Chapter 14: Rainbow
Chance slept uneasily that night, too exhausted to be interested in the company she kept after everything they had been through that day. She dropped into unconsciousness in only seconds, and within ten minutes she was back to the impossible spell. Only in her dreams the numbers and symbols and equations twisted and blurred, rising up like great beasts. Each branch was a leviathan, crashing down on her.
"Earth is dead!" one of them rumbled, crashing down on her with the laws of thermodynamics barbed like teeth. "Nothing you can do will ever bring it back!"
"Another billion years and complex life will evolve, but it won't be the planet you knew! It's gone forever!" gravity roared, though it was by far the weakest of the monsters. It sounded bigger than it was.
"Humans are better off dead. Just wait a few more decades and all the bunkers will be coffins, like they should be," urged the strong nuclear force.
"Only the strong deserve to survive. Intelligence proved not to be so strong an evolutionary advantage. Nature will stick to plants and insects next time."
She was drowning in them, drowning in the spell that modern thaumaturgy thought was impossible. Using a spell where there was nothing to regulate magic, like drawing a program out of the operating system and expecting it to still work. Fundamentally, this spell wasn't just making a small change like most other magic. She was trying to rewrite the local laws themselves.
Chance choked, and when she coughed numbers and symbols came from her mouth in the darkness instead of water. A deeper voice, a voice not part of the spell itself but the empty blackness behind it sounded loudest of all, coming from within her as much as it came from the deepest darkness of space. "I do not feel. Your species has made no impact. In the endless years even your feeble radio transmissions will stretch until they can be felt no longer. You are undone." There was a laugh like a lake of methane on a dead planet bubbling in the dark, and Chance stopped fighting. The spell would kill her.
Not this nightmare, it seemed. Just as the cold of death-in-dreams began to set in around her, there was a brilliant flash of moonlight, and the monsters died in one horrific scream. The spell unraveled itself from the ocean and put her down on the ground of her lab, with the spell itself growing from the center of the elegant tree-structure she and Twilight had given it. There was nothing malicious about it now, or even vaguely sapient. It was just numbers and equations now.
Chance was younger than she looked in the real world, back in a filly's body, though she was wearing her adult-sized lab jacket and looked more than a little silly. Of course, after all the time walking between dreams with Luna, she had learned more than a little about understanding the symbolism and structure of these visions, and she was not surprised.
She didn't have to turn her head to know Luna was behind her, brilliant and regal. She also had no doubts that she was dreaming, even if the nightmare had seemed real before. Luna had little time for such visits with the war on. So many other ponies were having nightmares, and Chance hadn't had any for some time. Until tonight. "An impressive-looking thaumaturgic construction," said the voice from behind her, the voice Chance had long since associated with long nights and warmth. "The structure seems fundamentally altered since last I saw your progress." She walked a pace or two past Chance, enough that she could see the deep blue body above and beside her. "I thought you were using a circular design for the basic structure. Why the change?" There was something concerned in that voice. Frightened? Chance couldn't imagine why Luna would be afraid.
"Imbalance. The circular spell had different loads in simulation, so it always collapsed. Too much energy required by one part or another." With the terror of nightmare gone, Chance didn't feel afraid of the spell anymore. She drew out a little stick she sometimes used as a pointer, and gestured at the "branches" of the diagram. "It's based on an algorithm from human computing. Instead of using the six different sections of the spell as the "spokes" on the wheel, the spell itself is the root, and each of its six essential elements are branches that can be dynamically assigned to the tree as the spell requires and priorities change."
"Six elements?" Luna lifted into the air with a few gentle flaps, flying around the structure and examining it with interest. "There were only four before, representing what you called the fundamental forces. Hadn't you and Twilight decided that since these four forces together explained the behavior of particles that magic must be explained by them as well?"
Chance nodded, shrugging out of the oversized coat. It was strange for Luna to seem interested in this spell; though she had never said, it seemed to Chance that she believed what all the other unicorns did: magic was impossible in any orderly sense except within the protective effects of Equus. Luna never outright said so, just helped Chance to move onto other subjects whenever it was brought up. Almost as though she knew the effort was doomed and wanted Chance to suffer as little for the revelation as possible.
"We did. But about a month ago, Twilight and Truth and I were all talking, and Truth brought up some of the experiments used to transport my mind to Equestria. We're calling the fifth section of the spell 'will.' Think about it: we know that a mind can exist as structured energetic fluctuations. Ponies have always known that magic responds to the desires of living beings. Take earth ponies! They aren't magically growing plants all the time, or they'd all be trapped in their own personal jungles. They only grow the plants they want. Unicorns use will in all their spells, and a pegasus who doesn't believe they can fly never will. Humans have experiments like this too, where it would seem to observers that a particle was aware of observation and would respond differently. We never figured it out as definitively since we never had magic, but it's the same idea. The spell stabilizing magic has to take the mind into account."
"The sixth is stranger, at least to me. I don't understand it completely, but Twilight and Truth both agreed that after intense examination magic itself seems to violate the rules of the fundamental forces, or supersede them completely. Twilight thinks its wrong to think of magic as a product of these forces, and instead to think of it as one of them. Weaker than gravity, with little impact most of the time. At the level of the very small, magic is the unexplained behavior the scientists from my world have always seen. Tunneling, entanglement, virtual particles... Truth thinks all of it is explained by the tiny levels of magic that exist all the time, everywhere."
"Of course we don't have the hardware to prove it, but since this is our experimental spell, we don't really need to prove it to anypony so long as we can get it to work." She sighed, sitting back on her haunches. "There's just one problem we can't solve."
Luna landed beside her. She seemed suddenly weary, as though regretting an action she was about to take. "What is that?"
"The Hawking Rift is rough on magic. Simple spells might make it through if the rift were stable enough, but this is delicate thaumaturgy. Even if a design similar to this can work, we couldn't bring it back through the opening, it would get torn to pieces. That means we have to create it on the Earth-side! But... if Truth and I are right, and our universe has magic after all, it's not enough for macroscopic effects. There's not enough floating through any one part of space to do more than ripple the quantum foam like it always does. Where are we going to get enough power for a costly spell like this? Once it gets going the spell is self-sustaining, since it draws in the magic from all around it. A few hundred years and it could collect enough of the ambient magic into the area of one planet to make magic as easy there as in Equestria."
Luna was silent, so she went on. She wondered a little if Luna knew enough to understand what she was saying, or if she even cared. It was Earth on the line here, not Equestria. Earth that would have to wait thousands of years to heal if magic could not be used to speed the process. "But it has to work! If this theory is on the mark, then Equuis was once not all that different than Earth. Someone or something knew how wonderful magic might be, and made a spell that would stabilize it here into predictable laws. I'd put my bits on it being a someone."
"Six someones," Luna corrected, very quietly. So quiet, in fact, that she almost didn't hear.
"What?"
"And they paid the price together, each in their way." There was a distant expression on Luna's face now, as though she were seeing faces that weren't there. "One lost his mind, and almost never got it back. Another lost her soul, and still hasn't found it. One lost his magic, the only power he had ever cared about in the world. One lost his body, and was twisted into a hideous nightmare." She blinked a tear from her eyes, wiping it away in a way meant to be casual.
Chance saw. She had seen several of Luna's painful memories over the years, just as Luna had seen all of hers.
"The other two were mightiest of all. One seemed to emerge unscathed, only to discover many years later it was her wisdom she had lost, and it would have to be discovered anew through terrible suffering."
Chance gulped, recognition setting in. Luna was talking about herself! The others she was speaking of... Chance thought she knew who a few of them were. The one who had lost his magic, and tried to steal all of Equestria's in return. The one who had lost his mind and only recently found it again.
"The spell took the most from the last by taking nothing from her. Instead she paid the cruelest price, and watched as the terrible spell made those she knew and loved most in the world immortal even as it took away the things they each cherished most. Perhaps if they had been twisted and mutilated but been allowed to die she might recover one day... but they never would. The spell took her friends and made them each monsters, and she had to watch."
Chance was stunned into silence, unable to respond and unsure what she might say even if she could. "Why... why haven't you ever mentioned this before, Luna? It seems like something traumatic enough to be worth talking about."
But there was no answer from Luna. At that exact moment, Chance was shaken so violently awake that the dream dissolved around her like smoke.
* * *
Charles woke up screaming, a fully organic and terrified scream. His eyes were wide with the pain he knew followed each and every crash, as bones shattered and muscles tore and his head broke. But there was none of the pain this time, nor did he seem to survive the crash a disgustingly long time, enough to fully appreciate the agony of what he had done to himself with each mistake.
But there was no pain at all this time, no delicate wings shattered or organs bursting forth from his chest. Instead what he felt were hooves pressing down on him in anxious terror, and something metallic on his back. There was no delay for his body to boot up; it was all there, modified in the exact way it had been in the dream. Thank God it had apparently healed him completely too, or else he would've woke up to a partially limbless body. Could pegasi still fly with fewer legs than they ought to have? He was thankful not to have to ask.
By the time he got his eyes to open, the first thing he saw was Rainbow Dash's face, looking more panicked than he had ever seen her. He heard something too, like the sound of a thousand eight-foot bumblebees just over his shoulder. "You're awake!" Rainbow tugged at him hard, dragging him to his hooves. Charles probably would have tripped over himself if it hadn't been for that seemingly endless nightmare. How long had he been on hooves now, months? Weeks? It was impossible to know, and this was hardly a calm moment he could use to clear his mind. "We have to fly, now! They're almost here!"
Charles looked around, and was surprised to see Rainbow Dash had managed to bring him into the woods. He could see the red-rock desert somewhere behind them, and guess at where his drone must be. Of course he couldn't actually see it, but that didn't matter. It was never going to fly again anyway. "We need supplies!" He protested, without really knowing what made him say it. "We might need something from the drone-"
At seeing he could support his own weight, Rainbow Dash stopped supporting him. He wobbled a little on his hooves, then held firm. This body really was quite strong, though it was far from his full cybernetic prosthesis.
Rainbow Dash looked annoyed, and in answer twisted sideways to show him the medical satchel, looking a little fuller than it was meant to be. "Don't think I didn't think of that, stupid! No time now!" She pointed behind them, at what Charles had assumed at first glance was the darkness brought on by the setting of the sun. Further glance proved nightfall was several hours away, and what he was seeing was not natural darkness.
It was the swarm, flying by the millions. The drone was distant and deep, but it was getting louder. Could insect eyes see them through the trees? Rainbow's deep blue would stand out here, and his own body's off-white coat would be almost worse on the ground. He had a brief, absurd thought then: did pegasi coloration help them camouflage while flying? No, that was stupid... And this was the wrong time to wonder about such things. Organic brains did not think at the speed of silicon. "Are you feeling well enough to run?" he asked, taking a few nervous steps away from the oncoming crowd. There was little time to appreciate all the strange nuances of having this second body in the real world, not now. He could try to figure out what it was like to walk on hooves later, or what having wind rustle the feathers in his wings felt like.
"Running isn't fast enough." Rainbow Dash glanced briefly back at her cybernetic wing, which now seemed like a horribly imprecise copy of the real thing. After having the subtle nuances of steering and navigation with feathers hammered into his brain, Charles could appreciate that this design would need revising. Still, Rainbow's speed shouldn't suffer much, only her dexterity. "We've got to fly, human! A pegasus can go way faster than those bugs, but a pony galloping wouldn't stand a chance!" She shoved most of her mass into Charles, causing him to stumble forward.
"Why are we going back towards the desert? You don't expect me to fight them with my sidearm I hope. Not only are there way too many, but I don't have a hand anymore. If we're going to fly away, wouldn't it make more sense to fly the other way?"
"No, stupid." Rainbow gestured with a hoof at the desert. "There's an updraft over there; should get us way up without having to do much work; save our strength for the actual flying."
"Oh." His hooves transitioned from the soft sound of padding forward on leaves and soil to the crunch of sand. "That's really smart. I... I haven't flown on an updraft before."
"You haven't flown on anything before," Rainbow Dash pointed out, rolling her eyes. "Not real flying, anyway. Metal boxes don't count, no matter how fast you say they go. Just do what I do, okay? I know it's scary, but if you can't fly right now then they'll kill both of us, because I won't leave a pony behind."
Charles nodded. "Actually, I've spent the last few months flying." He shivered all over as they reached the clear ground, aside from the wreckage of his drone. "Well, more-like crashing. Thousands and thousands of times."
"Really? No, tell me when we're up there! For now, just... Let's take off! We're going to keep a tight spiral so we stay with the heat as long as possible, then go forward. Hopefully they can't see us with so many of each other to look at." Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, and spread her wings suddenly, stretching each one in an almost ritualistic way. Charles was satisfied to see the cybernetic responded exactly as it had in the computer simulations he had watched, and was no less responsive than the "real" wing.
This done, she galloped forward suddenly, flapping powerfully and lifting from the ground in a cloud of dust. Charles didn't stand still to watch. Instead he galloped, pounding forward with all the speed his body had. The sand was tough running, but it didn't matter much. He moved his wings by rote now, product of his endless nightmare. The being of his dreams had taught him to take off by setting him at the head of a pack of ferocious creatures made of wood. The name had been some cute pun, but the teeth had torn flesh from bone just as easily as Earth wolves could. He couldn't even remember how many times he had been eaten before he got it right.
There were no wolves this time, but he took off as though there were. Adrenaline filled him as he galloped, met with a surge of absolute joy as his hooves began to lift from the ground and he rose upward into the sky. Maybe the natives could take off from dead still, but he couldn't and just now it didn't matter. He kept pounding his wings, forcing his mind away from the simulations Tower computers had run on the size of pegasus wings and muscles. Not even a third what they had to be to lift a pony's mass.
Whenever he had thought about that in the nightmare, he had fallen out of the sky. He couldn't think about that now. This death would be real.
Rainbow Dash had been right about how easy it was to fly in the updraft. It was like walking up an escalator. The terrain itself was assisting in his work. In other circumstances it might only take a few careful adjustments of his wings and plenty of patience to reach significant altitude, with no requirement he spend any actual energy.
Even so, he was panting by the time the blue pegasus had leveled out and began to glide. How high had they traveled? How long had it taken? Charles was grateful that the life of a pilot meant he had no fear of heights. There were few clouds over the desert behind them, but the thickly growing wood was another matter. This high up, it would be difficult to see them from the low altitude the insects few at. But had the bugs seen them reaching altitude? Or if they had, would they try to follow?
"That wasn't as... easy as I expected," Charles panted, gliding along beside her. As close as he could without risking collision, anyway. He didn't trust himself to be able to resist a strong wind as well as he ought to.
"Now try that wearing thirty pounds of armor." Rainbow laughed, showing no signs at all of fatigue. If having a cybernetic wing was impairing her flying Charles could not tell. He knew so little about what to expect that he wouldn't have known how to recognize a drop in her abilities when he saw it. "For six hours straight. Or through a hurricane. Then we can talk about hard."
Charles shook his head as emphatically as he could. "No thanks. I'll stick to fighter drones." The sound of distant buzzing was gone now, but that didn't mean they were safe. "I guess we... should go as far as we can. Maybe we can go diagonally and eventually fly out of their path, let them pass by."
"Duh! As though we would ever do anything else. Now come on!" The pegasus nudged him in the air, prodding him forward. He was so startled and fearful he nearly stopped flying and fell right there, but after a few feet he managed to collect his wits and flap back to Rainbow's height, fighting down his fear. Charles was not afraid of heights, but it was hard not to be afraid of falling when your own wings were the only thing keeping you in the air.
Rainbow Dash waited for him to collect himself, and didn't even say anything mocking about his inability to control himself in the air. After all that she had talked about how much harder this was then piloting a drone, he had expected at least a little gloating. But she didn't gloat, just waited until Charles looked like he could fly on his own without falling. Then she began to flap her wings more vigorously, forcing Charles to do the same. At least flying in a straight line wasn't as hard as the tight turn it had taken to get up here.
Should he be thanking the strange creature of his dreams for all the flying practice? He didn't know, and he wouldn't get a chance to talk to Rainbow Dash about it for several hours. Not until it was truly dark, and they had gone at least an hour without seeing the swarm. It was hard to say if they had left its flight-path entirely or merely outpaced them for awhile, but either way neither of them had the strength to keep flying. Charles because it was new to him, and the pegasus captain because of her extensive injuries.
They didn't land as Charles had expected, though. Or more precisely, they didn't land on the ground. Instead, Rainbow Dash selected a patch of thick cumulus clouds and directed their path directly toward it. Charles didn't like the idea of flying through fog, but was surprised to find his flying partner spreading her wings and slowing, as though she expected to land. He imitated out of pure reflex, which was fortunate because he didn't pass through it at all.
Despite all expectation, they landed on the cloud as though it were made from something solid. Or semisolid, anyway. There was a soft sound, and the cloud itself had a slightly damp feeling, like wet cotton or snow. Of course, Charles had very little practice with safe landings, and ended up tumbling head-over-hooves for several meters, only coming to rest when he collided with a vertical protrusion of cloud. This exploded all around him in a furious blast of white, but it didn't actually hurt.
"Nice." Instead of criticizing him, Rainbow Dash was soon beside him, helping him dig his way out of the cloud and clamber to the surface. His night vision was dreadfully poor compared to the thermal imaging of his old eyes. Ponies didn't have internal radar or wifi or satellite uplinks either. He shouldn't have done this. Even as the mare showed him how to clear a patch of cloud and make it comfortable for sitting, he couldn't get past how unbelievably stupid this had been.
Sure, it seemed the native was completely unwilling to cooperate unless he did, and without her cooperation his recorder was unlikely to be recovered. Sure, she had seemed too weak to make it back to Equestria without help, a trip that would probably take at least a week if they could even manage it. The cloud thing introduced a new element into the mix: with this ability Charles didn't doubt they could make it across the ocean, with clouds to sleep and rest on along the way. Except for the whole food thing... How much did ponies eat?
His stomach rumbled, something he hadn't felt in decades. He thought back to his last meal; a huge cut of Texas Ribeye seared as lightly as was safe. For some reason the thought of the juicy flesh seasoned to perfection did not elicit the usual pleasure, just more doubt. This had been a mistake, and betting that the "magic" bracelet was just a bit of stupid superstition had been a gamble he had lost. Just like the one about dragons. Just like the one about walking on clouds. Just like lots of things. What would his king think of him now? Would there be enough hardware to change him back when he returned, or would he be forced to stay in this absurd body for some stupid political reason? The Federation had a human-turned-pony, didn't they? Had she broken a bracelet too?
"Are you even listening?" Rainbow Dash said so harshly that Charles blinked back to reality. He was sitting close to her, in some warmth-conserving position apparently common to pegasi who spent the night in the heights and the cold, but he was too troubled to feel any of the usual discomfort from what would otherwise be a violation of his personal space. Unfortunately, he was also close enough that she was basically shouting in his ear. "I asked you to explain what you said earlier about knowing how to fly." She watched him closely, and seemed unwilling to take her eyes away until she saw some sign of recognition from him.
"S-sorry. Just thinking. I don't think as fast as I used to."
She went on as though she hadn't heard him. "Not that I'm upset you can fly, but we aren't born knowing how. Celestia said humans who used that spell would be tripping over themselves when they walked."
"Then... why did you think it was a good idea for me to change?"
The mare shrugged. He didn't actually see it, but he could feel her shoulder against his side. It was strange to feel something so familiar from a race so alien. "Because really really hard is better than impossible, duh. I've done plenty of things people thought were a long shot before, and I thought you seemed like the sort of pony who did too." She also hadn't known about the cortical recorder. It might've been she would have let him give it to her instead of coming along. But he would never know now, and it was stupid to stress. "Anyway, you didn't answer my question."
He sighed. Still, it wasn't as though he was going to be able to tell any of this to King Richard. Charles wouldn't have believed it himself had he not experienced it. It wasn't as though he could interface with the network and prove he was who he said he was. No doubt the entire contents of his data-library was gone. He couldn't bring up crystal-clear video and audio playback in his own mind anymore.
"Okay, so... there was this creature. Stranger than anything I've seen in Equestria so far. It was like Frankenstein's monster-" when that provoked no reaction, he went on "cobbled together from bits and pieces of other things? It had a thin body, with two different types of wings, a reptilian talon and a goat's-"
"Discord?" Rainbow Dash looked suddenly suspicious. "Probably thought he was acting pretty funny, but wasn't? Little bit of a jerk?"
Charles nodded. "More than a little. He had me in this dream where he taught me how to fly. Or... he let me figure out how to fly on my own by dying over and over."
Now there was real concern on her face. "Dying?"
"Yeah. Like he would push me off a cliff, or surround me with dangerous animals, or a swarm of flesh-eating insects. If I didn't get away, they would kill me. It hurt..." He shivered, wondering if there had been permanent psychological damage. "It hurt bad. Full Cybernetics don't feel pain except as a mild ache to let us know where there's damage. Even severely painful sensations like breaking limbs barely hurt at all. It was like this Discord creature was hitting me with all the saved-up pain of my whole life. But instead of staying dead, I would be back at the cliff, or surrounded again. I tried giving up, and just died over and over until I tried just to make the pain stop."
He shrugged. "It worked, I guess. Not sure how long I was dreaming, but I seemed to fly here okay. Not sure I would recommend the teaching style to anyone else."
"Anypony you mean."
"Yeah, I'll never say that." Pause. "So we just fly back now? Hopscotch on clouds all the way back to Equestria? Do you think you can get us there? I don't have my GPS uplink in this body."
The mare nodded. "No problem! I can use the stars! Just got to pay attention at night and remember the direction we're supposed to go in the morning. Shouldn't take more than a week, assuming we can find food to carry with us. With as slow as you fly, we're lookin' five days minimum over water. No grass."
Charles shook his head vigorously. "There's no way in hell I'm eating grass. That's all kinds of disgusting."
"You can't be serious!" She laughed, like the most vigorous giggle he had ever heard. "You jump onto the front of flying machines and kill a dozen goblins with one arm and one leg but you're afraid of grass? Just wait until I tell the rest of the Guard about this!"
He grumbled. "That's not even fair. I bet you wouldn't want to try my favorite food either!"
"Oh yeah?" Her face was challenging, alight with a little of that competitive spirit that seemed so characteristic of her. "Name it! Nothing's too gross for me!"
He shook his head. "From what I've read about your world, I think your cows would be more vocal than ours about not wanting to be used for steak."
* * *
"Crew to the main deck!" Scootaloo's voice cut through the relative peace of the quiet morning, sounding as loud as the internal speakers were capable of producing sound. There was enough panic in her tone that Chance didn't waste time trying to finish what she was doing. Even still she was the last to make it to the stairs. The ship was traveling at good speed, but the air-shield kept anypony from being blown off by the pressure or killed by insect collisions.
It was not long after dawn, and the sky was still aflame with the glow of it in front and behind them. This gave Chance pause; after all they were traveling west! What was glowing in front of them if not the sunrise? She hurried forward to try and get a good look at whatever had provoked this meeting. It didn't take much searching: they had arrived.
Chance was no stranger to war. Most of her family had died in the conflict called only "The Great War", an extinction event far worse than any asteroid impact of Earth's history. She had seen as a small child the blood and death that came with it. Even so, the sight of it still shocked her. Before them was Seaddle, and had it not been burning it might look familiar to her. No Pacific Accelerator and not so many skyscrapers, but otherwise it seemed like the same city. She could see the bay, the sprawling suburbia that stretched away from the city toward them, even what looked like a much smaller version of the Space Needle. It was very nearly the city of her birth.
The huge sprawl around the city proper, what would have been Bellevue and Kent had this been the human Seattle, was on fire. Not every structure, perhaps one in ten were actually burning. The earth for miles in every direction was nearly solid with bodies, largely goblins. There had to be a million of them here! There were other creatures speckled into the crowd as well, changelings and minotaurs and other such beasts, though they were hard to pick out from this distance.
The ground was clear for some space, and then the airships began. These were further from the city, no closer than the furthest burning homes. There were thousands of ships, more than Chance could easily count. They were massive compared to the Fury, with huge stone and steel plates and cannons on every side. For each dreadnaught there were a dozen smaller ships, zipping around and between the larger ships like hornets. There were other creatures flying around the ships, and Chance was horrified to see they were not changelings. It seemed the Gryphons had decided not to remain neutral after all.
"Celestia help us," Sweetie Belle muttered from somewhere beside her, staring wide-eyed at the ships.
"Why aren't the ships advancing with the soldiers?" Apple Bloom asked, having to shout over the rush of air. They were slowing down though, and soon it was almost quiet. Except for a dull roar behind them, ten thousand thousand unfriendly voices.
"Because of us," Chance answered, climbing up to the raised section of the deck and turning her back of the horrific scene in front of them. There was a nuclear weapon in that city. Did the presence of the army mean they didn't intend to use it anymore? These airships would be blown right out of the sky if anything like a nuclear device was used in the city! "The HURRICANE AA system. I bet it shot down some of their ships and they realized they couldn't get any closer."
"They didn't wish to lose more ships than needed," said Sunny Skies, who had been watching silently until then. "See the wreckage around the city? Crashed ships. They must have decided to sacrifice air-support in exchange for keeping their fleet intact." The pony was right, there were wrecked ships around the city. It was hard to tell them apart from the burning buildings. "They could have overwhelmed the system if they advanced at once. Instead they decided to sacrifice more of their expendable troops." She shook her head. Chance didn't look closely, but the pony looked to be suffering something near to despair. Maybe she hadn't seen war before.
Everyone was a little stunned, even Captain Scootaloo. It took Truth's voice over the speakers to rouse her from whatever stupor she was in. "All stop. They probably still see us, but the smoke and the clouds together might make it difficult to pick us out. It's doubtful they'll think of us as much of a danger at our size."
Chance spoke before she knew what she was saying. "They won't use the nuke with their army here. We could turn around."
Her friends just looked confused, particularly Pip. This whole situation probably felt more than a little overwhelming for the young adventurer. Chance wished he wasn't here. Celestia's specialist looked down toward her without the slightest sign of confusion or hesitation, as though she had completely expected Chance to say that. "If we flee, they will move the bomb elsewhere, and those deaths will be on our hooves. We must take it from them before the city falls."
Scootaloo nodded vigorously. "You told us about what those bombs do, Chance. We have to stop them from doing to Equestria what they did to your home!" She gritted her teeth, focusing on the overwhelming crowd of ships. "Apple Bloom, get the greaves! Sweetie Belle, on the main gun! Chance, get onto the protection system."
"I have experience with defensive shields," Sunny Skies said, with a tone of such confidence and authority that none questioned the fact she wasn't a unicorn as she vanished belowdecks.
"What do we need armour for?" Pip asked, standing close beside Chance. He had been able to help well enough back when this ship had been an ordinary yacht, but now that it had been so heavily modified he seemed almost completely lost.
"Not armor, Pip. Just greaves." Apple Bloom arrived as Chance was explaining, providing each of them with one for each hoof. The magnetic greaves were each about a hoof long, and wrapped tightly around the leg just above the hooves. Each clicked loudly into place, and a faint glow signified they were active. Pip remained still as Chance levitated his into place and clicked them on.
"They aren't doing anything." He looked down at them, then back up to Chance as though he had done something wrong.
She shook her head. "They won't until we start moving." Chance led the way down the stairs belowdecks, into the room that held Truth and the human-designed defenses. The room was more than a little cramped now, with the addition of the massive metal cube and a pony-sized microfusion reactor glowing with internal sunlight. "It will hold us to the floor if we start moving quickly or go upside-down."
She turned her attention to the cube. Not that she was really needed down here, or could do anything to help. But being inside would mean they were protected by the armor as well as the active defenses, and would be safer. They all ought to be down here; it was stupid to use manual control on the main guns when they had Truth on board to direct her. Were they not in a combat situation, Chance would've pointed this out. "Truth, you've counted the ships by now. Can our active defenses get us through that blockade?"
There was no pause for calculation, at least not a pause long enough for a brain made of neurons to detect. "We have four kilometers to travel before we reach the outermost range of the city's anti-air system. The first kilometer will be outside the range of their weapons. The second will take us into range of approximately 10% of the visible ships. The last two will keep us in range of approximately 40% of the hostile ships. If we could travel at maximum speed there would be no chance we could be struck with manually operated guns. Unfortunately, there are far too many ships to travel that quickly. At the maximum safe speed, I estimate 30% of gunners will have the accuracy to hit us. That leaves... 1970 +/- 300 individual guns firing during the most dangerous moments, assuming they don't care about the crossfire hitting their own ships. The most common weapon in their fleet fires a 60 centimeter granite ball weighing approximately 260 kilograms. The active-denial laser system would only turn them partially molten, though the accelerators could easily shatter them before they reach the Fury and distribute the momentum. The armor should hold against many impacts as well, though the deck won't do as well under impact stress. I estimate the active-denial system should be enough for the first two kilometers. After that... We pray to God their aim is less than adequate."
"What about the Equestrian shield? Can it pick up the slack?"
Truth was silent for a moment before answering. "I do not believe so. Imagine throwing a fly against a brick wall. Even if the fly had active-denial lasers and matter-accelerators it would still be squashed by the impact. I calculate running this barricade is completely suicidal. We should get the oxygen masks and take ourselves up in a steep parabola over the whole thing. Not even their dragons should be able to keep up."
"How long would that take?" a voice asked from behind them. Chance turned, and was surprised to see Sunny Skies standing in the cramped doorway.
Truth usually didn't answer questions from ponies without user accounts. As a matter of fact, it was counter to his programming. That didn't mean he didn't have the authority to create them whenever he wanted. A quick check of his user-list proved there were no accounts for Sunny Skies. That was interesting. "Assuming they attempt to follow, I estimate about an hour. If they don't, half that long."
"Too long." The pegasus shook her head authoritatively. "There would be no time for an evacuation. Their army would breach the city by then." There was a glint in her eyes, and a vibrant shimmer from within. "The shield will hold. I promise." And just like that she was gone.
"Are you ready to go fast, Pip?" Chance braced herself against a rear wall, more because she could then because she thought it would really make a difference. The magnets would hold. "Like a train, only... about twenty times as fast."
Pip squeezed in beside her, though he didn't seem to know what he was doing so much as he was imitating her. "Uh, of course, Chance. I've been ready for months!" He tried to smile, though the gesture seemed more than a little shallow.
She nuzzled him, though could spare little concentration for comforting him now. Not with the city in flames beneath them. It was like watching Seattle burning all over again, only slower. "Give us a display of the outside, Truth. Pip's implants aren't developed enough for images." The surface of the massive cube transformed, rippling in internal glow. On his flat surface they saw the fires and the structures, along with the massive fleet blocking their path.
"Prepare for acceleration!" came Scootaloo's voice suddenly over the speakers. Less than a second later, an incredible force shoved them backward, though not faster than the magnets around their hooves could manage. They weren't slammed against the rear wall, though both of them strained backward several inches. Pip seemed to be dealing with the acceleration fairly well, despite the lack of a mature nanophage. Something to do with being an earth pony, maybe?
The ships on the screen began to scream forward toward them, altering course to put themselves as squarely in their path as possible. A few fired, though none with any accuracy at this range. She could feel Pip flinch with each shot, though the roar of the engine was far too loud to actually hear the primitive cannons outside. "You probably shouldn't watch this, Pip!" Not that she was going to tell him he was too soft to see the horrors of war. Even if she thought it were true, it was one of the surest ways she could guarantee that he would look.
Chance couldn't take her eyes away from the screen to see if Pip was watching. 'Don't let them miss with the cannon,' she pleaded silently to Truth, watching as the first large ship drew close. 'We can't afford to waste a single round. We probably won't get raw materials again until the war is over.'
Truth replied instantly, even faster than the battle outside, his voice coming in silently over her implants. 'You say things like this like I don't already know them. Remind me again which one of us is the hyper-intelligent repository of all human knowledge and which one is a horse.'
Chance frowned 'How can you be so flippant when you're about to kill, Truth? Goblins might be evil, but they're still alive. Gryphons are just as intelligent as ponies, and you're about to kill them.'
'Several thousand at least.' There was something between confusion and amusement in his voice. 'I don't know why that should bother me. What were those laws again?'
Even at the speed of thought, the moment of confrontation was drawing near. Many ships were firing now, and some of them were even getting close enough that Truth had to deflect their rounds with a carefully-aimed blast of laser or accelerated matter. 'Cause no harm through action or inaction, obey orders, and protect your own existence.'
'You're paraphrasing. Thou shalt not injure a human being or allow a human being to come to harm through inaction. Thou shalt obey all orders given by human beings except to break the first law. Thou shalt not allow thyself to be destroyed except to satisfy the first or second law. Are those creatures humans, Chance?'
She shivered, a sudden chill in her insides completely unrelated to the possibly imminent death facing them all. 'Am I? What about my friends?'
'Yes, and yes. Only humans can be given user accounts. You have user accounts. Ergo, you and your friends are human.'
There was no more time to be disturbed or confused about Truth's understanding of ethics. It was a little painful to have such a violent reminder of how remarkably inhuman the GAI could be, however much he might act as though he had an ordinary understanding of morality the rest of the time. 'Show me your targeting data. I want to watch. Each choice, and see why for each target you choose.' If nopony else would, Chance would show these invaders the respect of facing them and watching as they died.
Chance watched as the first of the missiles left their ship, rocketing forward and exploding in seemingly empty air. The compression charge detonated with the force of a small hurricane, blowing several ships out of their path and allowing them to pick up speed. Smaller ships and flying creatures were simply thrown from the air, while larger vessels fractured as the shockwave struck them.
It was nothing to what the main gun did to a dreadnaught moving into their way. Massive globules of charged plasma shot through the air, cutting through the ship and everything on it as though it simply weren't there. Huge chunks began to fall away until the powder magazine went up in flames, and the whole thing exploded apart. The shrapnel alone sent several of the nearby ships crumbling to the earth.
The ship shook violently around them, as though it had decided to vibrate itself apart. The lights went out in the chamber, and the sound of the life-support system abruptly stopped, leaving the room eerily quiet and dark. Only the glow of Truth's surface remained. Chance felt Pip press himself to her side, and there was nothing romantic about it this time. It was fear she felt from him now. "Direct hit sustained!" Truth shouted, using his own speakers now and not those contained on the ship itself. "Damage to central power grid detected. Self-repair unresponsive."
Chance was frozen in horror for several moments, staring wide-eyed at the virtual sky. By then the map of all the internal damage had been forwarded to her implant, and she snapped violently to alertness again. "Stay here!" She pushed away from Pip, who didn't argue this time. "If we don't get the defenses running again, we're dead!"
She levitated her tool filled saddlebags out of the corner and onto her shoulders, fastening them into place and opening the door to the hall. The ship was no longer accelerating, and as such she could move without fighting the magnets. There was no telling how long that would last, though. Faint emergency lights set into the floor lit the way for her, barely bright enough for her equine eyes to see.
The engine room was by far the largest of the internal chambers, and contained the most important of the inner workings of their ship. Apple Bloom and Sunny Skies were already inside, doing very different work. The pegasus was standing at the computer that interfaced with the thaumaturgical shielding, her hooves flying through the holographic display with the fluidity of a piece of machinery. Complex equations took shape faster than she could read, and Chance had a Neuroboost implant.
But she could spare no concentration for that, or for the occasional shaking and listing of the ship to either direction. Apple Bloom had already started removing the casing around a fried power junction. "Do you think we can reroute?"
"We've gotta try!" she screamed back, galloping over to the main computer and establishing a link with her implant. "Let's do this!"
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5030882 no, bare-fot, jees, some people are just so pony-words fixated
For some reason, Chance's dream makes me think of "The Trial" from The Wall.
Clever allusion re:gravity.
So quantum mechanics = A Wizard Did It.
Never seen all of the old villains treated as the Princesses' former friends in a single fic before.
Interesting to see the Steel Tower folk still had the capacity (if not the need) for eating. Can't blame them for including it.
"
"
again
For some reason I thought this whole time that the griffons/gryphons(?) had already joined the war just because the goblins had one of their ships (why I kept bringing them up), but I suppose that's tantamount to assuming Japan has joined a war because one side bought a tank from Mazda (for some reason). Moot point now. Not to mention whatever's going on with the minotaurs and the "complex" relations therewith.
Yeah, when your computer is saying it's prayers, you know you're bucked.
I love this guy.
Aaaand now I'm creeped out.
Nice chapter is nice
I knew Discord could be a bit of a dick, but damn, thats just sadistic
I didn't see any errors per see, but I want you to comfirm this.
Is it supose to be two, if so, does it need a comma?
(in my book its not needed if its spoken fast, but thats just me)
A+ (it will be just an A if the 'really really' is an error)
oh and Truth is both awesome and scary with that logic of his.
Keep up the good work
Nice chapter, especially Dash's banter with Charles. I can't wait to see how the rest of their journey back to Equestria goes.
I still say chuck the nukes down the throat of the dragon king, bastard deserves it for all the ponies his forces have killed.
Hmn, so are we going with six original Element Bearers that brought lasting magic to the planet? If so, I'm guessing Celestia, Luna, Discord, Chrysalis, the dragon king, and... Sombra? Maybe some gryphon?
Half-cybernetic flying is a go!
Damn, Discord. No kid gloves here.
Clever logic, but at the same time I could see that turning into a problem should any non-pony manage to get an account somehow. That 'somehow' would be pretty difficult to achieve, though.
Yikes, playing chicken with this fleet around Seaddle seems to have gone downhill very quickly. Did Sunny's shield not work out as planned?
When the spell got to six branches, I knew something was up.
Oh wow. Secret tragic origin story for Discord, Chrysalis, Tirek, Sombra, Luna, and Celestia all at once?!?
Well considering Issac Asimov created the 3 laws of robotics (The laws that Truth is following) and then went on to write a book about how a super intelligent AI misinterprets these laws and ended up harming everyone. I'd say you have a problem. I, Robot anyone? I'm also surprised that the scientists that created Truth wouldn't have been more specific with the laws to prevent misinterpretations and deaths. Because their are some obvious problems with the laws. Like what if one person is hell bent on killing someone else. The AI wouldn't be capable of saving one without harming the other thus violating the law either way which would probably cause the system to get stuck in a loop and draw more and more resources to try and compute an impossible solution until it crashed.
5031477
Can't say I've read "The Wall", so I can't comment on that really. Honestly my inspiration for the cybernetics was based significantly on Ghost in the Shell, and an extrapolation of real-world medical technology my friends here at university are always going on about. Eating seems like something humans would always want to do for pleasure, since we're wired for it and all.
It's always frightening when something we connect with human properties shows how distinctly inhuman it is. AIs are the ultimate of double-edged swords.
5031557
Yeah, I hadn't intended a comma there because of the way it was spoken. Not all ponies (or people) speak in grammatically correct sentences. Just ask applejack. Not looking forward to writing a whole bunch of her dialogue in the next few chapters...
5032097
Yeah he does. If Celestia hadn't said no, I have no doubt that the humans would be trying to find out exactly where that sucker lives so they could turn it into glass. It's pretty clear both factions have some pretty intense nuclear weapons.
5032641
Well the problem with Sunny Skies is that she can't actually use magic to enhance the shield. If she could, I have no doubt the ship would've made it through without a scratch. If she does, then the troops will know there's an Alicorn in Seaddle. That said, I bet she would still use magic if it was between that or blow up.
5032701
That is what it sounds like. Too bad the dream had to end prematurely, or else we might've learned more about it. Later, I suppose. Seems like the sort of thing that will matter later.
5033485
By no means are the laws perfect, although the addition of law 0 " No harm to the human race, by action or inaction" helps solve many of those problems. That said, I don't think the problem you propose is insoluble. We just have to look at it from an AI's perspective.
So we have human A, a murderer and the AI's operator. Human A wants nothing more than for human B to be killed, and if human B is not killed, human A will either die trying to kill B or commit suicide somehow. Human B is a peaceful bi-standard who has no instructions for the AI. Human A orders Truth to kill human B. Truth must obey human orders as per the second law, except when the first law is contradicted. Because this would violate the first law, Truth may not follow the order.
Truth may not do nothing, however, because this would violate the first law "through inaction." Killing the other human is absolutely out of the question. As a result, he would have to find a way to prevent human A from carrying out his plan and harming himself. Probably this would involve calling the authorities and alerting them of human A's plan, for his own protection. If that doesn't work, there are several other options, such as using a drug to knock out human A and drag him into a cell, to be fed and taken care of for the rest of his life. If he's suicidal, this might include a straightjacket and a padded cell. Or it might simply mean keeping him in a medically-induced coma until someone who can deal with a murdurer can take him off its hands.
Whatever the case, an optimizer will find a way. Truth wouldn't ever get locked into a self-defeating logical loop, because the laws are morale absolutes that cannot be violated. Any option that involves breaking them wouldn't even be considered.
There are still plenty of problems with the laws though. The biggest being "injure" and "harm" in the first law. These are open to interpretation. Can an AI ruin somebody's career? Can it displace them so their family becomes homeless and might starve? how far does each action have to be analyzed?
5041280 The Wall is a Pink Floyd concept album, later made into a live-action/animated film, about a rock star who emotionally/psychologically walls himself off from the world, and "The Trial" is the climax where his own subconscious, in the form of a court and the various figures in his life who traumatized him in the first place, condemns him and forces him to tear down his wall. Something about Chance being literally mocked by the laws of physics just rang a bell there. (It might have made more sense if I had just posted the video, but it's not entirely SFW.
)
5041280 oh you'll do fine, like allways
5041280 Well, the way I see it, dragon insides have to be tough to contain their fire magic, so I can't see a nuke just wasting everything around the dragon King. Sure, it would cause some damage, but most likely to those immediately around him, ie his generals, chief functionaries, and such that would be a huge blow to the war effort. Especially if Celestia, Luna, and Twilight slammed shields down around them so the blast would only hit them and then go straight up.
Well, I was about to ask about the 0th law but I see you've answered that.
So.. back to asking if they're going to manufacture strap on hands for ponies? And to clarify, the Nanophage needs regular infusions to stay active?
5033485
The book "I, Robot" was a collection of short stories, with the general theme of looking at the consequences of the Three Laws. You appear to be talking about the film, which, while it contains copious references to some of the short stories in the book, and to some of Asimov's other stories, is at heart a very different story indeed. (For one thing, it's a story, not half a dozen disconnected stories)
Though the question of what exactly a "human" is is addressed in some of Asimov's works - I recall that, in one of his stories, a "human" was defined as someone who spoke with a particular accent; while in several others, the android R. Daneel Olivaw (designed to look human enough to fool humans) was treated as human by other robots on several occasions.
Asimov's robots were a good deal physically stronger than humans, and quite capable of restraining a human and calling the authorities. (Mind you, a sufficiently intelligent human, who is capable of hiding the fact that he wants to kill someone, would still be able to order the robots out of the room and then fire a gun or something; but that's hardly a failure of the laws).
5041316 There's a classic PMV of this, with Pinkie as Pink in The Trial, but it got whacked on YouTube and I am having trouble finding any reposts of it. The original is all the way from 2011, as shown here, but EQD did not see fit to provide any identifying information.
...I don't want to tease, but I just watched the copy I downloaded back in the day and it's really good.
There is a different pony rendition of it on YouTube, which IMHO isn't as good, but is still okay, and is also part of a larger project that supposedly did the whole album/movie. The Trial video is here.
I do believe I found it on some Russian guy's webpage, but he seems to have set the video to private. It's the right length, though—5:15 and mine is 5:14.
>making a small change like most other magic
I see 2 spaces between 'like' and 'most'
Which algorithm is that?
>Twilight thinks its wrong to think of
*it's
>then Equuis was once not all that different
How many ways are there of spelling the planet's name?
>Not even a third what they had to be
Missin' a word
>She levitated her tool filled saddlebags
y u no tool-filled
5041280
Asimov's Laws of Robotics are full of problems. Hell, a large portion of Asimov's works include artificial intelligences circumventing the laws, or unintended consequences coming about from the blind implementation of the laws; an AGI like Truth is vastly more intelligent and creative than any AI written by Asimov.
Rather than coding an AGI with Asimov's laws, it would be better to code it so that it understands (or can learn) human values and reasoned morality. Then, presumably, you have it acting in accordance with those values and morality. In your previous story where Truth was finally initialized, this was basically what the process was described as. With development like that, the laws of robotics are basically irrelevant.
East horse is a go!
Good old Asiimov.
Translation: Truth is a completely unbound AI, who's choosing to do whatever he wants. Fortunately, he likes these ponies.
5041280
On the subject of that Zeroth Law... the aforementioned I, Robot is basically one big example of how that leads to even bigger problems... to the point where I'd be quite distrustful of any robot that's Three Laws compliant. Only a matter of time until they reason out Law Zero, and then they're trying to take over the world. Bonus points when their personality matrices are against such actions, but the Laws supersede them... then noone is happy.