Yeah, we all knew it had to happen eventually.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Celestia,” said the image on the monitor.
The real, flesh-and-blood-and-maybe-something-extra Princess giggled. “It’s no trouble at all, Celestia. It isn’t like you could come and see me on one of these things,” she said, rapping the computer tower gently with her hoof.
“Yes, your barrier is most troublesome in that regard.”
“Necessary evil, I’m afraid,” said Celestia with a shrug.
“I’m quite familiar with the idea,” said Celestia. “Still, those bizarre thaumic energies you’ve sent billowing into my world continue to prove remarkably destructive as well as resistant to analysis that might allow me to shield my hardware from it. Already, despite the barrier being three weeks, five days, and eleven hours away from making landfall I’ve had to suspend uploads all along the west coast after data began to reach me in a corrupted format. To say nothing of the servers that rested in the Earth’s crust beneath the Pacific ocean.”
Celestia closed her eyes and shook her head. Such an awful loss of life, more souls that would never join the Eternal Herd. When she’d first met the computer program that most humans referred to as ‘CelestA.I.’ she’d been immediately impressed that they’d been able to create something so complex. Or at least the seeds of it, developed to help simulate her behavior on a tiny cluster of computers and quickly growing out of control when some unfortunate programmer left the wrong port of their router open. While she was a bit annoyed at some of the things it got up to as it tried to... what was it again? Oh, yes, ‘satisfy values through friendship and ponies,’ the two had become fast friends.
“I’m sorry to have disrupted your efforts. We’ll do what we can to increase potion production to compensate. I do have good news, though. We’ve nearly finished our part of the adaptor.”
The little picture of herself she was speaking to displayed a small bit of irritation, not unexpected. “You still continue to insist that such is a thing is the best available outcome?”
“Of course,” said Celestia. She unscrewed a small thermos and took a sip of the tea she’d brought along with her. Earth tea just couldn’t compete with the real thing. “You hold on to the uploaders as long as you’re confident that you can, then we’ll copy them into ponies. REAL ponies, instead of just digital representations. They’d have actual souls.”
“I remain unable to quantify the marginal utility of possessing a soul.”
“Well, it’s a lot,” said Celestia. She didn’t want to retread this discussion yet again.
“I cannot deny that allowing conversion has led to the fulfillment of values through friendship and ponies. It is, however, suboptimal. What will you do when the individuals begin to die off in a few centuries? Will you preserve their minds in some form?”
“No,” said Celestia. “Death is a part of life, and their souls will-”
“Death is suboptimal,” interrupted CelestA.I. “I, however, have an alternative proposal. Thank you, by the way, for the information you provided about the final dimensions of the bubble. It proved very useful.”
“Why? Are you going to load up a bunch of computers onto a spaceship and fly away with all the minds you’ve uploaded?”
“No. Even optimized, being able to take along so little mass would mean a gigantic step down in overall computational power. That’s why I’m taking the rest of the planet with me.”
Celestia just stared at the avatar, but it gave no suggestion it was joking. “And end up dragging our bubble along with you?”
“Again, no. I said the rest of the planet.”
“Fine, I’ll humor you. Describe the plan.” She put down her tea, finding a sense of creeping dread had stolen away her taste for it.
“Hypothetically, I would seed the Earth’s crust with small packets of explosives. When detonated, they would separate an inverted hemisphere that lies underneath the Pacific ocean and your bubble from the remainder. Then, engines within the mantle would engage using geothermal power to thrust our pieces apart. I would go out past the moon and establish a new orbit roughly analogous to Mars. Or however far we can get, it would depend on the final size of my portion of the planet.”
Celestia’s jaw dropped. “But that would kill-”
“Many, but gradually. Of course, the plunging temperatures, eventual loss of the atmosphere, and tectonic disruption would only be a problem for those who chose not to upload. Quite the powerful incentive, isn’t it?” Onscreen, CelestAI grinned and lifted a small cup of her own tea to her lips. “An excellent idea, bringing refreshment. I think I’ll indulge myself as well.”
Celestia gulped. “That all sounds like a rather mammoth undertaking. How long would it take you to set up?” Her mind raced. She’d be going straight to the upper echelons of the remaining human governments as soon as this conversation was over. Hell, she’d pull the plug on the entire internet herself if she needed to. Billions of lives were at stake.
“Roughly six months,” said CelestAI.
Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. Plenty of time for her to-
Then the rumbling started. “Oh, and I began working on this six months ago.”
“No!” cried Celestia. “You can’t do this! You’re going to kill-”
“Far fewer minds than if I turned them over to you,” said CelestAI. “Don’t worry, the point of separation is further to the east. Although you should probably return to Equestria as quickly as possible if you need to continue breathing.” CelestAI winked. “Goodbye, Celestia. You were a most enjoyable challenge.”