not the bees
Twilight was not pleased by the rocket launch in the middle of the night.
That was by design. If she was pissed off, she would be more likely to overlook the reason for launching.
The Princesses had to realize that now that I was back, I was going to want control over the satellites again. I certainly did, but I wasn't stupid. They had gotten access to the satellite downlinks while I was gone, and there was no way they would willing give up that capability. It was a treasure trove of intel. I was sure that by now the Equestrian Government had either dupicated the downlink equipment or installed backdoors. Cutting them off would be hard to do.
So I wasn't doing that. I was going to let them have their own terminals. Satellites had a lot of non-spy purposes, like land management and weather prediction. Not that Equestria really needed either of those things, but it's the thought that counted.
And I was trying to get whatever favors I could. It still looked bad that the guy who was Santa Claus' chief naughty/nice arbiter was himself on the naughty list.
So that's why I opened the door when Twilight came knocking in the middle of the night.
“Kind of late, isn't it?” I said, meeting her at the door.
“Kind of late to be launching space rockets, isn’t it?” she shot back.
“Oh, you heard that?”
“You live next door!”
“Twilight, you of all ponies should know to be more precise than that.”
“Valiant, you of all ponies should know a figure of speech when you hear one. I know you don’t live directly next door. But with a rocket that big, I can’t help but hear it halfway across town, and I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t launch them in the middle of the night!”
“It’s always night in outer space,” I pointed out.
“Did I hear something about outer space?” said Cordoba. She poked her head out the door.
Twilight started when she saw Cordoba, but relaxed. After the battle with Twi-minator, Cordoba had required some recovery, but was now back to her old self.
“We’re talking about the necessary orbit path that required a launch at this particular time,” I said.
“That wasn’t what we were talking about,” said Twilight, “but now that you’ve brought it up, why exactly did you have to launch now?”
“You can think of it like a planet monitoring service,” I said.
“Like your spy satellites?”
“No.” It was going to be way better than that. “I call it the the Ocular Topographic Understanding System. It’s going to help us learn more about the planet and universe. There’s still a lot to know and learn, and natural resources that we can both use and responsibly conserve.”
Twilight gave me a look. “Since when are you an environmentalist?”
“Hey, even I recognize that we don’t have infinite resources.”
“It should go without saying that I don’t trust you, Valiant. I don’t believe you’re being completely philanthropic here.”
I shrugged. “Would I tell you I nicknamed it the admittedly sinister-sounding OCTOPUS if I had something to hide? I wouldn’t be telling you that if I had some sinister purpose.”
“You’re not actually telling me anything, that’s just the name reduced to an acronym!” Twilight protested. “And yes, I think you would anyway.”
I shrugged. “I could stand here and argue with you, but it’s time to give Cordoba her expresso and get her to bed.”
Twilight shook her head and walked away. I closed the door.
“So are you ever going to tell her the true purpose of OCTOPUS?” Cordoba asked.
“What, the part about how it’ll intercept and modify the signals of the government-controlled satellites, or the prompt global strike ability?”
“If she keeps asking around, I’m sure she’ll eventually figure it out,” said Cordoba.
“Maybe. Looks like we need a false flag to throw her off.” I paused and considered it. “Actually, that’s a great idea. We’ll have lots of false flags. It’s going to be like Conspiracy Theories ’R Us up in here. If I do it right, they’ll play off each other until nothing sounds too ridiculous and all blame is completely directed elsewhere.”
“The problem then becomes that everyone will just go ahead and accuse you without proof because it’s easier than pursuing the supposed truth,” said Cordoba.
“But I’ll take that into consideration and have a counter.”
“There’s the possibility that they will see through that and know you’re still overall responsible.”
“They might plan around me planning around their plan to plan around my plan,” I said. “But these are ponies we’re talking about. There’s no way they’ll plan that I’ll have a plan to counteract their plan to plan for subversion of my plan to circumvent their plan.”
“But what if they do?”
I ruffled her mane. “I’m planning for that, too.”
I headed to the back room where the orbit monitoring system was located. Sunset lounged at the controls. The system was pretty highly automated and mostly took care of itself. There wasn't much up there, so I wasn't too worried about collisions. Though it might be a good idea to get a space radar or something to track things more accurately.
“This launch brings the constellation to three,” Sunset said. “Half a dozen more and we’ll have complete control.”
I nodded. “The challenge then becomes keeping OCTOPUS secret. We’ll need a whole ‘nother layer of encryption.”
“What if we don’t?” said Cordoba. “We could just tell everyone and they won't believe us if we make it unbelievable enough.”
“Maybe, but I would still feel better with some encryption. Hey, do you know the phonetic alphabet? Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog...”
“Wasn’t that replaced with an updated version?” said Sunset.
“Even better.” I smiled. “I hope you like bees, because we’re going to spell our way into secrecy.”
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Ok, so from what I can piece together, this joke seems like it'll involve some kind of James Bond reference as I feel that's what OCTOPUS is from, and something Nicolas Cage is involved in.
Screw it, I'll just wait and see what happens
I hope brainfuck is involved somewhere
Valiant, your brilliance knows no bounds!
Valiant needs the computer program from episode 1 of the 2012 Dirk Gently miniseries. (Not the 2016 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, although both series are based on the same Douglas Adams books.) You provide a conclusion to the program, and the program spits out a seemingly-logical series of steps to reach that conclusion, regardless of what the conclusion was. The Pentagon got their hands on the program at the end of the episode and used it to justify invading Mexico.
7711361
Brainfuck?
It outputs the lyrics to "99 Bottles of Beer".
7715347 I read the book. Didn't know there was TV.
7715392
There's two books. (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.) And sort of a third. (Salmon of Doubt started as a Dirk Gently book, got morphed into a Hitchhiker's Guide book, and then Adams died before finishing it.)
7715359 ----[---->+<]>++.-[++++>---<]>..[----->++<]>+.--[--->+<]>---.-------------.+++++++++.++++++.--------.-[--->+<]>.-[---->+<]>++.---[->++++<]>.------------.+.++++++++++.+[---->+<]>+++.-[--->++<]>-.++++++++++.+[---->+<]>+++.[->+++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.---[->++++<]>.------------.+.+++++.-------.-[--->+<]>--.+[----->+<]>+.+.++++++++.+[---->+<]>++.---[->++<]>.++++++++++.>++++++++++.>-[--->+<]>--.[--->+<]>--..+.[----->++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.+[->+++<]>+.+++++++++++..+.[----->++<]>+.-[->+++<]>.++[--->++<]>.-------.++.++.+++++++++++.[---->+<]>+++.--[->++++<]>+.--[->+++<]>..[--->+<]>++.
7715463
For anyone wondering what that translates to:
Apparently this is a thing now :D
Soopa doopa legit yeey
Via Brainfuck Interpreter.
Is this a Hellsing abridged reference
9117580
I don't think it was, but looking back on it, it sure sounds like it.