• Published 29th Jul 2014
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StarChaser - StarChaser01



They say that history is written by the winners. But what if an event so terrible happened that there was no winners to write about it?

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Chapter 7: Improvement

Twilight wasn't sure what to expect when the Pegasus saw her again, but this was not it.

After being let into the room, he said something that once again she didn’t understand, but what surprised her and the guards that insisted on accompanying her ‘just in case’ was that another voice replied to him!

“Who said that? Did that come from your helmet? Is that why you wanted it back? Because it can talk?” Twilight started asking questions in a rapid fire before remembering that he couldn’t understand her.

The Pegasus seemed a bit concerned with her outburst.

“Sorry, I get like that sometimes…” Twilight apologized before taking the opportunity to restart the language lessons.

She was five words in before realizing that it seemed as if he wanted to LEARN Equestrian instead of the other way around.

‘If he learns Equestrian then perhaps a translation spell won’t be necessary,’ Twilight thought, ‘well, might as well make it so we’re teaching each other!’


“Well, how’s that matrix coming?” StarChaser asked after a long day of word learning and teaching.

“The raw data is currently being processed, however I believe that the data both voluntarily given and incidentally given will be enough to get a rudimentary translation matrix created, however processing all this data will take time.”

“Well, that’s better than what I expected,” StarChaser said thoughtfully.

They were both silent for a bit before StarChaser spoke up.

“Did you see the look on her face when you started talking? Priceless!”

“Of course I did, but I am not familiar with the word ‘priceless’ in the context used.”

“Oh… um… in this case ‘priceless’ is used to say that her reaction was worth more than anyone could afford, or something similar. It’s more of a humor thing and usually not meant as actually priceless…” StarChaser tried to explain.

“I… see… sort of…” came the hesitant response.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“All right, filling for processing at a later date.”


“WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!?!?” StarChaser shouted, tears streaming down his face, “ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS LIVE IN PEACE!!! THEY NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU!!!”

“They were an insult to the purity of the master race, as are you,” the Cultist stated, as if he were pointing out an unusual flower.

“YOU MONSTER!!!” Chaser shouted as he charged at the Cultist, intent on ripping him to pieces.

The Cultist barely had time to realize that his end was upon him before StarChaser collided with him and tore his limbs from his body.

Turning away, StarChaser had one last thing to say to the mortally wounded unicorn, “If you’re so pure, then how come you still bleed like the rest of us?”

The dream started to distort as StarChaser tried harder and harder to wake up, anything to avoid seeing the rest of the village. But it wasn’t quite enough… just before he succeeded in waking up, he saw the burnt out ruins of his home town, along with the bloody corpses of his neighbors.


StarChaser hummed a long lost song from what he believed to have been made from a band whose name was that of a state from a long lost nation to himself as he calmed himself down from the nightmare he had just experienced.

“Sir, the translation matrix is now functional; we should be able to communicate with them so long as we use small words.”

“Well… at least something good came from last night…” StarChaser muttered.

Suddenly there was knocking at the door.

“Does that matrix know how to say, ‘Come in?’”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, activate translation matrix.”

“Translation matrix is now active.”

“Come in!” StarChaser called, hearing the translation matrix translate his words into the strange language.


To say that Twilight Sparkle was surprised when she heard him speak Equestrian would, once again, be an understatement.

“How did you learn Equestrian so quickly?!?” She blurted out as soon as she entered the room.

The Pegasus paused for a second before saying something in that strange language of his, then…

“My helmet is -no word- my language –no word- your language.”

Twilight paused, that was definitely Equestrian, but it was not spoken in his voice… it sounded like that disembodied voice that she had heard respond to him on the second day of language lessons.

“How? How is it doing that? Why is the voice different? How is a translation spell so adaptable? How could you cast spells? You’re a Pegasus!”

This time the pause was longer, during which the Pegasus seemed to get a bit confused and frustrated.

“This helmet has a -no phrase- -no word- that is translating for me. It is adaptable to your language. Until it has more words, it will be making mistakes and -no word- words. I cannot understand all of what you said. To answer your last question, the spells -no word- within the helmet were cast long ago,” came the eventual response.

Twilight was disappointed that he was unable to answer all her questions. “How can you… teach… it more words?” she eventually asked.

Again, pause.

“Regular talking will increase word number and correct words and uses. If current speech is -no word- to hear, sorry.”

“So, just regular conversation will increase the accuracy of the translation spell?”

Pause.

“Yes, as the -no word- -no word- new words, it will try to -no word- out their meaning and how to use them through how they are used with old words.”

Twilight thought for a bit, ‘If just using new words with already known words will teach whatever is translating, then I guess some ‘regular’ conversation wouldn’t hurt…’


“How are you holding up?” StarChaser asked after the Alicorn had left for the day.

“If it were possible for me to get a headache I would likely have one due to maxing out my processing capacity too frequently,” came the tired sounding response. “However, after running a quick systems diagnosis I have determined that none of my systems were overloaded, just maxed out.”

“Well, that’s good that you didn’t overload.”

“Yes, however it would take more than a minor overload to actually cause damage.”

“Really? What’s the damage threshold?”

“At 120% capacity, there is approximately 25% chance for damage, the probability for damage increases exponentially from there.”

“And is that for all systems? Or just for your processing ones?”

“The specific numbers vary from system to system, but the average is 120 and 25.”

“Hm… I’ll try to remember that if we ever need to over clock you…”

“Regulations require me to remind you that over clocking is not recommended and can result in permanent armor damage.”

“Yeah yeah, I know…” StarChaser rolled his eyes. “Say, have you figured out what she said at the end there yet?”

“I am not 100% sure, but there is a 90% chance that she said that she was bringing her friends along next visit.”

“Friends huh, wonder what they’re like…”