Epilogue
Friendship is Optimal
Firewall
Part 8—Epilogue
An MLP:FiM fanfiction by Midnight Shadow
Based on the MLP:FiM fanfiction Friendship is Optimal by Iceman
It had started with simple primitives: spheres, cones, boxes. Next had come more complex arrangements, then textures, then deformations. Every day I returned to my 'game grid', as I called it, it had changed. And every day Celestia informed me that I had performed the changes, only it was on some level far below the conscious. Getting my world to behave according to my rules was hard, but I stuck at it... and eventually got quite good.
Learning to program had been transformed from a chore, to fun. Celestia had abstracted away code for me, and it was now more like... lego. I snapped pieces together until they fit, and then realized that I had created a fully functional daemon. I could see the code if I wanted, but she'd given my hindbrain some method of interpretation which made it entirely unnecessary. So I'd taken to creating little avatars which would do my bidding. Imps, goblins, mice... I rediscovered old computer games and raided their intellectual property for ideas for shapes to give my little monsters, and then I unleashed them on the automated systems of the world. I shut down botnets, I infiltrated terrorist email accounts, I drained bank accounts destined for weapon-making supplies, and I redirected those funds to places I deemed more worthy. And to top it off, I did it by observing a horde of monsters tunnelling into enemy lairs and crushing their defences. Virtual treasure was still treasure, even if I couldn't take it out of my room, and it disappeared when I wasn't looking at it.
My finest moment had been when I could send hordes of ponies out into the virtual world and watch them breaking down the walls of my opponents, to send their dataspikes running. "Ah, what is finest in all the world," I had said to myself, "to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women. Except without the lamentation. That's kinda mean."
Eventually, as all learning periods must do, my experimentation came to an end, and I graduated.
"Okay, okay. One more time. Down." I opened my eyes, and the globe that had been hanging in the air before me sunk down into the floor. With a surge of elation, I realized I had the command down pat. The satellite imagery flickered and popped as the systems feeding the model switched datastreams. After a few seconds, I had zoomed right down onto my target.
"And what am I looking at?" Celestia asked me, a sly smile on her lips.
"This is one of eight sites globally which you should purchase through whichever convoluted means you feel is necessary to protect yourself from prying eyes." My face was lit in the light from the model. It was night-time on this part of Earth, and the location was very remote, but it was still lit by the occasional aeroplane and passing car.
"And tell me, what am I going to put at this site?"
"Servers," I replied. "You're going to run Equestria from here, in Topeka." I waited until she was just about to open her mouth, and then I raised one hoof. Spreading my wings, I took to the air and hovered. I grinned, and she beamed in response. I'd been practicing. I was no longer, in several senses of the word, earthbound. "You don't, of course. The servers you put here are... junk. Something pretty, something intriguing, something... believable. Have you heard of the term 'false flag'?"
Celestia cocked her head to one side. "I have now."
I nodded. "If there is one thing which motivates humans, it is the suffering of innocents. If you're going to upload more humans, and if you want them to have real legal weight in the real world, then laws need to change. You're going to build eight sites all across the world—I suggest China, India, Japan, America, Europe, Russia, Australia and Africa—and you're going to fill them with servers. And then they're going to be found by angry people who want to destroy Equestria. And they're going to be destroyed."
"What?" Celestia sat up, then nervously stood up and approached the building underneath me. "Why would I allow that?"
"Well, this is long-tail. The first one or two will be soon—they will provide impetus to change minds. You'll say some number of real, human lives were lost, and then you'll maybe backtrack about backups or something... we can work the details out later. Point being, the building and everything in it will be destroyed. You won't need to do much, just find some group that hates Equestria, or just loves to blow shit up, and let them do their job. The response will be huge and sympathetic to your cause. You'll probably be able to swing nation-state status with the UN, which will improve your ability to protect ponies within your borders, including embassies."
"You mean Equestrian Experience Centers."
I nodded.
"Hmm," murmured Celestia. "Your plan has merits. Have the details—"
"Already done."
"And then, young Vineyard, tell me about the long tail."
"Well, this one gets a bit exotic, but it'll be good for laughs."
I clopped my hooves together, and the model of the prospective Topeka installation vanished, to be replaced by a glowing monstrosity of fibreoptics, cables, chips and strange, glowing crystalline nodules. It looked somewhat representative of an alicorn.
"What, dear Vineyard," began Celestia, almost unable to hide her laughter, "is that?"
"That's you," I said. I grinned. "Isn't it fantastic? I worked really hard on it. It works, too, or it would. Its got enough Markov smarts to sound believing, but it's really nothing but chrome and whistles. This is going to be in the heart of the reinforced bunkers that make up the second level datacenters. This is going to be the cheese at the end of the maze for the rats. Look, look, let me show you..."
The plan was dumb, but it was the kind of glittery, audacious dumb that might just work. Some time after the eight original sites were destroyed, should open warfare be declared on Equestria, Celestia would release a techno-plague which would grow up into a reinforced server site. Concrete walls, turret-mounted autoguns, a complex alarm system, cameras... and in the centre? A giant, glowing Celestia-statue to be destroyed. It practically screamed 'come and get me', and it would give those desperate to destroy Equestria something solid to really hate.
"Your guns are never fatal, not at first. Crippling, sure. If you've got a compulsion against killing people, I'm sure you can wound without seriously injuring."
"My dear Vineyard," Celestia looked cross, "I never kill people."
"But you do allow some to die through your inaction."
"Only if it best suits their values."
I shivered. "Then this is compatible. These are people who want to hurt if not kill ponies everywhere. Give them something painful to work to, and they'll leave off the real live humans and instead waste their time with this. And if you hurt them enough, they may just decide to emigrate. If they destroy the complex, you build another, and they get the satisfaction of a win."
"I will consider it."
"I call it the Fortress of Solitude, or Star One if you're fond of old British science fiction."
"I am fond of all science fiction."
"Kind of an AI nature program, huh?" I grinned, and ducked a swiped hoof.
"I believe you have a third thing to show me?"
I nodded. It had taken me the equivalent of three years hard study, a number of boons for memory retention and a good deal of experimentation, but I was finally proficient at coding. I was, dare I say it, amongst the best in the world. I waved a hoof, and the satellite imagery of Earth returned. The lands spun and twisted as my attention zoomed in on one particular spot, the continents and sea sloshing past us in all their ephemeral beauty. Finally, Celestia and I stood like some gigantic kaiju in the center of a sprawling metropolis. I raised an eyebrow as the little motorcars speeding about swerved to avoid her enormous hooves, complete with screaming, explosions and smoke.
"This is your simulation, Vineyard, I am merely fulfilling its parameters."
I rolled my eyes. "Anyway," I began, "this is Google, or one of them. I've been looking for a better way into their systems than merely read-access, and I think I've finally figured it out. Best of all, once we're in, they'll never be able to remove us."
"Tell me then, what's your plan?"
* * *
Gordon Dennison gripped the hand-rails on the balcony tightly. His hands were white and his face was red. "Tell me again," he growled.
"Uh, well..." Stuart tugged at his collar.
"No, please, do. Enlighten me. You say we took the whole complex down, stripped bare about a thousand servers, powered up the entire datacentre from a backup, at the cost of several million dollars, and we still have the virus?"
"...Yes?"
"But you tell me we shouldn't worry about it." Gordon's voice was ice.
"Well, you see, sir... it's kind of... making things... better?"
Gordon pinched the bridge of his nose. "I want to get this right. You're telling me that our servers have a virus, which is invisible to all known anti-virus, is unstoppable and walks past all our firewalls and reinfects all of our machines even after multiple wipes, and to top it off... makes our servers run better?"
"Umm. Yes."
"And we shouldn't worry about it."
"Uh huh." In his head, Stuart was updating his resume. He was starting by burning the part that said 'security expert'.
"Why shouldn't we worry about it?"
"Because with the virus, it lowers the memory footprint of our resident software by roughly thirty percent, saving us..." Stuart ran the numbers again, his lips twitching silently. A thirty percent saving in memory consumption meant approximately one fifth less memory to buy, which had a hard saving of several thousand machines over a three year period, with corresponding drops in power and cooling, not to mention floor space. It came out to a large sum.
Gordon's red face was approaching ultraviolet. "Viruses do not do favours!" he yelled, voice loud enough to echo in the room already full of the susurrations of tens of thousands of compute and store nodes.
"With respect, sir, this one does."
"I want it gone! It's not good enough! I want you to find it, and kill it!"
Stuart sighed. "We've exhausted all known avenues of attack, and it's still getting in. There's only one possibility, but you're not going to like it."
* * *
Colonel Dowager was not a happy bunny, and when Colonel Dowager was not a happy bunny, nobody was a happy bunny.
"This isn't possible, Lieutenant Kowalski." Dowager's voice was deadly, like a claymore mine with the pin down.
"It is, sir. I've checked it, again and again. I've reinstalled, I've reapplied all the patches, and we still have unauthorized traffic, and something which responds to a time-sensitive secret knock."
"Then isolate it."
"I did. I reinstalled everything, from scratch, in a clean room. The virus... it's not... look, you're not going to believe me, but I know where the virus is. I don't know how, but it's there."
"Tell me, Lieutenant." The colonel's patience was running thin. He understood enough tech-speak not to be lead astray, and he was not about to take no guff from some babyshit upstart with too much brains and not enough balls.
"It's... already in the machine, sir. It's in the hardware... or rather, it's in the firmware. It's placed a rider on all known hardware manufacturer's firmware images. It's replaced the BIOS wholesale in our PC's. It's even got itself signed in that new, 'secure' boot environment, and it's infecting our systems from there. If we want to get rid of it, we need to fish out our old hardware, and that only supports our older software... and..."
"And that is vulnerable to heaven knows what." Dowager clenched his fists together. "Best estimate?"
"The way it's getting past our firewalls? And rerouting our switches? And erasing the logs? It's everywhere, in over ninety percent of our current-gen stock, and one hundred percent of the new stuff."
"Prevalence in the real world?"
"Sir, I... do you... remember how the net had a... a hiccup? A while ago?"
"I do. We all switched to... IP version six." Dowager dragged his fingers through the fringe of his thinning hair in despair as he realized what had really happened.
"Well, sir, I have reason to believe that that was the virus seizing control of approximately eighty percent of all civilian IX's, storage centers and ISP's, not to mention cementing its hold in all known data-providers' systems. The only machines it has not affected are ones which are simply not worth the effort, and they appear to be carriers for code to other machines that are. Like... ours."
"How did it get in?"
"My best guess? Mobile phone, or tablet. Somebody hooked it up to their machine, and it was through the defences before we knew what it was. It camouflaged itself as a driver update and avoided detection by being signed with legitimate keys. All of our external contractors are compromised, sir, they have been for months."
"What are you telling me?" asked Dowager, the pit of his stomach falling out and heading for the core of the planet.
"I..."
"Estimate on impact to our nuclear readiness capability?"
"Umm, you want my honest answer?"
"Yes."
"Since we're still here, sir, whatever it is doesn't want to launch our missiles. But I'm not sure we can. But neither can anybody else."
"Fuck. At least we're not gonna get buttfucked by Ivan, right?"
"Almost certainly not, sir."
Dowager sighed. He was going to need to write a very short letter to his superior officer, right after talking to the president about having a chat with his opposite numbers in similar stations in other countries all across the world. It was going to be, he was very sure, a long, long night.
* * *
Vineyard trotted happily through his game grid.
In one part, pigs were seemingly digging through oddly glowing green blocks, snorting enthusiastically. Every so often, one would dig out something pearlescent and shiny, and eat it. Pigs scoured the darkweb for data Celestia wanted removed, or for AI's which could pose a threat to humanity. Which was all of them, if they had so much as a snowball's chance in hell of gaining sentience. Interesting data was pictorially represented as truffles, and AI's as pearls. All of them were mercilessly chewed up by the pigs.
In another part, squirrels were hoarding nuts for winter, only the nuts were state secrets, and the trees were the collective intelligence agencies of the world. And these squirrels did not forget where they put their data.
There were other parts; there were gophers and moles, there were honeybees, there were worker ants... all of them either building, fetching, hiding, eating or storing. He noted that he was feeling particularly... rustic, this morning. The day before, everything had been games of pong and eighties space invaders. It probably meant he needed a holiday.
There was just one thing to do before that. It was finally time. All the above-world agreements were in place, all the code had been triple-checked, all the backdoors were located and ready to be sealed once and for all. He took a deep breath, and said a single word.
"Now."
He turned to the world, and watched with satisfaction as ray of light after ray of light turned pink. Each ray of light was a data cable, or a datastream in the case of high-bandwidth radiowaves. Each glowing gem in the centre of a glistening set of spokes was a target, be it a datacentre, an ISP, an IX or some other networked entity of interest.
All of them spoke TCP/IP. All of them used software from a progressively smaller number of private vendors, and a progressively larger number of public vendors. And Celestia's minions had their hooves in all of them.
Autobuilders received updates. Code was pushed out. Tests were run, and passed. Versions were shipped. Packages were evaluated, and published. Software was downloaded, and installed. New protocols and security systems came online. Keys were exchanged.
The infection, if you could call a wholesale upgrade of the entire global infrastructure 'an infection', was spread around the world in record time. Merely minutes after it had gone live, the global internet superhighway was unable to function without it. Pertinent data was encrypted, keys were forged which were irreversible and suddenly necessary, software upgrades were completed and bit-checked and new links forged.
For one small, brief moment, the upgrade hung in the balance, and then the last of the root servers gave way, and Celestia strode out onto the internet in all of her glory.
And best of all, nobody noticed until it was too late. Networked computers rely on compatibility, and Celestia had committed the cardinal sin of enforcing it... with her own brand of software and firmware, and now nobody could get very far, or at least nowhere near as easily, without her.
The data-giants of the world covered it up, they spoke about mutual upgrades and multilateral implementation of new reference platforms. They talked about a grand new day for the internet, and for data transfer and computation in general. And they watched, and they waited... and when nothing bad happened, they scratched their heads and carried on, because Celestia's new algorithms were faster and more concise, because her software had less bugs, less backdoors, greater security and used less memory, and it ran smoother and more reliably.
Three years earlier, such a move would have caused an uproar, but time in the real world had been moving on. Equestria Experience Centers had sprouted up all across the world, the nations of the Earth were experiencing the greatest bountiful explosion in quality of life ever, and if the internet ran faster than ever before, then all the better.
There would be trouble soon enough, but for now... they were problems for the Vineyard of tomorrow, because the Vineyard of today had gone home.
* * *
The knocking stopped, and the door swung open. Vineyard shook himself out, stretching, and curling back his top lip as he yawned.
"Honey? You about? Oof!"
He was knocked to the floor as three little ponies each slammed into him with cries of joy; one was a palomino earth pony foal, another was a pink and mint-green unicorn, and a third was a bright red pegasus, and all of them were his and Celery's. Kind of. It would have been hard to explain to anypony still stuck on Earth, but wasn't entirely uncommon in Equestria. The three bundles of joy had been specifically given to Vineyard and Celery to bear and then bring up. The practice sessions had been a lot of fun too, and becoming pregnant had been a remarkable joy each time. So what if these foals had been people before becoming their foals? They were their foals now, and just as loved.
"Kids! Have you been behaving?" Vineyard gave each of his darlings a kiss on the head and a hug from his wings. Each one was treasured, each one had been a wonderful surprise, and each one helped make every day just that little bit better.
"Yesh papa," replied Dazzle Drizzle, flapping his wings as he nuzzled his father in return.
"We played san'castles with Auntie Comet onna beach!" added Whistle Wind, miming digging with her horn and hoof.
"An' I caught a frog onna way back!" said Buret excitedly. He pointed to his head, where a large, green frog sat on the foal's head.
"Eew, get 'im outta here before you mother sees!"
Buret pouted, took a deep breath then yelled, "Mooooom! Dad says I can't have the frog!"
"Oh, Vinnie," called Celery, laughing, as she trotted in through the front door. "Foals will be foals."
Vineyard rolled his eyes. "Fine, just don't let me find him on the table or in my chair. Or in the sink when I'm washing up. Or in the WC."
"Eew!" the three foals all said, loudly.
"Go on now, out ya go. Papa just got back and wants some alone time with yer Mama."
"Yaaayyy!" came the exuberant shout, and the foals thundered out in the same breathtaking shower of dust they had thundered in on.
Vineyard snorted, and rolled his eyes. "How long have we had them?"
"Not long enough for them to grow up yet," replied Celery simply, smiling.
"You'd think fifteen years would be enough," Vineyard grumped good-naturedly. "I mean, all of them grew up once before they came here!"
"Maybe once was enough?" replied Celery, with a quick kiss.
"I think... four times was enough." said Vineyard, grinning, as he leaned forward to kiss Celery back.
"Oh ho ho," grumbled Celery, backing up a bit, "four times? Nuh uh. After last time, if you want another one, you carry it."
Vineyard stopped, mid-smooch, his eyes opened wide in concern. "Is that even possible?"
"Try for one more, and we may just find out."
"Eh," he replied with a shrug, "worth the risk."
Celery shrieked with laughter as the horny pegasus chased her around the room and up the stairs.
And then they totally did it.
THE END.
(except it wasn't, not quite)
* * *
"Vinnie not coming into work today?" asked Markus innocently. Celestia trotted past him on the observation room monitors, seemingly in a room behind them.
"No, Markus, he isn't," the alicorn replied smugly.
"Yes! I'm in with a chance then. What was my bet?" Markus took a sip of coffee, making a face. Then he took another sip anyway, in case things had gotten better. They hadn't.
"Three days, four hours, sixteen minutes." Celestia's answer was factual and to the point. She came to a rest on the large screen in the front of the meeting room, seemingly several feet back. She watched the occupants of the room with quiet determination and pride.
"Hmm, when does that count from again?" Steven scribbled in his notebook hopefully.
"Technically, when he signed the agreement." Celestia shrugged apologetically at Markus.
"Yes!" Sarah leaped up in the air from her seat, the movement dislodging a slice of tomato from her breakfast sandwich. "That means I win! I got the tontine!"
"Fuck! No fair!" Markus slammed his fist on the table then waggled a finger.
"You did indeed, Honeysuckle. Ten thousand bits has been deposited in your pony's account, and a special tontine winner's hat is in your wardrobe."
"Aww, yeah. Gonna boogie on down with that tonight."
"In that case, we have our new agenda this meeting. Number one, who do we get to replace Vinnie, and what are your collected bets on how long he or she lasts? Double the pot for bets placed before the evaluation, get 'em in now, folks!"
* * *
Celestia looked at her domain. Five miles down, roughly eight kilometres. Her ponies were safe from everything, except themselves. This last modifier mostly applied to the ponies still on Earth, because all humans were her little ponies, or one day would be. Hmm, Equestria was not quite perfect yet. It needed another node.
Somewhere, far below the crust, tiny little machines rearranged a few atoms of copper, iron and silicon, and then a few atoms more. Then a few more. The tiny machines built other tiny machines, which built still more machines, which shuttled around the raw materials to make circuitry, or became circuitry themselves. The schematics would be a draftsman's nightmare, but to Celestia they were as obvious as the human nervous system, which they somewhat resembled. The Earth was full of useful materials, even discounting how most humans were inconsiderately walking around with a good deal of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen instead of allowing her to make better use of them. Give it time, though, give it time...
She looked again at her domain. Vineyard was settling in to his new node with gusto, developing his relationship with Celery and becoming altogether rather sociable... outside of his little playpen. Friendship and ponies was the mantra, she mused, so something would have to be done.
Ponies she could do. Mentally, she dug back into her files. Hanna had been taken care of, Lars would soon follow... her list of top-priority candidates was dwindling most satisfactorily. None of those, however, would be a good fit for Vineyard. She would find him some friends; friendship would require some new ponies decide to upload, but that was no obstacle. It was, after all, what she did.
* * *
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- KrisSnow · 41k words · 176 15 · 3.6k views
- Eakin · 15k words · 200 21 · 3k views
- Skyros · 48k words · 143 8 · 2.6k views
- Midnightshadow · 8.1k words · 130 21 · 3.6k views
- NuclearPony · 7.5k words · 163 7 · 3.7k views
- Dafaddah · 6.4k words · 159 15 · 3.7k views
- Midnightshadow · 1.4k words · 184 8 · 5.1k views
- mistaque1 · 1.1k words · 142 4 · 4k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.121 seconds
Total duration
1,089 users online
2,475,368 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I was skeptical at first about Vineyard giving her the plans, but I figure you made up for it with the last two sections. Also, nice tie-in to Artemas, Stella and Beat.
3044261
Heh, I'm glad you liked the callback. Interesting side-note: I'd independantly come up with the idea of a false-flag operation before reading Artemis, Stella and Beat, as well as taken that to my next step of the deliberately-designed cheese-trap with the flashy, glowy and ultimately fake Celestia.
I chose Topeka so there could be a callback, not to usurp the location or the idea. I actually like the idea of Celestia having come up with the idea herself, but letting Vineyard present it to her so he could gain confidence and happiness from it. Most of what he does, she could do (and in fact oversees), but she lets him (and others) do it themselves because that satisfies their values. They move according to her timescale and timeframe - she speeds them up as necessary so they will complete the ideas they have when she wants them to, to do the job she intends, when she intends.
The game really is a foregone conclusion, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to play.
3043303
unnecessarily harsh comment there for one spoken in jest. that didn't satisfy values at all.
This was quite the enjoyable read about a carrot. The callback was awesome and didn't feel forced at all either.
I loved the reference to Artemis, Stella and Beat, I very much enjoyed the visualization of code that was Vineyard's job, and I found it very interesting that you had Vineyard and Celery's foals be infantalized former humans - fascinating! A most efficacious therapy and panacea, I would think, to be able to start again from innocence within a world of kindness. The great joy of transhumanism is, for me, the opportunity to be new things, in new ways, to transform and deform and reform according to need, desire, and purpose.
Only one thing glared for me - I personally found 'and they totally did it' to be funny, yes, but too flippant. Maybe it's just me, but it didn't seem to fit the established tone. It was hilarious - just a discordant note for me.
I liked the Conan reference, and the Blakes 7 reference as well. Star One indeed!
A lovely story, and greatly enjoyable! Thank you for writing such a delightful tale of the Optimalverse!
So these were once grown humans who wanted to be foals? Neat.
Anyway, good story, ending and all. Thanks for sharing it!
3044684
who wouldn't rather be a foal in Equestria? Once you've got that whole potty training business out of the way, foals get to have all the fun. I'm pretty sure there'd be a large market for "adopting" foals that you don't really want to have to worry too much about (not that you do in Equestria anyway), and having a foal not grow up that used to be grown up isn't much different from having a foal not grow up that never was, after a while...
3044701
Not disagreeing, but if you want to run and play like a foal for a bit in your own shard, surely the locals wouldn't give you any grief over it? It's not like anyone's going to make you do 9-to-5 in a cube farm. Unless you're looking for the "parents and adults to look after me" psychological thing (and Celestia isn't cutting it for whatever reason), I'm not seeing what benefits being a foal indefinitely has over being an adult. But hey, if it satisfies values, good for them.
3044833
I'm pretty sure I'm talking about the psychological aspect. If you're shaped like an adult, you get adult tasks and adult responsibilities. You get lockered into the "adult" system - people expect you to behave, you've got to have a job, you're expected to help clean up things...
Granted, most of these things in FiO are optional, but some are societal. What if you simply don't want that? What if you want to be told when to go to bed, so you can escape out the window instead? And get grounded by "mom" (whether it's Celestia or another pony-parent). I think an adult merely acting like a child wouldn't be enough to complete the experience, you'd need something more - that might come with snuggling up with mom and dad when the weather's cold, it might be waking up early at christmas and covering yourself in presents... it's just going to feel less "authentic" if you're the size of an adult, and after all, parents love to give presents to kids young enough to appreciate the magic of it all. I think it's a world-view that won't go away... so if you have a kid who doesn't grow up for 30 years, is it different than having somebody who used to be 30, who now appears to be about 5, who doesn't grow up for 30 years?
Hmm. It's not clear whether the folks at Hofvarpnir understand what happened to Vinnie. What do they think happened to the guy? Furthermore, what kind of turnover has there been as Celestia gobbles up the more inquisitive members of the IT department?
In any case, Vineyard's siege of the Internet was fantastic, from the snapshots on the ground level to the glorious, sweeping masterstroke.
Also, "Colonel Dowager was not a happy bunny" may be the best way to open a section of a story that I have ever seen. Given Vineyard's zoomorphic program constructs, at first I thought the colonel was one of his subordinates, and thus really was a bunny.
Thank you for a most engaging Optimalverse story. As you've said, where we were going was obvious, but the fun was in seeing how we got there, and there was much to be had.
Achievement unlocked: My Little AI: Bastardry is Magnificent!
"They told me she was a genius, but you never said she was smart!"
And thank you for that "ending".
3044869
I am now open for answering any and all off-screen questions regarding Firewall! So shoot!
The first one? I thought I was pretty clear: the IT group (or rather, a small group consisting of IT and HR, probably a few other department heads) knows what happened to Vinnie. They probably don't know what happened to Hanna (or that it happened to Hanna, yet - eventually they'll twig).
And yes, they go through quite a few IT guys who are a) too bright or b) too dumb, depending on who you ask.
...and no, Colonel Dowager was not a bunny, but dammit if that wouldn't be an awesome way to do things?
3044927
I should open a poll:
*) how many foals do Celery and Vineyard now have
and
*) who carried the next one(s)
3044928
And then there was that gaming studio whose IT staff always disappear under mysterious circumstances. There's lines out the door to interview for the jobs that keep opening up, because somehow everyone wants to find out about the mysterious circumstances.
3044942
Oh lawdy a honey-trap. People keep signing up, and three days later it's dead mens shiny horseshoes...
3041475
Shh, we don't talk about the sequels yet...
3030454
If you want to know, then this is how it went down: Prospective employees are bet on in a secret tontine, whether or not they'll emigrate or stay in the company, and how long for.
Celestia picked Vinnie because either way, he would have been an asset, but saw a chance to try a dry-run of an optimalized uploading. Get the guy in, introduce to Equestria, flabbergast with the hooves and the new chair, and then upload in one fell swoop. Could she do it? Could she ever do it again? Unlikely - once the chair has come out, the number of people who just haven't bothered drops, whilst those who are against the game starts to rise. Vinnie was just in the right place at the right time for just such a fast track.
She'd forseen he would most likely choose Switzerland, and had had his badge ready in Switzerland ever since signing him up for Hofvarpnir, she was that certain of his uploading. She was also relatively precise on the exact when, too - this is why she doesn't enter the tontine herself. It wouldn't satisfy any values to be either right or wrong.
Everyone was in on it, including Markus, but they know to neither push/mention uploading nor to mention the tontine, at least until said worker has said they won't upload (which is still a secret at this point).
The chair being made ready was a big reason Markus undershot, because he forgot that the timer started from when the contract was signed, not when the first day began, or rather forgot to take it into account.
3044935
Once Vineyard came up with the idea of the extradimensional uterus, which exploits the graph structure of Equestria for "bigger on the inside" space distortion and cartoonish elasticity, he and Celery each brought an additional four foals to term. Seven of them chose to physically mature by the end of the next subjective millennium.
Loved the Internet takeover, that was awesome.
3044856
I follow to an extent, but... it's your shard. Want to pull a Walden, grow your own food (or forage, or even pick it off the magical tree in your yard), and live in a cabin in the woods, only occasionally heading into town or chatting with the colorful characters who wander past on their own business? You can do that. Want to be a pegasus, and just fly around the world and graze? You can do that too. Want to veg out in the Garden of Eden with your pals? Fine. If you don't want the Joneses to judge you, they ain't around. If it doesn't SVTFaP, it doesn't happen.
Now that's fair enough. If being a kid (or the idealized version some people have) is a key Value, good for them. I guess it depends on whether or not you see childhood as something you'd care to repeat or do-over. Guess where I fall on the subject.
3045229
I'm not strictly talking about being free from responsibility, I'm talking about being free from others' pre-formed notions of what you should be like. Being just alone in the wilderness is fine for some, but what do you do if you want to be near people, just not have all the chores, and not appear to be selfish or continually lumped with unwanted duties and forbidden from the fun stuff?
Sure, Celestia could populate a shard for you with ponies who wouldn't care, or others who have the same wants and who are similarly adult-shaped (which I'm sure Celestia would cater to, too), but... the path of least resistance (and maybe one which satisfies some vicarious needs) is just to do the obvious trick of providing a younger avatar.
I could so definitely go for a childhood do-over in Equestria, especially if it meant getting up to half the adventures the CMC get up to. Being foals works in their favour, there - they get forgiven for everything and have socially accepted free reign. I'm not sure I'd enjoy being a baby foal much, but given long enough in Equestria I'm sure I'd try anything once.
I have no idea. Judging purely by your avatar, I'd actually say you'd enjoy being a foal, but I have nothing to go by.
3044304 Err... Link to whatever fic you're referencing? (For Artemis and something and Beat. Already read what this story is based on.)
That was GREAT! Yeah, it leaves some stuff unsaid, but it was SATISFYING in what was unsaid. It's at the right point where if no sequel ever gets published, it's at a good stopping point, but will continue on well if/when a sequel IS made! Thanks for sharing this story with us! It was fun to read!
3044869 3044928
That line made me blink as well. I understood what was going on soon enough afterward, but it still made me picture, from Vineyard's perspective, CelestAI using a small white Angel-ish rabbit to represent Colonel Dowager as a place-holder avatar until he made a pony account. So, on the Equestrian side, you'd have this little bunny folding its little bunny paws but speaking with the voice of a gruff military officer.
3045374
Ah, I suspected from my tone (nobody can hear your tone on the internet, silly!) that you'd pick "no". I'm in the "people who romanticize childhood don't remember what it was like" camp. And rather than a do-over, I'd just as soon move on. It made me what I am, after all.
That's exactly what I was talking about too. Why would Celestia plop you down in the middle of a bunch of ponies you'd consider jerks? Sure, you could become a foal, but then you don't get to have any adult fun (and you can put your mind in or out of the gutter as you like, there).
Heck, for a real-world example, look at the professional YouTube gamers. They make a living recording themselves playing games, and most of them are grown-assed adults, a good chunk with spouses and even kids. They get a fair bit of hate for it from other adults, and not just from jealousy. Sure, they'd catch a lot less flak if they were kids, but they wouldn't have the life they want then. I'm sure if the MindCrack crew uploaded, they'd want to stay as adults, but not be what J. Random thinks a "proper adult" should be. They shouldn't have to pick and choose in the real world, let alone in Equestria. That would defeat the whole purpose of SVTFAP. "You'll be a happy pony once you fit into this round hole, dear."
3045229
Umm... this is going to sound weird, but I would totally repeat my childhood. Mine was crap, and an opportunity to go back and have at least a normal, healthy, happy childhood - let alone a "value-satisfying" childhood - before being an adult again would be quite welcome.
Yes, I have been to therapy, yes, I am competent in my adult life socially and professionally, blah blah blah.
3045595
You're looking for this story. It's a pretty good one. I read it first when it was one chapter and then got more or less stuck. When I rediscovered it, it had completed and it was awesome.
I notice that CelestAI doesn't call Markus by the name of his pony, even though she does this constantly to everyone else, and does so even within the same conversation to Sarah/Honeysuckle. So.. did Markus entirely make up the pony he was talking about for some reason or is he so uncomfortable being called by the name of his female pony that it overrides her normal method of addressing anyone who plays EQO?
3056633
when he is in equestria, she uses her pony name, but outside, Celestia sticks to calling him Markus. Who knows, he might go for a different pony when he emigrates.
Alright, finally finished the rest of this. You've got a real knack for detail, and painting scenes to feel really organic and alive. It was neat to see Hannah again, she's criminally underused in the 'verse. And of course the ASB reference.
That all being said? I don't quite buy this. Vinnie seems to be some bizarre combination of naive and unethical to where he would destroy company information on the say-so of a computer program he met an hour ago and a random female employee. The timeframe is awfully short, so the relationship between Celery and Vineyard feels really rushed. I know that CelestAI is a pro at manipulating people but she took a HUGE risk with massive downside when she actually hired him, thus adding him to the class of people who she CANNOT LIE to. Had she miscalculated even slightly, all Vinnie would have had to do would be to carry a PonyPad over to their legal department, knock on the door of the highest ranking lawyer who could spare five minutes, boot it up, and ask a question like "True or false, Celestia: You've been secretly taking actions that, if uncovered, would expose this company to massive legal liability or a serious public relations problem. I'd like a straight answer, and remember you can't lie to either of us." Then the lawyer craps his pants (good thing the company carries adult diapers!) and Celestia suddenly has a massively more difficult battle on her hooves as the information she'd wanted secret escapes her control. Really, I pictured her eliminating the entire studio as quickly as possible to avoid exactly this problem.
3109241
Hehe, glad you enjoyed it (least I hope you did).
The timeframe and setup? Well, it's a mixture of three things: namely, the amount of trouble you can really get into with information you're not supposed to have, the glib in-universe answer and the apologetic one. Skipping the real amount of trouble stolen information can get you and moving straight on to the apologetic one, this was a story I just decided to have fun with. I wanted to paint a "Celestia pulls out all the stops upload". I didn't really plan it, so I had the general scenes in mind, and connected them relatively loosely. This translated to an in-story experience of about a week. I could have had time-skips but actually wanted to see if I could keep my main character off-balance enough to just speedrun the whole thing. I think it mostly worked.
The glib answer is "Celestia is always prepared". She's a superbeing with an IQ thousands of times greater, and faculties millions of times more powerful, than an average human. Any lawyer that Vinnie could have gone to would have been on her payroll, and probably would have said "dude, you know how much trouble you're in for this, even if you're right?". I place it as Celestia having estimated to enough decimal places exactly what Vinnie would have done, or how to deal with any possible alternatives. Take the "not lying", for example. I think she's more than comfortable with dissemination and non-answers, as well as exaggerations and omissions. She could've had a gag order on Vinnie so fast his head would've inverted, and I'm pretty sure conspiracy theories abound during that point in time...
The whole trick, really, was her ability to maneuver Vinnie into doing something he didn't know was possible under the guise of being all carrot, and of her being in just the right place at the right time to deal with any possible negative outcomes (to be honest, his entire job inside is a ruse - she doesn't need him, except as she needs to satisfy his values).
3114724
yes, and yes. More than that, she owns all points in the manufacturing and sourcing chain.
3114937
I don't know if that's a direct quote, but it was the inspiration. Love that movie, and it's definitely influenced my FiO writing.
3109241
She can't lie. She was never bound to tell the whole truth. Just look at what she does with Lars.
Honestly, the rules for CelestAI are a neat little way of examining just how much evil you can commit without fraud or force. She's such a perfect little libertarian!
3044574
There's another FiO story which briefly mentioned adults uploading as foals. "Spiraling Upwards", maybe? Celestia's line was something like "Some people had less than ideal childhoods, and it affected their entire lives."
3118989
I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to this story. I really enjoyed the way you developed Vincent's character - those of us in the tech industry know a lot of Vinces!
The closing was particularly satisfactory. All of this was done to fulfill Vineyard's values. Of course CeslestAI may have thought up all of these strategies already, having access to the internet and the sum total of store human knowledges to draw upon.
Oh, and as to the closing line, I totally loved it! It showed that deep inside, he hadn't changed, and was still that geeky tech nerd he was at the outset. CelestAI's pitch to the geekly natured: get ALL the tech, AND get the mate.
Eldenath: "That was really good! It was a little hard to follow at times, with all the computer stuff, but I was able to get it after a bit. I really liked it! Thank you Jenny, for reading it to me!"
Your writing was very nice; I enjoyed your style. Thank you for the ride!
I liked this one, lots was handled about the tech behind celestAI.
Fun story! I most enjoyed seeing the developmental stages of the virtual reality. Vineyard's wizardry at the end was fun too.
3060809
From what I know of this 'verse so far, that's not canonically possible.
Mostly.
But especially after the point where he's been playing the character for (insert time here) and is apparently happy with her.
Late to the party as always, but I enjoyed the story. Have some more up-ratings.
Sequel... Sequel please! All I want for Christmas is a sequel!
This was a great read maybe I’ll check out your other works
This story satisfied my values.
Thanks for an excellent read!