6 - When The Clock Starts Ticking, The Alicorn Starts Kicking
Chapter 6 - When the Clock Gets Ticking, The Alicorn Starts Kicking
Princess Luna, the co-ruler of Equestria, Princess of the Night, the Mistress of the Moon and the self-proclaimed reigning World Champion of Manticore Wrestling (they just put up with her), was bored.
While in the old days there used to be dragon invasions, Minotaur invasions, diamond dog invasions, parasprite invasions, Equinos invasions and even the odd goo invasion (don’t ask), now there were just parasprite invasions and even they had lost their taste for flesh. What Luna craved was the return of the good old days when the world was less peaceful and a lot more chaotic. Well, perhaps not as chaotic as to wish the return of Discord to the throne, but more in the sense of adventure and action in her life.
Luna was so bored she was in the library of all places! Not that the library was a bad place by any means, but Luna fervently wished that she were here at least desperately trying to find the spell to prevent world-level destruction instead of wandering around bored. The last time Luna was bored, she ended up planning a coup to overtake the throne. Oh, this was way before the Nightmare had taken her, mind you, but she never thought that the plan would actually be used. It was still under her pillow due to the writing being steeped in a mixture of her blood and that of a thousand year old dragoness, making it basically indestructible.
So Luna was here wandering the non-fiction section of the library when she heard a noise that suspiciously sounded like a sigh. “Who’s there?” she called out quietly. The sigh came again and this time Luna turned to face the source. There was nothing in the room save a curiously opened casket of sorts. She remembered this exact same container being a piece of furniture in the library. It was really old, at least as old as the castle itself.
Luna felt a tingle of anticipation shiver down her spine.
A new discovery!
Her ears perked.
Adventure!
Her ears flattened.
Maybe only a box…
“Calculation complete… determination [REDACTED] due to proximity trigger-sense for a living organism within hearing distance. Reason: experiencing lethal existential crisis.”
Luna approached the bedazzled fixture cautiously. The sound had definitely come out of it, she was sure. Perhaps a pony was trapped in a crystal matrix? She knew the words that were spoken by—whatever was inside that thing—but when it strung together like that she couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“Hello?” Luna ventured. She reared back as it suddenly spoke in reply.
“Detected living organism in speech proximity to core. Welcome! My designation is Cryo-stasis Pod One, version zero point zero zero one five, but you can call me Cry-pod,” it greeted mechanically.
Luna drew herself up. “I am Princess Luna, Princess of the Night.” She eyed it curiously as several lights flared up as the ‘Cry-pod’ spoke.
“Greetings, Princess Luna, Princess of the Night. As there are currently no humans present, I will currently be assisting you. I can answer any questions that you may have.”
Luna paused. What are humans? She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Was this some ancient codex from the past? Her tail flicked impatiently. Better find out. She cleared her throat. “Ahem, Cry-pod?”
“Yes?”
“What are you? What is your purpose?”
“The Cry-pod was designed by Doctor Staton under the Institute for Cryogenic Research and Development. The Cry-pod’s main functionality was to preserve the greatest achievements of humanity by cryogenically suspending subjects during times of peace and reviving them when they are needed.”
“Needed? For what?”
“People of extreme intelligence will be given priority. Scientists and engineers that have made significant contributions under 1a winning a Nobel Prize or 1b internationally recognised, and 1c currently hold no criminal tendencies. Gifted advocates of peace, tolerance and great minds on philosophy that have significant contributions under 2a winning a Nobel Peace prize or 2b internationally recognised and 2c currently hold no criminal tendencies. Military greats as per directed orders from Australian Defence Force. Current next in line [REDACTED] unauthorised access to information. Next priority: investors, automatically sorted by given stake in program. First in line, ICRD CEO—“
Luna snapped back to the conversation. Her face scrunched up in concentration.
“So what you are saying is that your purpose is to preserve the best of the best of this species called ‘humans’, is that right?”
The Cry-pod whirred quietly. “That is correct.”
“How long can they be kept?”
“Barring adverse events and failure of system functionality, the maximum estimated suspension time is theoretically infinite.”
“Infinite?!”
“Realistic models predict under care, maintenance and supervision, cryo-patients should be reanimated periodically every one hundred years to ensure no long term damage to brain tissue. There has been no recorded data on the effect of serial compound product one hundred and seventy three on humans for an extended period of time past the natural lifespan. Mean time before failure calculated at effective limit: two thousand years.”
“Wha—? How old are you?”
There was a pause. “Data indicates roughly ten thousand three hundred and twenty seven years, two months, eight days, two hours, fifty six minutes and eighteen seconds have elapsed since first record of operation. Data on manufacturing processes fail extrapolation at present. File corruption detected. WARNING! Data retrieval error due to radiometric data loss. Files compromised since 18th April, 2403. Variation of up to six percent may be present in datastream.”
Wait, this thing is older than me? Surely it jests. “You must be joking.”
“I currently do not retain a full copy of the Equine Interactions Manual. Humour has been abandoned due to dangerous results.”
Luna shook her head in bemusement, what a curious little thing. However, if this entity is as old as it claims and I have not heard of ‘humans’ in all that while… It is possible they no longer exist. Luna felt a pang of sorrow shudder through her frame. Her hoof reached out to comfort the pitiful machine. Are you all alone, abandoned by your masters?
The Cry-pod was silent for a moment. “The data may be recovered,” it offered.
“Data?”
“Data: a collection of information for refer—“
“Yes, yes, I am familiar with the term. You mentioned that the data is corrupted. Is there a way to recover that information?”
The Cry-pod answered immediately. “Data corruption at 98%. Fortunately, a manual backup may be performed. There are many redundancies present within my system to guard against failure due to data corruption. The process may only be started by a human of the highest administrative authority. Current human of highest administrative authority: First name, David. Last name, Collins.”
Luna’s ears perked up at that. Amazing. Is it saying what I think it is? “There are still humans alive?”
“Correct. Recent reanimation successful. No data could be retrieved concerning current subject medical state. Current attending physician: Doctor Staton… Current status: missing.”
“Are there any other humans left?”
“Unknown. Current data suggests no humans within an appreciable distance from this unit. Contact, apart from subject, has not been established in excess of ten thousand years. Authority shifted to David Collins until suitable human with higher authority made available.”
“Are you saying there might be other humans out there? Where is this… David Collins?”
“Unknown. Location of David Collins restricted. Please provide appropriate authentication.”
Hmmm, the box won’t give out information about humans, at least not past general information. That will make locating the currently alive one difficult… Luna shook her head. There was definitely more to learn from this curious machine.
Just as Luna was about to say something, she was interrupted by the clattering of hooves and a shout.
“Princess!”
Luna turned around to see a ragged guardspony short of breath.
“Princess Luna,” the stallion bowed.
Luna gestured with a regal wave of her hoof. “You may rise, guard.”
The stallion bobbed his head gratefully. “Thank you, Princess Luna. Princess Celestia has urgently requested for your presence in the throne room.”
“Did she tell you the nature of the request?” Luna asked curiously.
The stallion shook his head. “The Princess did not reveal any information regarding the nature of the summons.” Nervous blue eyes shied away from the Princess’ gaze. Luna forced herself to relax.
“At ease, guard. Apologies for my intensity. Strict command is a hard habit to be rid of.”
The stallion looked horrified that the Princess had decided to apologise to him. He waved his hooves frantically to dispel even the notion that she needed to apologise to him. Luna sighed as the guard got increasingly flustered.
“I apologise for apologising,” Luna said impatiently and the guard hung his head sheepishly. Luna sighed again. “Would you mind waiting a few moments? I will need to bring this strange relic with me—it won’t take long."
Luna tugged the Cry-pod telekinetically with her magic and found that it came quite easily out of its recess. Surprised, she let it float in front of herself. The box caught some of the afternoon’s rays and gleamed in its many hues as gems studding the surface glowed. Luna was mesmerised for a moment, then she shook her head. “Cry-pod, are you alright?” she asked apprehensively. She was afraid she may have damaged the device.
“Affirmative, Princess Luna, Princess of the Night. No damage, despite unknown method of transportation. More data required for extrapolative inference.”
Luna nodded as the guard did a double-take, eyes widening as it considered the floating artefact. “Is it dangerous?” he asked tentatively, eyeing the gently levitating object.
Luna flicked her tail dismissively. “Nothing to be concerned about, I will discuss this with my sister,” she said, walking past the guard. The stallion scrambled to follow before the box could whack him in the back of his head.
Luna lead the way to the throne room, dismissing the guards standing at the door and the one that had been following along. They left reluctantly, looking back curiously at the open box. As Luna opened the heavy double doors of the throne room, Celestia watched in bemusement as Luna dismissed all the guards within the room. Celestia spotted the floating object behind her sister and nodded in acknowledgement.
“I see you have found the mysterious ‘Box’ before I have,” Celestia commented mildly. “Coincidentally, this is part of the reason why I called for you.”
Luna stamped a hoof. “How is it that you always know about things before I do, sister?”
“Intuition,” Celestia replied wryly. Luna grunted and brought the Box closer.
“What do you know about this, sister?” Luna asked, tapping the former decorative furniture with her hoof.
“At best guess, a relic crafted by the humans.”
Luna gaped at Celestia. “That’s really not fair, I just learnt about that from the Cry-pod.”
“Cry-pod?”
“Yes, that is what it calls itself.”
“That’s funny, Twilight prefers to call it ‘the Box’.”
“Why would she call it that?”
“She mentioned the name was a little sad-sounding.”
“Sad?”
“Yes, with ‘cry’ as in ‘crying’”
“Strange…”
“Indeed.”
Luna lowered the Cry-pod slowly to the floor.
“This creation,” Luna began, running a hoof along its surface, “is quite unique. I’ve never seen anything fashioned like this before. The Cry-pod has told me that it was created well over ten thousand years ago. It can’t be though, nothing is that old, not even Discord himself.”
Celestia rubbed a hoof across her temple. “It’s hard to think of anything more ancient. Anything that old would be decrepit and falling to pieces, its amazing this… object survived for so long. All the while keeping a living being alive and well for that period.” She laughed. “I saw the human naked the first time we met. He took it all in stride, even though he had just woken up. I don’t know whether to call that brave, or simply insane.”
The Cry-pod spoke up, startling the Princesses. “As I have explained to Princess Luna, Princess of the Night, the subject may have quite a high likelihood of brain damage. Attending medical physician should perform a CT scan to eliminate possibility of damage from hemorrhaging caused by long-term stasis. Rest is recommended.”
Luna shrugged. “I don’t understand half of what it says.”
Celestia nodded. She called out to the Cry-pod. “Is there any information you can give us that could help us know more about your race—why you are here and where they have gone?”
The Cry-pod was silent for a few moments.
“Insufficient data present for conclusive answer. Please try again later.”
Celestia eyed the horizon. “Oh, it’s time to lower the sun, Luna would you converse with this Cry-pod for a moment? I’ll be back soon.”
As Celestia headed towards the door, the Cry-pod asked its first question since talking to Luna.
“My speech processors must be malfunctioning. Would you mind repeating yourself, sister of Princess Luna?”
“Sister of Princess—oh my, how rude of me. I am Princess Celestia. Pleased to meet you, Cry-pod.”
The Cry-pod paused again. “Would you mind repeating what you have said earlier? My speech processors have identified ‘it’s time to lower the sun’, unfortunately, that cannot be right. It has conflicted with my logic interface. Is that a figure of speech?”
Celestia shook her head. “No, I will be lowering the sun with my magic—that is how it works.”
The Cry-pod flashed a couple of times. Another digital processor might detect that as impatience. That’s silly though, digital systems can’t be impatient.
“Recording response as ‘religious and/or cultural behaviour’,” the Cry-pod replied.
Celestia cocked her head curiously. “Why do you say that?”
“My data banks indicate the Earth is in orbit around the Sun. As gravity is the force keeping the orbits constant and the rotation of the Earth is the variable responsible for day and night cycles, it is improbable for most other beings to control this phenomenon without substantial energy. Energy on the order of magnitude equivalent to stopping the Earth’s rotation. Roughly 2x10^23 Newtons of force estimated. Most likely case, claims are religious or cultural in nature.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she studied the gently ticking human invention. “You’re going to be trouble,” she growled softly.
Luna laughed and batted the machine playfully. “How delightfully primitive the assumptions of this machine are! I cannot wait to hear more things that will amuse us!”
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Oops, if you didn't see it: Equinos, they're kinda fun.
I kind of want to bitch-slap Celestia...Maybe it's because she basically ruined a natural cycle...and not Discord.
5207794 Thanks for the comment link. The green link text is impossible to read against the Pinkie Pie color scheme.
5207844 Oops, well if that's the case you might want to backtrack through the story because there's a lot of side linking to other side stories if you're interested. Then again I might just compile a bunch of links at the end of this story, if you can be patient and wait that far... Or if I'm not too lazy, haha.
5207849 I'm not going anywhere.
I just like how Celestia is now annoyed by the Cryopod because it actually has a diffrent theory of why the sun moves.
Good
This just got interesting.
I can see Celestia either destroying the Cry-Pod and putting a gag order on David, or everyone's understanding of how the world works (Celestia and Luna controlling the sun and moon) is going to be challenged. ... That or everyone will simply call them crazy and ignore them.
5208076
I was thinking the same thing.
...Oh.
Oh.
So this version of Celestia is a complete sham.
Does anyone else imagine Cry-Pod's voice as the computer from Portal 2? Not GLaDOS, the automated one.
5208197 You probably mean Wheatley, I suspect. It's certainly within his personality sphere.
5207829
Remember, unicorns used to raise the sun before the founding of Equestria. Unless the author is disregarding that bit of canon odds are that the sun’s orbit has been out of whack for far longer than Celestia or Luna have been alive.
5208175
Not necessarily. She could just be assuming that it’ll be a pain to interact with.
5208246 Could be, could be. But that's, while not necessarily a fault in the story, kind of irritating.
5208233 No, no, not Wheatley either. It's not an AI. It's the one that tells you to look up when you hear the buzzer and stare at the picture in the beginning.
This one:
Nothing toook her. She turned into Nightmare Moon of her own free will
Pingas
5208246 Or the unicorns where a bunch of charlatans who managed to convince Celestia and Luna that they were actually moving the sun and moon.
As for discord? obviously a master illusionist.
It doesn't match canon, but it is now my headcanon.
one thing... Fuck magic and logic i am going to the moon
5208197
I tend to imagine Cry-Pod's voice as having the same tone as the vocals from TLT's Five Nights at Freddy's song. More mechanical and computer-y.
Luna is so kewt.
I agree with Cry-Pod. Besides, any change Celestia made to the suns location should take roughly 8 minutes to register, not instantaneous as shown in the show.
Celestia is getting lip from a box......Discord would have loved to see this.
5208197 You mean the one from before GLadOS wakes? Yeah.
5208076
call they crazy there is proof that they control the sun and moon in the first episode.
5209096
you have been in the comments of almost every story I've read. Are you a spy!!!
5209859
Hah Hah Hah! Dawww. Yer too sweet.
Nawww. Ah'm just very active in findin' them good stories. :)
<3 you too btw!
5209688
Not really. There's nothing that says that the night was longer than usual.
Nice chapter, but I can just see Luna denying the Destruction of Cyro-pod just to annoy her sister.
5208280 That voice does fit pretty well.
5209089
I'd imagine you to be right if I didn't know you beforehand and have the disposition of counteracting your opinion on the basis of wishing to annoy you.
5208076 The funniest part is that from Luna's response (and canon,) she really does control the moon. Add that to the fact that good old Celly was trounced by a changeling tramp, does Celly actually have any power at all? Is she faking it? D:
5209097 that is on the assumption that magic works at the speed of light
Simple answer: Giant space dragon hatched from the Moon and ate the Sun, then farted out another Moon before it left, and then Celestia showed up and made a teeny magical Sun to warm the now-frozen Earth.
Eh, basically as plausible as a certain Doctor Who episode from this season... (All of my hate, Moffat. So much hate.)
5211861 Well, she's an immortal magical pony.
By simply existing she's doing the impossible.
And don't be silly. The universe broke it's own rules by beginning and coming from nothing. That Big Bang had to happen somehow!
5212039 "Detergent"
i80.photobucket.com/albums/j185/zero4711/Resources/070130.jpg
5212134
Heh heh heh... no it didn't. In fact, the Big Crunch is now almost certainly something that cannot happen since we know dark energy is causing a constant increase in the velocity of expansion of spacetime. Implosion is now impossible unless for some totally unknown and unpredictable reason dark energy suddenly reverses. A Big Rip is now expected to occur long before Heat Death is even a worry.
And NO ONE knows what will happen when spacetime rips apart.
Not to mention, Big Bang origin hypotheses are quite numerous, including several which posit that it indeed came from nothing. And they have equations to demonstrate it as other proponents do for other theories. There is currently no truly leading[i/] theory for the Big Bang's origins, as they change places every few months as ideas fall in and out of favor, with no solid evidence existing one way or the other.
5211376 No, I base that assumption on that light work at the speed of light.
5208295 JA
5210560
I love you too, Peaceful
XD
Poor crypod and its logic. It doesn't stand a chance. ☺
I hope that Luna and the Cry-Box have many fun adventures together, or at least a mildly interesting adventure with not much accomplished or done.
I'd love for David to prove them wrong......
Considering the often unhelpful and borderline snarky attitude the cry-box has, I can't help hearing the voice of Zen from Blakes Seven whenever it speaks.
...and I bet no one knows what i'm talking about.
I don't know why but i imagine the cry-tube speaking like EDI off mass effect.
Cry-bot sounds like yes man from fallout new Vegas
5208280 that is the exact same voice I read that in.
Enjoying myself, I appreciate the toning f it down a bit. It was fine, but it can get old. However well paced shenanigans never get old.
5222788
I read its' voice like Sheila from RvB.
images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101108224925/redvsblue/images/1/10/Sheila.jpg
(Yes, I realize that I'm hopping on this band waggon a little late)
Oh dear.
You have wierd hobbies Luna.
I keep hearing Glados's voice.
So why was David frozen?
Unfortunatly not.
And now Crypod sounds like Data from Star Trek TNG.
I think I may know why.
Well I do hope somebody picks up that phone. Because I f
cking called it!
Troll.
Whoah.
Both.