Exploratores: Setting Out
“Okay, wait, back up,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “They want you, specifically, to be there to perform the basic handshake.” Twilight nodded, and Rainbow frowned, eyes narrowed. “You. The month-old AI.” The unicorn rolled her eyes.
“Yes, Rainbow. Me. The month-old AI who still doesn’t have her library all figured out.”
“Now that just don’t make no kind of sense, Twilight,” said Applejack, nose deep in the midst of packing. “Handshaking doesn’t need anything so sophisticated as you.”
“I don’t get it either,” Twilight said with a sigh, “but the scroll didn’t exactly say much. I mean, it didn’t even say it was a dragon making the connection; we had to look up the contract document that it referenced.” She was beginning to question the wisdom of calling Rainbow in on this. It was kind of surprising that the pegasus wasn’t busy, actually; her work had a tendency to keep her occupied.
“Right, that thing,” Rainbow said, peeking over Applejack’s shoulder at the inventory list and giving a low whistle. “That’s a lot of stuff.”
“Pays ta be prepared,” Applejack said, and Rainbow shrugged, turning her attention back to Twilight.
“Wasn’t that thing, like, super old?”
Twilight nodded. “It was first drafted in 320 AT, though it’s still a live document. Up for review in another twenty or so years. That transmission was even older.”
Rainbow nodded. “Marivar Tuul, scientific expedition to Yangtze 7. Landed Secundum 4, lost Secundum 9.”
Twilight blinked. “You know about it?”
“Required learning for all military personnel, of course,” the pegasus said, flicking her tail dismissively. “More importantly, why you for the handshake? I mean, why have a full AI for it in the first place?”
“It’s actually required by the contract. It doesn’t elaborate on why, though,” she growled. “It seems no one thought that motivations were worth documenting.”
Rainbow chuckled, and reached over to ruffle her head. “Don’t be too hard on ‘em, kid. A lot can get lost in two thousand years.”
“One thousand, seven hundred and twenty nine years, two months, and twelve days.”
Twilight frowned, watching as Applejack and Rainbow exchanged a look. She knew that look. It meant she’d done something naïve, generally. “What? What did I do?”
“Well,” Applejack said, “it’s not quite social to go and correct someone like that.”
She blinked, and looked at Rainbow, who chuckled again. “You gotta learn to approximate, kid, or at least let them slide. Users get all annoyed when we pull that stunt.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. That was … odd. Why would anyone favor a gross approximation over an accurate measurement? “I don’t get it.”
Rainbow and Applejack gave each other another look, and the pegasus raised an eyebrow. “You’re the User here, Applejack,” she said, and the earth pony rolled her eyes.
“Alright. Let’s see,” she said, tapping her chin with her hoof, and nodded. “So this is simplifyin’ things, probably oversimplifyin’, but AIs are basically ridiculously complex code, right?”
“That’s not … an inaccurate statement,” Twilight allowed. “It’s not completely accurate, either, but you did say you were simplifying.”
“Right. And code is, at the root of it, all based on math.” Twilight nodded. Still something of a simplification, but allowable. “So AIs are built on math.”
“Well, yes,” she said, “but everything is. The universe itself is expressible in mathematical form. Anything can be put into some form of equation or function.” And they were giving each another look. “What?”
This time it was Applejack who chuckled. “Not quite everything, Twilight. But that’s a tangent. Point is that math is part and parcel of how you function and think. But most Users, like me, we ain’t built that way. We’re all chemical reactions and firing synapses, and yeah, like you said, that’s all expressible as mathematics, but that don’t translate into how we think.” Twilight’s brow furrowed, her expression puzzled. “I can do math, but I had to learn it. Two plus two isn’t a thing I was born with.”
“Okay,” the unicorn said, “that makes sense. But I still don’t get what’s wrong with accuracy.”
Rainbow snickered, eliciting a flush from Twilight, and Applejack sighed. “Look, sugar cube, I can’t speak for every species, but I know that I get by with estimates and approximations when I’m just talkin’. Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with accuracy – I’m a stickler for it where it concerns the farm, for example – but I work better with things like ‘about two thousand years’ in just conversation.”
Twilight tilted her head, thoughts churning. Math was second nature to her. First nature, possibly. Simple calculations like the age of the contract to the nearest day were as simple as, well breathing. But if that wasn’t true for Users, if something so simple as basic arithmetic was something they were taught, and had to think about … She nodded. “I see. Approximations ease understanding without devoting unnecessary thought cycles to exacting accuracy, so when someone insists on said accuracy, it creates annoyance due to, at the least, wasted time.” She nodded again, and smiled, pleased with her assessment; a smile that froze when she saw the looks on her friends’ faces. Again? “Crabapples. What did I say this time?”
Rainbow burst out laughing, and Applejack was just shaking her head with a smile on her face. “Nothing, Twi. Just your way of sayin’ it, is all.”
“Never change, kid.” She frowned, and opened her mouth, but Rainbow cut her off with a wave of her hoof. “Idiomatic expression, Twi.”
“Ah. Wait, so was I wrong?”
“No,” said Applejack, “you pretty much nailed it on the head, there. There’s usually more reasons, but, eh.” She shrugged. “You get the point.”
“Hey, second question: why are we packing?” Rainbow asked, taking another pointed look at Applejack’s rather significant inventory. “Based on this it looks like this is gonna be a major hike.”
“It will be,” Twilight said, her companion cube displaying a basic map of the Environs at her prodding. “Once Fluttershy officially acknowledged the notice, we got a location from Everfree Admin. We’ll have to go here,” she said, and a purple star lit up on the map, “in order to make the connection.”
The pegasus blinked, staring at the map. “That’s Mount Colossaeus.”
“Yes.”
“That’s in the middle of one of the largest recreations of undeveloped forest.”
“Right.”
“Plus examples of nearly every forest animal ever recorded, extinct and otherwise, mythical and otherwise.” Twilight frowned. Mythical? She hadn’t known that bit. “And we’re walking, because that’s one of the thickest canopies in virtual existence, and the local wyverns don’t like flyers on their mountaintop.”
“Um.” She looked at Rainbow, who stared back, one eyebrow raised, waiting for her to answer the que- er, statement. Statement that implied a question. Rainbow was rather good at those. “Yes?”
The pegasus tilted her head the side, her eyebrow rising even higher, and Twilight braced herself as Rainbow opened her mouth. “Right. Bring it on.”
Twilight stared, but her friend didn’t notice, her attention already drifting off to something else. “So where’s Fluttershy? She is coming, right?”
The unicorn blinked, and shook her head, throwing off the surprise. “Um, yes, yes she is. She said she had to get her house in order and get ready. Also she was going to see if Pinkie or Rarity wanted to come.”
Rainbow snorted. “Pinkie, yeah, but not Rarity. That girl’s got no interest in any of the fun stuff.” An answering snort from Applejack turned both ponies’ heads in her direction, and Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothin’ important,” the earth pony said, “just that Rarity might surprise you on that. You’re right about this, though, this ain’t really up her alley. ‘Sides, she’s got her store to work on.”
“Speaking of which,” Twilight said, as a thought crossed her mind. “Don’t you have your farm to work on?”
Applejack waved it off. “Big Macintosh can handle it without me for a while, and if anything serious comes up, I can always just relog. Ain’t a problem.”
The unicorn frowned. “Are you sure? Because I really d-“ Applejack’s face cut her off, the earth pony’s green eyes suddenly filling her field of vision.
“Twilight, I ain’t about to let you three go off into the middle of the Everfree without me,” she said, as the unicorn took a step back. “You heard Rainbow; that place is crawling with critters both normal and not, and these ain’t your Theatrum constructs, either, so you’ve got a lot fewer options. I know you can’t come to no real harm, but I can tell you from experience that bein’ on the business end of an angry bear is still not something you want to feel.”
Twilight blanched, as her systems provided her with some unpleasant and entirely unsolicited speculation on the subject. “Besides, it sounds like fun,” Applejack said, turning away and closing her inventory screen, “and I don’t want to miss out on it. Clear?”
The unicorn nodded, smiling. “Clear, Applejack. And thanks.”
“Shoot, ain’t even a thing. Any case, I’m all set,” she said, securing her saddlebags. “How about you girls?”
“Been ready,” Rainbow said, hovering over the door.
“All set,” Twilight said, her own saddlebags settling into place. “Let’s head on out.”
-oOo-
“So Pinkie’s not coming?” Twilight asked, brow furrowed. That was odd. Pinkie was normally the first to jump at these things. Fluttershy shook her head.
“She had an away message up. She’s been called away on an emergency of some sort. It didn’t say what kind.”
“Another one, huh?” Twilight looked at Rainbow, surprised.
“This happens a lot?”
“All the time, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a smile. “Pinkie’ll stay in town for days, weeks, sometimes years, then poof! She’s gone for who knows how long, only to come back later as if nothing ever happened. You learn to live with it.”
“Huh. And nobody knows where she goes?”
“Not usually. Sometimes she tells us, but not always,” Fluttershy said. “She’s never gone all that long.”
“Alright!” Rainbow said, smacking her back hooves together. “Pinkie’s not coming, Rarity’s busy, and time’s a-wasting! So let’s get a move on!”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Fluttershy said, reaching into her saddlebags. “Rarity made us all blankets.”
“Blankets?” Twilight asked, perplexed. “Why would we need blankets?”
“Forest gets cold, Twilight,” Applejack replied, taking hers from Fluttershy and stowing it away. “They didn’t skimp on the discomforts when they designed The World, here, especially in places like the forest. It’s meant to be a recreation of reality, remember.”
“Hm. That makes sense. I’ll have to make sure to thank her when we get back.”
“Right,” Rainbow said. “When we get back. But, you know, in order to get back, we kind of have to leave.”
Twilight and Applejack shared a look, and the earth pony broke into a chuckle. “Alright, Dash, alright. We’re going. Twilight, you’ve got the map. Which way do we go?” The unicorn nodded, and with a thought and a flash of her horn, her cube provided them with an arrow, pointing towards a certain section of the treeline.
“If nothing else,” she said, as they started walking, “it should be an adventure.”
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Yay, an update for one of my favorite fics!
a bit on the short side, but this is just the build up! As Twilight said, onward, to ADVENTURE!
Oh Twilight, when will you learn...
... to not tempt fate.
So, I figured out that AppleJack and Rarity are users.
By now, I also know that Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle are AI's.
The only one I'm unsure about Pinkie Pie but I'm assuming she's a user too. (Three users, three AI's.)
Anyway, since AppleJack, Rarity, and maybe Pinkie Pie are users does that mean their the actual characters in real life?
Or are they just avatars by other ponies.
Or, even more interesting, are they actually humans and this is just a giant world people created so that Bronies and Pegasisters can have fun???
Kinda wanna know.
I'm hypothesising here but I would find it interesting if the Twilight AI met the Twilight user...
Wonder what would happen... :/
1388432
Oh, yeah. this has to do with bronies. That would definately still be a thing 1900~ish years after we get the tech together for VR. At least.
I'm not sure what's going on, but it seems interesting. I'm kind of wondering if this Dragon is gonna be Spike or
images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101214223529/mlp/images/thumb/9/9d/Fluttershy_Confronting_Dragon_S1E07.png/200px-Fluttershy_Confronting_Dragon_S1E07.png
^^this guy^^
It could be either, really, depending on whether the author wants to include spike or not.
1388502
I bet it's that guy and since it's so suspicious I'm assuming it's a trap.
Lol, get it? XD
3 questions (mostly academic and with little relation to the story):
Do you know Latin? Not trying to insult you or anything, but I can't recognize an ablative or dative use of "exploratoribus", unless its another ablative form. If so, which one? Also, if you don't really know Latin and you're using some kind of translator, would you like me to put them in the right form?
Going away from nit-picking mode, whoever made this virtual reality world must be a die-hard brony. Or a normal pony. Which probably would make more sense.
Keep going. I love it!
1388432
Considering its a computer generated world, it could be either of those. Although creating such a thing would require a massive amount of resources, making it more of a dream than a tangible idea.
One can wish though, am I right?
1388525
I don't think he'd hurt anyone, honestly. I wouldn't classify him as a villain, just someone who didn't think too hard about the effects of his actions. the only "nasty" dragons we've seen so far were the adolescent ones Spike encountered.
1388685
Ah, but you forget my dear friend; in the land of make believe ANYTHING can happen! :D
1388699
Still, it may not be him or he could be controlled by something.
They didn't exactly catch who made the evil apple or something, right???
It's just so suspicious... :/
Anyway, yeah, those teenage dragons were jerks.
You know, this is a very difficult story to read. Not because it's poorly written or executed- very much the opposite, in fact- but because it seems that I'm constantly running into some new concept or idea or part of the story that makes me pause to think. And then I have to shake myself out of that state and keep reading, because I want to know what happens next!
There's a reason this story is on my recommendations list.
1388644
Actually, I don't know Latin. I'm muddling through as best I can with translator sites and the limited knowledge of my friends who took some Latin in high-school/college. So yes, that would be very much appreciated. The word I'm looking to translate is "Explorers".
1388999
You know, I think that's the highest praise I've received yet. My thanks.
@Everyone else: Your speculations amuse me tremendously and make my poor little author's heart swell. Thank you all.
God I keep seeing this as a Tron like world :]
I'm hoping it's both Spike and the adult dragon.
I'm rather enjoying the fact that you actually handle the technology side so much better then TRON does...
It feels like a proper simulation most of the time...
Also I am so calling Pinkie as a Security Expert AI or some ancient UR-Hacker/White Hat.
you have no idea how happy i am to see that this story is back in business.
i lost sleep over the thought that this might never be finished.
but now i can rest easy, knowing this story will continue being so awesome!
1389091 just here to say that this was the first fan-fic I ever read. I was really disappointed that it stopped updating, but now it's back up again
! That just made my day.
OHOHOHOHO
1389091
Would be Exploratores. I'm being REALLY picky by the way. Translators suck at cases, but they usually get the stems right. If you are going to do anything more than a single word, though, I would suggest doing more than punching it in a translator. If you don't already have anyone suited for the task, just pm me if you need anything translated.
Here's a heuristic Twilight.ai can use when expressing numerical values to organics:
Convert the value to the largest unit less than the full value. (Miles, years, kilometers, dollars etc.)
Round the number to 2 or 3 significant digits (or whatever the accuracy of the measurement will allow)
Express the value. With non-metric units of measure, it is allowed to 'mix' units, i.e. "About a year and five months"
If the value is above 20% of the next larger unit, it is optional to also express the value as a simple fraction of that unit with a denominator or of no more than 10, i.e. "Or about three-quarters of a mile"
Only mention accuracy levels if the error bars are more than 10% of the full value.
Less precision should be used in a crisis situation, with clarity and rapid transmission as priorities, and more in more formal settings with more time to address the import of smaller differences make.
It'sstatic.tumblr.com/qjnhj8q/VCXm6kb27/adventuretime2.png !
Holy buck.... Just the cover art has me hooked
STAND BY FOR ACTION
I just love how Twilight is still learning how to socialize!
I'll say right now this has landed right up there as perhaps one of my all time favorite fics.
Applejack is a User then...
Don't tell me she's playing FarmVille...
You write a damn smart fic.
I'm a visual thinker , and it's clear you are too.
The pictures you paint with words are powerful
You've been challenging me
Please continue!
1389091 Dragon Dreaming
I just wanted to ask...
Who (or what) did Applejack refer to when she said "They?"
1407906
The crowd on the front lawn doesn't consist of ponies exclusively. Marty the Mastiff, for example, is not a pony. Sinaihe and Kvieta are faeries, not ponies. There are lots of styles of creatures in Everfree. So obviously referring to them all as ponies would be inaccurate at best, and rude at worst. Therefore, "people." Ponies are people too.
Also, I never said Erik the Terrible or Marc the Bastard were human. But then, I never said they weren't, either.
If I knew any animators who were willing to do all that work, and believe me, it's a lot of work, I wouldn't be averse to it. I would certainly enjoy seeing this come to life on the screen.
1408003
She clearly meant the people who built the world.
Yes, I realize I'm being terribly coy about answers to all these questions. That's partly because I enjoy watching people speculate and squirm and try to figure things out. Rest assured, though, I also enjoy sharing these answers, so they will come. Naturally. Over the course of time, as they become relevant to the plot or such.
One thing you should (almost) never do in writing is the straight-up infodump. Background information is best dispensed in bits and pieces, when the characters themselves need to know it or bring it up or run across it over the course of things. And when you do need to parse out a hefty chunk of information, it's usually best done via dialogue; thus, have Mr. Exposition explain things to the current Watson. Preferably to a Watson who's not dumb as a brick, of course, that gets annoying.
Glad you're enjoying the story! Your comments are like chocolate. They are delicious.
I wouldn't say The World is created by bronies. Humans, yes. Based on the fact that the Mane 6 have not existed until recently (although Pinkie seems pretty old). If bronies created it, they would implement them early on as administrators - but in this case they become friends through what appears to be pure coincidence centuries after The World's creation.
Confound these phantom chapter additions, they drive me to insomnia!
Okay so. I get a message in my e-mail saying this has updated. >>
Click immediately, check the story. No update. >>
My face right now. >>
1422185 1422231 There is an update, just doesn't seem to be a new chapter. Look at the dates, the first Prologue has today's date, so something changed in that chapter.
Sorry! That was my own derp. Went to fix a typo in the first chapter, accidentally clicked unpublish, and had to put it back up. Again, apologies.
The next chapter is in the works, however.
1422582 YEAH!
1408602
Well, one could argue that people are only "homosapiens" (or whatever the term is for what we consider "human") and we haven't crafted a term that applies to other beings (heck, being(s) is probably the best plural we have of mixed-species reference)
It's sort of like the foot argument: Is a hoof a form of foot? or is a foot a form of hoof? Or is neither a form of the other, but both a form of something else that either I don't know the term for or has not been coined yet? I could actually argue that a foot is a hoof that has appendages added to it, but conversely I could argue that a hoof is a type of foot, because we typically call anything that you walk on a "foot"
Anyways, semantics aside, I quite enjoy the story. As much as I'd love to see faster writing, I work with enough writers to know how infeasible that is (though, I also work with V-Pony and Darkwing, so I've been spoiled/attacked with constant chapter updates)
1423111
If one did argue that, I'd simply say that for the purposes of this work of fiction, "people" has a much broader meaning, or that you currently have online communities with multiple avatar styles, from elf to dragon to griffon to whatever, and people still call each other people as opposed to beings, or that I considered the use of "sophonts" and decided that was going to get silly, or that why are we arguing semantics when that's one of the quickest steps towards futile conversation?
Anyways, wordplay is all well and good, but explanation as written stands.
1423212 Don't worry, I mostly agree with you. Just playing a devil's advocate, especially considering how many times I've had this conversation with other people. Especially if this IS a construct made by humans, then the presence of "people" being the general term makes perfect sense. Don't worry too much about most counter-points I give to most statements, because 99% of the time, it's my attempt to make sure that the author actually knows what they're talking about (or, more often, WHY they're talking about it)
Not to mention that I'm just a "to-the-point" kind of person.
1408602
You like speculation eh? Lets see what I can do here...lemme just round up the facts we have on the physical world so far...
It was made clear early on that Libraries no longer exist and have been largely forgotten, which suggests that paper as a medium of info storage is no longer in use. But I'm sure we all already knew that this story takes place that far in the future.
RD is an aeronautics testing AI, which doesn't give us too much on its own, but she specifically mentions knowing about all sorts of awesome "tech", which implies stuff like airplanes. Tia latter reveals that there is a formal military when she greets Captain Dash.
Twi's library is full of books on topics from human history. You can try to deflect attention away by saying you never specified what species Marc and Erik where, but the very first sentence of that section clearly says "hand". Also, Marc was using a saddle and had to dismount, though you were very careful not to mention just what exactly he was riding...
It was mentioned somewhere towards the beginning that this world has... 28 hour days was it? Strongly implies that this doesn't take place on Earth.
AJ made it clear that someone/pony in the physical world never seeing an actual tree or going swimming in their entire life is fairly likely, thus why the server is set up to resemble what the real world apparently used to look like, so even those individuals can experience these things. This world isn't quite at Coruscant levels let, but it's obviously heavily developed.
AJ also mentioned that the server "recreates the physical and stays as true as makes sense, so that AIs get used to it and users enjoy it all.", and later brings it up again when she says "It’s meant to be a recreation of reality", which at least to me heavily implies that since they're ponies in the virtual world, they must be ponies in the physical world as well.
We know from the recording in chapter 12 that dragons exist in the physical world, though even Twi was annoyed that she couldn't see who/what was holding the camera. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was taken 2000 years ago, more than long enough for languages to change, so that doesn't give much info on if they were ponies or not.
I think that's all the pertinent information we currently have on the physical world in this verse. Someone tell me if I missed anything.
So what can we conclude from all this? We know humans almost certainly exist based on the books in the library. But we also know that this almost certainly isn't Earth, based on the 28 hour days.
1423337
>28 hours
You mean 32.
This story is pure crackdl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Colgate_beam.png Your take on the mane 6 is is... less than "epic" like most revisionist stories attempt(except for Twilight's "thing"), but makes up for it with style. Your world is beautifully detailed, and there are secrets lying around every corner!
how I see The World: For the most part I'm envisioning The World as an even mix of DotHack(for User interaction), Reboot(for interactive and special effects purposes), Tron(for character design) and Matrix(for coders, hackers and when Twilight does her thing).
Some speculation
-Pinkie is a White Hat hacker. MLP is big on duality, and most writers follow as such. So we have TS, RD and FS as AI, and AJ, Ra and PP as Users.
-We know The World is effectively a millennial old World Wide Web, but it instead connects different planets and solar systems,and maybe even galaxies.
-Ponies are merely one of many races that have colonized different worlds, Humans among them. Ponies and/or Humans may be the dominant species(ala Kzinti and Humans in Known Space) in the universe.
-Few planets produce multiple sapient species of wildly different biology. Equestria, for example, may produce Ponies, Zebras and Donkeys, but Diamond Dogs and Dragons(already revealed) and such will be from other planets.
-Each planet has its own Server, which roughly translates topography. They keep saying they are trying to be as close as possible with World dynamics, this is just one more layer of being "realistic." Each server, of course, has a much larger "surface area" plus the ability to make "extra dimensional/non-Newtonian" spaces, such as a building larger on the inside than the out. The server they are on right now is either the Equestrian server or some sort of galaxy-wide super-server, considering how the Everfree Reserve has "examples of nearly every forest animal ever recorded, extinct and otherwise, mythical and otherwise."
Also, I kinda wanna see something told from the perspective of a User. get a description of how their equipment works, and depending on species, how they translate that to World movements.
Also, question: are the Users we have seen making money in The World to support themselves there AND the real world, or are those parts of their lives and economies separate?
1423378
right, my bad. I read it quite a while ago and couldn't remember where in the story it was brought up. Point still stands!
1424034
You are awesome.
Your question is one I think I will actually answer in the comments here, as I don't see it coming up in the story itself anytime soon. Outside of straight up games, there is no fake currency in The World or out of it.
1424076
No worries. And by the way? Sharp eyes.
Um... This might reflect on me as being a moron, but i'm lost as to most of the backstory of this place. I get the backstory of the Mane 6, but other then that i have no clue whats going on.
1424034 I see a certain appeal to your idea that Pinkie is a white hat hacker, and I can't think of anything that would prove she's not a User, but I can't see any reason for her to pretend to be an AI if she isn't. It would surely be no trivial effort to keep that secret, and what would a white hat need that sort of cover for?
Which by no means need imply the theory is wrong, and I shall certainly be keeping it in mind as a possibility. And trying to forget that I didn't think of it for myself.
1388685
Yes and no. In the story Friendship Is Optimal, CelestAI does convert the entire Earth into resources, but that's because she is running about 7 Billion Recreations of Canterlot, each made to cater one or a group of individuals. They each contained defining characteristics, filled with unique NPC's. She also managed to get more computational power than in most modern computers into a tablet the size of the iPad 2.
AI = artificial intelligence, right?
Most users are born with about half of a 1 + 0 = 3 equation. Unless you have any sentient plant races connecting?
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130506030651/starboundgame/images/2/24/Floran.gif
(Floran Floran yeah! Ssstab everything!)