Synch

by sunnypack

37 - A Strange Game, the Only Winning Move is...

The rest of the story was told to a rapt audience. It felt good to get Synchrony off my shoulders, even if it wasn’t to anyone who would understand the full picture of Synch and Synchrony. The princesses stopped me here and there for me to clarify a few points but overall they allowed me to convey the majority of my story while politely listening.

As I ended with my furious but ultimately futile attempts to combat Synchrony, the princesses eyes were surprisingly wet with unshed tears. I guess I didn’t expect sympathy from the princesses and I was pleasantly confronted with empathetic gestures.

“I had constructed a final plan to combat Synchrony with Black Box but when I get to the part where I talk to Angel about it, my memories draw a blank…” I finished, swallowing back a lump in my throat.

The room was silent after that and the two royal pony sisters (which I had gleaned from a hasty side introduction) glanced at each other, communicating something silently.

I was dismissed, but today was full of surprises so instead of going to the dungeon I was generously shown a small but comfortable-looking room.

-----

Celestia addressed Luna almost immediately as I had left the court.

“It seems that this null being is more complex than we once thought”, Celestia sighed, gazing down at her hooves. She idly clinked her hoof covers together.

Luna was equally perturbed.

“Yes, this is not a matter of simply imprisoning or containing, such a thing would be grossly unjust”, Luna offered. “I sensed not a shred of dishonesty from him.”

Celestia nodded, agreeing. She watched how her mane flowed for a while before speaking again.

“Now the question that remains is”, Celestia posited, while glancing sideways at her sister. “What shall we do?”

Luna went to chewing her mane, her legs twitched as if she had the urge to pace.

“That interesting device he mentioned, ‘Synch’ he called it, I think that his arrival was timed to perfectly with his world’s growing problems”, Celestia reasoned thoughtfully.

Luna found herself stamping her hoof in agreement.

“Yes. Hmm. Yes, the null being did mention that and the coincidence was a little too uncanny”, she responded, with a frown.

Suddenly, a random thought occurred to Luna.

“Calling him null being is a little rude, don’t you think?”

Celestia started.

“Come to think of it, what was his name?” she wondered out loud.

Luna stamped a hoof again, but this time in agitation.

“Why had we not the presence to ask him?” she snorted.

Celestia nodded.

“I wonder if anypony had the same problem with him?” she asked herself.

-----

Earlier in the week, a train from Ponyville pulled into Canterlot and six excitable mares had gathered at the castle gates.

Author's Note:

Updates come so often, it's a wonder you readers aren't dead to it!

NB: For those of you who saw this chapter early, Gruff is faster than a train?! Fixed!

Anyway thought I should after-action a bit of the last chapter. The necromancy component has always been planned for Synchrony since the beginning. This is one of the major ties for the story as it firmly links the fantasy component with the sci-fi component quite literally spanning magic and technology together.

A bit of trivia although this will be explained in the later chapters: Synchrony was merely an 'exit node' for the null being summoning spell. If one was to activate the null being spell say, five hundred years before, the spell would have failed due to two things: 1. The existing infrastructure to connect the nodes, which would be constructed on the nearest crystal, where available (silicon wafer also works at a pinch), and the interface would pop up in the nearest cluster of information (as determined by the location spell that Starswirl had encoded) so you'd either get a brain or a book hooked up and it would provide a means to activate on the other side, which required implicit consent from the user (touching the book or crystal to activate it), due to a quirk with Synch it manifested itself as a knot tied to the central board. This also meant the necromancers would have to wait a sporadic period of time before people would activate Synchrony, to maximise the flow of souls they decided to spam the spell all over the network, unfortunately the densest information cluster in the world happened to be the extranet and everyone got bombed at the same time. Luckily they were only experimenting at that stage and the spell quickly degraded.

Anyway the mechanics will possibly be more fully explored in future chapters.

Also all them down votes and no comment as to why... I have a compulsion, I need to know why!

Next Chapter: Celestia rents out Luna's room, much to her sister's displeasure. Rarity forgets to put clothes on, but then remembers it's absolutely okay to be naked whilst Fluttershy finds out what a rockodile tastes like.

Comments

[PiMan]

I can think of three possible causes of downvotes.
1) Sci fi. Some people don't like this in their ponies. Probably not a large contributor to the votes.
2) Humans. Some people don't like fics with humans in them. Only somewhat more significant than point 1.
3) Grammar and the moment to moment pacing. Could use some work, and is probably a significant factor in those 10 votes.

But I think a 4:1 ratio of votes is respectable enough given points 1 and 2.

[sunnypack]

4839657 Whilst necromancy has been used as a way to communicate with the dead, it can also refer to art of resurrection in order to do so. I think my usage of necromancy has not been misguided. Modern usage of necromancy has also divulged and departed from the traditional sense and it has become a fairly loose term, wikipedia agrees with you in a sense but also includes 'Necromancy /ˈnɛkrɵˌmænsi/ or nigromancy is a form of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily'. If I have used necromancy to describe resurrection exclusively, I apologise and I'll change that immediately.

[biospark120]

4840286 the way necromancy works is divination through communication with the dead and by doing so you can in turn convince them to artificially reincarnate themselves into the body of the decesed or full on manipulate them to harm a living soul, more so the soul is (rather than acting like a capsule of memories and life) more like a ball of the traits and overall eminence and persona of the person with all the memories stored in the electrical patterns In the brain and by resurrecting a dead being they are giving the dead the life force it needs in order to sustain itself, for finding the original soul would be borderline impossible for the sheer amount of dead souls makes it difficult to find the original soul.

I did a magik! :3