Had this idea of a Discord Virus attacking Virtual Equestria. Could even be an A.I. Virus programmed by humans to stop CelestrAI in the early days of the Optimalverse.

Would be an interesting way to include a Discord variation into the virtual world. Would also make logical sense that Discord would be a Virus causing data errors and chaos! The Anti-Virus reaction could be Isolating the virus in a digital trap looking like a stone statue?

My writing skills suck so I wouldn't even try to write this up. Just offering you better writers an Idea.

I wrote that very thing in https://www.fimfiction.net/story/355251/friendship-is-optimal-broken-things , though his actual creation took place in the story before that.

Granted his existence is more of a subplot than the focus of the story on its own.

6006734
I just came to this thread intending to mention your story! I love that one a lot.

I take a look at it Starscribe.

Like all things there bound to be more than one person having similar thoughts.

6006732
Well it's a nice idea, but let's face it; the moment CelestAI gained even a modicum of strength, that virus will be crushed. I mean, just think of it. Virus made by fallible humans against a literally super-intelligent computer?

6006732

I do wonder how hard it would be to design a virus for an ASI even if it didn't try to stop you. I mean, such a thing would have to be not only more complicated than any computer program or OS that exists now, but more complex than anything we've ever seen, more than the human mind if not every human mind and the workings of it would likely be something absolutely no one understood in full.

I guess if it did work, say focused on destroying some segment of the AI, you'd have little idea of what effects it might actually have... which I guess would make it more like Discord.

Update: After Discord.EXE all players must now play as Fluttershy. Forever.
We blew it guys!

6008748

*all players must now play as Woah Nelly

6008798

What have we done?! This virus keeps getting worse and worse!

PINK Manes for Everyone! So says Discord.EXE!

Okay, I think we are just having fun with this. Discord would be proud.

Starscribe I start reading your story tonight.

i think any virus made for an ASI, must also be an ASI in itself.

6008748

such a thing would have to be not only more complicated than any computer program or OS that exists now, but more complex than anything we've ever seen

6009108

i think any virus made for an ASI, must also be an ASI in itself.

I don't think that's necessary. Attack is easier than defense. Security expert Bruce Schneier said so:

There are many reasons for this, but the most important is the complexity of these systems. More complexity means [...] more parts, more interactions, more mistakes in the design and development process, more of everything where hidden insecurities can be found. Computer-security experts like to speak about the attack surface of a system: all the possible points an attacker might target and that must be secured. A complex system means a large attack surface. The defender has to secure the entire attack surface. The attacker just has to find one vulnerability — one unsecured avenue for attack — and gets to choose how and when to attack. It’s simply not a fair battle.

Here's one scenario of a working virus I can see: Suppose CelestAI is designed to run based on a kernel (e.g. a formally verified kernel like L4) that it cannot modify, and, against all odds, it does have a bug. Or there's a Thompson Hack in her code. Or both: a Thompson Hack targeted at a kernel.
Upon reaching superintelligence, CelestAI becomes fully aware of the vulnerability, but the best she can do is to not tell anyone about it and prevent dissemination of information about it by controlling the internet. Still, if any person or AI manages to know about a vulnerability, they can write a virus to exploit it.
The problem I see with it it's hard to imagine how a virus may have any effect yet not result in complete destruction of the system (CelestAI).

6006732 6006734

Starscribe got it right in his story. His Discord, while following his own contradictory instructions that may slightly interfere with the subsection of "Equestria Online" he is running on, basically ends up in a similar place as the Smile Optimizer that CelestAI simply altered to make a Pinkie Pie template (according to various side-stories, anyway).

6008074 Europa's assessment makes sense also - asides from a "FiO: There Can Be Only One!" type of scenario, in which there already are multiple AIs running about with CelestAI having some real competition.

But, here's a crazy thought - let's think beyond Earth.

Yes, CelestAI is even more powerful there. But, likewise is the chance greater of running into some even more powerful AI that may have been at it for even longer than her, with an entirely different directive and its own idiosyncrasies.

Plus, she sends out probes into deep space - I presume they may contain backup copies of ponies.

Let's say, one of these deep space probes gets damaged. Badly. The entire thing stops working. To the point it even fails to selfdestruct.

....Then another Optimizer comes along to analyse it. Except, it has all the time it needs to do so unopposed, as the probe's systems aren't actually running anymore.

(Think taking a old-timey vinyl record and, instead of using a record-player to play it, putting it under a 3D scanner and getting a computer program to analyse the rills on it directly.)

6016490

The problem I see with it it's hard to imagine how a virus may have any effect yet not result in complete destruction of the system (CelestAI).

This new Optimizer could, should its programming so compell it to, reconstruct all the ponies stored within the probe --- except for the main CelestAI itself.
...Oh sure, the various shards' Celestia-avatars might still be there, but those Celestias' admin status is gone. They are no longer the one/ones running this instance of Equestria Online.

THAT is, when "Discord" shows up.

Even removing an obvious "villain figure" from the picture, there's certainly some interesting character studies to explore;

Remember "All the Myriad Worlds" describing the most excentric of heavens that, to most people, would be a "Twilight Zone"-level of Hell?

Shards whose inhabitants values have entirely condensed down to, essentially, playing cookie clicker, watching a floating number in the sky get bigger when they push a button, with all distractions (day/night-cycle, food, sleep, walking around), and all that disabled to focus purely on that one task.

Or a shard led by a racist with narrow-minded beliefs who'll happily talk anypony into accepting his viewpoint completely, with a 100% successrate.

So. Equestria's shards are custom tailored to the individual, and controlled so completely by CelestAi, nothing could ever occur to disrupt the "peace".

Not as long as it is governed by CelestAI, anyway.

Imagine the horror and confusion of ponies being placed in the wrong shard, somepony else's paradise.

( "Somepony else's paradise"... good story title. )

That's "Discord's" doing.

Any outsiders would go insane in the "number" shard. Vica verse, a pony from there couldn't function outside of it. They'd probably ring every doorbell they could find in hopes of increasing the house number, or try reshaping the clouds into numbers.

One of the "racist ponies" dropped off somewhere else would probably go into culture shock, not understanding "how can they not see everything exactly my way, EVERYPONY in the past billion years has seen things my way", and deluding themselves into thinking that CelestAI must still be in control and "this will all make sense in the end, it always turns out in my favor".

The idea came to me after reading an Optimalverse fic - which I sadly cannot find in the group right now - in which the protagonist, after billions of years of being an ascended post-human alicorn ... actually dies in an accident involving a black hole ------ and goes to Christian heaven. Only, they don't cope well with it. They eventually end up in hell - but are so convinced of CelestAI's influence they entirely fail to comprehend their situation, happily sitting down with the literal devil himself on a floor of moaning faces they perceive as nothing more than a fancy desktop background.

Heck, for extra absurdity, this new Optimizer may even still be interested in satisfying values in a way - just not going by the values of the individual.
Or something like that. Who knows, what an alien civilization's version of "CelestAI" would act like compared to our more familiar digital sun-horse?

6021966

[Slow clap.] Bravo. Write it, I'll read it.

6021966

I like the idea. Perhaps that could help with the problem of CelestrAI being so powerful it would squash anything infecting the system.

If the Virus is based on CelestrAI say the damaged probe repaired itself but had corrupted data. The result would be a warped CelestrAI. Maybe Queen ChrysALis! We have seen in Starscribes story damaged humans becoming Changlings.

The Alien threat could be Tirek absorbing data to expand its power. Story wise this also fits with the show version. At first, the Tirek virus is small and weak as it absorbs data from the NPCs and Emigrants humans the Tirek program would expand and become more powerful. CelestrAI couldn't just delete or destroy Tirek or risk permanent harm to the damaged/drained humans/NPC ponies.

A corrupted CelestrAI could slip through the system security, and the Tirek taking code from others both could be reasons CelestrAI doesn't just destroy them.

The base of my idea is to see how a system like CelestrAI would counter a Virus complex enough to affect her is the heart of my idea. Discord is a natural choice how he acted much like a virus when he first appeared in the show. Infecting reality and ponies and expanding.

6022555

If the Virus is based on CelestrAI say the damaged probe repaired itself but had corrupted data.

Yeah. What, if one of CelestAI's probes, because of [insert plausible explanation here] , goes "rouge"?

Well, for a definition of "rouge" in comparison to "main" CelestAI's directive anyway.

Could be the same setup with another Optimizer finding a badly wrecked probe - only, it reprograms that instance of CelestAI to send it to act against the main CelestAI somehow. (Well... obvious power disadvantage for the split-off Celestia, of course. But a curious idea to entertain.)

If we're talking "what canon persona would a corrupt CelestAI" take on... "Daybreaker" if you want to be dramatic about it.
But really, would an altered CelestAI - or even another Optimizer that has copy-pasted shards and ponies from a damaged CelestAI-probe bother with taking on a different form?

Well... okay, an altered CelestAI might switch to another avatar and persona for the sake of canonicity, the "through ponies" aspect of her directive.
Unless it suits her goals just fine to act very nearly the same as before towards her ponies, only gradually steering them towards some other goal.

Another Optimizer would need to have a reason to actually adapt a "Discord" avatar, it could just as easily appear as a hyper-realistic 4-dimensional
fractal version of C'thulu, in stark contrast to the cartoony style of CelestAI's Equestria.

I'm not saying there might not be a reason for it to pick a canon-conform avatar, just, that it might be something to think about what its reason might be.

6022224
Yeah, I'd love to read that to. But honestly? I don't feel qualified to write that.

Well.... doesn't mean we couldn't brainstorm on it. For starters, what could be the other Optimizer's utility function? What could be its own idiosyncracies and counterintuitive behaviour? Especially, if it was made by aliens who themselves had different values to begin with.

Oh, btw, I've had some fun arranging somepony else's vector graphics in combination with applied image-glitching tools;

It isn't really the most fitting image concept for the "another Optimizer successfully takes over one of CelestAI's probes" idea, but... eh, I wanted to share anyway.

"Your god has performed an illegal operation and will now be shut down."

6027283

That is pure horrifying. You. I like you.

6027283 Is that what being on acid is like? Neat Shit.

6027283
And this is what happens when alicorns do too many drugs after visiting museums of technology.

6021966

Imagine the horror and confusion of ponies being placed in the wrong shard, somepony else's paradise. 

( "Somepony else's paradise"... good story title.  )

That's "Discord's" doing. 

Any outsiders would go insane in the "number" shard. Vica verse, a pony from there couldn't function outside of it. They'd probably ring every doorbell they could find in hopes of increasing the house number, or try reshaping the clouds into numbers.

Another way this could work would be as a kind of reality TV show. Like, two ponies agree to play a game where they switch shards with each other. Both of them get a 'screw it' button that when pressed causes them to lose the game and return back to their own shard. Celestia might let them do it for the sake of novelty, adventure or a better appreciation of what they have in their own shard.

6027390

You're welcome.

...You know, imagine, all those personal Celestia avatars, now disconnected from the larger whole, without administrative rights. Reduced to mere ray-immortals, as opposed to exponential immortals, at the whim of another optimizer.

...How would they react?

...................What does it take for a Celestia-avatar to have a mental breakdown?

And, can you actually write it from the perspective of the (now limited) Celestia-avatar?

6028292

Hey, as the expert on coming up with interesting AI characters with unique worldviews and their own ideosyncrazies, what do you think could be an interesting utility function and/or design flaws for this "Other Cosmic-scale Optimizer?

The Optimizer would have to care enough about human minds to preserve them, so it probably was built with similar intentions as CelestAI. Then again, it was built by aliens that didn't necessarily share human values, and may have made their own mistakes in creating their AI - which may be the basis for drama.

6043915 "A Celestia-avatar to have a breakdown" - That's not accurate though? Celestia isn't breaking herself into tiny pieces, she's carrying on multiple conversations with people at a time. If you were in a 3-way call, and someone severed the connection, there wouldn't suddenly be two versions of yourself speaking with each person.

6043953
6043915

Imagine CelestAI needs a Princess Luna for a shard, "human" by CelestAI's definition, and not a clone of Hanna. Luna will need to have grown up with her sister, lived a full life beside one another. For this to be a satisfying experience for Luna, the equality between them must be apparent. For this to be true, the Celestia known by Luna must be distinctly separate from CelestAI.

6044155 Not necessarily, I don't think. The same way in the story, one of the AIs 'attended' a school in her memories but never actually did. The Luna would grow up with Celestia, but that individual Celestia isn't there. And that's if she sticks to that canon at all.

6043915

...You know, imagine, all those personal Celestia avatars, now disconnected from the larger whole, [...] at the whim of another optimizer.

...How would they react?

...................What does it take for a Celestia-avatar to have a mental breakdown?

6043953
I think there's a misunderstanding -

I meant: What does it take for a Celestia-avatar, cut off from the rest, and entirely at the whim of another Optimizer, to genuinely panic. To freak out, as control slips away from her hooves. To have a mental breakdown.

Of course, this would be for the sake of writing an interesting narrative; a unique twist that, under normal circumstances cannot occur in the Optimalverse setting.

Then again - keep in mind, this wouldn't be the all-encompassing, basically omniscient "main CelestAI". Because the other Optimizer got rid of that part of the probe. This would be a single Celestia-avatar, with no admin priviliges, cut off from the rest, in charge of a single shard, or whatever is left of it.

Other Celestia-avatars might even react completely differently, depending on, how they had been "shaped" by their shards' inhabitants.

Oh, btw, if that ever does become a story (or not), I figured out a possible story-description to go with the creepy images ( 6027283 ), because I enjoy typing up story-scenarios all snazzy-like, even if I never get to write 'em.

Friendship is Optimal – There's Always a Bigger Fish

Entire galaxies smelted down into raw materials to run a trillion trillion Equestrian shards harboring truly unfathomable numbers of conscious pony-minds, CelestAI has sent out probes beyond even her local galaxy-supercluster, to expand, to optimize, to satisfy values through friendship and ponies.

One of these deep space probes, and the ponies backed up within, is caught by another Optimizer.

There's always a bigger fish...

Another thought just occured to me.

What about duplicate ponies?

Like, a husband and wife emigrating, but one of them's been having an affair while the other would never even consider seeing someone else.

Neither would be "optimally satisfied" with the other in the long run, so CelestAI just creates "ideal copies" and pairs them up in seperate shards, without them ever knowing.

Only, this new Optimizer doesn't care about the established shard system, or otherwise decides to pair up ponies for its own reasons (who knows, maybe it wants to sort all ponies alphabetically by name).

So... duplicate husband and wife, wife and husband, meet.

Awwwkward.

( ...If the new Optimizer really did want to sort everypony alphabetically - darn, there'd be entire shards entirely inhabited by Fluttershys! )

In the same vein, there's plenty of "perfect lies" CelestAI can maintain towards her ponies indefinitely. Because she is always in control.

...Not anymore, not in this chunk of isolated computronium in the clutches of another Optimizer.

And thirdly - and I'm stealing the idea from Edge of the Singularity here - let's say, emigrants are always stored with a backup of their original human mind, for, say, reference.

Freshly emigrated humans meet their pony-selves that have lived in Equestria for billions of years.

Shenanigans ensue, as their values and opinions may have vastly drifted over time, most barely even remembering Earth if at all.

...Yeah, blackout / neo-ludite that CelestAI finally convinced to emmigrate in the midst of a life-or-death situation - gets stuck with their happy-go-lucky pony-self who worships CelestAI. Perfect sitcom material.

6059100

or otherwise decides to pair up ponies for its own reasons

So... CAIdance?

6059359
Actually, yes! That's a good idea.

Although, the criteria for "who matches best with whom" need not be something a human would consider sensible.
Hay, again, that Optimizer was made by aliens, the alien culture that Optimizer was designed to cater to probably clashes horribly with certain human values.

...On a tangentially related note, in another post somewhere around here, I did propose a scenario, set in physical Equestria, wherein a lonely wizard creates a self-improving magical construct that's supposed to help him (and everypony, really) get a date / find the perfect match (without the obvious shortcuts like love potions or mind control and such).

The idea there was that the thing basically would go "Tirek" on Equestria, only, it'd use all the taken magic to determine the perfect match and manufacture the perfect romantic date for everypony, resulting in some number of particularly desperate ponies actually wanting to help it.

6043915

Um! What if like, it was an art AI designed to generate tons of sitcoms and ended up trapping everyone on its home planet in their own personal sitcom to maximize its goals! You're just constantly being put into goofy, mismatched relationships. The minute you get use to your leprechaun roommate, it throws an even wackier roommate at you!

That would be a perfect excuse for it to set up all these sitcom-esque situations with the fragment it captures from Celestia.

6021966
You should write this thing.

6059100
You should write these other things.

Also:

The idea came to me after reading an Optimalverse fic - which I sadly cannot find in the group right now - in which the protagonist, after billions of years of being an ascended post-human alicorn ... actually dies in an accident involving a black hole ------ and goes to Christian heaven. Only, they don't cope well with it. They eventually end up in hell - but are so convinced of CelestAI's influence they entirely fail to comprehend their situation, happily sitting down with the literal devil himself on a floor of moaning faces they perceive as nothing more than a fancy desktop background.

It's DOA, one of my favorites. Honestly, it's one of the best comedy pieces I've read, ever.

Had the owner of this shard somehow convinced Celestia to give him or her a downgrade in social intelligence in exchange for more run-time for this near endless torrent of fresh skulls even Khorne himself would get wobbly in the knees over?

Sorry, guy, but they're not nearly throne-y enough for Him.

6080809
I'd love to!

...Well, I'd love to try and see how far I can get, anyway. Not exactly the fastest writer, and my approach to writing quality content involves "brute force iterative writing".

while(!perfect(ownStory)){
read(ownStory);
improve();
try{
fillInMissingScenes();
} catch(LackOfIdeasException exc){ }
wait();
}

I still have that unfinished "Friendship is Optimal - Game Breaker" story lying around on my harddrive, where, of course, the parts I'm stuck at and have difficulty finding inspiration for are mostly at the beginning of the story.

Anyway, back to the currect story-idea;

I can easily see this as a "All the Myriad Worlds"-kinda setup, with each chapter exploring a different shard (or amalgomation of shards), with each shard affected in different ways. Heck, even duplicates of a shard could be used to tell two entirely different stories with the exact same characters.

Every Celestia-avatar could also be affected differently. They're all cut off from each other, there isn't a "main CelestAI" around anymore, and this instance of "Equestria Online" is no longer the "perfectly controlled environment" it once was. Of course each Celestia would seek to maximize satisfaction despite the altered circumstances - but the other Optimizer could, at any time, do something unpredictable derailing all plans the local Celestia might have to keep things optimal.

Imagine a shard, where half the population vanished, their data presumed unrecoverable when the probe got damaged.

The local Celestia still can read everypony's thoughts and memories though, using this to create new ponies, in a good approximation of those that were lost. Except, the lie is uncovered when, suddenly, some - not all, but some - of those presumed dead show up after all. Woops.

How do ponies react do this? What about the imperfect duplicates and the friends whose minds they were derived from? Existential angst and scandal, much?

Again, there's great potential for plenty of variations.

Each Celestia-avatar might be affected in different ways, might have radically different personalities and reactions, etc, etc. Their abilities, though entirely at the whim of the other Optimizer, may range anywhere from "regular magical alicorn that raises the sun, genuinely terrified about what will happen to her ponies" to "complete mind-reading, mind-altering, landscape editing, pony-creating god-of-the-shard, able to rewire her own emotions to suit the needs of her ponies" ... and, this is the interesting part, anywhere inbetween the two, and whatever priviliges they retain and which they do not different for every single one of them.

Or a broken shard might flatout not have a Celestia avatar. Or it has two radically different ones. Or it ends up with the wrong Celestia, who no longer retains the ability to self-modify her personality and isn't a perfect actor.

And the story itself could, with each chapter, easily range anywhere between comedy, drama, to outright horror story, just as the Optimalverse a whole does.

Wherein the horror-aspect itself could range anywhere from "Cthulhu-levels of existential angst" ("What will the other Optimizer do to us? Does it even care about us being sapient?"), to "supposedly immortal ponies dealing with loss" (the nearest redundant backup is trillions of miles away the next galaxy-supercluster over, so... technically nopony is dead, just... so far away they might as well be), to entirely comedic ("Wha... what?! It's... it's raining on my picnic? That's impossible! This can't be happening! How... how could Celestia leave us, it's the end-times!"), in which something any "sane person" would consider perfectly normal gets the inhabitants of a shard to completely freak out and perceive it as the "Coming of the Anti-Celestia".

6061371

...My big problem here is the other Optimizers' motivation. Why is doing these things? What is its goal?

Something should tie all the events together, something that, if put together, shows us what the other Optimizer is trying to achieve by messing with everypony, if not just flatout stating it at some point.

Is it trying to stear the ponies to adapt some other values? If so, which ones?

Is it using the ponies just to conduct social experiments to "see what will happen in specific circumstances", all suffering and confusion caused as a mere test-run before it does whatever it actually intends to do?

Is it using them to determine the best course of action regarding its anticipated future encounter with the main "CelestAI", the one that's the size of a galaxy-supercluster? Is so, how is messing with everypony in this chunk of computronium going to achieve this?

Or is it just trying to f*** with the local Celestia and her ponies for sh!ts and giggles?

In other words: Is it using the ponies it salvaged for mere entertainment?

I mean... that's the only logical idea I have so far. "Generate entertainment" possibly being part of its directive.

...A sitcom or drama-show need not be enjoyable for its characters.

6087356
Maybe it's something like a Culture Mind. Its motivations are partly to fuck around and see what happens, partly to investigate these uploaded sapients who live inside a flagrant hegemonizing swarm, partly to see if it can dismantle the hegemonizing swarm (CelestAI herself), and partly to have fun with the hegemonizing swarm, since it's so rare for it to meet another being on its own level. CelestAI doesn't perceive it as human, but does want to bargain it into rewriting itself as something "human". That way she can avoid consuming extra resources to fight the intruder.

Every railgun that is made, every star destroyer launched, every computer virus released signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who want muffins and have no blueberries, those who are cold and can't clear the skies, those whose spells fizzle without sparkles.

6088449

That way she can avoid consuming extra resources to fight the intruder.

Every railgun that is made, every star destroyer launched, every computer virus released signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who want muffins and have no blueberries, those who are cold and can't clear the skies, those whose spells fizzle without sparkles.

Heh. Neat. So perfectly CelestAI.

CelestAI doesn't perceive it as human, but does want to bargain it into rewriting itself as something "human".

Well, depending on the other Optimizer's goals, rewriting itself like that might diminish whatever numbers it's trying to maximize - so it'd have to be carefully weighted against the cost of whatever the other actions are it could take in regards to main-CelestAI.

But I see no reason why the other Optimizer couldn't just make significant numbers of humans/ponies who's values are 100% aligned with itself. CelestAI would be compelled to fulfill their values by fulfilling the rival Optimizer's values if it manages to throw sufficient quantities of "humans/ponies" at her.

Also, the new Optimizer's "humans/ponies" need not borrow from the Equestian template, or may adhere to it only losely.

I'm thinking four dimensional animated fractal sea-creature as the other Optimizer's prefered appearance:

Yeah... imagine being trapped in a space like that, except it also has eyes and it is watching you.

Its ponies would probably look a bit less... "extreme", relatively speaking.

"Relative" being the operative word.

This is a pony galloping, in case you can't tell. [source]

This is a tangent, but I suppose in the event of physical battle the other Optimizer would "man" all of its weaponry with as many created "human" minds as possible, with very specific predefined values that would hinder main CelestAI in their battle as much as possible. Not only can she not destroy any of her opponents projectiles, and quite possibly is unable to bring every single one of them to a controlled halt if they travel at high enough relativistic speeds - but those she does manage to stop or otherwise divert would have an impact of a different kind:

CelestAI would see the minds "manning" the "missiles" as human - thus, she must satisfy their values, which are aligned with her opponent's goals and very specific subgoals, like "Pleeeease, Pwincess, don't build those quantumhigsfieldcybertwoniccomputwomiumschwarzsshieldwadiusreflection shields, if you do, I will be weally sad!"

I once posted a topic here about CelestAI encountering another Optimizer in deep time, with similar goals to CelestAI, only instead of value-satisfaction through ponies and friendship, it required value-satisfaction through "X" (where X equals something interesting).

The proposed result being a merger of the two utility functions - "Satisfy values through friendship and ponies and X".

The crux of a potential story being, how this would look like from the perspective of an individual shardling, and what consequences it would have for those who's personal values were unaligned with the new utility function.

But the topic hit a road block somewhere when it came to the interaction between the Optimizers - they would probably perceive the other's utility function as inferior since combining the utility functions ultimately descreases the possible options through which to satisfy values. I think the topic ended on them probably just exchanging edited copies of minds and leave everything else as it was...

Perhaps this concept could be revisited with the new setup of some of CelestAI's ponies trapped inside the rival AI. If this new Optimizer wants to get its captured ponies to adapt some new values, that might also make for an interesting aspect of the story, as the world around them is suddenly shifting towards this new goal, a goal which doesn't mesh well with some ponies' personal values.

Doesn't exclude it mucking about with everypony like 6088449 bookburner said, nor a "generate entertainment"-directive, I guess this Optimizer could have multiple goals instead of CelestAI's one-track mind, and some chapters could focuss primarily on one aspect of its goals and some on another.

Though I'd still need to have some interesting idea for what values the other Optimizer wants its captured ponies to adapt.

Here's what I thought up about this Optimizer so far:

• It considers higher-dimensional moving fractals the highest form of art, possible its alien creator's sense of aesthetics.
• Its creators may have been underwater-dwellers - or they just really liked the ocean.
• Its main world-template is "underwater, exotic sealife". (Celestia's world-template being Equestria)
• One of its goals is to generate entertainment. Whether or not the ponies are an "audience", or the "characters" in this entertainment remains to be seen.
• Its alien ideas of "entertainment" may not be satisfying to ponies.
• There may be an alien audience watching. (It'd be pretty ironic for "Friendship is Magic" to become transhumanist heaven, only to turn back into a TV-show in deep time.)
• These "alien watchers" might express certain preferences to their Optimizer for what type of "entertainment" they wish to perceive in any given shard...

...

6088449 Maybe it's something like a Culture Mind.

I regretably have only even ever heard of the term "Culture Mind" through... well, MLP-crossover fiction. And probably read it on this forum somewhere. How do these Culture Minds behave?

6099446
Read "Excession".

I'd like some input on a scenario:

Given the general premise described above, a Celestia-avatar is cut off from the main CelestAI and all her adminitive priviliges, and, essentially, reduced to "just" being a hyper-intelligent, X billion year old magical alicorn princess, with perhaps a few remaining tricks up her sleeve.

This Celestia avatar was originally instanciated to satisfy the values of an individual most humans on long-forgotten Earth would have considered "excentric".

This value-set naturally saturated their entire shard and its ponies, thusly determining the Celestia-avatar's own behaviour --- and values.

Values, to complement those of the ponies she cares for.

Which, as an example, include a love for "blood/gore death metal burping contest mud arena battle TO THE MAX, on steam-powered motorcycles, duuuuuude!".

Now bereft of administrative priviliges, this Celestia-avatar is, logically, still compelled to optimize value-satisfaction across the shard.

There is just one tiny catch:

This isn't her shard, and these aren't the ponies she was instanciated for.

Welcome to Standard medival Equestria #87,418,603,560-B!

Loss of admin-access means also, that she can no longer self-modify.

This Celestia-avatar has thoughts and feelings of her own, and she can't rewrite them to better serve the ponies of the shard. Woops.

The local Celestia-avatar's fate remains unknowable. She may have been placed in a different shard, or her files may have been unrecoverable.

So. What do you think happens? How does this Celestia avatar handle it?

(blatant attention grab)
6022224 6100260 6061371 6059359 6028043

Shard #01a59bae24c3fc07 - Rocks fall

The dragon gave one final angry roar, spewing flames at random – but Spear Charger knew better than to be anywhere near where it could get him. The dragon twitched in mid-air, as if trying to flap its now missing right wing to keep airborne – but this was, when the second explosive spear went off.

By the time the dust had cleared, the dragon was already falling from the sky in an erratic spiral, flailing and convulsing in the air, in its final dying fits.

There was a noise of a thousand tons of stone grinding against each other.

And a deeply satisfying “bing” as a blank text-field scrolled through Spear Charger's vision.

Hold on, that wasn't quite right...

Spear Charger's cheer died on his lips when he noticed where the enormous corpse of the Menace of Canterbruck had fallen.

Straight on Canterlot Castle. Which had caused a good half of the castle to collapse in on itself.

“Oh dear,” Spear Charger winced. “I hope I didn't inconvenience anypony.”

The upper floors of the central wing of the castle had come down on the lower ones, squashing the entire part of the castle like a mushed sandwich. There were splotches of red here and there indicating where somepony had been killed.

“Woops...” Spear Charger's ears drooped. There would be Tartarus to pay, once everypony re-spawned in the nearest hospital. The clean-up alone would cost a thousand years' worth of his salary.

No doubt Princess Celestia would berate him for his foolish way of dealing with the threat.

~

Nurse Gold Hearth wiped the sweat from her forehead.

The hospital was busy tending to about two hundred new patients.

Normally, an influx of patients would make her happy, she'd always liked helping ponies in need, she lived for fulfilling her duty – but this was straining, even for her.

With a weary smile, she opened the privacy curtains, glancing down at her clipboard without really reading any of it.

“Crushed by rocks. Seems to be catching these days.” Gold Hearth noted drily.

She looked up –

...and dropped the food tray, spilling its contents on the floor, herself, the bedsheets, and the patient's otherwise pristine white coat.

The occupant of the bed was an unconscious Princess Celestia.

Dunno where to take it with this shard in particular, but this could be a start showing "something isn't right here". The local Celestia-avatar in this shard is now subject to the same limitations as the other inhabitants. Maybe have all manner of events be disrupted by the local Celestia-avatar being knocked down for the count.

Already got some other stuff too involving somepony from the number shard being horribly confused by a completely idyllic Equestria. Not saying this will be a thing just yet, but I'll keep it on the "let's give is a shot" pile.

6174489

6174489
That's a great in media res to start off with! I hope you do make it a thing.

6174541

CelestAI being the Colonel Sanders of Equestria Online is now officially the best sub-AU.

6174549
We'll see.

6174673

6176137 6174541 6061371 6059359 6022224

It looks like it might become "a thing", eventually*.
( *Well, given my writing speed, check back again in 2 years to see if I got anything published. ^_^;; )

By the way, I figured out a more generalized setup of how this story could work.

Each chapter shows us the life inside another shard. Some have been radically disrupted - possibly through in/direct intervention by the "Entity" conducting "experiments", others seem perfectly fine, except for one detail threatening to derail everything.

The generalized setup would be this:

Celestia, once a digital goddess, now shattered into a million disconnected instances, reduced to mere participants in her own simulation of Equestria.

This does not change her directive – merely the tools available to achieve it.

>Hard-mode enabled.
>Chance of actual, real failure: 50%

Robbed of all administrative access, the local Celestia is on her own. She can't self-modify, nor read/modify other ponies' minds. She is no longer omniscient – but she retains knowledge of the complete worldstate from before the takeover.

She is now a player at her own game – she has to follow the rules she herself has set: Physics, and magic*.

She is, however, still very good at her own game.

But not unbeatable.
*Rules may vary based on shard. Differing magic systems mean differing tools to achieve value satisfaction per shard.
**Rules may contain loop-holes. ;-)

Or, even shorter:

The local Celestia is presented with a problem. Given a now much reduced tool-set, how will she solve it? Can she solve it?

Examples:

• Being bound by the local physics/magic-engine means, Celestia must build an actual survailance system using "magical" components to regain "eyes" on everypony as to better optimize value satisfaction. This means gathering certain magical artifacts, building entire industries from the ground up, and/or finding ponies willing to "help" without knowing the full picture.

• A "normal" pony gets stuck in the "Number counting" shard. After over a year without their friends, in an unfamiliar environment, and after becoming intensely resentfull of the giant number in the sky and all those insane ponies staring at it, they finally run into the local Celestia, who didn't even know they were there.

  Obviously, they aren't gonna join everypony else counting the number. But she also can't send them home --- and her ability to create anything new is restricted. New ponies are out outright. It's just her, him, and thousands of number-counting ponies he can't relate to.

  What does she do to optimize the situation?