Chapter 12: Lies
The ponies stationed inside Normandy all lived in one little building, which like everything there had been very hastily constructed. The single-story military-style barracks might not have all the technological amenities of the human structures, but it had been built with old-fashioned earth pony sturdiness and rustic charm. After living in pony-built structures her whole life, Amber would've felt quite uncomfortable in any of the human structures all around her. To say nothing of when she dreamed of being back in the hive, and woke up in a shivering sweat.
Of course, she was also the only pony in the barracks to have an office of her own, which doubled as her bedroom in the cramped space. It was in the former capacity that the room was configured now, all her bedding packed away in a closet and lifted high as a table. Scrolls and other bits of paper covered the desk, every request made by ponies or humans about this little settlement. She glanced over the one she had been reading last, frowning a little. "Unless something is done about this expansion soon, I fear this settlement faces imminent doom!" Amber wasn't sure what she would send in reply to the concerned zebra that had penned that letter. Her fears for the consequences of felling about two kilometers of the Everfree were not misjudged, yet warnings to that effect had already been given and swiftly rejected by both human factions. "We can handle wildlife," was the universal response.
Was it her job to protect them from the threats they insisted didn't exist? Would they even listen to her if she tried? She hadn't yet, except to give instruction that any plant they didn't recognize ought to be treated like a chemical weapon, preferably burned without allowing exposure of any kind. So far the humans of both factions had taken her advice very seriously: wood harvesting had been transformed from a slow erosion and been relegated to the borders, felling trees along the distance slated for expansion but no further. As she understood, the forest within the boundary was not going to be harvested. It was going to be burned, and a wall of lumber and some sort of foam was going to be built on the forest side to a height of forty feet or more.
A sharp knock on the door interrupted her musing, and she sat a little straighter, adjusting her mane with a brief flurry of magic no real pegasus ought to be able to perform. Only when she was sure her appearance was pristine did she call, "Come in!" in the most confident voice she could muster. The door opened slowly, and she was not surprised to see one of her soldiers standing there.
Or rather, a soldier. She didn't recognize this mare by sight, which was not all that unusual. Every day the size of her force seemed to grow, though most of the ponies who arrived were from the service branches, not actual soldiers. The newcomer was a unicorn, with the markings of the Royal Corps all over her robes. Her coat was a sort of oceanic blue, with a greenish mane and matching eyes. Something twitched in Amber's chest, but she didn't recognize it and so paid it no mind.
"You're Amber Sands?" Her voice was quiet and a little withdrawn, though the attitude was typical of the Royal Unicorn Corps. Since they were all officers, they often acted like the ordinary chain of command just didn't apply to them. There was nothing Amber could do to correct a superior, so she just had to swallow her pride and nod. It wasn't her fault she clung so desperately to the structure of the military to replace her missing hive!
"Yes Ma'am." Sands forced a polite smile. "Acting Equestrian Overseer to Normandy. If you've been transferred here, I'll need to see a copy of the orders for unit records." No doubt this pony had already claimed one of the empty officer's quarters for herself and left all her possessions there along with the orders she should have brought directly to Amber.
But to her surprise, the unicorn shook her head, walking into the office and closing the door behind her with a little burst of magic. She sat down and looked across the desk to Amber, absolutely silent. Her eyes were so green, so piercing, that for one awful moment she felt that the unicorn was looking straight through the illusion to the truth beneath, to her legs full of holes and black chitin instead of a furry coat. But if the unicorn could see anything like that, she made no sign of it.
"Ma'am?" Amber raised her eyebrows, rising to her hooves with sudden discomfort. Celestia had given her instructions for what to do if her identity was discovered, and she prepared her mind to follow those instructions. It was going to be a shame to lose this post after only just arriving, though.
"No transfer. I just wanted to get a look at you before..." she trailed off, continuing to watch her.
Amber fidgeted uncomfortably, for some reason unable to meet the eyes of the pony looking at her. What was going on? She looked at every other part of the mare, trying to get as much information as she could. She was far older than Amber, with the ageless look that truly old unicorns sometimes got when magic had stretched their lifespan. That spoke volumes of her power, since that magic was never actually taught but had to be discovered anew by any unicorn who wanted to use it. That meant she had to be high in the Royal Corps. Maybe skilled enough to make a spell that could see through her illusion.
But if that were true, why hadn't she sounded some sort of alarm? Why hadn't she run screaming? Amber wanted to run screaming from herself when she looked too closely at a mirror while in her true form. She was probably imagining things. This old pony was just a little senile, that was all!
"Before what, ma'am?"
Without warning, the unicorn raced around the desk and embraced her. The gesture was so completely unexpected that she froze, her whole body going rigid. But it was no attack, just the tightest hug she had ever felt. Not like the embrace of a friend, or even a lover. Those gestures could be empty, or contain such a faint trickle of love that she barely felt it. What Amber felt was far akin to someone sticking a high-pressure hose down her throat than the faint trickles that eked into her life. It was like Celestia, only more so. The magic that flowed through that gesture was concentrated, refined somehow. The difference was similar to the sweet sap of a sugar-cane and the concentrated white granules for baking. It filled her and filled her until her control could take no more and her illusion crumbled away.
Maybe ponies had long childhoods, but changelings did not. Amber had very nearly reached the peak of maturity, taller than a pony and thinner, her body a healthy black shine. Her mane was a greenish-blue, and as spotted with holes as her legs. Most frightening to her were the fangs protruding from her mouth, though they were less than fully developed so far.
The stranger didn't even seem to notice. "I am so proud of you. Make better choices than I ever did." She smiled and turned away, breaking the gesture and walking out. She seemed conscious of Amber's briefly compromised state because she shut the door very quickly, and even magically locked it behind her so no other soldiers could enter before she had completely composed herself.
Amber didn't even know why she did it. She didn't change quickly back and storm after the obvious intruder, she didn't rage or sound an alarm. Instead, she collapsed onto her haunches and started to cry.
* * *
Another day done in the Castle of the Two Sisters, such as it was. In the decade prior to the war, Celestia had covertly commissioned a number of changes to the castle should they be needed, the least of which were teams of engineers to shore up the construction and patch the holes in the roof. By no means had she made it as defensible a castle as Canterlot Castle, but then when you had the Everfree around you there was little you really needed. The castle would protect those it chose to protect, and the rest would face the consequences of their intrusion.
The castle was one of the oldest structures in Equestria. Parts of its foundation were so old that no pony hooves had set them. There was a magic in this place that few, not even Celestia herself, fully understood.
It was the ideal location for her exile, and not because a single day's walk could take you back into Equestria. Not just because it was so close that anything that happened here would be noticed in Ponyville immediately, though surely that was part of it. Of course those were very good reasons, but the best was a subtler reason still. The human-created OMICRON Core named Truth was immensely intelligent, but not even half so subtle as Celestia could be. He could see ahead in every possible path, but be no surer than anypony else about which path was being followed until ponies set out along it.
Celestia could plan centuries ahead. Millennia, even. There weren't many beings with the same supply of personal experience to draw from in the world. Probably she could have counted them with her hooves. It was unfortunate that half of them seemed to be on the other side.
There were Changeling servants to wait on her, an offer she had accepted only because she knew that any ponies who came here would likely not survive the service. Such ponies would also be the perfect targets of Changeling infiltration, and somehow she doubted whoever did it would leave them alive. No, she had to be alone here even if that meant a life of constant and absolute vigilance. Celestia watched everything the drones did around her, though there wasn't much to watch. Generally they followed her explicit instructions whenever she gave them, and when she didn't they stood in place and watched everything with those unfocused bug-eyes of theirs.
It only took a few days for her to notice something she thought strange. The changeling assigned to prepare her bedroom for the night locked the door behind it, and moved a little more slowly than usual as it closed the shutters to the outside. Celestia could feel the subtle fire of magic, though she could not identify changeling spells with the same level of accuracy that she could pony spells, so she couldn't say for sure exactly what the guard was doing. She pretended not to notice, removing her crown and her necklace and her gilded horseshoes in the same rhythmic way she did every night. She kept her mind in that gentle unfocused state that would allow her to easily pull the magic together for a spell if one was needed in a hurry.
The guard closed the last of the large windows and began slinking towards her. Celestia watched it come carefully, but it didn't seem to be trying to get very close. If it felt anything like all the other guards did, it was probably terrified of her. Celestia's magic was sufficient to burn away such insignificant barely-living creatures at a mere thought, and they seemed to know it. "Will you be needing anything else?" the drone asked, in its harsh buzzing voice. That was a first; none of the other drones that had spoken to her had used a single complete sentence. Using words at all was such a struggle for them, what with every thought shared in that strange hive-mind of theirs.
"That will be quite sufficient, thank you." Celestia drew back the quilts and sheets of the enormous bed, though she did not believe she would have the pleasure of using them tonight. "You can inform your dark masters I am most satisfied with your service."
The changeling's eyes seemed to darken in front of her, though it was hard to judge insect expressions with any level of confidence. There was nothing ambiguous about its words, though. "I have no masters." The voice was not the near-mindlessness of a drone, not even close. As she watched, the changeling's form seemed to ripple and twist, expanding upward and outward. The shining black body remained the same, though it grew taller, stronger, and thinner. Eyes filled with intelligence and cunning, losing the mindless insectoid quality entirely. Her horn grew long and crooked, and her expression one of visible anger. "Nopony commands me. I am the swarm!"
Celestia did not visibly recoil. Such a show of weakness to a predator like this was far from advisable, even though she had great doubts about the changeling's ability to combat her. There was no source of pure and willing love for her to feed on nearby, nor was there a vast army ready to do battle nearby. Still, Chrysalis had surprised her. She had been watching her own kind for so long that she hadn't thought to expect the queen would impersonate one of her own drones! "Is that the promise the Father of Dragons made to you? Our attack on Typhon suggests that might not be entirely true."
She expected anger, or perhaps threats. Chrysalis had a noose around her neck with this bomb threat, and gloating about the victory was in character for her. Maybe she had come to make further demands, or merely to watch Celestia suffer with anguish over the possible fate of her ponies. That was, however, not what happened. Rather, the green glow from her horn faded, and her shoulders visibly sagged an inch or two. It was the most honest expression Celestia had ever seen on her face. "You're right, as usual." The queen of all changelings did something she hadn't ever seen, not in the many years she had known her. She turned her back and walked several paces away, staring up between the cracks in the shutters at the waning moon. "I thought his offer meant greater power than we have had since our birth. Now It seems I have damned us all. No proper queen at all. How does a ruler live with their choices if all the choices they make are wrong?"
Chrysalis had surprised Celestia with her appearance. Her words were a far greater shock. Celestia had known this mare for much of her long existence, and she had never heard her admit to being wrong. Chrysalis had more pride than any being she knew, enough pride to become the mother of her abominable race even though she must have known what the consequences would be. She had been too magically gifted not to understand! Celestia almost didn't believe her ears. Instead she chose to doubt the sincerity. This had to be another tactic, that was all. Another ploy.
She would play along. If there was even a shred of a chance that she meant what she was saying, this might be the only truly good thing to come from this war. "When a servant obeys an instruction that proves to be mistaken, the servant is not at fault. Rulers do not get to pass on the guilt from their mistakes. They have the responsibility to make as few as possible, and repair the damage they cause. They have an example to set."
The changeling did not turn around, didn't seem to react to her words in any way for some minutes. Celestia did not press her. The immortal could afford to be patient.
"I came to try," she said, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. Then she did turn around, eyes wide and urgent. "There is very little time and a complicated plan before us. If we don't get you out of here immediately, I will be killed before I can attempt again. Do you still remember enough transformation magic to appear as one of your common ponies?"
This was nearly too much to bear. Her greatest enemy, the only one to come close to actually assassinating her and her sister was coming to her when it seemed the war was won, and trying to help her escape her own custody? Celestia was enormously intelligent, and she eliminated all but two possibilities quite quickly. Either there had been some shift in power and opinion in the ranks of their enemy that had left Chrysalis without position, or else she was trying to deceive Celestia into breaking the terms of her oath so they could use the nukes.
But why would she want that? The changelings were the ones who had the most to gain from the preservation of Equestrian lives! Each city could sustain hundreds of thousands of changelings on the love it produced, maybe millions. Beyond that, why not just lie and say Celestia had broken the terms, and use one of the bombs anyway? That left the other option as the most likely, though Celestia had no idea what might have transpired to make her old adversary lose her position of power and prominence.
"I can't leave here, or millions of ponies will die. No matter what reason you think I need to leave, I will not put the lives of my ponies at risk." Her tone brooked no argument, nor would she. Even if she thought remaining here might very well get her killed, she could not leave. Not until she had the information that could extricate her ponies from their present bondage.
"I know that!" Chrysalis rolled her eyes, scratching one of her hooves impatiently on the ground beneath her. "I will take your place! It should be enough to fool them long enough for you to find and destroy the bombs, since I know exactly where they both are." The changeling queen closed both eyes very briefly, and Celestia felt the surge of thought in her direction. It was no attack, but one vivid image after another. The first was a building somewhere in Seaddle, a disused section of the sewage treatment area. The second was in an upper story of a building somewhere in Manehattan, with images so vivid Celestia could have teleported there.
Of course she couldn't do that. Pretending to be here was one thing, but even the smallest spells she cast could be detected across the entire planet if you knew how to search for them. She was fairly certain their enemy did know. That didn't mean both sites could not be visited very soon if correct measures were taken. Assuming the information was accurate. There was no trace of deception in the thoughts that Chrysalis sent to her, but that meant very little coming from her. She was a creature of lies, the only that had ever managed to deceive Celestia completely.
"The Dragon intends to steal your power and use it to rewrite Equus's Kernel. Eventually he will come for you here, in a week's time or less. You have until then to find and disable the bombs... There are no others. I had begun to discover His plan by then, and I sabotaged it as best I could. No Alicorn should teleport to Manehattan or Seaddle, or the bombs will be detonated."
"Why are you doing this?" Celestia rummaged around in a drawer, seeking out an unusually large book under what looked like junk. Lifting it carefully, she extricated the tablet computer hidden in its hollowed-out pages and waited as the screen slowly came to life. "If you're telling the truth, then the Father of Dragons has gone completely mad. If he comes here expecting to find my power to steal but discovers you instead, you will surely die."
"Painfully," Chrysalis agreed, watching with some interest as Celestia quickly typed out her message with the floating stylus, then teleported the object away.
"A decade ago, you tried to kill me. Your Changelings are a significant part of the Draconic ground troops. Why are you helping me?" She had to have the answer. Chrysalis had been her enemy for so long, that she could suddenly be willing to sacrifice herself was beyond belief. There wasn't even time to think about the absolute insanity it would be for anypony to modify their world's Kernel, and she didn't waste time considering it now. That avenue would have to wait for a time when she wasn't being buried in unbelievable shocks.
The Queen of the Changelings seemed to pause, taking several deep breaths before she spoke. When she did, it was in a rush of such incredible passion that Celestia nearly retreated a pace or two. "I thought that an alliance with the Dragons would mean I would never have to watch another of my daughters grow up with so little food they never woke up. He promised to help solve our dependence on the love of other species!" She was crying. Celestia could hardly believe her eyes, but Chrysalis was crying! "He twisted them into monsters! Took away their spirits completely! They had so little to begin with..."
"He doesn't even need a queen to produce more of those abominations, and they don't need love. Only flesh. They don't belong in this world... The holes in their hearts are so dark they have Outsiders for souls." Her jaw was set. "I will not allow this to be our future. We will be free. Everything about this is my responsibility, so I will be the one to make it right."
Celestia watched the changeling queen very carefully. To her eyes, it seemed for a moment as though the currents of time were flowing backwards, and she saw the ancient pony as she had been before. The same dark blue mane, without the holes. Her eyes aquamarine, without the slits of a predator who hunted in the dark. No chitinous armor, and feathery wings instead of transparent ones. A white coat as rich and regal as Celestia's. Of course it was only in her mind. Though she could take any form she wished, Celestia did not think she ever had taken this one in her time as a changeling. It hurt her too much.
"The only price I ask is that you spare my daughter and protect her from harm. My most loyal changelings have gone into hiding until this war is over and Equus is safe for them again. When that time comes, they will find her and make her their queen. I already know how well you treated her, and that makes this decision easier. You have already done more for her, your enemy, than I ever did." She advanced a step. "I have no power to compel you, but... Please. She is the only hope for changelings now. She must live through this war."
Even as she watched, the mare in front of her began to shift and change. The black chitin of her body grew lighter and lighter, almost white. Her mane stretched and grew out in an ethereal curtain that faintly shimmered with its own internal light. Soon Celestia was looking at her exact double, perfect in every physical way. It was extremely disconcerting, though not nearly so much as hearing her own voice from the double. "We will be free."
Celestia focused her magic into her body, beginning the transformation spell. She had a long flight tonight if she was going to make it to the place her ship would be waiting for her by morning. "Old friend," she said, touching her head very briefly on Chrysalis’s shoulder. It was a gesture they had not shared for thousands of years. "You already are."
* * *
Everything felt wrong. Charles could feel the ground beneath him almost directly, as though there were no clothing between him and whatever surface he was resting on. It wasn't a dusty floor of red sand and small pebbles, but what felt like some sort of wooden weave, like logs and sticks carefully twisted together. What could that be? He tried to feel all his limbs, but they weren't responding the way he expected. His hands were numb, for one, and he felt like he had too many limbs. The sensation was similar to that he experienced when he tried to directly control a drone instead of passing instructions to its AI subroutines. As though he were the drone, his body twisted completely out of the configuration he expected.
Only when that happened he always knew why, and he could always disconnect. Not only could he not send the disconnect command to whatever prosthesis he had wirelessly interfaced with, but he didn't seem to have the ability to use any of his internal functions. He thought the commands one after another with no effect. Library Recall? System Diagnosis? Transmitter? Nothing nothing nothing!
"Damnit!" Charles took a deep breath, more out of habit than anything. Full cybernetic bodies continued to breathe to help air-cool their components, not because they had any need for air. Yet at that point he realized he had been breathing all this time, and that there was a biological need to continue. He couldn't stop, not without quickly feeling out of breath. How was...
It all came rushing back. The ship, an artificial wing, and a promise he had kept. Nothing should have happened, nothing but a bit of broken jewelry coming off his arm. With slowly growing dread, he opened one of his eyes. His vision was filled with brown, and he lifted his head away from whatever he was resting against with some difficulty. What he saw was impossible, or rather, it was impossible for him to be looking at it from this angle. His first thought, and indeed the only safety for his mind, was that he was back in one of the public simulations, where fantasy was as likely as reality. As to why the system wasn't recognizing his commands... That was obviously some glitch. He had been killed, Rainbow Dash had extracted his Cortical Recorder, and brought him back to the Tower. That was what was happening, right?
But how could Rainbow Dash have known? He hadn't exactly told her...
What Charles saw was the upper branches of a tree, but not looking up from the ground. It seemed to his eyes as if he were resting inside an absolutely gigantic bird's nest, perched somewhere in the canopy of some generic-looking deciduous tree. The ground was so far away it seemed to blur out of sight, completely invisible. There was also something large in the way of his eyes; a muzzle? There was nothing human about it, or the fur that seemed to coat it. He immediately looked down at his hands... and found them missing.
Charles was a pony, with a coat that was a shade of blue away from cream. He couldn't see his mane easily, but a twist of his long neck showed he had a tail of dark grey and a similar shade of nearly-white. There were too many limbs, and he swiftly saw why. He had wings, covered in feathers the exact shade as his coat. He couldn't see that his eyes hadn't changed, and remained the same gold color characteristic of military-grade prosthetics. There was nothing prosthetic about him now.
"Fuck me." Charles collapsed against the nest, though his body seemed to refuse to comply with his desire to simply drop out of consciousness. Biological bodies tended not to do that.
"I'm sorry, but this isn't that sort of dream. And anyway, I'm not really your type." Charles had heard that voice before, somewhere, but couldn't quite place exactly where. It was familiar, like a friend from so long ago he had forgotten their name but still remembered the face. His ears swiveled to face the sound, quite disconcertingly. He turned to the empty part of the nest, and nearly did faint this time.
The creature resting in the nest with him completely defied expectation of conventional biology. It was bipedal, or at least seemed to be from the way it sat. It seemed as though someone had taken a dragon out of Eastern mythology, the long serpentine body, and grafted on the limbs of all sorts of different animals. A dragon's tail, a lizard's talon, the leg of a goat, mismatched wings, and yellow-red eyes.
He recognized the eyes. "You!" Charles had no idea how he controlled his body, but he sat up, scooting back and away from the stranger who had not been there when he looked before. "You were in the castle! But you were human..."
The creature smiled, though it made no move toward him. He was glad of that, since it was so much bigger and there was nowhere for Charles to run. At the edge of the nest was a drop that looked like hundreds of feet. It was true he had wings, but he didn't have the foggiest idea how to use them. Unlike prosthetic bodies, this one didn't come with an internal operator's manual.
"Is that so?" There was obvious amusement in the voice. "I don't recall being anything different for years now. Maybe you were only seeing what you wanted to see. Or perhaps what I wanted you to see.”
His own voice sounded different too, though it was hard to place exactly how. He had been hearing the strange sound of the Equestrian language for long enough that hearing it now was hardly surprising. "You said this was a dream." He held up a hoof. They didn't seem good for much else. "I don't really have this, then. I'm only... dreaming. Is that what the bracelet does? Activate some sort of simulation?"
The creature laughed, a full deep laugh that seemed almost to shake his whole body. "You wish! Except for your height, this dream is completely accurate! This isn't a normal part of the spell, it's a personal favor."
Charles raised his eyebrows. Or at least, he thought he did. He wasn't sure he still had them anymore. "This is doing me a favor?"
Another laugh, though a tad bitter this time. "Not you. Rainbow Dash. It didn't seem right to let you die after all the trouble my little Dashie went to to keep you alive. Metal men might not know friendship when they see it, but friends help each other."
Was this really just a dream? If that were true, he didn't have anything to lose by playing along. If it wasn't, then this might be the only chance he had to learn what was really happening. "How does dreaming up a gigantic tree help keep me alive?"
Again the laugh, most bitter of all. "Clever apes make themselves metal bodies and can't even remember their own plans! Tell me, how did you expect to fly back to Equestria without knowing how to fly? It takes young pegasi months; did you think you would change and everything would work out? No my baby bird, that's not how it works. And since Rainbow Dash isn't going to leave you to die, I'm going to make sure it doesn't take that long." He stood, moving about as strangely as Charles expected from that body.
"But... If you can somehow change my prosthetic body into... into this... can't you just bring us home? It would be easier than teaching me how to use a whole new body!" Charles scooted a few inches further, pressing his back against the nest. There was nowhere else to go, though. He slid up the side of the nest as far as he dared, pushing with back legs. Any further, and he might have gone tumbling backward into the void.
The creature paused what looked like a foot away, scratching his chin thoughtfully with a tallon. "It's true, I could pop you right back to Canterlot. But then, the easiest way usually isn't the best. That's what's so great about chaos! Change means improvement! How many failed evolutionary branches before life on your planet finally managed to get things right and create intelligence?" He glanced briefly down at himself. "Not so many as mine." The talon leg suddenly reached out, pressing painfully into his torso and pushing him towards the top of the nest. He struggled, but the strength was irresistible. He might as well have tried to stop the planet from orbiting for all the good his muscles did. "On your planet, do birds teach their chicks to fly the same way they do in Equestria?"
Charles gulped.
The creature smiled. "Good. You'll know what comes next then." He pushed.
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...oh, poor Charles.
Still, on the bright side, I have no doubt that when he wakes up, he'll know how to fly, at least...
Dream flight training with discord. I'm guessing time in the dream moves much faster than in real world its the only way to get the months of training done before the swarm catches up to them.
Also Long live Queen Amber!
Alright, its time again for one of my favorit stories to shine
...wait, why is it so short?
... eh, who cares if its short, its still a new chapter!
Multiple points of view sure brings out a lot of fun things in stories like this, Celestia and Crysalis, Amber and the mysterius mare (Crysalis mayhaps?), Charles and Discord.
But do you know the absolute best thing about this chapter is? (apart from being a chapter in this story)
NOT ONE SINGLE ERROR!!!
A+ Starscribe, A+
Keep up the good work
Now if you'll exuse me I need to get some sleep since I'll probably not be getting that much deep REM-sleep in a few days (full moon soon and all that crud
)
Well... I kept thinking Chrysalis tricked the Father of Dragons (and the griffons) into joining the war, and apparently it was the other way around. I might have suspected this of all being a trick, but the additional scene with Amber seems to put paid to that. Which makes this a pretty sweet turn of events, in more than one sense.
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There are a few errors, but they're not the glaringly obvious ones you see everywhere else.
Should be "might have gone"
Here it is: The setting-in-motion of all we've been waiting for. I think it was executed nicely at a firm and mellow pace, and this chapter is just beautifully done as normal. I feel bad for Charles, I wonder if he'll feel any different from having a prosthetic body to an organic. I know that you've put emphasis on it feeling exactly the same, I can't help but feel that it everything experienced will be slightly different, a wall that either side wouldn't experience unless they changed sides. But meh.
That was unexpected
Anyway I hope Celestia has plan how to get Crysalis know that the bombs are disarmed and she is free to escape, or maybe even help her escape - as I understand they were friends long time ago.
4964853 ...
and this is the reason I shouldn't read stuff at 1am...
...
...
Poor Charles, but I expect that the next time he meets Discord in real life he'll try to beat down the Chaos God. I hope Chrysalis survives the war, it's fairly obvious she was duped and I don't want to see her die. But Amber would make a great queen, I can totally see her bringing the Changelings in first as a new branch of the Royal Army.
Well that was a fairly short term exile for Celestia. Assuming we can look at it this way, I wonder if once again Chance is the clear difference. Without her in the mix, I can only assume that Chrysalis wouldn't have had a daughter imprinted on a pony that ended up safe in Equestrian custody, and thus wouldn't have felt like she had an assured future for the changeling race after turning traitor on the dragon king.
And, being someone who ran a Linux machine as my personal desktop in college for several years, I definitely noticed that bit about "rewriting Equus's Kernel". Amusingly similar terminology, or something deeper?
And aww yeah, pegasi Charles.
"You already are."
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/607/674/ecb.gif
Nitpick:
Or perhaps, what I wanted you to see.
I believe that "perhaps" is a parenthetical interjection, and as such it would need either commas both fore and aft or neither, unless you'd have written it "Or, what I wanted you to see", which is non-standard, but then, so is the whole sentence, which is okay because characters get to do that; there'd be no broken parenthetical. I suspect that the previous sentence was just hilariously large and complicated and not a run-on.
4952593
The G in GAI stands for "General". It's typically abbreviated and AGI, or artificial general intelligence. Yep! I have a good feeling we'll see them back in the air the next time we see them. They've got plenty of adventuring left to do before they get home to Equestria.
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That's the tradeoff. Perceived months of torture, but a high level of competence flying fast enough to actually use it to get away. This is more or less the way I see Discord as always acting: He wants to do good things, but sometimes he does them in a way that is a huge dick to everybody.
4963516
Yep! You're exactly right. It would have to move faster or he would have been better off learning from RBD in the real world.
4964289
Yay! It's always good to hear a chapter made it through with so few mistakes. Of course, there's no telling whether it was really /completely/ mistake-free, but the fact you thought so means a great deal. I keep expecting your next review to come after you fight through legions of zombies with a chainsaw for an arm and haven't slept for a dozen years or so, with the pattern that seems to be developing here. Either that, or maybe you'll write the review while scaling a steep cliff somewhere without any safety equipment, using one hand to shoot at a helicopter and one to write the review. Not sure what you're holding onto the cliff face with. Determination?
4964775
It's all about the morale gray. I felt guilty setting up Chrysalis as the big-bad of the last story. I think she's a more complicated character than that, even if she's darker than, say, Discord is in the show at the moment, though not so dark as Sombra I would think. This story was my chance to make it right. To give some depth to her motivations that might not have been immediately clear back then.
4964853
I don't always say so immediately, but when I receive correction reviews I typically fix the mistakes pointed out in them (as long as I agree they're actually mistakes) the instant I see them. I fixed these last Saturday, unless I'm very much mistaken, but thank you for pointing them out! No blame on the editors here... these are really small things, and easy to miss. I'm glad somebody noticed, though.
4965935
I think he'll find them pretty different. Organic bodies lack many of the features he's used to, as well as many of the senses. And being a pony has its own list of advantages and complications for him to deal with as well. A difficult learning experience for him I don't doubt. Discord, ever the humanitarian, seems to intend to help.
4966627
Chrysalis seems fairly convinced that she's going to die, and Celestia agrees. Doesn't mean she really will, though. Believe it or not, I don't actually know. In my writing I haven't got to the scene where she confronts the Father of Dragons, so I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. I guess that's one of the reasons I enjoy writing so much: I enjoy seeing how the story ends as much as anybody else.
4967742
I don't think that story specifically inspired me, but in a general sense yes. It's by no means the only one I've read where Discord has been the engine of creation for humans-gone-ponies. I'd say whenever there is a transformation in a story into a pony, there's about a 60% chance the method is Discord-related, about a 20% chance it was poison joke, and only 20% for every other way. At least in stories with only a single individual. In cases with many (IE: Conversion Bureau) all bets are off. In an abstract sense I liked that story a great deal, but I thought that depictions of actual conflict (and sometimes human interaction, like the "We're pony AI's" section) stretched credulity so far I could not longer enjoy the rest of it. That said, I really liked the earlier half of the story, and it was definitely one of the stories that inspired me to write.
4970206
I doubt Equestrian runs on Debian or Ubuntu if that's what you mean. I have a very good feeling we'll find out before the end. Seeing as the Father of Dragons wants to do it soon and all...
4992808
I believe you may be right, and I have corrected the sentence. As I am want to do.
>Now It seems I have damned us all
*it
Their planet is an operating system?
I love Discord. He might not be the most sane creature out there, but he has the BEST sense of humor.
7784907
I always thought he's hypersane. Just as Q in Startrek was. With no regard to mortal limitations. But it is a state on other side of that narrow set what we call sanity