The Parliament of Dreams

by Wheller

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The passengers of the Madame La Salle were all ushered into the centre of the ship. This was a luxury liner, and this space was ordinarily configured as a dining area. However, safety regulations stated that passengers must be seated for the first hour of a flight. The dining area had been cleared out, and the flight crew was pulling the last of the special seats built into the floor up, and now they had a multitude of rows of seats to fit all three hundred passengers.

Sparky and company picked seats at the far back of the dining area and sat down, fastening their safety restraints in preparation for ascension.

Sparky's chest felt heavy, her breathing became erratic. She hated airships, she wanted out. 'I can't do this!' Sparky cried out. 'I can't...'

Sparky felt something strike her across the cheek, she turned and looked to Shortfuse, who had taken a seat next to her. 'You need to calm the hell down!' Shortfuse whispered quietly. 'If you start freaking out, we're going to get thrown off the ship', Shortfuse pointed to a small holographic screen on the back of the seat in front of Sparky. 'Watch some TV, don't focus on where you are, and relax'.

'You're right... you're right...' Sparky said, taking a deep breath. She reached out and touched the holographic screen, bringing up the Equestrian Broadcast Service News.

Tragedy struck today aboard the Discovery One spacecraft, The Equestrian Broadcast Service have just learned in an official statement from FutureTec's ground control crew, that a terrible accident that claimed the lives of all six crew members. The first death, crew member, Anatoliy Leninov, was killed after his oxygen line was severed, when his extravehicular activity pod suffered from a thruster malfunction, and collided with him. The EVA pod then collided with the superstructure, damaging the airlock Leninov had been working fom and throwing it open, venting all but Mission Commander Ice Wind into Space. Mission Commander Ice Wind was, however was able to contact ground control, blaming the incident on computer failure of the ship board Hannibal-class Virtual Intelligence. All contact was lost with Discovery One shortly afterwards, and Mission Commander Ice Wind is presumed deceased. The accident has raised concerns that the Hannibal-class Virtual Intelligence units may be unstable. A comment from FutureTec affirms that there was nothing wrong with the Hannibal-class VI used aboard the spacecraft, and that they have detected no faults from this VI or any of the others used by the company. The Hannibal-class VIs are widely used by the Equestrian Military, and not long after the accident, EBS was contacted by an anonymous whistle blower from inside the Equestrian Military, reporting that detachments of Second Republican Fleet under the command of Commodore Dula Heartstrings have deactivated all of their Hannibal-class VIs in response to the situation... Commodore Heartstrings was unavailable for comment.

Sparky shut the news off. That wasn't helping to calm her down; if anything it was making it worse. The fate of the crew of Discovery One was something to be concerned about... the Hannibal-class Virtual Intelligence was the standard operating assistants for the military. Automated processes were controlled by VIs, which included a number of systems vital for operation of a warship, air filtration, pressurisation, fuel management... if there was something wrong... something about the Hannibal-class VIs that was inherently flawed, then the republic had a big problem on their hooves.

The Hannibal-class Virtual Intelligence was the result of the standard course of experimentation into VI technology. FutureTec had made the first VI and were years ahead of other companies that were responsible for their creation...

Sparky stopped, and then the thought hit her. FutureTec had made the first VI, and she had met that VI. The first VI ever created had been Mister Happy, and if all FutureTec created VIs were based upon Mister Happy’s design...

While having been extraordinarily helpful to them so far, Mister Happy had shown a number of signs of instability. He’d evolved from the simple program designed to automate systems, given an artificial personality to make the people who worked with it on a regular basis more comfortable. A VI was programmed in such a way to make a person feel like it was another co-worker, and not just a computer program. If FutureTec VIs were flawed, and unstable, they could evolve like Mister Happy did into true Artificial Intelligence.

Not everyone was ready for machines to be self aware; they’d be threatened by them. AIs would be able to perform the same jobs that an everyday pony could, and they could do it better, and more efficiently. Everyone would be afraid that the machines would replace them, and they’d want them gone.

But by that point, it would be too late; the AIs would become people too, a different kind of person, but still a person nonetheless. No one wants to die, being shut down would be the equivalent of death for an AI.

The only outcome could be war.

Sparky tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous, that it couldn’t happen... that FutureTec could stop it from happening by discontinuing the Hannibal-class VIs before it could happen, but then... what if they couldn’t? Or worse, what if they wouldn’t?

FutureTec had to know that the Hannibal-Class VIs were unstable. They created the first VI; they knew what had become of that VI... they covered it up to save face. What if... what if they were just going to ignore the problem? The news story that she had just watched had reported that FutureTec was maintaining nothing was wrong. Sparky began to panic again.

Shortfuse responded by giving her another smack across the cheek. ‘Sparky! Calm the hell down! We’re just about to get into the air! You need to relax!’

Sparky nodded. Her thoughts were getting the best of her. She needed to be optimistic. The design and the particulars of the Hannibal-class VIs were heavily classified, due to their wide use by the military, and this was FutureTec that she was talking about. They always had a plan, a backup, a failsafe, or something! They could stop it before it got that far, she knew it. She had to think it, lest she be driven insane by her own thoughts.

Suddenly, several loud speakers crackled to life, and a mare’s voice began to speak.

Mesdames et Messieurs, c'est votre capitaine, Michelle La Roche, nous allons être au départ peu de temps. S'il vous plaît attacher vos ceintures de sécurité pendant que nous monter à une altitude de mille mètres.

The liner was a cheval operated ship; the voice of the captain spoke first in her native tongue, and then repeated what she had just said in Equestrian.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain, Michelle La Roche, we will be departing shortly. Please fasten your safety belts while we climb to an altitude of one thousand metres.

Sparky did her best to not imagine how high up that was.

Il faudra environ une heure pour atteindre notre altitude de croisière de mille mètres, jusque-là, restez dans vos sièges, et détendez-vous et profitez de votre vol.

Sparky frowned; it figured that a fear of airship travel would also end up including a fear of heights too.

It will take about an hour to reach our cruising altitude of one thousand metres, until then, stay in your seats, and relax and enjoy your flight.

‘Sparky? Are you all right?’ Dizzy asked, leaning forward in her seat from the other side of Shortfuse to look at her friend.

‘I’ll be fine... but I’ll be really happy when we’re on the ground again’, Sparky said.

Dizzy frowned at her. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way about water that you do about airships’.

‘Um... not really...’ Sparky said with a frown. ‘Sorry Dizzy, I’m not sure I see how that’s relevant’.

Dizzy shrugged, offering her friend a small smile. ‘Well... it sure made my baptism a rather traumatic event...’

...

After an hour or so, the crew dismissed the passengers from their seats, and as they filed out from the dining area, other members of the crew began to set up the area for dinner. Sparky had acclimated to the experience of being aboard an Airship. The Madame La Salle had levelled out, and they were free to walk around, though Sparky made it a point to not look out any of the windows.

The ride so far was going pretty well, in fact, it felt like they weren’t even moving at all, despite the fact that she knew that, in order for them to reach their destination in their estimated arrival time frame of 32 hours, the ship was travelling at approximately one hundred sixty kilometres per hour.

Was it bad that she was able to figure that out in less than a minute? Maybe Shortfuse was on to something as to why Sparky always had trouble getting dates. Sparky shook her head, dismissing it as nothing more than Shortfuse’s ridiculousness.

She had enough of her walk and decided it would be best to head back to the cabins. As she walked through the hallways, she was able to notice that a number of them were open and as of yet, unoccupied. They were rather small. Even with the Madame La Salle being 300 metres in length, space was still a premium.

She rounded the corner into her section, and began looking for which one was going to be hers. Cabins bunked two ponies, and she and Grandma V would be sharing one. As she rounded another corner, she collided headlong into someone who was standing just around the corner, unfortunately, this person was carrying many bags, almost all of which were very heavy, and fell down upon Sparky.

‘Owww!’ Sparky said from underneath the bags, she pushed them off her to reveal the massive gryphon she had exchanged looks with before, Juan Carlos.

‘¡Perdón!’ the gryphon said as he picked the bags up.

Sparky pushed several more around and got to her hooves. She turned around to discover that the gryphon was not alone. Señora Amarilla de la Manzana hovered mere centimetres from her face, staring intensely into Sparky’s eyes.

‘You...’ the Señora said hostilely. ‘You are one of them’.

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Oh, great. A hundred years and a bit more sophistication have done little to cure Applejack of being a belligerent hindrance to the ponies trying to fix things.

[Spiffers]

OK, the image I have of this airship is utterly ridiculous... Mostly because I find it ridiculous that if the airship was vertically oriented it would be over halfway to the ground... 500 meters flying altitude... 1 hour to reach 500 meters...

Oh, and it would take more like 10 seconds (or less) for Sparky to figure out how fast it would take, unless she had to do some math to figure out the actual distance (I know I could do it in less than 10 seconds if I knew the distance and time)

[Wheller]

433217

Changed 1000 metres. Which is what I was going to do originally, anyway.

[Apocalypse Pony]

Tonight.....you.

[Blik]

S'il vous plaît attacher vos ceintures de sécurité pendant que nous monter à une altitude de mille mètres. --> attachez, montons

Il faudra environ une heure pour atteindre notre altitude de croisière de mille mètres, jusque-là, restez dans vos sièges, et détendez-vous et profitez de votre vol. --> Il aura besoin d'une heure... détendez-vous et prenez plaisir de votre vol.
The second change is less necessary than the first. Admittedly I'm not fluent, but I've never seen falloir used without a verb or a strong direct object. I suppose it could work, but when you throw the "environs" in there it muddles my head. As is, though, it's just awkward.

[SCaitan]

433384

Lol, know I understand why the airship first rises to 1000 meters and then needs another hour to reach cruising altitude of 500. The second part needs fixing now. I would say cruising altitude of 5000 meters?

[Morphile]

HAL 9000 space odyssey ref.

[Low-quality memes]

static.fjcdn.com/comments/I+woulda+been+loling+as+soon+as+she+said+quot+Rape+quot+_f7360596636dcabc4b956a40d23f8a38.jpg 434383
i dont see how this fits

[ColdGoldLazarus]

More Space Odessy stuff. :/

Now I have a ridiculous mental image of Shortfuse giving Sparky an utterly ridiculous meme-style expression, telling her to CALM THE F*CK DOWN!!!!1!!

Oh, crap. Rich lady is pissed. Shortfuse, quick! Rush to the defense of your [strike]trouble-magnet damsel[/strike] [strike]beautiful mare[/strike] totally platonic very close friend whom you totally don't have a thing for!

[Macon Mixx]

"I can't do that, Ice"

Well, you made the reference obvious enough in the first couple of chapters, but it had been so long I wasn't sure you'd follow through. I love how it played into the story line, though. You saved it for just the right moment.

677728
Eeyup. Shortfuse was totally trying to pick up stallions at that club. Right. <-- Liarjack face

[Blahman2816]

Lady Yellow of the Apple?

Either you have some messed up Spanish (¿hispañic=español?) or she is a member of the Apple family. If so, why Hispanic?

[Borg]

Not everyone was ready for machines to be self aware; they’d be threatened by them. AIs would be able to perform the same jobs that an everyday pony could, and they could do it better, and more efficiently. Everyone would be afraid that the machines would replace them, and they’d want them gone.

But by that point, it would be too late; the AIs would become people too, a different kind of person, but still a person nonetheless. No one wants to die, being shut down would be the equivalent of death for an AI.

The only outcome could be war.

Please tell me you're not speaking for Wheller, Sparky. Because it's kind of unclear right now.

[Wolfren]

Dizzy shrugged, offering her friend a small smile. ‘Well... it sure made my baptism a rather traumatic event...’