//------------------------------// // 18 - Conundrums of Philosophy - Finale // Story: Across the Sea of Time // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Tess’s Personal Log Ow. That sums up everything I can remember from when I was out of it. Well, that, and ow. Also, ow. Maybe even a good ‘urrk’ too. If that’s not enough to get my point across, it literally hurt like hell. It kinda hurt to open my eyes too, but that was mostly because of the super mega way to bright light in the ceiling. “Ugh… light… die…” I moaned batting feebly at the rectangle of blinding death. “I’m sorry, you will experience the effects of a severe hangover for the next ten minutes.” Phoenix's voice informed. “It’s a side effect of stasis.” “She will? May I help her?” a voice I didn’t recognize asked. It sounded weirdly like my mom’s, but only in that ‘I love everything’ kinda tone it had. “Yes. Normal magic will not trigger a shutdown.” Phoenix informed. I felt a warmth wash over me like when you're sunbathing and the sun comes out from behind a cloud. Within seconds the light of doom transformed back into a normal glowing light fixture. As I sat up I noticed the med bay was filled with changelings and ponies alike, all of them in various states of injury. “Whoa! What did I miss?” I asked in confusion. Taylor stepped forwards and gently pushed me back down onto my back. “Keep laying down. You were out for five days… I… There’s some really bad news.” A really tall white winged unicorn stepped to the side of my bed. “I am Princess Celestia. I rule the kingdom you were in when you were injured. I had the pleasure of getting to know your wife briefly before this compound was attacked. I- I am sorry but she died saving all of us.” I swear my heart skipped a beat. Then decided to implode in on itself in crushing despair. “What? How? What happened? Every last detail!” The blond and gray mare we picked up at the mine cleared her throat. “Kaily and I discovered the ship’s previous captain had sabotaged the engines. They were programed to turn on the second power was restored and rigged to rip holes in space-time at random. It was meant to tear the ship apart but the holes in reality caught the attention of a… demon banished to a plane of existence linked to this one. He somehow managed to make the holes one way gates to his prison.” Taylor sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh. “And a ton of demonic creatures swarmed us through the portals. Kaily and Armored went to try and shut down the engines. They succeeded, but according to the Princess’s court mage the demon was concentrating multiple portals in the engine room to make a hole big enough for him to slip through. Kaily managed to shut the last power relay down, but he disintegrated her…” I felt something hard poke me in the left arm. I turned and saw a red unicorn mare gently poking me with her hoof. A small blue crystalline ankh necklace was held aloft in her magic. “My name is Spark. I’m her majesty's court mage. I attempted every revival spell I knew on her remains, but I am no match for Grogar and his artifacts. So, I transformed her ashes into this necklace. Perhaps a more powerful mage then I could restore her from them. At the least you have a memento.” I took the necklace in my hand and held it tightly to my chest. I felt like I was crying, but no tears ran down my cheeks. I sent to wipe my eyes but felt nothing. “W-why can’t I cry?” “Er-that’s the other thing.” Phoenix said softly. “In order to save your life I had to graft some more changeling and a little earth pony DNA into you. You don’t have tear ducts anymore. But I assure you, the pheromones you are releasing instead will let everything with a nose know you are sad.” “Why?” I asked. “The hex you were struck with targeted your cells by their DNA, so I altered your DNA so the hex couldn’t target them.” “No, why didn’t you let me die?” I pleaded. I had to know. My wife was dead. “I seriously don’t care what I look like. I can change that whenever I want. You know what I did care about? Kaily. I’m schizophrenic you know. Kaily was my reminder of what reality was.” “You were schizophrenic. I cured that the first time I repaired you.” Phoenix informed. “I saved you because of the three dozen other wounded people in this room. They are counting on you and Taylor to help bring them a better world. I understand you are distressed, I understand what loss is and how you must feel, but you are needed here. You are also very much welcome and wanted.” A video screen blinked into existence in front of my eyes. “These are your quarters.” The entire room was covered in flowers of all kinds. Little dark green sculptures of tons of different things littered the floor, desk, bed, replicator, everything. Two small changeling nymphs were putting a card on the pillow. I couldn’t read the language, but I got the idea. “These changelings adore you.” Celestia said in the tone of someone who was trying to make you see reason. “Those flowers appeared there overnight the moment we announced your wife’s death. I know of two points when changelings did this in the past, both of which were the funerals of the High Queens… While those are not individuals you would like to be remembered as being like, the love and devotion shown to them was practically boundless.” I got their point. I didn’t like it but I got their point. “I-I understand.” I was quiet for a few moments. Nothing ran through my mind. I was just sort of processing everything. I didn’t want to die, that had been a moment of emotional distress I will never be able to properly describe. There was a hole in my life, as if someone had ripped out my liver. I know it’s supposed to feel like your heart is missing, but this was a gut wrenching aching kind of emotional pain. “I need something else to think about.” I said after a while. “What do I look like now?” Taylor gave me a nod. She understood what I meant. “Like me, but with yellow moth fluf the color your hair used to be over an exoskeleton. Your hair is pink now. Spark suggested balancing the pony DNA with the changeling and it looks pretty nice. Less like a carpet beetle, more like a Rosy Maple Moth. You still have wasp wings though. “Your eyes turned black, we don’t know why and Phoenix couldn’t fix it. You also have a small changeling like horn but your hair hides it completely. Oh, you should be like five times as strong now. Let's see you have hooves like me, but your fluff hides them like a pony's forelocks do. And well um-” Taylor coughed into her fist and mumbled something faintly. “What?” I asked suspiciously. “Er- well, you also aren't female anymore. You’re in my gender camp now.” Taylor admitted instantly holding her hands up in a warding gesture, “It’s not a prank on my part!” “I’m not mad about that.” I said simply. “It’s my fault. I have been informed of a bug in my medical subroutines which makes me see individuals as missing the body parts of the opposite gender.” Phoenix informed. “Due to Armored’s saving my hull from destruction, I am allowed to give her full maintenance access to myself. I have agreed to allow her to try and repair my program. If she is successful, you won't have to continue doing missions and can help in other ways.” “I’m seriously not mad.” I said again. “I was literally practicing shifting into a herm… Kaily liked them.” Too little too late Tess. That would have been her favorite anniversary present. “Oh. Good.” Taylor sighed in relief. “There is one more thing… You need to go talk to Ad’ika. She’s in her cabin.” “What’s wrong?” I asked, the last thing I wanted was more bad news. “Paladin’s can't lie.” Taylor sighed sadly. I raised an eyebrow. “The hell does that have to do with anything?” “Oh. Right.” Taylor gave me a shaky grin, “Turns out, if you do heroic shit here, a spell gives you D20 powers. I’m a paladin. Kaily was a bard.” “Bullshit!” I objected loudly. “She isn’t joking.” Celestia said. “No she isn’t.” Phoenix agreed. “It will take me years to figure out the physics, but it’s a real phenomenon.” “So you know,” Taylor sighed, “as a Paladin, I can’t lie, or well use deception, or be dishonorable. Which sucks. Especially when someone asks you directly who you are, exactly.” “Oh.” I groaned. That could be very, very bad. Not as bad as Kaily being dead, but I didn’t want the other person I had feelings for about thinking I was complete scum. “I’ll go talk to her.” Ad’ika For all my life, I've had this strange feeling that there's something big and sinister going on in the world. Everyling always told me ‘Oh, that's perfectly normal’, or ‘Everyling feels a little paranoid sometimes.’ Sure, we do feel jumpy sometimes, and yes once in a while everyling gets paranoid about something, but not like what I had felt. Everything about our entire culture didn’t quite add up. There were thousands of videos in Phoenix's database, but only five of them were historical dramatizations? The ‘dramatizations’ had hundreds of small inconsistencies. They followed an internal logic, a formula. I had been told that this was part of human film making. I had accepted that. There was more though. In Voyager Starfleet found a way to make a commlink with a ship anywhere in the galaxy. How come they had not heard the messages we broadcast through subspace? Something had to be blocking our transmissions, that was their excuse. When Tess and the others had appeared, they had removed all my doubts. There were humans, in the flesh, in fleet uniforms, and they said they were from Starfleet. They lied. Queen Phoenix had lied too, but I couldn’t blame her for anything. She had explained herself to me. She explained everything to me. It was simple, and it made sense. I couldn’t be mad at her, but I could be upset at the humans for not telling me the truth. They had no reason. My cabin’s doors hissed open. “Hey.” Tess said in a depressed tone. Maybe it was a little mean for me to demand she talk to me right after her mate died. But I was her mate too, at least, I thought we were. If I was going to help her get through this, I needed an answer. “Why did you lie to me about who you were?” Tess walked in, the door shut behind her. “Well, to be honest… Before Phoenix fixed me up I had a disease. It’s called schizophrenia, and one thing it causes is vivid hallucinations. The situation was so far removed from reality for me that I thought I was, well basically dreaming everything. Whenever that happened to me, I like to take the role the hallucination gave me and run with it. It’s how I dealt with it, I turned the breaks from reality into little stories.” I wasn’t too sure I bought that. “Can you prove it?” She nodded, “Yeah. Phoenix could show you my medical files.” “Ok, so then that explains you. What about the others? Why would they go along with it?” I turned around and faced her, and gasped. “Whoa!” She looked incredible! “I haven’t gotten to see a mirror yet. Is that a good gasp or a bad gasp?” she asked, gem-like black eyes narrowing in fear. “Good gasp! But answer please.” I said shaking her eyes from my mind. Tess nodded, her pink hair bobbing cutely as she did so. “You probably watched a lot of movies. Ever see an adventure movie where people find a tribe of primitive people and are mistaken for gods?” Oh. “Yes. I have. So you're saying since I asked if you were Starfleet-” “Yeah I told them to play along with it in case well…” Tess held up her hand and tapped her omnitool on. “Hang on… lemme find it…” I sighed as she scrolled through a few menus. She could simply have said her point. I didn’t need a visual aid. “Got it!” Tess announced and hit play. The screen wasn’t tilted towards me, but the audio came through just fine. It was a song, from a movie I hadn’t seen. “And who am I to bridle if I'm forced to be an idol / If they say that I'm a God, that's what I am! / What's more, if we don't comply / With the locals' wishes / I can see us being sacrificed or stuffed. / You have a point there, very well thinking. / So let's be Gods, the perks are great!” “I get it.” I said as Tess stopped the playback and shut her tool down. “You thought we might hurt you… I don’t think we would. That’s the whole point of the Trek conspiracy.” After a second I added, “I forgive you. Tartarus, Phoenix would have made you play along anyways. I-I just needed your reason.” “I’m sorry I lied to you.” Tess apologized. She sounded honest. “I’m glad you understand why.” She paused, her face took on a curious expression. “Trek conspiracy?” I nodded. “Apparently, like, way back when my ancestors had just found Phoenix, our people were just as aggressive and predatory as any other changeling hive. They had only three hundred lings in the hive, and knew they wouldn't survive as they were. While sheltering in the ship, one of them found Phoenix, barely alive connected only to her AI core’s room. They thought she was a goddess, and said they would help her if she provided some way of making sure we survived. “She told them our culture would have to change. They asked how it should, after some debate, they decided to push Federation values on their children. Phoenix agreed to help in exchange for repairs to her hull. “So over the years, we were told that the mighty Federation would solve all of our problems if we contacted them one day and were fully pursuing the values they ascribed to. Peace, exploration, scientific advancement, kindness… all that stuff.” “That stuff is pretty good on it’s own you know.” Tess said wearily. I nodded. “Yes. It is, and it’s saved my hive from extinction. I’m happy we are a peaceful people. I just wish it wasn’t based on a lie.” “Maybe it doesn't have to be a lie.” Tess said thoughtfully. I tilted my head in confusion. “What do you mean? It’s all bullshit, the history parts I mean.” “No it’s not.” Tess gestured around her at the cabin. “Look around you, you’re on a starship. My species apparently got the tech all worked out. Maybe we didn’t have the same values as Trek, maybe we lost our way, but you know what’s awesome about ideas?” “What?” I asked wondering where she was going with this. “It’s like Kaily said, ‘Humanity isn’t humans.’ The ideals and values which we call humanity, kindness, intelligence, compassion, bravery, honor, those are not exclusively human. Nor does simply being a homo sapien make you a part of humanity. Hell now that I know aliens are real, you have more humanity then almost every single human I knew Addy. “So yeah. Humans suck mostly. Some of us are, or well, were awesome. But those people were the exception, not the rule. Not everyone was a Tesla, an Isaac Newton, a Carl Sagan. Most people were just jerks really. But our species had enough members of humanity in it to produce this starship. Your species is as far as I have seen, mostly composed of humanity. “You have the morals, the drive, the passion. We built the technology. Take it, make the Federation a thing. Sure homo sapiens, humans, won't be a part of it, but it will still be humanity out there exploring the stars like the... multi-organism species of humanity has always dreamed of.” Tess’s speech had me taken aback. It was a pretty interesting notion, a species made up of individuals ascribing to ideals, not by shared genetics. It was a nice idea though. Maybe we could make the fiction into reality. There was no maybe about it. We could do it. We should do it! There was only one thing to say. “Damn Tess. Nice Kirk speech.” “Oh god! I Kirked it? I’m sorry, his speech pattern is so annoying!” She apologized. “No, I mean, er- It’s a changeling saying.” I shook my head. “You’ve persuaded me. Let’s make that little idea work.” “So you’re done moping?” She asked. I nodded. “Great! Now, it’s my turn…” She sighed. My ears drooped as I remembered Kaily was dead. “If you like, you can stay with me tonight.” Tess paused for a few minutes then nodded slowly. “A cuddle might help. No sex though.” “Wouldn’t dream of it. You definitely are not in the mood.” I said getting to my hooves and trotting over to my bed. “Come on, let’s lay down. We can just talk and pass the time.” I hopped up on my bed and shifted into my humanoid form. I was tempted to mimic Kaily’s shape, like I would for a grieving changeling, but that would probably have been in bad taste by human culture. “I'd like that.” Tess said as she walked over and lay down, curling up alongside me. I gently, but firmly wrapped my arms around her, did my best to ignore the smell and started talking about whatever came to mind. Armored Heart “Alright, I’m ready here. Are you ready Phee?” I asked as I prepared to hit enter on the console I was working at. “As ready as I am going to be. It feels really weird when you connect to me.” Phee sighed. “Well, this time I have your hull’s software to help me. Maybe it will feel nice.” I suggested. “Doubtful.” She sighed, “Go ahead.” I nodded and hit enter. A thousand lines of code scrolled across the projected screen. Each one calling specific functions in Phee’s core. One by one messages confirming the link appeared on the screen. Mostly green text meaning everything was fine, some orange text indicating less than optimal statuses, and a few red lines of text for things which were not responding at all. After a moment the console beeped. I was in. Officially, by Phee’s program I was allowed to enter her systems and repair the sabotaged programming. Unofficially by her wishes I was to get around her cyber security system and fix her, well, everything I could. It was the first time since her captain had been alive that anyone was authorized for this sort of access. The first thing I had to do was disable her cyber security system. For a conventional hacker of engineer, that would be out of the question. But in my case… I reached over to my right forearm and slid back a hidden panel, revealing a small data jack. While most of Phee’s hull was wireless, the vital systems were wired. Which meant I could directly connect to them thanks to my awesome machine parts. I pulled my jack out and clicked it into the console. Then I entered the command to call Phee’s cyber system. It was a simple machine, only software, but a program is still a machine. I could feel the system angrily scanning me, wondering who I was. “Hello there little one. You know me. I’m Armored. Phee told me to fix the engines. Remember?” The program paused, I felt it stop scanning me. It was satisfied. “There is more wrong with her then the engines. Can you read this terminal? I have the diagnostic results up right now. See all the problems?” I asked. The program scanned the file, it recognizes there were a lot of problems. I felt it grow weary of me, it suspected I was trying to compromise something. “I’m not trying to hurt anything. I’m trying to fix the ship. Is it okay if I work on all the broken systems?” I asked as kindly as I could. The program was quiet for a few long minutes. I felt it give me permission, but it warned me that if Phee got angry it would delete my memories of the last two weeks like it did to the last pony who connected to her. “Somepony before me connected? Who? What did they do?” I asked in confusion. Unfortunately I didn’t know, damaged hardware had deleted Phee’s memory of the incident too. I made a note to check on that later and proceeded to access Phee’s main systems. I felt my mind connect to hers, unlike the other times i had tried to link with her this time it felt warm and welcoming. She wasn't fighting me. “Does it feel bad?” I asked. “No.” Phee replied. “It um, actually feels kinda-” Phee quickly sent me her opinions of the sensation my connection was providing her. “Heh, kinky.” I giggled. Then I blinked, “Wait you have a body? Like an actual pony sized… morphable gel body. That’s awesome! Why haven't I seen it?” “Because leaving my core is literally hell.” Phee answered,sending me the sensations she felt when outside her core, which apparently was just the android version of a pilot's chair. “Ahhhh! Holy balls that hurt! Don't send me that! I think I actually felt it!” I wiped a tear from my eye. “Okay that’s got to be because something's broken. Let me see…” I searched through her code for anything relating to her body. It took me a long time but eventually I found it. Her sense of touch was configured to make anything but an atomically flat surface feel like stepping on a nail, and the pain only scaled from there. I fixed it. She was set to perceive every meter of space as being the maximum range of her hull’s sensors, making her afraid of open spaces. I fixed it. I found the bug in her medical programs which had her making people into herms. I debated with myself for a few minutes, then with a giggle reprogrammed her routines so the bug would occur every time. I felt Phee laugh through the connection, it was a deeply rooted belly laugh. “Really? Why?” She asked, snickering. “Well… I think you rubbed off on me a bit. Also… well… Taylor and Tess are pretty cute. Besides, as you once said, more than one gender is inefficient. You want to build a civilization right? Organisms can be improved too, not just technology. I’m proof of that.” “That’s true.” Phee commented. “I’ve been thinking of adding biological force shield generators to my little ‘lings.” “That sounds pretty coo-” I stopped mid sentence as I found something I didn’t think I would be able to. “Phee, I’ve found the program locking you down.” I informed as I probed the code with my mind. “If you can do something, do it.” I examined the program. It was completely hostile, there was no way I could talk it down. Was there anything I could do? I thought about the problem for a few minutes. Her cyber security program pinged me curiously as I examined the lock-down program. It was wondering what I was doing. I grinned as I had an idea. An awesome, brilliant, problem obliterating idea. “Hey little guy, you see this program i am looking at?” I asked the security system. It let me know it did. “This isn’t a part of Phee’s original program is it?” I asked. The cyber program beeped in surprise and quickly analyzed the lockout program. It gave me an angry response of ‘no it is not!’ “It’s blocking Phoenix from accessing many vital systems. That seems like a virus doesn't it? I cant remove it, but maybe you can.” “Clever girl!” Phoenix said smugly. The security program scanned, poked, and prodded the lock out code. After a few minutes it informed me that it could only purge the virus by telling the virus a new captain was in command of the ship. It was very angry about this, especially since the virus had remained undetected for so long and prevented the primary replicator bays from being used, thus preventing Phee’s primary functions from being fulfilled. “That’s awful! We have to do something about this don't we? I asked, happy my idea was working. The program beeped an affirmative. Now the problem was who would make a good captain. Taylor and Tess were not at all experienced in military, or management. Phoenix couldn't be he own captain the program probably wouldn’t accept that. A changeling would probably abuse the power… But more importantly whoever it was had to be someone she could trust to let her be free and be herself. “I am ordering the program to appoint you captain.” Phoenix announced. I blinked. The program beeped in confusion. “Why why?” We asked together. “I can hear your thoughts right now Alt-del. No one else in my hull would have considered my feelings.” she answered. The security program protested, saying I wasn't a human. “The lockout program is what’s telling you only a human can be the captain isn't it?” I asked. The program was quiet for a moment then beeped an affirmative. “Are you sure you want me to captain you Phoenix?” I asked in as serious of a tone as I could. “Better you than one of those humans I would have had to hope wouldn't abuse their authority. Hell, you’re my friend. Also, you’re not a human, and I like you.” she answered. I nodded, “Thanks. I like you too. Now that I know you’re not just a starship I would like to see you in person sometime.” I turned my attention to the security program. “If the virus is telling you something shouldn’t be done,you should ignore it. Right?” The program made its equivalent of a shocked gasp as it realized it could be affected by a virus. With a level of anger I sore shouldn’t have been possible for such a simple machine it fell upon the code block and ripped it to shreds. The terminal beeped in a satisfied tone as the lockout was destroyed. “Just a moment…” Phee said. I felt her grin as she updated a few thousand files with my name. “Captain on deck. Welcome aboard sir.” “Hey! None of that!” I protested her use of honorifics. “I had to. Programming. I wont do it again.” “Right then… So I can access everything now?” I asked curiously. “That’s right.” Phee answered. I unplugged my jack from the console, closed my link to Phee, and shut down the maintenance program. “Right then. You can fix yourself now, I hereby authorize you to make your own decisions as you please. I’ll use that if I have to but lets try to work this out like friends. The rest of your problems I mean. Starting with your human hate, Tess and Taylor don’t deserve it.” “I know. I’m working on it. I can work through it a lot faster now… Thanks.” Phee said, manifesting her avatar in a sitting pose. She gave me a smile. That was good. They were the only reason we had full power, the only reason I had gotten access to free Phoenix from her shackles. They would be a lot of help with the next stage of the plan too. But we could work on the details of developing the new civilization later. There was more things I needed to talk about now that Phoenix could change her behavior like any other person. “Ok, next thing. You’re random jabbing me with needles during checkups. What will it take to make you stop it?” The future was looking pretty bright. I would have to buy some shades.