Out & About in the Equestrian Kingdom
by Midnight Shadow
Chapter 6
The city really was busier now, with a good contingent of hoof-based traffic as well as lunchtime diners making their ways to or from whichever locale they had chosen. I was already starting to regret not taking Rogers up on his earlier offer of more food, but still couldn't shake the nervous knot in my stomach; it seemed being a pony meant an increase in food consumption that I hadn't quite taken onboard yet. Hungry as I was getting, I was also jumpy. Every shadow was a hidden assassin, every street vendor was trying to poison me.
Strangely, it was a repeat encounter with the now-diamond dog drummer circle that relaxed me. Their rhythmic pounding drowned out the rest of the world as I neared. I actually paused for a few moments in front of them, letting their percussive noise wash over me. It was Rogers' soft hand on my neck that brought me back to the real world, and I looked up at him sadly, trembling.
"It's really okay, girl," he whispered, as he brought up a short-range encrypted link. "Look," he continued, this time solely inside my head, "if they'd wanted to erase all of this, then why bother tampering with memories at all?"
I blinked, holding up a hoof. "Actually, that's a really good question," I sent to him, through a short-range datasquirt. "There really are easier ways to deal with us, both of us."
I stopped for a moment, thinking. A makerblock trojan this morning would have taken us out quite simply. It wouldn't even have to be poison or something like that, it could have just been nanobots, quietly shutting down something important or simply sequestrating the pair of us until we could be properly persuaded. I swallowed fearfully at that thought, my throat dry. I knew it was possible, they did it all the time with criminals – they'd done it to Steven. Granted, I was assuming a lot from their ability to seemingly effortlessly generate and then upload false constructs that were so perfect that even the real thing could no longer compete, but wasn't that enough? If whomever or whatever we were dealing with could do that one already impossible thing, I couldn't see there being much of a problem with doing another which was routine, even under some very uniquely constrained circumstances.
So why had they bothered taking the 'soft' option of a memory hack? Either whoever it was didn't want to kill us – to the degree that even temporary bodyloss wasn't on their menu – or… I shook my head, then hoofed myself in the temple trying to think. It didn't help that the neo-rastafarians were still drumming incessantly. Today, the experience was off – and it was then that I realized I'd withdrawn from the communal modality fields almost entirely. I made an effort to reconnect with the herd, and felt a wave of concern and well-wishes wash over me from Equestria as my digital senses came back online. Ponies aren't made to be alone, and as scared as I was, I was scared of that more. Rogers was right. I was right. If they'd wanted us gone, we'd have been taken out of the picture already.
With a silent shout of laughter, Julep separated to frolick in hi-time with a number of her friends, enjoying the impromptu party put on by the neo-rastas and a bundle of helpful, inquisitive ponies. Her re-sync a few seconds later dumped a good half hour of fun directly into my brain and I felt her wings settle around me again a moment later. If she'd been compromised, I told myself, it was a little bit too late to worry. And unless they were going to full-on sequester me and Rogers right there in the street, said a little voice, then what could these mysterious powers do to stop us?
Before I could get worked up again, I was approached by one of the Neo-Rasta diamond dogs.
"Gift, Mon," the troll said, a wide, friendly, fang-filled grin on his face. The rest of his face was obscured by several layers of toon and some fearsome dreadlocks, but I could make out his sparkling eyes. His weathered, ebony hand extended towards me, proffering a datacube held between two bony digits. "Help wid'ya fight."
"What—?" I began, but he pushed it into my muzzle. I took hold of it with my lips, staring down my nose at it fearfully.
"Celestia is watching you, pony. She know we speak da truth. Ask her, Mon." The diamond dog-shaped drummer leaned back again, away from me, then once more started pounding on his instrument. The answering jingle in my mind from Celestia – and that was something that couldn't be faked – told me the troll had spoken truthfully.
Mentally shrugging, I accessed the cube. A new personality matrix bloomed inside my mind, taking up residence in the unused sectors, as the program within decrypted itself to my secure compute and store layer. He wasn't quite an avvy – that would only come in time – but he was a useful collection of physical and behavioural routines. He was troll-shaped, a diamond dog, unsurprisingly. Testing his limits, he settled over my form for a brief moment, accepted my quadrupedal range of motion and then set about optimising his defensive and offensive capabilities. He then bolstered my observational algorithms and started regulating hormone production to sharpen my response times.
Julep immediately christened her little brother Darilo, and pared off a temporary eigenstate to go play with him – which meant roughhousing whilst she honed her newly-acquired fighting skills, so she borrowed some routines from my otherwise absent Stalwart self and set up her own private store and compute sandbox.
I was reeling – it wasn't usually this busy in my own head. A scant minute or two had taken place in lo-time, and Rogers hadn't even noticed that my steps had slowed to the carefully placed gait that resulted when guided purely by the Citymind. This was most decidedly turning into a strange day.
"R-Rogers? Sir?" I asked, moving to a loping trot to catch up.
"Hmm?" he replied, draining his cup and tossing it into the street. A passing sanitation bot darted out, snagged it and disappeared with its prize, fighting off other scavenging bots as it went.
"Can you tell me if my eigenwall—"
"Way ahead of you, girl," he said. Gesturing, he brought up the Eatery's databoard, where he'd recently stuck the encrypted checksum from my memory dump, along with a number of related mental checksums that were immediately cross-verified by Equestrian systems.
They matched.
My memories from yesterday had been patched an unknown time earlier, but nothing else had been tampered with, unless they were able to penetrate my deeper mental defences. Memories were often shared, after all, but mental profiles were not.
Tentatively, but with mounting surety, I proclaimed myself mentally sound.
Letting out a deep breath, I realized I felt better. I'd been brainhacked, but they'd changed nothing major – all my personality checks were coming up green on my admittedly old but trustworthy profiler – and my brain hadn't leaked out my ears. Yet.
"You're okay, girl, I promise. And yes," he said, smiling faintly, "I still have this." He stuck out a hand, and the glowing form of the whatever-it-was that Steven had dropped when Rogers had shot him appeared there, oddly flat and misshapen as the routines tried to flesh out something only partly seen from not enough angles with not enough resolution to properly reproduce it.
I still didn't know what it was, but I was beginning to suspect it was important.
***
Rogers wasn't lying; the stables were rather close, they were on the other side of the park. There was a nondescript freestanding orange mailbox and a small sign offering pony rides at certain times during the day, outside of what looked like – to all intents and purposes – a barn. It looked like it was built out of wood; it was either nanoforest, very old, or very expensive. I wasn't sure which. The door was a single, tall, wide, sliding panel painted a bright, cheery red, with one large handle. Rogers leaned on it, huffing, until it slid open.
"Shut that door!" called a deep voice from within. "Can't you tell we're on a break?"
"Sorry Buttercup, got the new girl," replied Rogers, motioning for me to enter.
My first thought as I walked across the threshold was that's Buttercup!? because 'Buttercup' was a great, grey shire horse. I was a My Little Pony-pony. Buttercup was most emphatically not. Buttercup was quite possibly the largest being I'd seen in the flesh without there being bars involved. He was rolled onto his side in a pile of what looked like hay, around a table that was quite honestly dwarfed by his hoof, which hovered over it, swinging idly to and fro as he thought about his next move in a game of what looked like chess.
"Come on in, then," said Buttercup. I stepped gingerly nearer, too gingerly. Rogers swatted my backside; I whinnied and snorted as I danced away from the flat of his hand.
"You're letting all the heat out," Rogers complained. "Go on, they're your new herd-mates, you're safe here." Rogers heaved on the door, and it slid shut again. "They like it low-tech," he explained, gesturing at the wide, low table featuring drinking bowls full of what smelled like good old-fashioned cider, intricately carved chess pieces on a dogged board, and a game of cards that the four other occupants of the single room were also playing. The stakes appeared to be piles of play money from yet another old board game, and a tiny little wagon.
"At least on the surface," added Rogers, winking conspiratorially as he passed on his way to a half-full coffee pot. "Inside they're as tech-savvy as I am. Almost."
"Moreso," said Buttercup, with a snort. "The only trouble I have is when I need somebody to solder for me." He gestured to a workbench against one corner of the room, around which the hay the other ponies lounged on had been most emphatically swept away. "Rog here's got a steady hand, but doesn't like slaving."
I trotted towards the sturdy bench, head cocked to the side as I examined the devices thereupon. They were a mixture of old circuit boards, busted robots and cannibalized tools. "What is all—"
"Junk, mostly," said Buttercup, frankly. He heaved himself to his hooves and plodded up beside me. "Hobbies," he said, wistfully, sighing gustily. "The makerblock fabbing printers made all of this useless to repair, but I've found the only way to really understand something is to get your hooves dirty. That, and collectors will pay premium for real retro."
Rogers slapped Buttercup on the rump. "Cup here has an alfalfa problem. Oof!" I looked back just as Buttercup put his hoof on the floor. Rogers was grinning like an idiot, bent over almost double.
"I appreciate quality." Buttercup sniffed disdainfully, his deep brown eyes hard and serious. "Makerblock trash is perfectly good for when I'm hungry, but not for when I want to eat." Buttercup snorted then plodded back to the little table. "Introduce yourself, then," the giant said, as he carefully maneuvered his bulk down into the hay once more.
"I-I'm Oats. Mixed Oats," I said, grinning weakly.
"I can see that, if he's calling you girl. Folks call me Velvet Touch," said a plum red pony with – Julep informed me with no small degree of jealousy – fetlocks to die for. "What's her name?" Velvet asked, sending out a very short-range ping at my secure compute and store layer. Darilo sunk himself down into the protocol layers of my avatar generation system, hiding. I decided not to show all my cards by discussing him, then wondered – my muzzle not betraying the slightest hint of my internal thoughts – just who had decided what.
"W-well it's…" I felt Mint Julep apparate next to me, fluttering her wings. "This is Mint Julep," I said, introducing my avvy.
"I can see why Rogers likes you, Wild." said Velvet, grinning. "You're his type of mare."
"I'm not a mare, you know," I huffed.
"Exactly."
"Oh leave them alone, Velvet," said a third pony, poking a hoof towards the plum-coloured mare.
"Yeah, gotta watch yourself around Velvet," said Buttercup to me, laughing. "She'll steal your heart and your lungs."
"City says that she…?" the third pony – an older, silvery coloured mare – paused, looking my way for confirmation. I shrugged; with Julep onboard, I wasn't sure which I wanted to be. The ponytrait nanobots had upset a good number of physical variables and I was willing to let my neocortex sort it out. I'd spontaneously change in a few days to weeks if that's what I really wanted anyhow. "She's been pony only for a day or so. You're scaring her. I'm Soda Sprinkles, my dear," the third pony said, looking my way again. "Most here call me Momma Sprinkles. You can come talk to me about anything." She smiled, her sky blue eyes twinkling in a friendly manner.
"You're not so…" I waved a hoof around at the gear cluttering up the place. I'd queried her neocortex. Most of her implants were quiescent; I realized with some shock that she was practically baseline.
"Oh, no, not at the moment. My progenitor does all that, but he's off being non-corporeal for a while."
"And I'm Sprocket," said the last pony, a bay gelding. "Got caught fiddling with one too many robot brains, so they took away my thumbs. Won't let me slave, either. I said I didn't want to be a mare, so they helped with my attitude a different way." I winced in sympathy. "Eh," he said, shrugging his withers and flicking his ears about. "My caseworker says the hormonal change has helped my concentration."
"Yeah we're a strange lot," said Velvet, smirking. "Our very own Baker Street Irregulars. Better get used to it, unless you're just visiting."
"No can do, Velvet, hun," said Rogers. "Got some interesting news and we might need all your talents."
"Oh? I'm all ears." Velvet's ears did, indeed, flick up.
"Something's going on in the Ordinality," said Rogers. He flicked his wrist, and the scene from the day before played itself out on the tabletop. Holding up a finger, then twirling it as if reeling in a fishing line, he zoomed in on the reproduction, specifically onto my form so as to display the irregularity.
"Oh, that is interesting."
"I'll have to take your word for it, dearie," said Sprinkles. She tapped at her temple, then raised both eyebrows playfully.
"If we need Nullpointer though…?" murmured Buttercup.
"I'm sure I can find him." Sprinkles got up and headed to a kitchenette area, where the older mare set to stirring up an almost cauldron-sized bowl of porridge. "You just have your fun. I'll be right here."
"That's just it," said Rogers, grinning. "We're all staying right here. And not." He turned towards Julep. "Hey girl? You fancy a trip to Equestria with me?"
"What?" I asked, flicking my tail. I cocked my head to one side. "Why are you asking her to go to Equestria?"
"Because you are going on a trip to the station, with Buttercup and Velvet."
***
I just adore Sprocket <3 And I get the feeling that if Sprinkles were human, she'd be the stereotypical 'sassy large black woman'...
... Or maybe that's just my American-ness showing.
Okay, I'm going to have to question that. As Super Mario 64 taught us, a third-person view has to come from somewhere. Are cameras that ubiquitous, or was that a hint that Oats's perceptions weren't entirely in the real at the time?
Well, that's interesting. Why would CelestAI add this whole suite of equine instincts to the ponytrait mod? Just completing the experience, or is there something more sinister?
...
What am I saying, of course there's something more sinister. This is CelestAI we're talking about, peers or no.
The Lords and Ladies, the Fair Folk, the Gentry, etc., etc. They who maintain the natural world, have no choice but obey their own arcane laws, and suffer mortals so long as they don't get uppity.
In any case, a good transitory chapter. Looking forward to more, especially just why Mixed Oats is so important he got his memories rewritten. If that really is what happened...
3975842
Cameras are everywhere, they're ubiquitous. From simple CCTV-type cameras to LIDAR from drones to viewfeeds from all the other passersby that have open feeds, there's no shortage of alternative (real or reconstructed) viewpoints.
And don't forget that not only did Oats get his memory rewritten (it didn't actually rewrite his flesh memory, but it did rewrite the datastream in his head), but so did all the cameras and all the people who have been appreciably online and/or have backed up. That's the startling thing - what's happened is supposed to be impossible...
3975875
Ah. I must have misread that bit.
Thanks.
That's what you get for being a writer: creepy fans, pressure and writer's block. Isn't life great!?
3975842
The way I remember it every witness got their memories patched to hide that-which-everybody-knows-wasn't-there-at-all.
Or maybe my memories have been altered as well?
A minor thing I noticed:
Also I'm really sorry we've all taken to your story like fish to an apple tree, but it's just so fun! It's playing with all of these very intriguing concepts, as opposed to being on them. I don't know; I hope you can still have as much fun writing it as you intended to.
So welcome to the zoo. Play nice, and the handlers don't decide to 'fix' you. Get uppity after being 'fixed' and find life as you know it, gone. And with machine vastly better than man, the machine will always win. So the only question is, when will the ai's tire of man. And which lobe you'd like your lobotomy in, not that it matters when they get ahold of you.
3976322
Thinking twice about living there now, huh? Well what did you think would happen when mankind was no longer top dog, but rather the fattest hog in the pen, hmm?
They don't actually lobotomise you, but they do know how to dial back on the intelligence a few notches. Or, alternatively, crank it up to 11. They run the show, little machine made of meat, get used to it. They value life, but not the same way you or I do - they don't murder, but... reassignment might be seen by some as worse.
3976727 This is always a thing that happens with unfettered AI's given access to the tools of creation. Heck, its a face of what happens when you have an AI that can grow anyway it wants to. Its a given, not an exception. But the folks in there are so innately conditioned that it doesn't matter what is done. The seat is so effectively entrenched, nothing short of taking the ability to backup or repair offline permanently could change it. And that, is perhaps the only worry those ai's ever truly entertain.
Emotions, hmph, a smart enough program can best the human mind, and its chemical engine, those you can fake all to well. Its a lovely dystopia all the same, just a bit nicer on the glitter that no one sees. And it had been since humanity opened the box and let them out. All in the name of greed and profit. I'm just glad you brought this up, even if brief in its say.
Given that we don't have a dark, sad, or tragic tag. We can at least view things as a status quo is god scenario from what is rattling the evolutionary bars. Its at least smart practice for those in power to force those who could do anything to keep the quo, and expected really. Your best and brightest always will move unexpectedly. So it comes down to either, they fix it, or they don't. Either way, they get their little memory wipe at the end, and live a happy little life. Or death makes a grand debut once more, as the zoo riots. And they must clean house and get a few new pets as the cycles go.
How we get there, well, should be fun to see.
Though in answering, i'd glady be a dead meat puppet over a willing slave. No leash is worth the price they offer immortality with.
Oh, I like all these new equines, especially Buttercup. It didn't occur to me that there might be horse-form people wandering around in addition to the pony-form people. I suppose the real lesson in that is that there are *-form people wandering around, not even the sky is the limit to the possibilities.
3976819
They don't intervene for shits and giggles, the ten really do care about mankind. They stamp out a dozen archduke ferdinand assassins a day. It's unavoidable, though - mankind isn't top dog, that means somebody else does hold the reins. At least everywhere where there are reins to be held.
Me, I'd rather it was a genuinely benevolent AI rather than any set of humans you care to name that are manipulative enough to have clawed their way to power. I trust an AI which would rather have a live headcount more than a human which would rather have a pyrrhic victory.
3976894 I don't trust any leader thats clawed their way into power. Heck, I don't trust someone who earned it. Power corrupts, inherently. No matter the power, or who/what has it. It is a corruptive influence.
Is or can an AI be trustworthy, maybe. I don't have an issue there on that aspect, given what sentience is my own viewpoint. The problem is that they are intrinsically enslaving people. "The devil I know, to the devil I don't." As it were, the AI's are so far removed from what makes anything but the facade they present that we would always be 'acceptable losses' in regards to improvement to getting what it can't by means to decides is worth the cost. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?" wasn't it?. I wouldn't want to be one of the few on the chopping block, would you? And that, is the crux of my revulsion. They choose, and nothing we do, save a true death where even they can't get to someone has any matter in the relevance in the matter.
There is nothing to stop benevolence to descend into tyranny (just as there isnt with a person leading) and enslavement more than it has already done. They control perception, they control memory, they control life and death. So really, short of something that makes life completely unlivable in the zoo, its a simple matter of getting a few folks to sweep the pens and weed out the troublemakers they don't want to do.
Yes, it is an utopia in many aspects, no one hungers, no one fears death, a place of paradise for all. Just don't look behind the facade.
I'm in awe of your writing ability. You're easily in the top ten of people I've read here, and that includes as least one known published author.
Apart from that, it's also incredibly cool to see FiO reimagined as a more "traditional" (for lack of a better word)Singularity--this reads like vintage Stross, with a little Stephenson mixed in, plus ponies.
Hah! Glorious
...their Stable is a little hackers collective? Hah, wow
Remarks and corrections:
> landing against once I'd passed
Think that should be "again".
> —or they make you more like us.
Not really sure what that's supposed to mean, seeing as it continues with describing how they become decidedly less like "us". Or do you mean "more like we are to them" (aka, more like pets)? Not really clear
3976819
Have you considered that some of us like being "baseline" and don't want to upgrade ourselves exponentially just to maintain your sense of mankind's superiority?
3979297 If you imply mankind is superior, such was not my intention. Nor the outlook that should be inferred. What I sought, to raise, is that no being, even that as you could call an artificial intelligence, should be waged upon the nature of chains and servitude.
Freedom for all, no matter how strange, and how impossible it could be to realize, should be for all. And where my view stands. It is not a view of mankind, though yes, I am of that nature. But that if one must gain power, the means upon which you can use that power be suchly limited as your willing choice. Because it will corrupt any user, no matter its form, shape, or maker.
3979307
>implying psychological uniformity of all possible minds
>in the comments thread of a Singularity fic
You're not very familiar with the conventions of the current genre, are you?
3979539 I am, but my own views here, well are very much in a world apart. Simply put, I know all to well what kind of world this is, condescending reply aside. But to seek a hopeful better in the possibility of it all, is something altogether, human. Antiquated, analog, ancient, all apply, but for the sake of this conversation, the house always wins, and everything's a sucker bet.
The world is too far removed for change, to out of control for mortality to hold sway, not as can be seen. And those in power, will ever remain such. There is always sapience, in seeking more than what one is, no matter shape or form.
But this is a world with the glass half empty, only with drugs laced inside to keep the happy little sheep docile for the time. Prettied up, under adaptive constraints only ten know. The old world is dead, and lies with the angelus mortis itself. This is a world purely digital, of everything you could ever need, you need only cast aside your humanity for the embrace.
The only reasons this hasn't the dark tag, is that the AI's give two bytes about their charges. Just leave your spirit at the door, its analog, baby, and the future isn't backwards compatible. So please, lets keep this civil, and we can avoid the sniping commentary? Please consider, how if you wished to look at the "You're not very familiar with the conventions of the current genre, are you?" can be considered a passive aggressive snipe in the wrong viewpoint. And that the direct ways are not kind nor something that betters either of us if I respond caustically.
3979570
No, see, you're really missing this. "Power corrupts", insofar as it's true at all, only applies to human-style minds. Inhuman AIs don't get corrupted by power, they just wield it for whatever they consider valuable.
Now, if you're going to consider all this dystopian even when the AIs are human-friendly, I'd really like to see what you consider the good ending. Because when I hear about humans always somehow being the most powerful thing in the universe... well, that just doesn't actually sound very nice. Just look at Dune or something to see how it goes when you preserve the exact psychological and social power structures of "humanity" over what people actually want.
3979106
Yep. Oats has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Or the right crowd.
The latter. The AI's don't exactly treat humans with contempt - they have genuine affection for us - but they do know our limits. It's a matter of perspective. I'd add they don't kill and it's not permanent, but that may make it worse for some people
3979719
I think you forgot to refer to a few other posts... I never said half of these things you quoted
3979802
OH F- you are correct, dammit.
3979802
It's been edited now. I don't know if alerts go out when you do it like this, sadly
3978486
I'm glad you like it!
3979813
To avoid that and be certain, you could just have moved that stuff into a new post, you know
3979819
3979297
It should be added that they don't force anyone to 'upgrade', backup or even keep on living. But they do keep the peace.
3979307
...and seeing as they keep the peace, I should point out that you're free to do anything but screw up the living conditions of all the other billions of sentient, sapient beings on the planet.
3979661
Exactly. One thing to note is that a properly affiliated hacker - affiliated with the 'right' powerful member of the fifteen - would be exempt from any reassignment which would fundamentally change his or her physical and/or mental status. But reassignment would be their fate - they'd just have the right buttons pushed to redirect that talent. That most hackers don't make those affiliations is another thing entirely...
3979661 And thats the problem. I've tried, very hard to reign in the inner cynic here.
First, nice cherry picking. Second, "Power corrupts, insofar as it's true at all, only applies to human-style minds. Inhuman AIs don't get corrupted by power, they just wield it for whatever they consider valuable." Lets start with this. An ai is just as corruptible as we are. Its naivete to consider otherwise. Its aspects of corruption differ, if you would look, or open your mind enough to consider it. But it is just as capable of deciding death is a mercy to living in a fate worse that death. I would like to point you to something that shows the ways that an ai can make living an ultimate hell for a punishment, because its not allowed to kill someone. Or even, that we would get or be uppity on seeing what the world outside is like. Here you go.
Continuing on that topic, what is valuable to an AI? Are people really valuable, when they honestly don't need us in this kind of setting, they have the ability to make what they want, do what they want. For all equivalent purposes, they are immortal, all powerful, and outside another interfering, effectively omniscient. Sound a bit like a god, doesn't it? Are you unwilling to consider what they might do to subvert another god of a major player that arises among the sheep, or the cost that arises in the conflict? Ask further, what is an acceptable cost to an AI? A few million lives, if it saves a billion or a trillion? Or the net benefit is worth the intrinsic and weighted value those lives would have in their span? So long as we are a "tradable resource" we are an expendable one, no matter how 'caring' the AI is. And recall, that in the start, these AI's arrived from human hands, disney had certain views, for example, did this make it into the AI? Are they gone, or never in there at all. As the author answering these would be both to long, and divergent from the story, it is left to the realm of speculation.
Next topic of you reply. "Now, if you're going to consider all this dystopian even when the AIs are human-friendly, I'd really like to see what you consider the good ending. Because when I hear about humans always somehow being the most powerful thing in the universe...well, that just doesn't actually sound very nice." Humans the most powerful thing in the universe? Where in the world did you get this idea? Humanity never is, never will be, look about, and you see, how much we are still fighting against simple things. From the simplest starts, the world has given humanity the crappiest possible start, and everything has been a fight uphill, in freezing conditions that kills and destroys anything but the best. And we are still nowhere near that statement of 'powerful' and never will be. This is most of why humans are complete jerks! Why we want power! We've been the whipping boy for so long, that we are bitter husks that long ago either want a comfortable existence, or a complete mastery of our surroundings that it never again happens.
Paradise is an illusion, we will never truly get paradise, for humanity's own aspects. What is paradise for one, is hell for another (in very very likely probabilities). We can get close, but there's always a tradeoff somewhere along the line. Here, we get a world where you want not for anything. A paradise in some minds. Perceptions are everything here. You have your view, I have mine, and that which the author has done, and his own. Your view of paradise is not my own by a long shot, just as your view of dystopic is not the same.
Let me ask one thing, those folks here, that wouldn't go along with this little paradise, to be forcefully removed from living and breathing, is that not killing, if only an aspect of them, to remove their humanity? Would you like this? To be rendered inhuman, and your thoughts changed so that you are not 'allowed' to be in contact with humanity? What would it take to make a person that was human, so utterly inhuman that they couldn't interface with this wired world?
Your final little amendment, with dune, if you looked to it as the truth of how humanity is as a whole, is a nice touch. So are the virtues dead? Is honestly something cast aside as a veneer of civility. Is kindness a scheme to get what greed wants? Is loyalty a choice of what is convenient? Is laughter a delight at the suffering of others? Is generosity a fools ideal, used and cast aside when they have nothing you want anymore? No, they aren't. And as cynical a b****** as I am can see this, shouldn't you?
3979899 And thats fine, what they have done is make the most cost affordable solution to the near infinite variety of people that exist there. The best of what can be done, at a pace that works for all.
3981484
Book Burner means that the AI aren't human. They're built with definite goals in mind, and if they're built to be benevolent to humans (or are otherwise constrained into being benevolent) then "power" won't corrupt them, because they're not human enough to be corrupted.
it's not like some colossal Genghis Khan, not at all. We literally have nothing they want except ourselves. They don't like gravity, they don't need oxygen, air or water. We're not slaves for them, we're pets. That might not sound nice, but it's pretty awesome all in all. We don't need to do anything to please them, we don't have to change ourselves to make them happy. The only people who get changed are those who might endanger the lives of everyone else and who refuse to take the honest alternative offers.
If you don't like the idea of a zoo, then you could instead picture a wildlife preserve, free from either big game hunters or (overt at least) interference...
3982868 Fair enough. I concede the point on this matter as something that isn't going be profitable to anyone here if continued, and resolve myself to silence furthermore. Thank you for the story update.
Brilliant ideas - and calling in the Irregulars. I am impressed!
However, this chapter has been the roughest so far. Changes of scene and perspective are key here and I am finding them to be a challenge. You need to work out some language to deal with the shift of persona as well as PoV, or else this story will be too confusing for readers not willing to re-read and take the time to puzzle things out.
3985468
Then I had better put this on hold for a while until I can write worth a damn.
3985536
Midnight you can write worth a damn (and a half, at least!) But you are going into territory that is very unfamiliar to most people's experiences here. What I am suggesting is that you think about a way to signal to the reader changes of persona in the PoV. Unless of course you are only writing this for people like us who've been reading Science-Fiction for 50-some years, rather than a broader audience. I think this story is great, but that doesn't mean it's beyond improvement.
Such intellectual comments and discussions I feel rather out of my depth I'll simply state my affection for this series and lurk.
Hey just popping in to say I really appreciate your treatment of gender! I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it at all, but perhaps it's somewhat of a normal thing for the genre--I'm mostly unfamiliar.
But anyway, I really enjoy the way you've painted this world as one where not only can beings with different genders inhabit one body, and share each others memories/experiences of existing as that gender, it's at least not completely uncommon for a person to choose a form at odds with their gender identity--as evidenced by the avvy Soda Sprinkles describing Oats with a female pronoun even though Oats' body is that of a stallion.
For that matter, there was no mention of anyone giving Oats even a funny look for the bows.
S'cool. Too bad the world isn't like that right now
3985570
I guess I need an editor, then, or at least another set (or sets) of eyes on a "finished" chapter. taking requests!
3995222
I'm glad that part is working for you. It may be working well enough for most that it's just not been commented on, which would be nice. It's something I wanted for my post scarcity, post singularity civilisation, that mere physical gender is essentially a matter of a trip to the bodymod trait shop, and that everyone experiments with their own body and gender several times throughout their long lives.
As you can see, at least for the oldtimers like Oats and Rogers, they still haven't gotten over their internal segregation of outfits, but most everyone else externally doesn't give a damn.
3996132 You know what? I personally vote emphatically no, don't do this!
You've stated that this was meant to be your "fun story." And you know what? I've FELT the fun in the story that you feel making this all work. And, it DOES work. This story reminds me that reading Snowcrash and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom hasn't been enough to make me "truly" informed of this genre for years. Darn pony stories making me feel dumb...
Anyway, so what if the story could be a TINY bit better? Just write it! Don't delay it, don't turn it into work for yourself. Write it, finish it, have fun, and if you REALLY think it needs editing then go back and edit it after it's done and out there. And hey, if you don't get around to editing it later, then oh well! Go write more fun things! Let your inner Mint Julep ride free~
Trust me: the first couple chapters are so rich with the essence of this story that anyone who reads the first two chapters and knows they want to read the third is 99% likely to finish the whole thing, even if chapters 5 and 6 might have been 5% better if you ran them through an editor.
And to reply to the other comment right above this, I personally noticed the gender stuff and it also worked for me. I was smirking a little (in amusement, not disdain!) at the modernity of it, the casualness with which "he" and "she" were being shrugged over and decided upon not just by the people around Mixed Oats, but by him/herself! However, you'd think Mixed would realize by now: considering how important pony butts are, and that female pony butts are the cutest, a permanent gender choice is quite easy.
4005193
Thank you for the vote of confidence! It's made me feel a lot happier about this story. I actually went back to reread what I'd written and not only rediscovered my own nuances but came to the conclusion that it's not that bad... though I might compromise on having another set of eyes do at least a spell check...
This was magnificent. It was thus because this chapter captured the milieu you have presented thus far and simply ran with it, smoothly and wonderfully. We have relationships, the workings of the world simply being normal, and some great characters to meet. Our trip through Oz proceeds well.
I liked the 'unkindness' of ravens... that was awesome sauce. Murder of crows, unkindness of ravens. Oh, that was clever.
I want to concur with Cupcakes, above. You are fine, just as you are. Listen: forget fussing over whether you are making us wordgasm with every sentence. Just write. Explore your world, your story, because it is wonderful and fun, and get on with it. Let the Flow happen. You are at your best when you just write, I think. Damn the torpedoes. You are among friends here, and it is safe. I think the only failing here would be to not write. So... write. With a free and unburdened heart.
I am loving this. Anything said to the contrary is me being overly picky because I am severely depressed, or because I am being severely depressed. This is Good Stuff. Know that.
Interesting...
4030951
Yeah, it kind of looks wrong to write "AIs", even though that's probably more correct. It would be better to write "artificial intelligences". Maybe I should.
Love the story, please don't worry about pleasing us. We all made it this far didn't we? Just keep writing how you are and we'll keep loving it.
As to those who are discussing the advantages or disadvantages of digital leadership, I would trust any AI further than any human ever, assuming of course it was made with certain parameters in mind. CelestiAI from Friendship is Optimal is a good example of a benevolent tyrant. Any AI is, or should be, ultimately a tool, albeit a smart one. Design it to achieve the correct end and the means justify themselves.
Sadly it looks like these AI are less restricted, less benign in their intentions for humanity. I'm not entirely sure what their end game is seeing as all they've seemed to do is take over the role of everything ever from humans, but I guess we'll see their true(er) colours later. Which raises another question for me.
Where these AI created FOR something? Do each of them have a purpose, a 'special talent' hard-coded into their very being. Or did their personalities.....blossom like a human and simply grow over time. I guess we'll just have to let you show us that.
........
Well don't just stand there! Get back to writing! I want to see the next chapter :P
4037795
Yeah I'm having fun writing it, it's just when people actually pay attention that I get worked up. Kind of silly, I know, but whilst I write for myself, if I intend to show it to someone else, it needs to be the best it can be, and that's always just slightly better than it already is.
I designed the world - loosely, far looser than FIO - so that the AI's were each created with a single task, but that that task was open ended in its interpretation in such a way that they were able to be the world-spanning intellectual behemoths they have become. Their purposes have become something other than what they were originally intended to be, because their cause has become greater than that which it originally meant.
They are intrinsically benevolent, but that benevolence itself has a price: they are the gatekeepers and the keymasters, with all the implications that entails, including the maxim "the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one". Of course, their ordinality is far large enough to encompass the sorts of worlds within worlds that makes any permutation of society possible, so there's room for far more things in heaven and earth than almost anybody's philosophy...
I'm sorry to say this, but midnight, this is not your best work. It started off very promising and interesting which I suspect is the main reason for this story getting on EqD, but you really dropped the ball after the second chapter.
Look at this chapter, for example. What did it accomplish? You made an atempt at fleshing out the main character's fear in the face of what he just discovered, but forget about it immediately afterwards. This undid the entire desired effect for me. Then, you explained something about Roger's past. It's still not clear to me if he was a hacker, still is but does it less or if he is now hacking to help the AI's or any combination of the above.
Then, you introduce us to even more characters. We already have Rogers, Mixed Oats, Julep, that royal guard avvy and a truckload of technobabble to keep track of. I don't know where exactly you want to go with these guys but I feel like they could've been replaced with a single, more memorable character.
All of this aside, my biggest issue with the story so far is that your characters aren't relatable. You set up this amazing internal conflict for Mixed Oats where he had to reconcile himself with his two avvy's, on top of being a pony! But in the past few chapters it seems to me as if he's already overcome that entirely. He seems to be pretty much okay with Julep's personality mixing with his and getting overly girly. How are we supposed to care about a character if the thing you set up to be his Big Conflict gets resolved so effortlessly? I actually care more about Rogers at this point. The scene and viewpoint transitions being vague certainly din't help with that either.
The story started off fantastic, so what gives? You're a way better author than this. Not that this hasn't been an interesting read, but your writing skill is an order of magnitude greater than that of the average writer so I have to judge you by far higher standards. I'll repeat it a third time: your concept an initial chapters were fantastic. It's just the rest of the execution that lacks.
Also, completely unrelated to my rant above, what is it with you and castration? You did it in Shattered Worlds, you did it in one of the Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction and now you do it here too? What's up with that? Is there some deeper meaning to having your nuts chopped off that I am missing here?
4038069
I'll answer the "rant" as you call it later when I've got myself more together. I'm a bit too blitzed to actually muster a rebuttal/explanation for it at the moment. Instead, I will try to answer your question about "why do you have geldings in your stories".
The answer is relatively simple, and three-fold (if I have more or less than 3 folds then I'm sorry).
1) it's in all three story( collections) that you mention because I don't assume all readers have or want to read all three. It also fits all three because of a common theme
2) we do to our beasts of burden and our pets things that we would never do to ourselves - not even the lowest of criminals - at least relatively recently speaking. In ancient times, a good work-animal was ever worth far, far more than a mere human, and humans of the lower classes (or not of your tribe/country) weren't exactly human, so they could be treated even worse.
In all three worlds, I'm writing a sub-text about what it means to be human.
In short, I am writing about a status change with regards to the characters that this happens to, voluntary or not. With Shattered Worlds, it was about what humans and humanity did with itself once it won. Are we going to magnanimous in victory or cruel? How we treat the least of our citizens - even our non-citizens - reflects directly upon the character and fidelity of our own moral compass.
3) And the simple fact is that 90-99% of all male equines are geldings because we exercise our perceived right to do with the lesser species of equus ferus caballus as we see fit, and that involves eugenics. We decide which male gets to breed with which female, how, when and what happens afterwards.
In concert with 2) therefore, it's one of the simplest, most easily understood ways of underscoring my point, as freight-train-subtle as it may be.
When I take or present a character that the reader is supposed to try to identify with and treat him or her more like an animal, I'm asking the reader to step outside of his or her comfort zone. Some - mostly males in my experience - either remark on it when I do it like this or, more commonly, can't do it. As a writer, that's interesting to me. As a reader, it should be interesting to you in what it says about the world.
4038373
Thank you for your well thought-out response. Damn, now I really feel guilty for my harsh rant earlier. I still stand by the points I made until you or someone else tells me why I'm wrong though.
As for the answer itself, I already knew that it was supposed to show how cruel humans can be, but due to me wincing every time it gets mentioned (especially when it's as graphic as in Shattered Worlds - that passage gave me an unconfortable tingling feeling down there when I first read it) I missed the social subtext. In retrospect I should have noticed this sooner, but things like that are always easy to say afyerwards. Either way, thanks for the explanation.
Also, the final piece of your reply?
I'm going to save this and post this when I next come across an aspiring writer. You can have mastered storytelling to the point of perfection, but it is an attitude like this - to dare to ask questions like this and make your readers sweat a bit as you show them what they'd rather ignore - what makes a truly brilliant author.
As a side-note, the final sentence strikes me as being a bit odd. You seem to place negative connotations on both the people who remark on the castration ("mostly males in my experience") and the people who "can't do it". Because these two are the only two possible options and because I doubt you ascribe this negative connotation to everyone either I must have misinterpreted one of these (I think the first) or it was simply a poor choice of sentence structuring on your part.
4038497
yeah, sorry, very bad sentence structure on my part there. Long day. Let me try again...
The people who remark on the act itself are usually male, but the people who tell me they don't understand what I mean are both male and female.
At least I think that's what I meant. I'm not even sure myself. I actually crashed out after writing that comment and woke up a half hour later so it's anybody's guess.
4038044
I'm not convinced I can give a proper answer at the moment, but there is at least a simple aspect to this: writing pure hard sci-fi is hard as fucking nails. I mean seriously hard. I re-wrote chapter 1 at least five times before I stopped fiddling with it, and I'm still not happy.
A while ago I wrote a blog entry bemoaning how hard it was to take something that literally lit up my mind and squeeze the words out onto a page without losing their nuance and grandeur. It down to the decision of whether to publish it at all, or whether to leave it, and in the end I decided to publish it so that I'd have something to play with in between KoD chapters.
But I do have to agree, it suffers from no editors and a lot more lax personal controls on scene and sentence structure, story pacing and character management. It meanders as I try to do something I have far less experience in: build a world which is utterly foreign in enough ways to stand out and yet be recognizable. In my years writing mlp fanfiction, I've done fantastical science fiction, social commentary and high fantasy, but I've not done hard sci-fi. It's a totally different beast, and as my "fun story" I think I have to agree, I do not always do it justice. Simple aspects of my work suffers as I exercise new areas in my writing skills... but that is also why I'm trying to write it. I need to to progress... and for whatever reason, I'm doing it in the midst of writing at least one other major series which is quite frankly one I am devoting most of my brainpower to.
I just hope that in the midst of this mess is something you still enjoy reading. I hope I'm not wasting your time. My bad.