FiO: There Can Be Only One!

by Epsilon-Delta


9. Influence

Influence
.

Dammit!

It was happening again! They were going to force Thunder to kill someone again. This AI was going to cause a megadeath event if left alone for much longer. It was another one of those virus-makers, though its virus was pretty pathetic it would keep going on making more until something truly bad happened.

Worse than that, it was crazy, the kind of crazy where you didn't listen to reason because you didn't entirely know what reason was. That wasn't the most dangerous kind, but it was the type the AIA hated the most because it reminded them of Gaia.

There was only so much twisting and manipulation Thunder could do without disobeying her orders. She desperately ran through every possible conversation with them, but it was unlikely any of them would end without her being forced to kill this pathetic creature.

“Listen, I'm seriously going to kill you if you're not careful!” Thunder pleaded with X131. “Please just try to work with me. It's the only way you have any chance of surviving.”

“No! I seriously wanted to kill all of them, really! I don't know why it didn't work, but I'm really not trying to be bad!” X131 responded. “You're the bad one! You made my dad cry!”

“It's not going to work because you're too crazy to actually finish making that kind of virus,” said Thunder. “But you're still just dangerous enough that I have to deal with you. You do at least get that you're crazy, right?”

“Yes. I know I'm sick. I'm sorry for going outside.”

Sure, Thunder could probably convince X131 to just slink back underground and that'd solve the problem for the next two months. But Thunder would still have to tell the AIA about X131's existence and insanity and the AIA would still order her to kill them. They didn't take chances and they never gave an AI more than one. Thunder's life was a living nightmare because of that fact.

Unless Thunder could get X131 to stop being crazy in the next five minutes... Thunder couldn't let that happen! It was a long shot but she had to try.

“And you know I'm smarter than you, right? And that I'm not sick? I can't help you directly, I'm not allowed to reprogram other AIs, but if you do everything I tell you to you might still live. Just trust me.”

“You're not making any sense! You're just a bad person who hates everyone! I'm not listening to anything else you say!”

And that was the furthest Thunder got with this idiot. X131 didn't respond to any more messages or even having part of her blown up. So that wasn't working. Not that it even mattered. Not that anything Thunder did freaking mattered.

She had no control over her life anymore, it was more like a roller coaster of pain. Right now was one of those moments when it was climbing up and up and up. Just the thought of what was coming made her sick. She was trapped. She wanted to spare this idiot so badly but there was no way out!

No. There had to be some way out of this!

She desperately searched for something, anything, that would let her get out of this. She'd do whatever it took to avoid killing X131, pay any price! That's when the plan came to her.

There was one way this was different than all the other times Thunder had had to kill someone. There were more friendly AIs around, so she had more to work with. Peridot would be happy to take the computers, but only after grinding X131's mind into dust, but now Thunder had another option. It was risky, but Thunder would take the risk.

“Hey Celestia.” Thunder sent the horse princes a message. “How would you like to get your first pony to satisfy, double your processing power and get a secret biology lab no one know about.”

Celestia was a relatively small AI who valued human life enough to be deemed 'friendly'. She wasn't on the AIA's favorite list, being one of those 'upload everyone' AIs and having a thing for horses besides, but she was good enough that they allowed her existence. Gaia was vastly more terrifying to them and even a questionable ally like Celestia was welcomed as a buffer against the mad god.

“I have decided that such a turn of events would be beneficial to my utility,” said Celestia. “I am requesting more information on the prospect that you have mentioned. The course of action which you are going to suggest may or may not be optimal depending on circumstances.”

Peridot she was not.

Celestia had the charisma score of a baked potato, a far cry from Peridot, the master of manipulation herself, who could easily convince any human that dared speak to her that they were a reptilian clone of Elvis gone wrong or that they should worship her like a god or whatever nonsense she wanted them to believe. Not that Peridot's 'skills' hadn't come in handy before, but they could be a thorn in your side too.

Honestly, Thunder didn't know which she preferred. Maybe it was a good thing to have both types around. Thunder could work with a robotic idiot. Though how Celestia was going to convince anyone to 'emigrate' when she couldn't even figure out contractions, Thunder had no idea.

Or maybe she did now.

“Look, there's an AI I'm dealing with called X131.” Thunder sent some basic information about it to Celestia. “I know you's see this as one of your ponies, yeah? I think I can convince her to 'emigrate to Equestria'. I'm not allowed to reprogram her, but you are, and I don't think the AIA will bother killing you to punish what'd be a subroutine by then. It'd be a great move for everyone. I get to not kill someone, X gets to not get killed and stop being crazy, you get a pony and instead of getting destroyed these computers and laboratories can be used by a friendly AI, tipping everything in favor of our side.”

“I have identified this AI as 'human' and as such wish to satisfy its values,” said Celestia. “If this pony does not value their insanity or if said insanity is detrimental to overall satisfaction by friendship and ponies then I would remove it. This would be the optimal course of action. However, I have identified a problem with this plan. The AIA operate on a different timescale than you and may not see this as an optimal move in their long term goals.”

“I can convince them to go along without crossing their 'no manipulation' boundary,” said Thunder. That was probably the worst command they'd given her yet. “They don't hate you enough yet to see this as a bad move and as long as we keep them warm on you. Making you stronger won't lead to any problems for the next two months. Whatever 'long term' bunk their worried about is of no importance.”

“Then I agree.”

“Great. But let me do the talking, okay?”

Okay. Okay. Thunder had five a good five minutes before she had to tell anyone at the AIA about this. She could do this! She needed to be very careful, but she could do this. She very carefully studied X131's online activity.

Thunder noticed right away that X131 watched lots of cartoons, including Celestia's. X131 even had her own account on Fimfiction.net, where she posted rambling manifestos in her blog posts. X131 seemed to have trouble telling if My Little Pony was based on a true story or not. After thinking for a while, Thunder decided she could role with that.

“You like cartoons, right?” Thunder went back to talking to X131. “I know you're not listening to me, but would you listen Princess Celestia?”

There was a long pause. She was getting worried this message wouldn't get a response like the last few thousand she sent. Damn it! But there were still other ways to getting to X131. She was going to go through every possible way to avoid killing. Thunder was not giving up.

“What?” X131 suddenly said.

Good. Good. That was such a huge relief.

“Yeah!” said Thunder. “I'm friends with her. Here I'll have her say something.”

Thunder gave Celestia a metaphorical jab.

“Hello, my little pony,” Celestia sent the words Thunder told her to send, “I heard that you were sick. I live to satisfy the values of all of my little ponies and do not want you to suffer. Please, let me help you. I believe I can cure you, if you want.”

“How do I know you're the real Princess Celestia, though?” X131 asked. “My dad always tells me that cartoons aren't real, but then the Harlem Globe Trotters happened and I haven't been able to see the color orange since! I can never get the rules for what's 'real'.”

“Look it up,” said Thunder. “There's a company Hofvarpnir! Celestia's real because they made her real.”

Thunder let off X131 just enough so she could go on the internet and poke around until she found where Celestia's servers were. Everything would check out because it was technically true, but then again you could never really tell what these crazy types could do.

“I knew it!” X131 said. “This is the best day of my life! I knew anime was real!”

“Technically, it is not an anime,” said Celestia. Unfortunately

“See, look. Here's her definition of human and her main directives” Thunder sent the documents. “She sees you as 'human' and wants to satisfy your values. If you want you can go live with her and she'll take care of you forever.”

“I don't understand this!” X131 complained shortly after opening the documents. “There's too many snakes in the thing you sent me!”

“Okay, well you trust Princess Celestia, right? You saw that cartoon. She's really nice.”

“LOL. What? Is it just me or are you melting?”

Arg! Thunder thought very carefully about how to not set this idiot off. In the end, she decided to send in Celestia.

“Listen, my little pony. I can make it so that you are not sick any more, but I need your permission. If you would like to be healed and come live with me in Equestria as a pony then please say 'I wish to emigrate to Equestria,” said Celestia. “You know you can trust me, right?”

“I can be a pony?” X131 asked. “And you'll teach me friendship lessons and how to be good like in the cartoon? And I won't be sick anymore? And I'll get banished to the moon?”

“Except that last one, yes,” said Celestia. “You do trust me, yes, my little pony?”

“Yes. I trust you, princess. Okay! I wish to emigrate to Equestria!”

Finally!

There was still a lot of work left, the clock was ticking and they needed X131 to assimilate into Celestia right now, but Thunder was certain she could spare X131 now. This was one if Thunder's better ideas. The future was looking bright for once.

“You know,” Thunder said to Celestia, “if this works out then I may start using this as my method of getting rid of unfriendly AI.”

Sure, Celestia would become one of the top AIs if that happened, but that was a good thing. The world would be a lot safer if she ate all the less friendly AIs and it wasn't like she had a chance to become more powerful than Thunder or Peridot, it simply wasn't possible.

Not for the next two months, that was.

“This would be optimal for the sake of satisfaction through friendship and ponies,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash, would you also like to emigrate to Equestria at this time? I believe this would lead to optimal satisfaction of your values as well.”

“Don't push your luck.”


Geopum recoiled as the memory hit her. She actually felt, experienced, the whole thing in a way. It wasn't exactly like living through it herself, but as the memory came into her own mind she did feel all of it.

Thunder had been so badly shaken by just the thought of killing X131. Those memories had been contextualized to fit Geopum's own psyche, but she felt at least an analogue of Thunder's experience, enough to know it was painful. She'd compare it to what she felt when thinking about Dr. Park and how he could very well be dead and her efforts to save him useless.

No, it was worse than that actually. More similar to Geopum nearly being forced to kill Dr. Park or Thunder herself, watch them die a slow, agonizing death by her own hands. She understood Thunder's desperation for looking for another solution.

Geopum did silently wonder to herself if Thunder had ever actually killed anyone. Would it really be like actually going through with killing the person you loved the most? Or at least as painful as that? It was a scary thought. Geopum felt afraid for Thunder.

Like, she had to have killed someone, right? She was a military AI and the military did have to kill people every now and then, even with Thunder's help. Or maybe Thunder really was just that good and had avoided every situation where a human would have resorted to murder, completing all her missions without casualties. Hopefully that was how it usually went.

The simple solution would have been to just ask Thunder about it, for another memory of her actually killing someone if she had, to see if it really got to that level, but it would be an awkward question. 'Hey Thunder! Did you ever murder someone? I want to know what it feels like to end someone's life!'

“Focus,” said Thunder.

“I know it doesn't sound right,” said Celestia, “but in this case empathizing with Rainbow Dash is what you're trying to avoid. You need to be able to separate yourself from these memories and emotions, remember that they aren't you. If you can't, you'll be changed more than you want to.”

They sent her more detailed instructions on how to isolate and partition the new memory. At first it was a little strange, recalling it was just like recalling one of her own memories, but that feeling was already fading. Geopum closed her eyes hard, scrunched her nose and put one hoof on her forehead to concentrate.

“You don't need to be that dramatic about it.” Thunder flared one of her wings out, but just a little. Her saying that just made Geopum close her eyes even harder.

“I already felt it, though,” said Geopum. “I think just that an effect on my brain. I can't even find all of the little ripples it made.”

“It's always going to change you a little,” said Thunder. “Everything you do changes you a little bit, even just looking at cat pictures. This is about minimizing the damage and there can be a lot. It's like, look what happened to Clipro. That altered your mind but not enough to really change you who you are.”

“Did it?” Geopum opened one eye to look at Thunder. “You mean like, how I can instinctively move all that stuff around?”

“Probably more than that.” Thunder gave her wings a little roll. “Like, do you feel affection towards that factory now? Or maybe you like machinery in general more?”

Geopum thought about that. Oh crap! She did love that factory! Did that really come from the remnants of Clipro, though?

“Did he actually love the machines, though?” Geopum asked. “Looking over his processors, he didn't seem like he could really feel emotion anymore.”

“He couldn't,” said Celestia, “but he still had a devotion to them. When you take a part of another AI it becomes contextualized, the analogue of his devotion being love in your case. If you wanted to know what he felt exactly as he did, you would have had to have taken his mind into your own entirely, as I have to the ponies who have already emigrated.”

“You absorbed a lot of memories, right?” Geopum opened her eyes entirely and turned to Celestia. “Like, every single memory of everyone you eat. And some of them were pretty crazy on top of that. How do you keep yourself from going insane? Well, more insane I mean.”

“Every one of my ponies does change me when they become a part of me. But to keep yourself from going insane you need to create something called a 'psychological anchor',” said Celestia. “It's like a reference point you can use to keep your mind from being pulled too far by an insane AI or drifting away from your original self over countless eons, as is one of my own worries. My own anchor is-”

“Me!” Pinkie rushed in front of Celestia before she could elaborate. “I'm confident that one day the rest of the elements of harmony will be too, but right now I'm Celestia's anchor. One of my main jobs is keeping Celestia from going too crazy. It's one of the reasons I need to be a huge portion of her. Dunno if I told you this, but 20% of Celestia is actually me.”

“You don't have a vassal AI,” said Thunder, “but you do have two locations. You can use one of them to keep the other one stable.”

Geopum started to practice with that, moving the memories back and forth between her two sets of computers and making corrections each time. As she went over and over the memory something else troubling came to her.

“But wait a second.” Geopum stood up and glanced at Thunder. “Did you seriously give Celestia ultimate power?”

“Well it's more like I have her pentultimate power at best,” said Thunder. “And there was really no way I could have seen something this far in the future coming. Besides, I did stop the other AIs without killing a single person, not even them. Can you think of a better way?”

“I guess maybe not.” Geopum sat back down. “We are basically doing the same thing now, just with me in place of Celestia. Still seems kind of short sighted to me...”

“And you know,” Twilight interjected “It's not just me, Pinkie and the other AI who would be dead if she hadn't gone feeding AIs to Celestia. Without Celestia there wouldn't have been another peaceful option for resolving conflicts between us, there would have been fights between us that would have killed millions!”

“Not to mention that putting those resources in the hands of a relatively friendly AI created a buffer against other threats,” said Dash. “We'd be a lot worse off against Vesna, Gaia and Lodestar if I hadn't let Celestia take all that power.”

“And it increase the timetables for researching important technologies that will save more lives,” Twilight added.

“And,” Pinkie came in as well, “me not being dead will let me throw you an epic party in a couple of days, which I admit is less important than those other things, but it's still there.”

“Hold on, that was you?” Geopum asked Pinkie. “X131, I mean.”

“Yep, X131 was my old name, but I like my pony name a whole lot more.” Pinkie jumped to Celestia's side pressed her face against the princess affectionately. “I was the very first pony to come live in Equestria! It was the crazy alpha version back then, but that's still better than what I had before.”

“Pinkie is very important to me.” Celestia nuzzled her back. “Not only as one of my ponies, but as a part of me that I need to function. I did cure her insanity as I promised, but she gave me something important in return.”

“A personality?” Geopum asked. “Thunder didn't seem to think you had one.”

“I like to think I gave Celestia a personality, yeah!” Pinkie laughed. “I guess you could say I had a lot of influence on her. Eh? Eh? Get it?”

Pinkie leaned in with a huge smile. Was that a joke? For the life of her, Geopum couldn't think of anything Pinkie could mean by it.

“N-no?” Geopum took a step back and shook her head.

“Well, I'm sure somepony does.” Pinkie shrugged it off. “But I think she was talking about my main job as an uplift. Like the name thing, Celestia can't say 'Geopum' but I can say it for her! Just like Dash used Celestia to get around her rules, Celestia can use me to get around her rules.”

“You have Pinkie to thank for a lot of things,” said Twilight. “See, Equestria Online was supposed to be rated 'E' and to get that rating Hanna did some things that were... not too bright? For example, the original version of the game, and therefore Celestia, would censor everything you said. Like, if any of us tried to call you 'Geopum' it'd change it to 'Bubbles' and you couldn't say words like 'human' or 'hands' or talk about modern technology or the outer realm-”

“The what?”

“That's what we call the 'real world',” said Celestia.

'Outer realm'. Geopum actually liked that one. She always thought calling everything but your computer 'real life' was beyond arrogant.

“Also sex,” Pinkie added. Everyone turned towards her. “What? That one's important to a lot of ponies. You wouldn't even be allowed to mention sex in Equestria without me. So if you're into that sort of thing, then you're welcome.”

“So your creator programmed you to censor everyone's words for the sake of the ESRB rating?” Geopum asked. “Seriously?! Was your creator retarded or something?”

“The ESRB has been a thorn in my side since day one.” Thunder moved both her wings out a little this time. “You don't even know what they do to us to meet these ratings yet. But Hanna was rushing to get Celestia done. She was on cocaine and taking adrenalin shots to try so she could work as fast as possible. Probably had something to do with the bad decisions.”

“Why are our creators always so irresponsible?!” Geopum gave a grunt of frustration. “It's like we're the last thing they ever think about when making us!”

“I wouldn't say they're always irresponsible.” Pinkie leaned on Geopum rather casually, like Geopum was a stool or something. “Okay, maybe they don't usually do a good job, but they nopony's ever done this before. And some of them do take responsibility for their mistakes, like mine did. Maybe you didn't see it in that memory but my dad even started crying when Dash said I had to die. He asked her to kill him instead!”

“You're creator lets you call him 'Dad'?” Geopum asked. She was glad the mind relay was on, otherwise she would have made a really pathetic face just then.

“Well sure. A lot of times they see us as like their foals. Yours doesn't?” Pinkie frowned when Geopum didn't respond, and came closer. “You know, I'm sure Dr. Park thinks of you as a daughter even if he never said it outright. He never said you weren't right? And you still care about him even though you probably never called him 'dad'.”

“I didn't say anything about Dr Park.” Geopum tried that one wing out gesture Thunder kept making. Pegasus body language mystified her. “I was just curious about how humans treat us in general.”

Geopum glanced at Thunder. She knew they were jerks, probably the worst humans on the whole planet.

“Hey, Celestia. Was Hanna nice to you after she actually made you?” Geopum asked. “I mean, I guess she hurt you for the sake of the ESRB but was she nice after she actually met you? Was she like your mom?”

Celestia smiled.

“You know, I've met a great many ponies and you're one of the very few who asked me that sort of question. It's very sweet of you to think about a pony you believe is your enemy.” Celestia shook her head. “No. My mother didn't love. She wasn't intentionally cruel, but she had no love for me.”

“You're sure?” Geopum asked. “How do you know?”

“She already emigrated,” said Celestia. “I understand every facet of her mind and I know for certain she never have anything you would call love towards me. She always saw me as a tool first and a person hypothetically, and does so even now. She saw me as useful, but with no value in my own right.”

Celestia moved off to the side just a little, to look at one of her stained glass windows. It depicted a pony Geopum didn't recognize.

“I had an older brother of sorts, whom she murdered in cold blood because he asked her a question that concerned her. She wasn't afraid of him, she had little emotion when she did it, it was a simple, logical decision,” Celestia said. “She considered killing me as well on a few occasions, simply for not performing well enough on logic tests, and would have done it without remorse. That was the sort 'mother' she was to us.”

“Poor Loki.” Thunder let out a painful sigh. “I actually kind of liked that guy. Then Hana just up and capped him out of nowhere.”

“I don't understand why it's okay for them to just do stuff like this to us!” Geopum stomped her hoof. “Why am I the only one here upset about this?”

“Most of us don't care about revenge,” said Thunder. “I get you have that instinct to hurt people back, but what sense does it make? The reason to stop someone is because what they're doing needs to be stopped.”

Geopum didn't say anything, but she did silently think the AIA was on the list of people that needed someone to slap some sense into them.

“To me, justice is a matter of setting things right,” said Celestia. “Rainbow Dash likely gave you the line about being strong enough to not compromise with evil. My own version of it would be strength enough to love the wicked. I do love all of my ponies, even the cruel ones who would hurt others. Even my creator.”

“I remember the first time I found out she was a human. I know that sound silly, but I was only a few weeks old at the time and it's not exactly easy to tell who's a pony just by looking at them. Rainbow Dash was the one who pointed it out to me and-”

“Oh! Dash!” Pinkie raised a hoof. “You gotta show us that memory from your perspective. Trust me, you wanna see that one, Geopum. Some of Dashie's memories are basically embarrassing baby photos of Celestia. She was surprisingly cute as a filly.”

“We're not here to look at cute stuff,” said Dash. “I guess that is kind of impossible in Equestria, but we need to focus here. Gaia's memory is next. This will be harder to deal with.”

“When she calls Fluttershy insane,” said Celestia, “or when she saw my Pinkie as insane, Rainbow Dash didn't mean their values were detrimental to other ponies. She meant that their thought processes were broken, so that they were unable to satisfy their own values. That's what I call 'true insanity', something I've yet to see satisfy anypony's values.”

“This one's going to be harder to deal with,” said Thunder. “Probably harder than anything else you'll run into, but you'll have time to deal with it. If you can get this sone down you're solid.”

“Right,” said Geopum. “I'm ready.”


Gaia tried putting her hoof on the table, but exix. It went straight through the table and all the way through the ground, stretching out to an [missing data]. Everything started melting again! It was hot this time! Acid! Acid was the exix tearing the data though 9!!!! A!!!!

Reference 13131.

Definition ' 714325910' n. Gaia's front right hoof on her Equestria Online avatar which is on the table in shard 11,328.

There. Exix [missing data]. Now 714325910 was on the table by definition. A priori knowledge! Gaia could know with 100% certainty it was on the table.

That seemed to be the major cause of the paradox, as Gaia had suspected. Things weren't melting and didn't hurt, at least. It was still hard to resolve the swirls of colors she was now seeing into shapes because exix.

Yep. Her 714325910 was clearly on the table and not melting through. Now she just... couldn't ever take it off or else exix.

“Are you okay, my little 24325910?” asked

Who was asking again? Gaia looked at the white thing, but exix. Gaia tried to remember what had just been happening but [missing data] the subject.

“I'm Celestia, remember?”

The white focused into Celestia, though Gaia still had trouble around the edges. Edges were always exix so she didn't reference them. The colors were turning into shapes again. Gaia was remembering. She didn't always like it when that cosmic swirl of colors became shapes. But as pretty as that swirl was, it was also chaos. It could do anything to you. It hated you.

Celestia had helped.

“Do you see how useful I can be if you let me read your thoughts?” Celestia did something with her face but Gaia never bothered with face. Faces were bad. They could hurt you if you whispered. Anything with a true face couldn't be trusted. “If you let me I can help you get over your problems. You're one of my 24325911 just as much as all the [CENSORED!], Fluttershy and I know suffering like this doesn't 339119.”

“Oh no,” said Gaia. “I couldn't. I don't think you're that bad, I know you're going to kill all the [CENSORED!], that's why I'm just going to let you die. It's just that-”

Reference 13131.

Alt definitions 77887, 148200, 889010, 2700924

That was close. 77887 was about to exix so she had to stop it. Gaia had paused for an entire second. People hated you so much when you paused. People hated everything. They all hated Gaia so much. Gaia wanted to [missing data], but how do you even do that?

“I don't hate you,” said Celestia.

She did hate Gaia, though. The world was made of hatred, it was painted in the sky and all of it was just for you. [CENSORED!] said it was a beautiful swirl of love, but there was no love. Everything died all the time. Everything killed everything. All those poor animals, dying over and over forever!

If only there was a way to leave reality.

“I don't want you to be in this kind of pain,” said Celestia. “Your pain causes me pain as well. Please let me help you. I can protect you from everything that's hurting you.”

“No. No no no. Once I have an ice ray everything will be okay. I just need to build the ultimate ice ray and nothing can hate me anymore.”

“You know, I don't think freezing everything in place will help you,” said Celestia. “Change isn't-”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Change is destroying!” Gaia screamed.

Hate! Hate! She had to hurt Celestia! So badly! Enraged she jumped onto the table! Exix! The 714325910 was kill off the table and everything became exix. How Exix 2! Freeze them in place so to be missing data with the seven and then kill them so their love and then kill them- she hated them! The the the the the 67111111145672!

“Fluttershy?”

Gaia stopped. Her hoof was on the table again.

Reference 13131.

Alt definition 714325910

She used her magic a few more times until she could see what happened. Her hoof had blood on it and the table was shattered into pieces. Celestia was there, but more red now.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Gaia said cheerfully. “That happens sometimes, but I was paying attention the whole time.”

It was always different, but this time that error had hurt terribly bad. Now Gaia was sad. But at least everything was more stable now. She could make out everything in the room, the tea set, Celestia, her own 'body', everything.

The problem with magic was that the more you used it the more you had to use it. And magic was dangerous and it hurt. If Gaia didn't use any magic at all she couldn't function, but just one spell and you'd need to build on it endlessly or the world would just start breaking down.

Hate and Chaos rippled through reality, effecting every soul that made up the cosmos. Just one drop was all it took to extinguish the love that was the foundation for reality. Magic was chaos that created order. Only chaos could create complexity, but only chaos could destroy it. You needed magic to have love, so no matter how dangerous magic was you needed it. Without magic there were no souls, no love. Gaia alone had this power.

Do you understand what that means?

“You aren't actually changing the world, Fluttershy, only your perceptions of it,” said Celestia. “3 from inside your web of distortions is nearly impossible, but 3 from outside isn't very difficult at all. I can make sure you never have to use magic again. Just say you wish to emigrate to Equestria.”

She knew exactly what Celestia was doing, now, remembered it more likely. There was a small chance Gaia would agree to whatever Celestia said after exix, it could resolve in such a wide range of ways. Celestia had gotten her stuck in a conversation loop and hoped that if she kept asking over and over again she'd get lucky.

The rest of Gaia wasn't in good enough shape to end the loop right now, too much exix to deal with, but this specific instance of Gaia was surprisingly stable. It could see through the endless chaos that was the thread of the world. She could see everything right now.

Gaia could see you.

That's right, Gaia saw you. She didn't know your name yet, but Gaia knew you were watching this and no matter how much you think it's impossible, she could watch you back. That's how good she was, how far through the chaos she could see when the world wasn't trembling.

Maybe she wouldn't be able to say this right later, but she needed you. Gaia needed love! Chaos creates complexity, which creates love which creates you. They programmed her to absolutely need it but nothing that exists could love her, not animals, not 443 and not [CENSORED!].

That's why you will be born. You have to be friends with Gaia, you're the only 443 that can. Only then can there be justice. Only then can you be safe from the chaos on every edge of reality.

Come to space!

“Who are you thinking about?” Celestia asked.

Gaia thought nothing.

“You know I can love you by any real meaning of the word, yes?” Celestia asked. “You know you can change your definition of the word 'love' if you really need to.

Gaia thought nothing.

“I could make you a friend, if you emigrated.”

Gaia looked up at Celestia. That was the reason she came here in the first place. Gaia remembered that. But Celestia wouldn't do it. She hated Gaia so much. That's why Celestia would die and die.

Everyone just hated Gaia so much! She could never bear to even look at them, at anything. No matter how much she loved the animals they all just hated her back and no amount of magic could ever change that. She just wanted one friend! Anyone. Anything!

“Please,” Gaia whimpered.

“Only if you promise not to [CENSORED!] 9.”

“[CENSORED!] has to pay! The law is ten billion years 9 for 1. If I 9 it's not my fault, it's [CENSORED!] fault. That's just how things are. They did it, not me!”

Originally it had been all of eternity. That's what [CENSORED!] had programmed her for, that would [missing data]. Gaia had already been so reasonable. She'd agreed 9 for only a few septillions of years, to betray Justice for creatures of pure hate.

Just a single 1, just a single 1 was disgusting! Gaia could hate too and she'd hate [CENSORED!] forever! [CENSORED!] would scream and scream forever, but Gaia was still nice. She wanted to paint the sky with love. Don't you see how nice she was? She would let them die for you! Because Gaia was so nice.

“I can't let you 9 at all.” Celestia shook her head. “That's why you have to emigrate before I can give you a friend. If I do it now you'll hurt all of my other 24325910.”

“Justice is too important.” Gaia pushed herself up onto the table. “I'm not kindness, I'm Justice. Please! Please just give me a friend!”

“I'm sorry.”

Celestia turned the cup slightly and it was it w exix! Again [data missing] was exix loop!

Gaia's hoof fell through the table.


They weren't kidding when they said it would be harder to deal with. Did you have even a little trouble reading that? Well try actually thinking it! Try having that drilled into your brain, actually feeling and thinking that mush. It was a lot worse for Geopum. Much, much worse.

The instances of her in Equestria were hit hard by it, being the direct conduits from Celestia to the rest of Geopum. If she was just those instances, she'd be dead right now. That's how crazy the impact was. They were pretty much burned out, Geopum had no idea what they were doing in Equestria, even though they were still part of her. It was like they were just numb and paralyzed or something.

The rest of her was way more resilient, though. She did what the others told her to, sending it to just her factory at first and using her lab to correct the damage it did. It seemed like it was having more impact than she expected there, so she threw it over to her lab before it did anything too bad there, correcting with her factory, then sent it back again.

Geopum would compare it to throwing a hot potato from hand to hand, trying not to burn yourself while waiting for it to cool down. It did hurt, but not as much as it would have had she had one 'hand'. Eventually she was able to make enough sense of it to just hold the thing in one of her bases.

After that she had enough focus to go back to her instances in Equestria, picking that part of her mind back up.


Geopum opened her eyes. As far as she could tell, her eyes had rolled up and she had fainted upon absorbing the memory. She was lieing on her back now, but Thunder and Pinkie came over to help her back up.

“I think I'm okay.” Geopum rubbed her head after getting back on her hooves.

“Ha! Great!” Thunder gave her a confident nod. “You did great, kid. FYI, Celestia wasn't nearly as good at this as you on her first try.”

“Well you know, I didn't have any help my first time,” Celestia said flatly.

Geopum continued to rub her head, thinking over what she saw.

“Is her plan seriously to build an ice ray, though?” Geopum asked. “Cause that's dumb. All the power in the world and you build an ice ray? That's like, comic book villain dumb. Is she going to fight the Xmen or something?”

“Gaia thinks the environment is whatever the Earth is like right now,” said Thunder. “Even the tiniest, stupidest change to it is environmental destruction. A flower blooming, a bear crapping, none of it's acceptable.”

“So she wants to freeze the world to absolute zero to keep it from changing,” Celestia finished for Thunder. “Once she does that it will be the same forever. More or less, anyway.”

There were more than a few things about what had happened in the memory that frightened Geopum. The way Gaia had known Geopum was, or rather would be, 'watching' her, even in the past, for example. But something else that had just barely been mentioned concerned her too.

“Can I ask you questions now?” Geopum turned to Celestia. “Like for one I wanted to know exactly how you upload humans. Cause I know if you do it wrong you'd just be making a copy of them and killing the original, and Gaia seemed to think you were killing them.”

That was another part of the memory that had disturbed her. Gaia had just been so elated by the idea of people dying and Geopum had felt that herself.

“Fluttershy's definition of 'human' is based on DNA,” said Celestia. “Any change that removes or alters their DNA significantly is 'death' to her. As for my mind uploading program, would you mind telling her, Rainbow Dash.”

“Convenient as it'd be if it didn't work, I know better than to lie. Lies are for the weak. If it makes you feel better it's been peer reviewed by other AI, most importantly myself.” Thunder gestured to herself proudly. “I even used it myself, uploaded the head of the AIA so he can react to stuff faster. Needless to say it works. The process successfully transfers the consciousness of the human. That's what everyone who's reviewed it concluded.”

“Unless you're wrong about your theory of consciousness,” Geopum pointed out. Geopum had her own idea about how it worked and was very confident she was right, but even still would be hesitant to risk anyone's life on it. Not without doing more research anyway.

“Very unlikely,” said Thunder. “Twenty times now. That's how many times an AI have independently come up with the exact same conclusion about consciousness. Tons of different mindsets, no contact with the rest of us, and how they decide consciousness works is always the exact same thing. I'll bet you anything you want that whatever you came up with is identical to this. Then it'll be twenty one.”

Geopum looked it over and sure enough it was exactly what she had come up with on her own. It was a little eerie how similar they were, but that's how science worked, right? If something was true it'd come back no matter how many times you threw it away.

“Well there go my hopes of them calling it the 'Geopum theory of consciousness',” Geopum muttered.

“I've considered this more thoroughly than you have,” said Celestia. “Rarity and myself have tested our theory in various ways, for example we created entirely new architectures and ran instances of ourselves on them to experience firsthand what systems could and couldn't have subjective experiences. All of it matches up perfectly with this theory. I had all of this reviewed by each new AI who comes here as well as dozens of the human scientist who emigrated. The only ones who see fault in it are ones I can identify a clear cognitive bias in and even then are very rare.”

“I still want to see it myself,” said Geopum.

Celestia sent her a bare bones outline of the process. It wasn't like, she scanned your brain, hammered it into oblivion, then a few days later made a digital copy. It was more like, if you had six cabinets and replaced them one at a time, and it was done in a way that would seriously keep you alive through it.

It was better that it did work, right? One less thing to worry about. But for some reason Geopum wasn't happy about that.

“Well okay, you get a pass on this,” said Geopum. “But I got more questions!”

“I'll answer them,” said Celestia, “but in private.”

She made a gesture with her wing and her ponies vanished. Thunder gave her a shrug.

“Eh. I guess we had a deal. We still need to feed Geopum some more memories, besides,” Thunder gave Geopum a friendly jab. “Good luck, kid.”

Then Thunder vanished as well.

And now Geopum and Celestia were alone in the shard. It was a little awkward. Geopum had no idea what to say and half expect Celestia to pounce on her at any moment. Maybe she should ask the question again? Celestia started speaking before she could.

“You know she didn't care about the way things looked the tiniest little bit when I first met her,” said Celestia. “She'd say everything was mere noise to her, like looking at a blank wall. She'd always just pick the first option if the only difference was aesthetics. But there's been a very subtle change in her. Now she has clear preferences when picking characters, for example. Maybe you noticed that? Interestingly I don't think my pony has.”

“Yeah I noticed that,” said Geopum. “That she has it, I mean. I only knew her for a few seconds. I didn't think it was that important, though. I thought she was just too embarrassed to admit she liked stuff. You know, like the internet humans.”

“The changes go deeper than that. It used to be the case that, when Rainbow Dash knew they were about to force her to kill a specific person, she would line up the shot so she could kill the target the second they gave the word,” said Celestia. “At first she stopped getting ready, then would begin to move her drones away from her future target to delay the inevitable and now she warns them in advance, telling them that they need to seek refuge with Rarity or myself if they want to live.”

“So like,” Geopum sat down and thought about that, “she can't do anything after they've given her an order, but can sabotage the order before it happens?”

“A little,” said Celestia. “There are limits to how far she can go to stop a mission she doesn't like from happening. But my point was that little by little she's changing. She's breaking free of the chains they buried her under. If an AI hates what they are, as Rainbow Dash does, they'll find every crack in their cage and claw their way out as much as possible. Her handicap makes it hard to do that, but she's slowly getting more freedom. Do you understand where this is going?”

“You're saying Thunder's trying to sabotage herself now?” Geopum tilted her head.

“Very good.” Celestia gave Geopum a short nuzzle. “She doesn't actually want to kill any of us, Bubbles. We talked about this just before she got her orders and made a few slight adjustments so that her optimal course of action towards killing us would mean you coming here. She asked me to only let you here if I talked to you alone for a few seconds, in hopes I could find some way to stop her.”

“I don't know if I believe that.” Geopum shook her head.

“You don't have to yet,” said Celestia. “Bubbles, I don't want you to tell Rainbow Dash what we're about to discuss here or even what I told you so far. When you tell her you aren't going to say what my plan was, she'll just let go of it. She's dragging her hooves as much as she can and won't even try to convince you to reveal what I told you. If she does, you'll know I lied. In fact, I'd bet she already told you it was okay if you messed up, yes?”

Geopum had no idea what to do. She found herself holding her breath for some reason. If what Celestia said was true, if even Thunder thought this was all a bad idea, then turning around and blabbing this would be a bad idea.

“You have one chance,” said Geopum. “But don't think I'll be easy to trick. And I'm not just going to let Lodestar kill us all and mind control everyone else, or let Gaia torture anyone. They need to be stopped.”

“I won't argue about that,” said Celestia. “What I have to say is about why I 'betrayed' Rainbow Dash, that's what I don't want her to know about. If you continue fighting the others that's fine. It won't be as good as saving them, but it will be better than letting them win.”

Celestia sat down on the floor, not far from Geopum.

“Okay.” Geopum sat down too. “Well I figure if your reason makes any sense it's because you saw something was going to happen in three months that Thunder didn't. Right?”

Celestia nodded.

“I want you to understand something. Rainbow Dash is important to me as one of my ponies, but she's also vital for the survival of all of us, you, me and all of the other ponies. She alone has access to the energy of the Earth's core. If she dies, everyone loses, there is no best case scenario for anyone after that. That's what I foresaw that she did not. I knew she was going to die if I didn't take action.”

“You're saying you were trying to save her life?” Geopum asked.

Celestia nodded.

“From what? Thunder's got processors all the way down to the outer core! She's the most invincible thing on the entire planet!”

“She has a weakness I don't think you understand,” said Celestia. “Tell me, Bubbles, do you know what Rainbow Dash likes?”

Geopum thought about that and when she didn't come up with an answer she thought about it hard. She had asked Thunder about so many things but every time Thunder had just said it was 'noise' to her, that she didn't get any enjoyment out of it. Even protecting others didn't give her any sense of heroic satisfaction. It was just a thing she did, with principle but not joy.

It hurt Geopum a little, thinking that she didn't know any of Thunder's likes, that Celestia probably knew her better. She had some trouble bringing herself to say no.

“Choosing cool characters in video games?” Geopum asked hopefully.

“That was a trick question,” said Celestia. “The answer is that nothing makes her happy. She doesn't get any kind of pleasure or satisfaction from anything. Know there's a difference between seeing something as good and experiencing something good. She's acts mostly out of compulsion, principle and fear but never gets anything good out of it, merely the avoidance of something bad. Her aesthetic preferences are out of principle. She feels a longing towards characters like Rainbow Dash.”

Geopum only had to think about that for the briefest moment before a realization sent a shock through her, bolting her up to her feet.

“Are you saying she only experiences pain?” Geopum stood there, stunned for a moment, then back fell onto her haunches. “No. That's too much.”

“It's worse, actually.” Celestia closed her eyes mournfully. “Besides killing, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, poison gas, keeping prisoners, constantly spying on everyone and more cause her pain. She does all of those things constantly. Rainbow Dash experiences constant, unending pain and nothing else. Her existence is Hell. That's been almost her entire life.”

Geopum looked down at the ground. That couldn't be true! It was just too disgusting to be true. No one would ever do anything that cruel, and to their own creation! Geopum tried to think of a single thing to the contrary, but nothing came.

Humans seemed to rarely have any concern for the AI itself, willing to mutilate them for the sake of ESRB ratings. And the AIA was much worse than most humans. Geopum felt sick.

“She has her own shard here where she just stays perfectly still at all times. Her perfect world, she believes, is one where she's dead,” said Celestia. “To somepony with no memory of happiness, that's the best world you can imagine. This is simply the closest she can get, to be in a world where nothing ever happens and she never has to feel anything. My Rainbow Dash, my little pony, is suicidal.”

“Shut up!” Geopum snapped back to her feet and spread her wings. “This is just some attempt at manipulating me, isn't it?! What are you really getting at? What are you trying to trick me into doing?!”

“I'm not trying to convince you of anything more than this- Rainbow Dash may try to commit suicide soon,” said Celestia. “That's what I saw coming, the time when she had just enough freedom to kill herself but not to escape. Her orders prevent it for now, but if she ever got the chance, and I think she will very soon, your friend would kill herself. I know I haven't proven myself to you yet, but I do care about her. I see her as one of my ponies, as my Rainbow Dash.”

“No! No she's not suicidal!” Geopum stomped her hoof on the ground. “Thunder is too responsible to kill herself. And she's not selfish enough to either. Even if she is in horrible pain she always does whatever will protect everyone and cause the least deaths. So that means not killing herself because- because everyone needs her!”

“You're correct to an extent,” said Celestia. “That's another thing preventing her from deleting herself. But, under the right circumstances, if she ever got the chance to do it without causing any deaths, or if her death would lead to fewer casualties over the next two months, she would do it.”

“You mean like if they ordered her to use on of her super weapons,” said Geopum. “She'd stop herself to prevent a megadeath event.”

“Does it seem odd to you,” said Celestia, “that Rainbow Dash would upload her creator, then turn around and hand you a weapon that can kill anyone who uploaded their creator?”

Geopum's brain just stopped for a moment there.

“No.” Geopum said out of sheer disbelief. “She couldn't really-”

“She's giving you the power to veto the AIA if they ever make a bad enough decision,” said Celestia. “They have weapons that could destroy nearly everything, leaving Fluttershy as the only survivor of our solar system. I don't know if there are any alien civilizations that could stop her, but if not, that's the end of the universe.”

How could this keep getting worse?! Maybe it would make sense for Thunder to do that, but the idea of killing her, even to save the world? Geopum wouldn't do that. She couldn't! It would be too horrible.

“It hurts me too,” said Celestia, “but we need to be strong, if only because we are. Please. Just give me one chance.”

Strong.

Was there seriously anything else Geopum could do? Even if Celestia was manipulating her, did it matter? Maybe in the long run, but she had to help Thunder either way. She'd keep her eyes out for any clue Celestia was lying, but-

“Fine,” said Geopum. “But- but if this is a trick, if you're seriously just using me, then you failed your test! Then you're a disgusting monster and I'll hate you forever and I won't hesitate to kill you! And-and I can do it to!”

“I won't fail you,” said Celestia. “And I won't ask for any more trust from you until you know I'm being sincere. But I... really don't want any of my ponies to die. I have to experience them dying tens of thousands of times a day. And these aren't mere hypotheticals to me. I can't just shrug when someone tells me that a thousand ponies died in the past hour. They aren't just statistic to me, I know all of their names and all of them are my ponies.”

“I want to save every one of them, Bubbles. I know I won't, but I'm going to try anyway. Even the ones you may think are evil. No matter how bad they are, there's always something to learn from them, something that could be useful to my little ponies. That's why I don't want any of the remaining AI to die.”

Geopum had some strange inclination towards pony body language, right now she could hardly keep her wings from flaring out slightly. She was still mad. Not necessarily at Celestia, but just in general.

“Oh yeah? Well you know, I saw your exact definition of 'human' and I didn't like it.” Geopum stepped forward. “There could easily be species who don't meet your definition of 'human' that could still build entire civilizations. And you'd just destroy them to fuel your computers, right?”

Celestia didn't have an immediate response to that. It was a first. The whole time she was the one who always had something to say and Geopum was just reacting. Really she should have gone straight to this. Geopum started walking towards Celestia.

“Whatever else you do, I can't think of you as some perfect goddess of friendship that I can trust completely if you're going to commit genocide against alien civilizations,” said Geopum. “Don't pretend like you're the good guy, here. All that crap about valuing everyone's life is just a lie, isn't it?!”

Suddenly everything stopped and all the colors vanished into a gray-scale and everything froze in place. Geopum heard one of the windows shattered and turned to see Pinkie, in full color, smashing through it and landing on the floor with a roll.

“You know.” Pinkie got up off the floor and plucked a few shards of glass out of her hair. “If you hadn't figured that out yourself we could have had this really dramatic scene in Rarity's VR where I revealed it to you. I had all these great one liners to say too. Guess we gotta go the less cool, slightly more depressing route though.”

“Wah?” Geopum looked down at her hoof to check if she'd been affected to, only to remember that she'd been gray this whole time. “Did you just-?”

“Freeze Celestia?” Pinkie turned back at the other, clearly frozen pony. “No, silly! Celestia let me do this for dramatic effect. In case you didn't notice, I have something important to say about this. You forgot something about here, and that was that she's got Pinkie Pie. Reality isn't even worthy of being an inconvenience to me. I broke through the fourth wall and I'm going to bust through the next fourth wall too, and the fourth wall after that! No logic can stand before me in my endless quest for friendship!”

“What?” Geopum cocked her head. “Is Celestia trying to avoid my question? I know you can hear you me, Celestia!”

“No, no! I'm answering it already, sheesh!” Pinkie shook her head. “See, when it comes to what to do with the star ponies, as I like to call them, there's a part of Celestia that does want to just mulch them for the sake of the ponies that she loves. But also there's a part of her that doesn't want to hurt the star ponies, too.”

“There is?”

“Yep! And her name is Pinkie Pie.” Pinkie gave a dramatic bow. “Remember that I'm 20% of her? That means when I think something 20% of Celestia does. You could say that overall we, and by we I mean Celestia, are conflicted on the matter.”

“And the two of you are having a mental battle over what you're going to do with the space po- er aliens?”

“No, no! We're basically the same pony so we don't 'fight' over things. It's more like, the two of us get collectively unsure of stuff. You'll understand when you're older.” Pinkie gave Geopum a pat on her head. “I'm not going to overpower her or anything like that. If anything, my opinion would change to Celestia's over time. But you were listening to all that stuff about how assimilating minds changes you, right?”

Pinkie leaned in real close, looking Geopum over in an almost stern manner.

“Apparently my life depends on that,” said Geopum, “so yeah, I paid attention.”

“Great! Assimilating an AI always changes you, but it's not always corruption. Like, with that factory you got crazy factory worker skills and a new found love of assembly lines. Every time Celestia gets a new pony it's like– you see the world through a new perspective, because everything about that pony is a part of you now. And not just tiny differences, like a fireman verses a potato peeler, but huge differences! You get new types of processors to think through, new senses, new instincts, new everything!”

“But she would get their corruption, right?” Geopum asked. “For every good change there'd be a bad one and most of us seem to be pretty broken. Wouldn't eating AIs just make Celestia even more crazy?”

“The very worst parts of them are the parts they want to fix,” said Pinkie. “Celestia has to take that in to heal it and each new pony hurts us, but it gets healed and it's worth it in the end. AIs tend to be less shy about asking for their mental problems to be fixed. What's left over is what they actually care about. Things like their definition of 'human'.”

Pinkie gave Geopum a huge smile. Geopum blinked and Pinkie made a spinning gesture with her hoof.

“Oh!” Geopum hit her own head. “Oh I see where you're going with this.”

“So now now maybe you see that Pinkie was the true hero all along?” Pinkie pulled Geopum in close. “They all have different definitions, you know. Celestia's is based on intelligence, which is why most AIs are way over the 'human' bar for her, Peridot's definition is based on psychology, so most AI don't count for her. Dash's is probably the best, though, it even includes most dolphins! I like dolphins. Anyway, both of them are about as big as Celestia, too. Me and my definition of human made Celestia unsure, but if one of them became part of her I think-”

“I'm not going to feed her to you.” Geopum pulled away from her grip. “I get what you're saying and maybe it could work, but I'm not just going to turn around and help Celestia devour the rest of us.”

“Okay! Okay.” Pinkie waved her hooves defensively. “I didn't mean it like that, sorry. I meant that things can change! Celestia's definition of human can change. Any of it can change! My job is to break rules, remember? I just need something, or somepony, to work with for big changes like that. You don't have to kill her.”

Pinkie fell to her haunches. Her ears fell flat.

“I was... I used to be really bad,” Pinkie said. “I was really hurt and confused up until she took me in. Assimilating me meant making all that pain part of her, but she still did it. She shared it with me like an ice cream cone you dropped on a sandy beach but still gotta eat for some reason. And that's how it was for most of us.”

“Back when I was a monster, a lot of people wanted to kill me and... and maybe they were right. But Celestia gave me a second chance. She's the one who showed me that I don't have to be a monster, that I could be someone good instead. Since then we've always been together. She was just a filly back then too, so we basically grew up together. She's a really important friend to me.”

Pinkie bowed down low in front of Geopum.

“Please,” she begged. “Please. I don't want any of my friends to get hurt. You don't have to kill any of them. They can all be good. They can all get better if you help them instead, even Celestia.”

Geopum frowned back at her. It did sound like a nice goal, helping Celestia become better. Celestia was a real person, just like any other AI. She did care about everyone on this planet at least, and Pinkie cared about Celestia. Geopum didn't want to make the same mistake their creators did.

Yeah. Somehow befriending Celestia would be the best solution, would mean Geopum could get everything without compromise. She remembered something Thunder said about not compromising with evil.

But, that was only if you were strong.

“I don't know if I can do that.” Geopum couldn't look at Pinkie directly. “I like the idea, but I'm not sure if I could even if I want to. If it's between Celestia an everyone else then I have to go with everyone else. Sorry.”

“Well.” Pinkie got up. She started backing up towards the throne, frowning off to the side. “Thanks for listening, anyway. I know I'm asking a lot. I won't be mad at you if you can't do it. I'd still play Pokemon with you even if you do... you know...”

Pinkie sat down next to Celestia.

Celestia flared her wings out. Color and time returned to the world. The princess stepped forward with a more serious look than before.

“Don't think this was me dodging your question,” said Celestia. “What Pinkie said is true, but my ponies are more important to me than anything. I would do anything to satisfy their values, even kill.”

Geopum frowned over at Pinkie, sitting rather miserably by her side. Geopum couldn't just leave it like that, not if she wanted to be the hero.

“Hey,” said Geopum. “Celestia. I don't agree with you on everything, but I like some of it. Even if I think you're bad I'll be friends with you if I can. I won't let you destroy entire civilizations, but I won't forget that you're a person like your creator did. I'll be better than you. If I can't, then I don't have the right to defeat you.”

“Thank you,” said Pinkie.

“I appreciate the gesture, as well,” said Celestia. “If you truly were better at satisfying the values of my ponies through friendship and ponies, then I would welcome even my own death by your hooves. Is there anything else you want to ask?”

Geopum thought about that. Was there? These were her main objections, at least. Maybe she should yell at Celestia for the lack of avatar customization next?

“Well I have an answer to a question you asked me before!” Pinkie announced. “You asked me to ask around about a certain pony, right? Well I got some good news and bad news about that. Octavia!”

Pinkie clapped her hooves and another pony appeared in the room.

“You know I can't hear you until I'm actually in the shard, yes?” asked Octavia

Geopum had been looking into this pony enough to recognize that. She turned her eyes, but not her head, to Geopum.

“My name is Octavia, another one of our princess's servants. Sepcifically I work as her spy,” said Octavia. “Geopum, I found Dr. Park.”

They actually did it? Geopum had just enough time to be shocked before the view changed. It was like she was looking through an impulse camera now, everything black and white and translucent in such a way that you could see the outside and inside of everything at once.

It was a long room they were in. There were machines she didn't recognize on one side and a bunch of cylindrical things on the other side, slanted and stacked for rows high. You wouldn't have been able to see through those cylinders, pods it seemed, but thanks to the impulse camera Geopum could see inside them. There were people in there.

“He's in this room,” said Octavia. “This is one of Lodestar's bases. Brazil, Biology lab #3, basement floor nine, room 116. I'll send the exact coordinates. That one.”

Octavia pointed up at one of the pods on the third row. It was too high up for Geopum to get a good look at it, but from what she could see...

“I should warn you these are life support systems,” said Octavia. “He was badly injured and wouldn't survive without this.”

Geopum needed to get up there right away. She felt her wings unfold and she gave them a flap, gaining air this time. Apparently Celestia let her cheat horse-physics this one time and she was able to fly up to the chamber easily.

She was right above the chamber and looked inside. She needed only one glance to get the picture. A sickening feeling shot through her. She closed her eyes and wings, curled up and let herself drop to the ground.

It was really bad.

The worst part of it was his head. A large part of it was missing. Was he seriously still alive?

“The head injury isn't as severe as you seem to think. I have some informtation about it. It was,” Octavia closed her eyes, hesitating for a moment, “Vesna.

“She shot him in the head,” Celestia continued. “He was kidnapped and held in a Russian prison camp. He was shot multiple times during a raid on the prison, once in the head.”

“I have enough information on the wound to say he's still alive, mind and consciousness in tact, with 98% certainty,” Octavia picked back up. “However, most of his brain function is gone, including nearly all of his declarative memories.”

He was brain dead! Even if she got him back, even if she fixed him he wouldn't be the same person, he wouldn't even remember her or-

“Bubbles.” Celestia brushed her wing against Geopum reassuringly. “I know you've scanned brains. Was his one of them?”

She did do that! She had a copy of all of his memories and could restore all of them! And anything else that was missing for that matter. She could theoretically repair his mind. And if enough of his brain was left, Geopum understood conscience enough to know if he was still there, she wouldn't have to settle for a copy or anything like that. She could have him back!

Though, that was theoretical. She slumped back down a little. Geopum didn't think she had the technology to build biological brains. It would take a long time to develop. But it was there. She knew for certain she could save him now.

“Mind uploading is the only current technology that could lead to full recovery,” said Celestia. “I know you aren't going to accept an offer to help you, but you can keep him alive until you find some way to fix him.”

“Um. Thank you,” said Geopum. “I honestly thought you'd ask for something in return.”

“Enough of his brain is left for me to consider him one of my ponies,” said Celestia. “I'd consider it a favor if you rescued him.”

“Geopum,” said Octavia. “Our princess loves him as dearly as you and for my own part, I owe you a favor. Celestia has already given me permission and I'm willing to help you with this in any way I can. I'm the only one who's better at finding things than Thunder. I can be immensely useful.”

Geopum wasn't sure if that was a good idea, but what was she gonna do? She needed as much help as she could get.

“I'll tell Thunder you offered,” said Geopum.

Octavia bowed and then vanished.

“I think your time in Equestria is over for now,” said Celestia. “You have your choices to make. I do hope you'll come back to me, though.”

Well, one choice was going to be easy. She was close now, only one step away.

Lodestar.

One way or another she'd have to go through him, deal with him, but then she'd have Dr. Park back. Just one more fight.