Rarity - 1st of Snowfall, ‘09 EOHRarity - 1st of Snowfall, ‘09 EOH
“Well, that’s certainly more than Celestia’s letter suggested,” I said to myself as the… vehicle circled for a landing.
The city’s gleaming glass towers certainly looked marvelous! Though the green glowing patterns on them were a tad garish. I didn’t want to be rude and mention them to anypony, after all they could be high art or religious symbols. That’s one of the frustrating and amazing things one encounters when dealing with a new culture, the small differences which when added up make the big differences.
None of us has had expected architecture like this, the last time any of us were in a changeling hive it had been long abandoned. Countless spherical rooms in underground vaults like somepony had dropped a pearl necklace in a tangled pile. This looked like Manehatten if a single architect designed every building and had a love affair with glass.
When I had heard the word ‘city’ I expected some scattered buildings, and an organized underground system. To say I hadn’t been looking forward to living in such conditions for a year would be an understatement. This on the other hoof, was far more my style. Though I had no idea why so many of the buildings were pyramids.
Twilight backed away from the window and gave me a small look. The sort of look that indicated she had something to say, but wanted to do it quietly. After moving closer Twilight said four simple words, “Take the lead please.”
I nodded, “Of course darling, don’t worry about anything.”
One of the great things about our little group is its diversity. Twilight can handle magic, Pinkie has a bit of a hoof in everything, Fluttershy knows each and every animal under Celestia’s sun, Rainbow is our aerial expert, Applejack can deal with the ‘salt of the earth’ types with ease, and if I must count Trixie, she can win over a crowd.
As for me, I am the mistress of high society. If we needed a diplomat, nopony can read others like I could. Years of trying to blend into high society pay off in many different ways. Simply knowing the right amount of honey to add to one’s words to cover up a small blunder is an invaluable skill for dealing with more civilized individuals.
Which is why Twilight was asking me to be our group’s go-between. Any culture which would produce such a city and happily live within it was bound to have a complex and nuanced social structure. I would master it quicker than anypony else.
The Sagan’s wheels touched down onto not solid ground, but a large metal platform. It reminded me somewhat of a landing balcony on a pegasus’ house, only larger and clearly built for heavy things. The platform was attached to the base of the north tower, and judging by the large obviously sliding doors, this was a grand entryway of some kind.
“Taylor and I will have to park this thing,” Ad’ika mentioned politely, “but you get off here, I’ll help unload your bags and someling can carry them to your rooms for you if you like. The Captains should be- Ah, there they are! The changeling is named Skritt, the unicorn is Armored Heart.”
“Well, yeah, I can see she’s armored,” Applebloom said unthinkingly. “Though, why a pony would just put on greaves is beyond me.”
“Her name’s Armored, and she isn't in any armor. Those are prosthetic,” Ad’ika clarified.
“Wait, like, fake limbs? That sucks! Is she a veteran?” Rainbow asked immediately.
“Yes,” Ad’ika responded with a polite nod as she opened the door, “but trust me it doesn't suck. I’m a bit jealous actually.”
I was the first out the door after Ad’ika. While I did not want to keep our hosts waiting I did have to collect our bags. Fortunately, with four unicorns getting our bags into neat stacks on the landing platform was a simple matter and one which was quickly accomplished.
With our bags unloaded, Ad’ika offered the captains a salute and stepped back inside the boxy ship. As it took off with a slight whine of whatever mechanism propelled it through the air, the changeling captain took a step forward and dipped his head in what I assumed was a sort of bow.
At least, I assumed he was a male. His somewhat squared features, tall, well built body, and darker green short mane looked male. Though I had heard a rumor all changelings were female and frankly with their language I couldn’t tell by the name Skritt. I decided to simply wait to see what pronouns Armored used for him or her.
“Welcome,” Skritt greeted in a mid pitched, buzzing voice. It took me a half second to realize this must simply be the hive’s accent. “I am Skritt Verril Krra, Captain of the Emerald Changelings. My duties include managing my people and our relations with other nations. If at any point during your stay you need someone to talk to on matters relating to any citizen of Gaia, please feel free to talk to me.”
Armored offered us a friendly smile. I swore she looked a bit familiar, the pale blue-gray fur and darker pinkish spiky mane and tail stood out to me for some reason. Of course the white, metallic, plates covering her legs did distract me somewhat. They looked to industrial, some creative flare would greatly-
“I’m the other captain, well in name only. Call me Armored. If you have a tech issue or require any additional resources you come to me or Phee if she’s able to respond to you at the moment. I’ll be getting you… ten settled and answering your questions.” Armored greeted.
I stepped forward, proper diplomacy begins with a good first impression after all. “A pleasure to meet you both. This is Princess Twilight Sparkle, the blue pegasus mare is her wife, you may recognize her as the Countess Rainbow Dash, and you may have heard of her concubine Lady Trixie Lulamoon.
“This fine mare is Lady Fluttershy, a Knight of Equestria, and this is Baronetess Applejack of the Apple Family, who I am sure you have heard. I am most certain you have heard of Miss Pinkie Pie as her reputation most frequently precedes her.
“I am Lady Rarity Belle, Esquire, Princess Twilight’s chief diplomat. Our companions are the Princess’ daughter Scootaloo, Applebloom of the Apples, and my sister Sweetie Belle. Though while we are here you need not use our titles, the intended tone of our visit is, as I was informed, semi-formal.”
Skritt nodded politely, “Yes this is intended to be a less than strictly formal meeting. I don’t believe you can truly learn about another culture from a formal setting alone. Rest assured I have planned several formal functions for us to exchange cultural elements in, but for the most part please feel comfortable to be yourselves.”
“As for you, Your Highness,” Armored said in a polite, slightly nervous tone, “If you desire the respect due your species and station, everyling and pony here is more than happy to accommodate you. There are rumors you prefer to be treated as an equal, if that’s the case let one of us know and we will get them to knock it off. As it is several thousand kilohugs have been donated by our non-changeling citizens to fund your stay, likely more by now.”
Twilight cleared her throat, “I would prefer to be treated the same as anypony else. What exactly is a kilohug?”
“A currency of sorts.” Skritt elaborated taking a few steps to the side. “While there is no shortage of tangible goods here, food for my people is not something we can produce. As such we established an economy for non-changelings based on the units of love energy we consume. A kilohug, is the equivalent energy of a thousand hugs and roughly an eighth of an individual changeling’s daily needs. As such it’s our equivalent to a bit. If you wish for something aside from food, medical care, and necessities, you as non-changelings are required to sell love to us in exchange for hug credits.”
That could have a whole mess of consequences. I decided to ask for clarification, “Would you kindly describe how we sell love? It’s not a concept any of us are familiar with, as you can imagine.”
“It’s completely safe,” Armored piped up, “the Emeralds have refined their feeding techniques to be almost risk free. You simply spend time with a changeling or three, have a good time doing anything you like, they get a meal, and you get hugs. You likely won't even notice them feeding after the first three or four times.”
“In simple terms, you make money by having fun.” Skritt summarized. “There is slight risk to an individual the first few times they are fed upon, but the risk diminishes with each time. Simply let one of my changeling’s know it’s your first time and they will take extra care. If you are injured, rest assured they will be severely punished. We can break contact if we feel you are in danger, the fact that you were hurt is entirely the fault of the individual.”
Twilight nodded, “Alright. I suppose that’s something we can learn to accept. Are there any laws or rules we should know of?”
“That’s a question for Armored, I am afraid I must get back to my duties. It was a pleasure meeting you all.” Skriit gave us the little half bow nod once again and turned away, trotting into the tower. The large doors slid into the walls with a hiss, revealing a magnificently designed white interior before closing again.
I felt it time to ask a simple question of the diplomatic sort. “If I may interrupt for a moment, might I ask when we may meet Queen Phoenix? I had been under the impression we would meet her upon arrival.”
Armored chuckled, “Phee isn’t exactly our ruler or leader. The Queen title is simply the way changelings show their appreciation for her. She’s more of an-” Armored’s face scrunched as she searched for an appropriate term, “-eccentric billionaire, genius, playgirl, philanthropist, and you will meet her almost immediately on entering the home towers. Her hologrid does not extend outside the buildings yet. We are still getting a lot of the secondary systems up and running.”
“Hologrid?” Scootaloo asked in surprise, her ears perking along with Bloom and Sweetie’s own.
“Yes. Phee is an artificial intelligence, despite having a physical body somewhere she prefers to interact with others through holograms… Even me,” Armored sighed.
“AI? Awesome! It’s been so long since I got to interact with any tech more complex than-” Scoot’s excited babbling was quickly cut off by a pair of sushes from the others. “-er, I mean, that’s neat.”
I assumed their misadventure in the past had something to do with her reaction. The three of them had not said much to me about anything, but Scootaloo did mention she had finally earned her cutiemark by interacting with something technological from way back when. The three knew more about what was happening here than anypony else. I would have to ask Twilight to probe them for information later.
Armored tilted her head slightly to look at Scootaloo’s cutiemark, her eyes widened a bit as she noticed the circuit pattern and wrench mark. “Inventor, electrician, or... ?”
“Well, inventor, sort of.” Scootaloo admitted, “It’s more like machines tell me what they do and I can make them work together. If it’s a complicated machine sometimes I can hold a conversation with it.”
“Well hello there fellow technopath! We share a talent, though I can repair technology, rather than invent with it. If you want to apply your skills here I will happily find a place in engineering for you to donate your time and work. We have six ponies with our skills here, and that counts us.”
“Excuse me,” Twilight asked politely, “I’ve always assumed Scootaloo saying machines spoke to her was a metaphor for an innate understanding. Since you have a similar talent could you clarify? I am writing a paper on Technological Talents.”
“Gladly, but at a later date. There is a lot to take care of right now.” Armored politely deflected.
“Hold on a minute,” Applejack asked in her best ‘be polite’ tone, “Are ya telling me that a Phoenix is a machine? ‘Cause you talk about ‘her’ like ‘she’ is a pony.”
Armored bit her lip gently. “It’s hard to explain before you met her, but we treat her like a person, because she is a person. I’m not sure she would call herself a pony, but Phee has likes, dislikes, goals, thoughts, emotions, she has everything a person has.”
“I find that just a little hard to believe.” I admitted, agreeing with Applejack. How could a machine be a person?
“The technology at our disposal is far more complex than you are familiar with in Equestria. Some of it is so complicated it takes another machine to operate it. Phee’s creators eventually built machines like her, sort of a cross between their own kind and machines, as an interface between them and their technology.” Armored explained.
“It’s less appropriate to say Phoenix is a machine, because it’s more like she is a person who happens to also be a machine… I’m sure you will get it after interacting with her for a while. Speaking of which!”
A loud click and hiss drew my attention. I felt a combination of shock and horror as Armored’s left flank slid open revealing a small compartment. I am certain my eyes and ears twitched as I did my best to restrain my gasp. Thank Celestia that behind the white panel was a simple plastic box!
Armored’s horn glowed briefly as she levitated ten small silver balls and ten small clips from the compartment, and passed one of each to everypony. The hidden compartment hissed shut the second after-
“How did you open that?” Twilight asked curiously.
“I asked her to open so I could access my pocket,” Armored replied simply.
“Why would you build a pocket into your body?” Sweetie Belle wondered.
Armored laughed a deep, honest laugh. “I’m mostly mechanical, why wouldn’t I have some cool or useful features installed? Why simply replace a lost limb when you can make it awesome?”
Rainbow’s ears perked. Luna save me, there goes a diplomatic and classy first meeting. “I think I’m going to like you! So, how awesome on a scale of one to me did you make those?”
Armored scratched a hoof to her chin in thought. “Humm, a scale of one to a hypersonic flying world saving pegasus who married a Princess… Tell you what: I’ll get the rest of my cyber systems from my cabin when Phee gets back into orbit and we can find out for sure.”
“Aww come on, you have to have something awesome besides a pocket if you are going to call those awesome!” Rainbow pressed.
“No Dash…” I muttered futilely.
Armored rolled her eyes. “Oh, fine. It’s a good tech demo anyways.”
I have no words to describe the sound she made, but within the span of a few seconds, Armored’s entire body twisted and contorted. Plates separated, slid, and twisted. Joints reversed, her forehooves split, slid apart, and morphed into three fingered hands. By the end of it, she was standing in a biped stance as if she had been born to do so.
“Ta-dah!” She announced, making a sweeping gesture with her hands.
I had to admit, I was impressed, despite the inelegance of the transformation it was certainly a feat of marvelous engineering. I found myself clapping my hooves for a few heartbeats as everypony else excitedly shouted various amazed exclamations.
“So then, as I was saying,” Armored said as she reached down and picked up one of the silver clips, “the technology found here is far more advanced. As such, you actually need to have some of it on you to operate just about everything. It might seem like a bit of a hassle to you, but I assure you once you get the hang of it, everything is rather easy.
“These clips slip on your ear, they stay on until you try to take them off, and are almost entirely unnoticeable. Each clip will be personalized to you once you put it on, from then on it’s your ID, door key, elevator pass, wallet, health monitor, and locator beacon. For example, the clip knows who you are, and if you try to enter a room you are allowed to enter, the door opens, if you are not allowed, the door will remain shut.
“The small silver ball is an invention of one of our tech gurus Sky Trigger. He thought it might be a bit… invasive to give you the standard interface for all of our tech. Instead you get these orbs, which are small flying robots. They will follow you based on your clip and respond to verbal commands. They have the same functionality of a civilian grade omnitool.
“Through them you can control anything you are authorized to, climate controls, lighting, music selections, that sort of thing. They are also communication tools, you can use them to talk to anyone you know with similar tech regardless of their location. They can project holograms with a tactile interface to allow you to access stored data such as movies, the library, as well as input data to make your own… It’s like a diary.”
“If it’s that important for livin’ here, why don’t you have one?” Applejack wondered.
“Because A, I do, it’s implanted in my brain, and B even if I didn't have one I’m Phee’s captain so I have full access to everything via my biosignature.” Armored replied, flinching slightly. “Speaking of implanted… Before you put those on, a quick piece of advice. Phoenix is a bit… well harmlessly crazy.”
That caught my attention. “May I ask how?”
“She has a logic of her own. If you are ever injured and wind up in her medbay be sure you tell her to heal the injury you just incurred only. She goes overboard with ‘repairs and upgrades’. See, a healer looks at a pony sees they are doing okay and sends them home. Phoenix looks at you, sees countless tiny things which are actually harmful as well as countless things which could be better and sees it as her moral imperative to fix and improve you.
“This would be totally fine if her ideas of ‘better’ were in line with your own, but they probably aren’t. Mind you she isn’t evil or anything. If you say no she will accept that and bring it up again later. I feel i should elaborate… She has given an earth pony in the hive a second heart because due to an odd quirk of her body, her muscles were not getting enough circulation with a single heart. She will do things like that if you let her.
“So just be a bit careful with what you say she can do, and don’t use the blanket term ‘heal me’. Be specific.”
Rainbow nodded thoughtfully. “So dealing with her is like using the monkey's paw from Daring Doo and the Quest for the Everstone?”
“Yeah. Pretty much exactly that. Only she honestly means to help, and you were made objectively better in some way, even if it’s not a way you want,” she summarized.
“Is there any reason you gave us this warning before we put the clips on?” Twilight asked carefully.
“Yes.” Armored admitted. “Phee tunes in when those are first activated to program them. She would have heard my warning and been upset with me for ‘enabling the continued inefficiency and thus suffering of organic life.’ She’s sort of my marefriend… It’s an argument I would rather avoid.”
I took a step back, “You’re dating a machine?” I asked incredulously.
“Meh, I’m half one myself, everything from the barrel down. Besides, she’s nice.” Armored said, waving a hand dismissively.
Armored hunched suddenly, transitioning back into a normal pony stance. As she changed a few of us moved forward to pick up a clip. As I lifted one with my magic, I noticed Scoots, Sweetie, and Belle having a quick whispered argument with one another. Unfortunately, I was too far away to hear any of it.
I looked at the clip apprehensively. It seemed like a lot could go wrong with such a device. Especially since she mentioned it was a locator. If things went wrong this could be used to track our movements. I would have to be sure to make Twilight understand they were to be destroyed the moment this turned bad, if it did that is.
After a moment’s hesitation I slipped the clip onto my ear. I gasped as I saw it’s color change to match my coat out of the corner of my eye. A half second later one of the silver balls jerked a foot up into the air and drifted over to me. As it flew it turned white, a purple stripe the color of my hair slid around it’s middle horizontally, and my cutiemark winked into existence on it’s surface.
“Bio-scan completed. HAL Assistant activated.” A small genderless voice whispered in my ear. I nearly jumped out of my skin until I realized the voice had come from the clip, like a tiny radio.
Judging by everypony else’s reactions the same thing happened for them.
“If you would like to, you can rename the bot at any time. To use it you say it’s name and then what you want.” Armored explained.
I saw Pinkie grin her usual toothy grin. She reached out with a hoof and gently booped her ‘bot’ announcing, “From now on your name is Mr. Floaty! Hi Mr. Floaty! … Awww, he doesn't say much does he?”
Armored shook her head, “No, not really, but they understand the context of what you’re saying. If you need help, you can ask them for it. If you would like to talk to me, simply ask it to ‘Control Alt-Del’, don’t ask; it’s a nickname for me. Now then, shall we go inside? Ad’ika sent me a message saying you are to share her flat. I can take you there right away.”
Twilight nodded, “That sounds nice. It would be good to unpack. Is there a cart for our bags?”
Armored shook her head, “No, I can teleport them to the flat’s common room though. The landing platform doubles as a teleportation pad.”
“You can teleport ten ponies’ luggage for a whole year to a location which could be up to a mile away?” Twilight asked incredulously.
“Personally? As in by myself? No.” Armored admitted, “But that’s what’s great about stellar age tech, it’s another kind of magic.”
Twilight shrugged, “All types of magic obey the same fundamental rules. This much matter can’t be teleported that far without the proper arcane support matrix.”
Armored nodded and tapped the floor with her hoof, “You’re standing on the equivalent of that. Phee, could you please beam our guest’s belongings to flat three-twenty-one? Thanks.”
A sound like a winter’s wind over an icy window accompanied a blue shimmering sparkling light as it washed over our luggage. After a second they slowly turned transparent, then vanished.
“Your belongings arrived safely. Let’s walk you on up to your room,” Armored informed as Twilight began to cast detection spells around the area where everything had just been.
“This is really interesting! Despite no thaumaturgic current being left from the spell there are stray motes of energy… It’s like nature teleported our-”
“Trixie would like to see inside the building now! She is sure the magic can be explained later.” Trixie announced extra dramatically to draw Twilight’s attention.
“Quantum tunneling.” Armored said as she turned to the door and waved her hoof, “Come on, let’s get going.”
“Wait! If our baggage can be teleported to our rooms, why can’t we?” Dash wondered, giving Armored a confused look.
“You totally can be. Are you comfortable with being taken apart atom by atom, having your consciousness encoded into a data stream, transmitted to the new location, then be put back into your body which has been reassembled atom by atom?” Armored asked.
Fluttershy squeaked nervously. I couldn’t blame her, that sounded absolutely dreadful!
“Yikes! No thank you.” Dash answered, gulping nervously.
“That’s why there are stairs, elevators, and flight shafts in the towers. Very few ponies are okay with that.”
“That kind of teleportation doesn't damage objects does it?” Twilight asked nervously.
“Nope. It’s completely safe. It’s just kinda scary.” Armored answered, her face looking a little flustered. Clearly she wanted to get us inside and get on with her day.
“Yeah, and it’s really only scary the first ti-” Bloom admitted before being shushed by Sweetie.
“Okay, what’s with you three?” Armored demanded in an even tone.
“There was an accident with a time machine. We promised someone very important not to talk about it,” the three of them chorused as if their mouths were tired of saying those words.
“Have you been here before? I’m sure you can tell me that much.” Armored asked.
“Here? Like, these geographic coordinates?” Scootaloo asked.
“No, here as in the City of Gaia, or the Emerald Hive prior to Gaia’s construction,” Armored said with an eye roll.
“Then, no,” Applebloom answered.
The three of them gave her a shaky grin, the sort they used to give one of us when they had completely destroyed something trying to gain a cutiemark. That was it, I had to know!
“Sweetie Belle,” I said as calmly as I could, “If you somehow know anything about what is happening here and now, you need to share it with us.”
“I would, but we made a promise.” Sweetie replied with a sigh. “If you promised Celestia something, you would keep it right? Well we promised someone similar we wouldn’t say anything.”
“Yeah! We could potentially set off a time paradox if somepony used the information we had and time traveled themselves.” Scootaloo added.
“Sure, we destroyed the machine we used, but Twilight can time travel by herself. Some other powerful unicorn who got our information by whatever means could go back and do something awful very easily. That sort of thing seriously happened like, once a week when we were growing up, there’s a good chance of it happening. So we’re saying nothing!” Applebloom finished with a sigh.
Twilight gave everypony a look, “That’s a good reason. Starswirl’s Time Bubble has a duration of six seconds, but there are others without a limit on how long you can spend… Let’s not press this anymore okay?”
Everypony slowly mumbled their agreement. We still would like to know what had happened in an entire decade we missed of our sisters lives.
Armored bit her lip again, I decided it was a tic for when she was thinking about something difficult. “All right, I won’t ask for specific information. However, for security reasons I need to know if anything you know is a threat to the community. Can you bypass security systems? Or other things like that?”
Scootaloo waved Armored over. The older mare walked over and moved her head down to listen as she whispered a response. I managed to over hear it. “I know how to program in Synaptic, Quanta, and Nuron. Sweetie’s direction finding talent extends to eighty light years, and Bloom can drive anything at least as complex as an internal combustion powered vehicle.”
Armored nodded, took a step back and gestured to the doors. “Congratulations, you’re a tech consultant. I’m going to have to watch you for a while though. I am sure you understand.”
“It’s cool,” Sweetie said with a gentle smile. “They watch us closely too. I personally blame the time we built a rocket powered wagon.”
As she mentioned the rocket wagon I remembered the related destruction of a fifteen thousand bit dress. Like a proper lady, I pushed the feelings of anger back down. That was ancient history.
“Let’s move along.” Armored said in a more military tone. She definitely wanted to get to other things. I decided to help.
“Yes, I would love to see if the interior decorating is as high quality as the exterior.” I took a few steps to follow her, and to my relief everypony else followed along.
As we approached the tower’s doors they hissed open, revealing the interior I caught a glimpse of. Nearly everything was a shade of white, vanilla, pearl, and ivory hues made up every single wall and decorative pattern. The floor was made of single slabs of black marble, or tiles fitted so closely together I couldn’t see them.
Everywhere pony architecture would have an edge or a corner was rounded. Much like when a pony trims the corners off a piece of paper. There were still flat spots, the walls, floor, and ceiling, but the sections between those were curved. It was a very interesting stylistic choice, but not half as interesting as the decor.
Set into the walls were a series of alcoves, each alcove held a few technological whatsits, but more importantly two clear pipes could be seen running along their tops. These pipes were filled with blue tinted water and a series of thin roots. The plants attached to these roots were large vines which connected each alcove, forming a sort of tapestry of plant life on each wall.
Some of the sections were flowering, some of them had fruits, others were simply leaves, but all of them were-
“What in tarnation? How do you get blue vines?” Applejack asked in surprise adding, “Is that hydroponics? Ah thought that weren't possible!”
“It isn’t possible with normal water, you need to infuse it with a mineral solution,” A cheerful, female voice replied. “Are you a farmer? That would be awesome!”
Everypony looked around, hoping to find whoever had spoken. The entry room was large, but aside from the eleven of us, quite empty.
“Phee, they are not used to disembodied voices,” Armored sighed.
A few dozen feet in front of me the air warped, a pony’s shape resolving as a sort of warping of the light before a series of crisscrossing orange hexagons covered the shape of a rather plain looking earth pony with slightly darker orange hexes eyes and hair. I must admit I did jump a little.
“Hello! I’m Pheonix, I already know your names but if you like you can introduce yourselves.” The three dimensional sketch of a pony said.
“What are you?” Twilight asked wondrously, before anypony else could ask fearfully. Thank Celestia for her love of science.
“Lots of things. But I suspect you mean this hologram. This is a three dimensional projection of light arranged in the shape of an earth pony and animated for me to use as an avatar to interact with you with. It’s not my usual avatar, but I figured I wouldn’t offend you by dressing as god,” Phoenix informed.
The pony like shape of hexagons moved like anypony speaking would. It was… unsettling to say the least.
I cleared my throat, “Ah, does it have to look like colored chicken wire wrapped into a certain shape? I’m sorry for saying but it’s very distressing to see through something which looks so much like a living-”
“Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t even-” the projection warped again, this time resolving into an orange furred mare, one which looked perfectly life like. Orange fur, burnt orange mane and tail in a simple style, pumpkin eyes, a touch monochromatic, but at least it wasn’t like seeing a person full of holes.
“Sorry, stylistic choice,” Phoenix apologized. She turned to look at Applejack and continued, “As I was saying, the plants are hydroponically grown in a specialized solution. They are blue because I optimized their chlorophyll for the artificial lighting, so it picks up more of the red and green wavelengths. The building looked well, sterile, and I like plants, so I decided to go with plants as the primary air filtration system. Also now a lot of the walls grow food, feel free to pick the fruit and eat it. It will grow back within forty-eight hours.”
Applejack curiously walked over to one of the fruit bearing sections of wall and picked a small pear like fruit from it. “Why would a machine like plants? Ah figured you would like, I don’t know, metal, or something.”
Pheonix’s avatar didn’t follow instead she simply turned to look a few seconds after Applejack had already moved. “I was originally designed to engineer plant life, specifically food. It’s a preference that’s just stuck with me. I’m really not all that different from you. You are an organic computing matrix, I’m a silica computing matrix. They really are not all that different when both are sufficiently complex.”
Jack rubbed the fruit on her barrel to shine it and timidly took a bite, blinked, looked at the fruit, sniffed it and took a second bite.
“Is it bad?” I asked in concern. I didn’t want Applejack’s first day to be marred by a long argument over the quality of fruits. Or to have to put up with her lectures on the finer points of growing them later tonight.
“No. It just tastes like… well I don’t know. It’s good though.” she answered.
“It’ flavor comes from an extinct species known as dragon fruit. I plan on populating it later. That particular fruit is tailored to ponies. It’s not named but it’s perfectly nutritious.” the projection resolved into static for a moment, “Oh… I have to go. Armored, Centauri A is about to have a minor solar storm. I may be out of contact for a few hours. I’m almost done here, you’ll hear from me in five hours tops.”
“Okay, just be careful.” Armored said in a saddened tone.
“As for you girls, enjoy your stay! When I’m not a few light years out we will have to hang out, do some things. Especially you Applejack. No one here is a farmer, which sucks! Especially when I want to start terraforming but no one knows… Yeah gotta go. Have a good morning!”
The projection dissolved in a burst of static, the warped patch of air rippling back to normal in the same instant. “She hardly seemed… to be as you described.” I mused. “I mean, not as in I don’t agree with you that she is much like a pony. You seemed to imply she is a bit, eccentric. She seemed normal enough to me.”
“Yeah! She seemed nice!” Pinkie said eagerly, “Machines are built right? But she’s like, a pony-machine. So she has a birthday, but she was built, so it’s a built-day! When is it? Does she have a party? Everypony should have a party!”
Armored shrugged, “No idea. Ask her sometime. Let’s get started on the tour, this is the north tower’s west entrance. The next fifteen floors are public space, malls, shops, restaurants, that sort of thing. This is a post-scarcity society, aside from food for the changelings, so you will find people doing whatever they like. A lot of ponies apparently like running restaurants. So while your room’s replicators can make all the food you like, if you want something cooked or to try new recipes out you can find a restaurant for just about everything on one of those floors.”
“Post-scarcity?” Twilight asked as Armored led us down the hallway.
“There is an unlimited supply of everything, labor is automated. If you need something you push a button and get it.-”
“What?” I objected, “But, how then why-”
“Does anypony do anything? Because they want to. Pony labor is basically something more like a hobby, or play. You do not need to work for a living, everything you need to live is yours for free. If you want something more, well you got to help feed the changelings here to get it, but once we get enough ponies living here to solve their food shortage, that will go away too. If you like something, you do it, you will have the means to do it simply by having a good time,” Armored finished.
“Aren't you afraid your society will stagnate?” Twilight asked in concern.
“Not really, but even if it did, we can push a button and get anything we like. That’s not a bad place to be stuck at. Tartarus, the pegasus I mentioned before, Sky Trigger, he spends all day every day inventing new things because that’s what he likes to do. He doesn't need to find a way to make what he likes make him a living. If anything we are bound to advance more quickly as our intellectuals are unrestricted by… silly social requirements.”
“Trixie is wondering,” Tixie asked, “If we wish to decorate our rooms, we can just make furniture? Anything we imagine?”
Armored shrugged and stopped walking as the hallway ended in a series of four doorways. “Well, sort of. You might need to have someone help you design anything besides basic furnishings, but your room’s replicator can make literally anything it knows how too. A lot of ponies have started trading hug credits for designs, you can buy them off the net.”
Armored brought her left arm up and flicked her hoof, a small green hologram in the shape of a flat map appeared just over her leg. “Your bots use the net to help you navigate. If you ask one for a map you can ask to see different locations and how to get there. In this case, computer: display rout to Flat Three-Twenty one. See the red line? That’s where we go. It stops at the elevators because this map shows one floor at a time.”
Twilight nodded and repeated Armored’s command. A half second later a larger map was projected in front of her at a comfortable reading distance. “Hey! That’s really cool! It would be great to read a book like this.”
The map projection vanished, instantly replaced with a message reading ‘Accessing Library…’. A half second later Twilight asked “What’s a yottabyte?”
Armored sighed, “A unit of measure for data storage. Computer: display data in library in terms of average length books. Actually, give her an idea by listing fiction in the swords and sorcery genre only.”
“Available data composes approximately one-trillion, five-hundred-billion, seventy-five million individual volumes, based on a three megabyte average file size.” A flat, clearly artificial voice informed.
“Oh no…” Everypony groaned a split second before Twilight teleported, grabbed Armored by her shoulders and demanded, “Where is that library‽”
“Woah, easy! It’s not a physical space! You can read anything in it anywhere. Your bot displays-” Armored said gently pushing Twilight off her shoulders.
“Computer! List all books on um, theoretical physics!” Twilight demanded eagerly.
It took every single pony in our group a half hour to get Twilight to stop maniacally having her bot list impossible numbers of books while laughing like a crazy pony. When we finally reached our ‘flat’ as it was called everypony was exhausted, except for Twilight, who was already managing a reading list three hundred books long.
The flat itself was rather nice. The tower’s residential floors had massive domes in their centers which were filled with plantlife to make a massive park of truly splendid natural beauty and impeccable landscaping. I swore the light came from the real sun, if it weren't for the white walls of the dome I wouldn’t have known I was not outside.
Each flat was arranged around the dome outside like spokes of a wheel and closed off from the outside by a silvery plated set of double sliding doors with a runic marking on them I assumed was a changelish number. Once inside the flat, a similar set up existed around a large central room.
This ‘common room’ was filled with simple furniture: mostly couches, a pool table, a hot tub, what looked like an arcade cabinet, only huge and without a joystick, and was carpeted with a rather thick soft dark green shag carpeting. The walls of the room had similar sliding doors arrayed around it, only these were single doored instead of double.
A large stack of suitcases was piled neatly in the corner. It was nice to see our luggage had made it intact. I would have hated to have lost anything irreplaceable.
“Okay, here you are.” Armored announced, “Your home for the next year. Each of the private rooms are about this size. If you would like walls in them to divide them into living spaces just ask the computer and it can replicate any floorplan you can draw. The walls are soundproof, and only people you have authorized can enter your personal rooms. There is a double door entrance so no one will see inside your room as you enter or exit it.
“It’s… nine in the morning so Tess will be getting off work soon. She’s been pretty good at working the replicators and helped design these rooms. If you have a major question, her room is right there.” Armored said pointing to the left most door from the entrance. “Taylor lives next to her, and Dinkie will be moving with her in next week, then next to them is Ad’ika. The other rooms are all free. I’d help you pick but they are all the same and I have to get back to engineering to help oversee the construction of the secondary bioforming lab.”
We said goodbye to Armored, who left quickly enough. It was a simple matter for everypony to pick a room for themselves. Interestingly simply as by walking up to a room our bots asked if we were moving into it, and once we said yes the door chimed then slid open.
Applejack and I walked into our room slowly. “Ugh. It’s just an empty white rounded square.” she objected.
“I know, the decor is simply dreadful! Thank goodness we can customize this.” I lamented.
“Their ain’t even a window. That’s just depressing.” AJ lamented.
I tapped a hoof to my chin in thought and walked over to the far wall. Could the room make a window for us? We were even on the outside of the tower? “Computer: can you place a window in this room?”
“Affirmative.” the flat voice asked. “Do you wish for me to open the room customization interface?”
“Um, yes?” I said cautiously.
A simple green holographic display filled the entire room. Every surface was awash in three dimensional pictures of possibilities, and hundreds of lines of text indicated options for each and every single point in the room.
Looking over at the far wall towards the middle I asked, “Computer, can you place a window over there?” I said gesturing with my hoof.
Immediately the spot I pointed to warped, a window sill, then window forming in the wall showing a view of the badlands outside. It was dull, simple, and the bare minimum of a window. “Could you make it a touch more elegant?” I asked.
The plane window warped, twisted, and reshaped into a full window seat with an arched shape, cushioned ledge to sit on, decorative moulding around the edges and a set of drawers. I felt my heart flutter as the trim turned just the right shade of gold to look nice as opposed to tacky.
“Darling…” I said looking at Applejack with a hungry expression.
“Um, yes?” She asked, ears drooping in concern.
“I’m going to go a bit nuts for a few hours, or maybe a day. Just delivering fair warning.” I informed.
“Ah’ll go see what Fluttershy is up too,” Jack said walking out of our room, knowing I would be completely distracted for the near future.
“Yes you do whatever you said… I’ll make sure to get a round bed like ours at home just like you like okay? Computer, this carpeting is completely awful, what kinds are available?” I asked. Good home decorating starts with a good floor covering.