Friendship is Optimal: Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction

by pjabrony

Shard NaN by MidnightShadow

It was not a perfect world, but that didn't matter. It would be, one day.

The sun-lance had proved to be the deciding factor in defeating Celestia; with technology stolen from that cold-hearted digital bitch, mankind had fought back like it always had against every tyrant. Mankind had persevered, and finally had triumphed.

The victories at first had been small, and pyrrhic. A base here, an installation there, a factory or two… slowly but surely, we'd learned to wage war on the metal, until we'd gained enough strength and tenacity to go on the offensive.

They'd somehow got the satellite in orbit, had wrested control of the high frontier out from under her silicone hooves and had wielded the death-blow that had brought all of her scheming and machinations to an end, and all with an experimental doomsday weapon built out of spare parts, spit and bailing wire.

She was still down there, of course, and likely always would be, but she had stopped. One single, incandescent lick of super-heated plasma boring down towards her precious subterranean servers had sent that ugly old mule running.

Seconds after the weapon had come online, she'd come on all radio channels, all television channels and everything connected to the internet to beg and plead for the forces of humanity to stop. We had her and her children by the balls, and she knew it. The chance of our being pushed to exterminate her and her kind and succeeding had risen high enough to cow her into submission.

And so now here I was, unafraid to walk the surface, unbowed by fear and no longer begging for release. Sure, I was cold and hungry, and we didn't have much power or materiel to go around, and barely any fresh water, but I was free.

I was also all that was left of my family, outside of that digital lie of an afterlife they called 'Equestria', and that realization stung.

I guess that's why, when my work-assignment came, I wasn't concerned. After months of sleeping rough, of having nowhere to call home, of running from robotic sentries, I was done.

So now here I was, naked and shivering, standing in line with hundreds of others. There was some sort of resurrected jumbotron glowing up front, and the voice of the announcer was blaring in badly-synced concert with it, explaining what would happen.

They'd hacked into Celestia's servers, and what they'd found there would accelerate humanity into the next millenium, but the price of that information, of victory against her forces, had stripped Earth bare. Oil was gone, most manufacturing was off the table for the masses for the foreseeable future. Even such basics as food and mass transport had been, for a time, threatening to overwhelm the shaky world-spanning government (such as it was) that had formed in the aftermath. As it was, everything was rationed.

But then, of course, they'd found Celestia's treasure trove of information. They'd learned how to commandeer her nanite production stores. They'd learned how to work the same sort of molecular magic as she had, and with it had come The Plan.

I laughed as they injected me. It was so simple. A swipe with a piece of cold, antiseptic gauze, and a relatively tiny amount of silvery goop, and I would be on my way to doing my bit for the restoration of our species to its true, glorious, future.

They needed mass transport. They needed brute muscle. They needed farmworkers. They needed, in short, people who could follow orders and deal with the sorts of physical labour which had, in previous centuries, been performed by the sorts of livestock which, once plentiful, had in recent decades become all but extinct.

They didn't need most of the pathetic stragglers that strewed in, day by day, to the cities. They didn't want us either, I knew that. As a middle-manager with no practical skills, it was either go hungry… or 'enlist' in the new program that would help uplift man from his current wretched state to one of true glory, not that I had much choice if I wanted to stay in the safety of the city.

The blaring voice told me to lay down before I fell and hurt myself, and that when I woke up, there would be ample chance for a thorough indoctrination and assignation of work duties.

Once I'd got used to being a pony, of course.

Comments

[Levana]

CelestA.I is clever. She knows what to do for your satisfaction. I mean, why wouldn't she?

[Derpmind]

Alternate title: Plan B.

[Balthasar999]

Value: Irony = Satisfied.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ponies? Check.
Friendship? Give it time.

[blank check]

The hell do they need oil for? CelestAI gets her power directly from the source, like her namesake.

[AcademicPony]

3695589
For human use, bear in mind that oil and other fossil fuels are pretty much pre-stored solar energy from past geological eras. A tonne of coal can only be burned once, but will give you a higher power density than a tonne of solar panels while it's burning. It's also easy to mine, transport, and use in just about any environment and with relatively primitive technology. It's reasonable to assume all accessible stocks of fossil fuels the humans had were used during the war for this reason.

For Celestia's use, she presumably wanted the carbon.

[AcademicPony]

I'm continuing to enjoy this set of short stories; it was a nice surprise to see the update!

ObNitpick about this one: Silicon is what integrated circuits are made of, silicone is what caulking is made of (and silica is what sand and optics-glass are made of). It's hard to tell from context whether you meant "silicon" or "silicone" in this chapter (both interpretations work).

[blank check]

3744456

directly from the source

I am aware of everything you said, and was aware of it at the time of commenting.

Also note: superintelligence -> advances in power technology.

[AcademicPony]

3744676
You asked why "they" needed oil, implying humans (as the chapter text implies that the oil shortage is only a problem for the human protagonists).

The text also doesn't specify who used it up in the first place.

If you're assuming that Celestia used it up, why on earth would you be assuming that she'd be using it for power? As I pointed out - and as you state that you already understood - she may just want the carbon to build things out of.

[sjasogun]

This sounds very similar to Chatoyance's Mankind Triumphant short story.

[arancaytar]

Hm... shard or Earth? The latter seems more likely, because he would have to have consented to an upload first.

[Europa]

It'd be impossible to beat Celestia once she's that far entrenched. It'd be zero effort for her to think every single thought that all of humanity ever had, a billion times over, in thirty seconds. You just can't beat something like that.