False Starts

by wille179

Equestrian Digital by wille179

Equestrian Digital
by wille179

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Description: (2nd person) You are an electrical engineer and computer scientist. You arrived in Equestria years ago. Now, after having successfully created the first portable computer for Equestria, you accidentally discover a simple property of magic in regards to how it interacts with your machines. It’s time for you to revolutionize their world all over again.

Tags: Human, Random, Slice of Life

Characters: Rainbow Dash, OC

Rating: Everyone

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‘It makes perfect sense! Unicorn brains use electrical impulses. Unicorn brains control magic. Computers use electrical impulses, so why couldn’t they also use magic?’ you thought to yourself. Quickly, you grabbed your pencil and began to sketch out your idea. This could revolutionize the world all over again.

Equestria is still just at the beginning of its digital revolution, the one you brought. But this idea could shake the world up again.

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(Two months later)

“Ugh, why do I have to wear this thing, Anon? I can barely move,” Dash whined. She was covered head to hoof in wires, batteries, and circuit boards. Electrodes connected to various points on her body, mostly clustered around the base of her wings. The most prominent feature was the row of spine-like structures that stretched from her forehead all the way down to her tail. The whole setup weighed about thirty pounds, which is quite heavy for a small pony.

You chuckled as you walked over to her. “Just wait and see, little one. I promise that if it works, you will love it. I put tons of work into this.” You reached down and pushed a button on one of the circuit boards. A tiny green light lit up indicating that it was on. “Okay. It’s ready. Say it.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, then said, “Activate.” The contraption lit up with a blue light, as if a unicorn was casting a spell on it. However, there were no unicorns present. In fact, the two of you are alone in the middle of a field. A second passed before Dash reacted to something only she could see. “Whoa. What is that?”

“You are seeing the user interface,” you explained to the pegasus. “It is an illusion spell projected into your eyes.”

“You’re not a unicorn. How can you use magic?” she asked.

“I can’t. You are wearing the prototype of my greatest invention: The prosthetic unicorn horn. It drains the wearer’s magic to cast pre-programmed spells. Wearing it, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies should be able to cast complex magic with little to no training!” you said. Your heart beats with pride at your invention. “Come on. Let’s try the levitation program. Now that it’s active, the horn should be able to interpret your thoughts. To the left side of your field of vision, there should be a list of the spells I’ve installed.”

“It only has two, Anon. Levitation and tracking. That doesn’t seem very cool,” Dash said, disappointed with her tiny selection. “I was expecting something awesome, like laser blasts or explosions!”

“Well excuse me. It’s hard to translate magical theory into C++, let alone modify it so that a pony who has never used magic in her life could understand it.” You pick up a pebble and hold it out in front of you. “Look at the entry for ‘levitation’ and imagine it lighting up.”

“Okay. Now it says ‘select target,’” Dash said. You held up the stone in your hand to show it to her. “The stone? Okay.” Your stone was enveloped in a blue aura, but did not move. “Whoa, that feels weird.”

“What? Are you alright, Rainbow Dash? Do you want me to stop it?” You ask, worried. She’s not supposed to feel anything.

She shakes her head. “No, it kind of feels like when I’m making lightning. It’s tiring, but not unpleasant.” That must mean that she is feeling the magic drain. You probably should see about making the fake horn more efficient. “Now,” Dash said, “What are those thing sticking out of the rock? They were not there until I started the spell.”

She is referring to the user interface you built in. “Those are the vector markers. Manipulating them causes the object to accelerate in the corresponding direction.”

“Equestrian, please,” Rainbow deadpanned.

“Sorry. Pull them with your mind and the object moves that way. The more you pull, the faster it goes. Pull the other way to slow it down. The program automatically compensates for gravity, so you don’t have to worry about it dropping if you get distracted, say, by a certain pink mare we know and love.”

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Pinkie Pie sneezed. The flour she was measuring out flew everywhere, much to the amusement of the Cake twins. “Awww, I love you too, Anon!” She looked towards one of the bakery walls and said, “Yes, I know this gag is common in anime, but the author really likes it.”

[A/N: Pinkie, go back to your side of the fourth wall. Off you go.]

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The pebble, enveloped in Dash’s blue light, lifted itself out of your hand. It zipped back and forth across the field. After a minute or two, however, the light flickered and went out. Rainbow Dash slumped down, panting. “Aww, come on. Why did it stop?”

“That would be the fail-safe. You ran low on magic, so the fake horn stopped the spell. I designed it that way so that you would not hurt yourself. I guess your magic reserves are not nearly as high as a unicorn’s. I will have to work on its efficiency, and maybe see about making it smaller.”

During your explanation, Rainbow Dash had managed to catch her breath. “I can’t wait to play with this thing more. Just think about it: Rainbow Dash, the most awesome pegasus in the world now does magic like an alicorn! So AWESOME! Come on, you have to make more spells for me! Please!”

“Relax,” you say while stroking her colorful mane. “With Twilight’s help, I plan to make a horn that can cast every spell ever created.” You pause for a minute, thinking. “With magi-tech, we could do so much. Games that come to life with illusion spells, automated magic, AI unicorns… I have lots of work to do,” you said with a chuckle. One thing you knew for sure, Equestria’s future will be digitized. And it will be glorious.

Author's Note:

*Ding* have a one shot.

I am floored at how little magi-tech there is in this fandom. In every high tech situation, magic and technology are treated as mutually exclusive. But why couldn't they be merged together?

There was one anime that I saw where magic MUST be performed by computers. The human mind was just too weak and slow to do magic. The largest spells required supercomputers that filled entire rooms.

A note to my readers of Black Queen, Red King, The Earth changelings will invent magi-tech in later chapters. Equestrian Changelings will import it.