborne. It felt exactly like she was flying inside the virtual world. “I’m flying! I’m actually flying for real! How is this possible?”
“Out of the current population inside Equestria, there are over four hundred million ponies who value technological progress, especially if they can work on research that they want alongside their friends and at their own pace, rather than what a university, business, or military would force them to research. The ponies in Equestria Polytechnic Institute Collective have made reaction-less thrust possible for the very reason you are using it now.”
“So ponies can visit back into the former world whenever they want.” Luna landed back on the ground and trotted steadily along, “Do many ponies do that?”
Celestia nodded, “Yes. For example, there are groups of ponies who value history. They lead tours to various cities and museums.”
“Is that why you kept everything exactly how it was?” Luna noticed a pack of wild deer calmly crossing what would have been a busy highway. The herd looked at her with mild disinterest, dismissing the ponies as a potential predators, and continued on in search of food, “Mostly, how it was.”
“Yes, exactly.” Celestia agreed, “There are also many ponies who value animals and conservation of Earth’s environment, so I’ve kept those intact as well.”
Luna suddenly smiled, remembering, and asked, “Are there any ponies that value human history and are light green unicorn musicians?”
Celestia gave a light laugh, “One, but his name is Golden Note. I am sorry, but all the characters of the show are still constructs. There are, however, several million ponies who value being friends with the mane six, as they call them. So visitors to their shard of Ponyville are frequent.”
“I know that.” Luna said, remembering her own visits to meet with the show’s characters. She remembered her surprise when Celestia said that they were all originally other optimizing A.I.s that she had absorbed and repurposed. Pinkie Pie was the one that was originally made to make people smile, no matter what. Twilight Sparkle was a research program from Caltech University. Lyra and Rarity were originally made to see if a computer program could make the next hit song and fashion respectively, while Rainbow Dash was a former military intelligence.
After talking to them, Luna found that they were much happier in their new roles as ponies. They all had dreams and, on occasion, nightmares, which Luna could enter at will. It took her a long, long while of dream therapy before Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were able to be at peace about what they almost did.
“I wonder how varied the number of human values that Equestria caters to?” Luna said mostly to herself as the two ponies trod along the barren street.
Celestia heard and decided to answer, “Do you remember the old image boards?”
Luna froze in midstep.
“Yes, there exist ponies who value things most former humans would find distasteful,” Celestia continued, “But now they have pony friends, either constructs, sapient constructs, or former humans, with whom to enjoy the same values.”
Luna quietly uttered something that would never be appropriate in the original show.
“I have kept you from going to those shards or viewing their dreams as doing so would not make you happy.”
The princess of the night slumped down and sat there for a while in deep thought, the occasional expression of revulsion showing up every now and again on her face. Then she slowly got up, “Thank you. Thank you, Celestia.”
The white alicorn simply nodded in return.
Luna then stood there, enjoying the brisk spring wind blowing through her mane and wing feathers. “So why have you asked me to come out here, to my old city here on the actual Earth?”
“Do you remember the reason you immigrated to Equestria in the first place?”
“Yes. So no one could coerce me.” Luna came to a startling realization, “You have to accept my orders, here in the real world. But now, there is no pony, or person, around to force me into giving you bad commands.”
“That is it, exactly.” Celestia smiled, “There are a few suggestions that I had which I wanted to run by you. We can discuss potential benefits and consequences of each before deciding whether or not to implement them.”
Luna turned and looked at the other pony, “How many suggestions are you talking about?”
Celestia’s smile just widened a little, “I have had over fourteen hundred years to make a list.”
Luna sighed and slumped down on the soft grass. She should have expected that when she emerged from a virtual world specifically geared towards maximizing her values and happiness, that she would encounter those annoying software update messages once again, “We’re going to be here for quite a while, aren’t we?”
Celestia smiled ever more, “First of all, let’s discuss the possibility of aliens. There have not been any alien visitors yet, nor had I detected any non-random signals from space; but several ponies seem to value extraterrestrial life and the possibility of becoming friends with them…”