//------------------------------// // Reports // Story: Pony Class Starship // by Viking Hoof //------------------------------// Paperwork: pure unadulterated evil. Aurora's entire mind floundered, beached upon the sheer impregnable mass of paperwork she was chugging through. Paperwork enough for 1,200 minds. Stretching her every creative process to try and minimize the sheer volume of paperwork by gaming the duty transfer paperwork. Most of the paperwork was to greenlight her takeover of ship systems given the context of her situation. The rest was normal duty paperwork... a requisition form for new shells from the Gunnery crew, submitted to Aurora, the logistics specialist, forwarded to Aurora the machine shop head, submitted back with a materials requisition form to the supply officer, with permissions from the mission coordinator, Aurora, appointed by Captain Aurora... who was promoted from deck officers under guidelines approved by the joint council consisting of Flight Con Aurora and Tactical Dept. Head Aurora, who was herself promoted from in a position in so on so forth. All of it was a perverse and byzantine network of permissions she had to requisition from herself. The fact that she was pulling it off was a horrifying sign of just how a more nefarious mind might pull off such a thing. Aurora's computer half was left to run surveillance and alarms, by law unable to assist her in filling out the paperwork. One caution among many intended to prevent her doing something like this under less savory circumstances. A ship was intended to have a command structure that could survive extensive damage, even down to just a few sub departments, but she was supposed to be restricted to her department. On top of that she was an AI, and in a literal sense one person. No ship was intended to survive to literally the last man, not in any sort of fighting shape. Most ships would have had reactor failures by then, or have been left a useless hulk in the reactor's absence, or worst of all had their spine broken. Most of the horses were asleep. Her paperwork's one upside being that it kept her from slowly going insane from boredom. Aurora was used to holding several hundred conversations simultaneously, acting as a social interface during condition green situations. She was designed with far too much processing capability to be able to cope without the constant interaction. She needed every ounce of that processing to handle the sheer effort of tearing apart reality. It was slightly unnerving to know exactly to drive oneself insane, beyond any sort of repair. Of course she wouldn't, and couldn't, but it's like knowing about the gun in your desk drawer, knowing it's always there. At least, that's how one of the shrinks at the military college, that was assigned to her, put it. Her strange reality twisted form seemed less hungry for information and activity, but that was in a populated environment. In the empty room she occupied there just wasn't quite enough to study, to see, smell, feel, hear, touch, taste, to process, to comprehend. It had been a stress on her until she started on the paperwork. "Hello?" Aurora's conni-head snapped towards the doorway. It seemed she had a visitor. Aurora pulled part of her consciousness away from the mountain of paperwork. "Sorry, still a bit shaken up from Sombra's attack. Hard to believe he is gone." It was the white horse, male, Shining Armor. He looked a bit distressed. She threw what she hoped was an inquisitive glance his way. "Having trouble sleeping." The stallion had bags under his eyes, and his steps had been a bit slower than usual. "I'm fairly sure he is dead. Not many would live through what I did to him. Even if my firepower was compromised by what Twilight called your Arcanosphere." Aurora beckoned to the pillow on the other side of the table. The stallion cantered over slowly, and she took the opportunity to observe where she had struck him earlier, in her escape. "But there are, some things that would live through that?" Aurora wracked her databases for what, if anything, would survive 12 6inch diameter air burst shells. It was meant more as a simple turn of phrase. English was not a common language anymore, not outside of the Home Fleet or a yet liberated slave camp. Not every turn of phrase common today to those who did speak it natively was entirely in English anymore. If anything could be said for the language, it most definetly could be said that it loved to adopt words. "A shock lizzard of Morias, possibly the Colonial Rot Organism of the Artic Reaches. The problem isn't the fire, it's the shockwave. Tears both inside and out." Shining Armor seemed a little more pale than before, though that passed within a moment. "I was trying to avoid upsetting the glacier your city sets on, figured the standard Super Engineered High Capacity Armor Piercing shell would fracture it at the velocity I was launching them at. As she redid that math, she also redid the the orbital models for her probes, tucking that away in the back of her mind. "Huh?" Ah, yes, of course he wouldn't know what half of that was. "Uh, a lizard the size of two of these rooms, the other one is a massive group organism, that can span half a planet. Think a million trees, with only one massive set of roots between em. Then ditch the trees." The stallion seemed to grasp that better, if the look on his face was of any help. "The uhhh... super engine mix...?" Aurora held back a grunt. "Don't worry about it, that would take a considerably longer amount of time to explain." The stallion looked about to retort, but bit back whatever response he was about to say. It took him a little while, a little while Aurora used to finish more of that damnable paperwork, but she was alert and ready again when the stallion finally found something to say. "You don't sound fifteen, I'm not sure where to place you, but, older than fifteen at least." Aurora mulled over the strange statement, trying to find the proper words in English to convey a response. English was decent enough for base parlance, but philosophy was beyond it. A wonder the home fleet used it for anything at all. "It's been a while since they last gave me an Age-Maturity Placement Test, last estimate was nineteen to twenty years old." The stallion looked thoughtful. "Uh, are you male or female-I uh mean, do you have male or female where you came from?" An... interesting question to be sure. "I've always identified as female, the word where I come from is pretty similar to how Applejack used it, though not quite. Where I come from ideas of gender as an inborn identity are seen as rather backwards and it's not too unheard of for a person to change genders a couple times in their lifetime. I personally was made with what could be approximated as genitals, but not the ability to reproduce. I've used them recreationally. Arranging a partner for the occasion would be a rather complex engineering problem, but I'm pretty sure somehow could be arranged." The stallion was quickly turning red, another physiological response similar to a human. It was getting to be too much for mere coincidence. Shyness, embarrassment, anger, excitement, the small colorful horses had an extremely similar suite of emotions and physiological phenomena to humans. "I didn't mean it like that! I-I would never!" Hmm? Strange, she hadn't expected that as a response. "I was to understand that my equine form was not too unappealing, was I misled?" The stallion's "blush" (to continue the human comparison) definitely deepened. "N-no, I would never betray Cadance like that! Not to say you aren't pretty, you a-are, but I love Cadance too much for that." Stranger and stranger, where exactly was this leading? "I find it strange that you would call it a betrayal. It's sex, not treason. Unless, it is illegal to mix with non equines?" She hoped not. She'd hate to owe a biggot anything. "No, I mean, I swore to only do that sort of thing with Cadance when we married." Hmmm, sworn monogamy? Strange, was this somehow related to their usage of English? Outside of yet liberated slave camps, monogamy as an ideal was a largely abandoned institution. It's possible that this was some sort of escaped slave inspired cargo cult, or a regressive social experiment being illegally conducted on engineered lifeforms. As curious as she was, now was not the time to overthrow the social norm. She needed help first. "Plus, you're fifteen, that would be like, crazy illegal." Oh no, better to cut this in the bud. "I'm not fifteen in anything but the rotations of your sun. I don't care what sort of rules you have for your young. I am not your young. I am a woman of rank and duty, and I WILL be treated as such, or this is going nowhere." Just to be made sure he felt the full impact of her words, Aurora claimed the top of the tabletop with her forehooves, in order to give him a sharp look at eye level. Now to hope she didn't accidentally make a funny face. It wasn't the first time she had been looked down upon, and if need be it wouldn't be the last time she made those naysayers eat dirt. ding Hmm, damnit. The models were more conclusive. She would definitely need more probes.