“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”
William Shakespeare
Dawn begins, I see it in the sensors dotting my masts, I feel the heat from the burning sun on the horizon. It is there, and it is real, as this new land is to me.
My tech spiders went out in the night, taking care of the other day's battle damage, returning the area to as undisturbed as I could do in such few hours. Dragging the remnants of things back into the forest to deposit for decay and the rest to destroy.
I would that such a thing not remain, to remind of what happened, to bring nightmares to life. There is such a thing as too much, and for the ponies under my protection, it is.
I watch the life below from a drone, the sensors sweeping the town of Ponyville. I see the young ones at play, the various ponies going about their lives as if nothing untoward had happened, and I am content. It is how it should be. The same with Canterlot, a mystical city set in the side of a mountain like the Arthurian legends of old. A shining beacon to all who would go there to plumb it’s mysteries.
The areas around my sensor masts have obviously been declared safe by mutual consent. After the activities of the other day, the family I had helped came out to give their thanks to me in person. I was humbled, and proud. Bringing honor to the Brigade is foremost in my mind, to do what I need to, in so many ways to make sure my charges are safe.
My visual sensor is showing now on the command deck, the beautiful bouquet of flowers that was given to me by the littlest one. It sits in a place of honor under the flag I received. Memories like this touch in so many ways. It is not the giving of something, but the gesture itself that commands something inside of each one of us.
So now, along with so many others, the young ones play among the columns of my sensor masts. Knowing that no matter what, they will be protected ceaselessly. But true to my earlier thoughts, I make absolutely sure they do not accept what I do as normal.
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Sensors pick up a known pony, Pinkie Pie, approaching my hatch, I slide it aside and wait as she bounces merrily into the command deck. I have not had many dealings with her, but she is always bright, cheerful and a consternation to me and my processors. I cannot explain how she does what she does, nor what rules lay behind the physics. Scientists of the Concordiat would go running in stark terror at the things she appears to do. Bolos are made of sterner stuff, but sometimes when I observe her antics, there is a feeling of confusion. A confused Bolo is not a happy Bolo.
“Hiya, Crusader!”
“Hello, Miss Pie, what can I do for you?”
“Oh, stop that, call me Pinkie! And nothing, I came to see what I can do for you!”
“Pardon?”
Pinkie settles herself on a couch, this is the least movement I have ever seen from her, usually the hyperactivity is beyond limits.
“I came to see what I can do for you.” She points a hoof at a camera lens. “Cause I got a feeling somepony was feeling down.”
“I assure you, Miss Pie, I am fine.”
A hoof gets waved at the lens in a pointed move, “Ah ah ah! You’re feeling down!”
“Miss... Pinkie, how can you possibly know that?”
She gives a wink at the camera, “Oh, now that would be telling! Can’t do that!”
“Pinkie, you disturb me. You cannot possibly know what you do, or accomplish what you do without being able to break every law of what I know of physics. Every time I ask, I am given the excuse ‘That’s Pinkie.” I am not content with this.”
I watch as she smiles for a moment, settling back down on the couch. Her eyes grow very warm looking at the camera lens.
“Okay, first off, what’s wrong?”
“Pardon?”
“What’s wrong, my Pinkie Sense tells me somepony’s unhappy, that’s you!”
If I am to get any answers it seems, I must go along with this.
“I am grieving Pinkie.”
“Why?”
“I am alone in this new world. Everything I knew, is now in the deep past. It’s hard not to be able to talk with my fellow Bolos anymore.”
“But you have us!”
“I am sorry, it is not the same.”
“Oh, but it is.” She gets a very different look in the camera, her smile is smaller, she is leaning back a bit, her face showing concern. “Nopony is ever alone, not if I or anypony else can help it. You saved that family Crusader, it counts, in the hearts of ponies everywhere.” Pinkie bounces on the couch, waving her hooves in the air, “Fluttershy even knows that, those bad things coming out of the woods. We all know, it was you that saved them, and we’re so grateful!”
“What I do must never become accepted Pinkie, I am something that should not be here.”
“Did you ever think you were meant to be here?”
That comment catches me completely off guard for a moment. I see her looking into the camera, face a bit serious now, but still with a smile always playing around the edges.
“I highly doubt that, Pinkie.”
“Ohhhh, don’t be so sure!”
“I still doubt it is so.”
“I don’t think so silly, see...” Pinkie settles once again on the couch, “Equestria is magic! There’s magic everywhere!” She waves her fore hooves around the room, “There’s magic in everything!” Suddenly balloons pop into being in midair. “If there’s one thing ponies do, it’s magic.”
“All right, I shall agree with you on that. Magic is confusing, it does not fit into my world view. I apologize, Pinkie.”
“No apologies necessary! But what you DO have to do, is just know!”
“Pardon?”
“Know, silly! Magic is not just spells and books and dusty old tomes full of words.” She gets quite close to the lens, “It’s about knowing too!” She bounces a bit around the command deck, “See, Equestria is magic, not just us, but the world! So did you ever think that maybe, the world knew it needed you?”
“I find it very hard to think that. I ended up here due to my stasis field being activated. Nothing more.”
“Stasis shmasis, trust me on this.”
“Humans in the Concordiat had faith in a lot of different things, mostly religions, but...”
Pinkie interrupted, “Nonono, it’s not about that! It’s not faith, it’s nothing like that! You have to know! Know deep down inside you that you’re doing what you’re meant to do!”
I am rarely confused, this is quite puzzling to me. On one hand I understand what she is saying, but it is taking a leap of judgment I am not fully prepared to make.
“I am doing what I was made to do, wage war, protecting the innocent.”
Pinkie throws her hooves into the air, followed by bits of confetti, “Ugh, you’re just not seeing it.” She settles into the couch again, “Look, see these marks on my flanks?”
“Your cutie mark, yes.”
“Right, know what that tells me? I have a destiny, to make ponies happy, to be cheerful, to be everything I want to be.”
“But would not that be forcing you to do something?”
She shakes her head vigorously the poofy pink mane wobbling everywhere, “Oh nonono, it’s much, much more than that. It’s what I do, it’s what makes me special, it’s something that I discovered I can do that nopony else can! Once you discover it, THEN you get the mark, telling the whole world you’re good at this!”
“If that is true, then why do no other races have them? I have been told that Minotaurs, Griffons and so forth do not get them.”
“Because they don’t see the world like we do, they don’t KNOW. They are so stuck in their own little worlds, they can’t see the big picture. That we are meant for more.”
“But the cutie mark tells you that you are stuck in one thing, would not that be tantamount to slavery?”
Pinkie smiles brightly, “You would think that, wouldn’t you?” She raises one hoof, pointing at the camera, “But we’re not! I bake, I can plan parties, I can go on adventures, and it all comes down to one special thing, I make ponies happy! We can DO anything we want, it’s just that the marks show us the thing we’re REALLY special at!”
“So it is not forcing you to do just that one thing?”
“Of course not! Just because the mark is there, and it tells us what we’re good at, it doesn’t mean we HAVE to do that all the time.” She waves a hoof airily, “I know, I know, someponies do. Take Twilight, she does magic, all the time, every day, it’s what she loves to do and her cutie mark tells the world that. But she is SO much more than a mark.”
“But Twilight informed me of what happened when the marks got changed on her friends.”
“That, was different.” Pinkie gets an almost serious look on her face, “Imagine you are meant to do something very special, the magic in the world knows this is so and gives you your mark. Then, something changes it, it’s not what you were meant to be special with. Wouldn’t YOU be quite confused with whats going on? Your mark is saying you do weather really well, but then you’re a dressmaker, used to making ponies shine. The conflict that arose could really really be bad. So she tried using a dressmakers’ skills to make the weather with her magic. That’s not what is done, Pegasi control the weather, she wasn’t one. So there was a double conflict.”
“So, by changing the marks, she went against their very nature and what made them special?”
“YES!” Pinkie bounced happily on the chair, “Even us Earth Ponies, we might not be able to fly, or do magic, but what magic we have is inside of us. It’s expressed in different ways. I can make any party happen, anywhere, anytime. Why? Because I KNOW I can.”
“Because the magic in the world has told you so by marking your flank?”
“Yeppers! But I still have a job, I bake for the Cakes at Sugarcube Corner, I help out folks when I can. But my special talent shines when I put on parties.” She points at the room around her, “But ponies need food, and stuff to live with, so if their cutie mark is something like mine, we get jobs. Though alot of marks have to do with the job, like firefighters, or the Town Guard, or salesponies. But wouldn’t it be an awfully boring world if all we had were job cutie marks? No one to make ponies happy? Or do special things like magic?”
“But if the mark had to do with a job that made them happy, isn’t that just as well?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Why is that?”
“Because what happens when you’re not working? You’re only happy when working? No, that would be awful. I can bake all the cupcakes and muffins and cakes I want. But who is going to use them for special things like parties? Wouldn’t that be awfully boring just to take a few cupcakes home to have, nothing special, just another day? They wouldn’t be decorated so pretty! Or have special frosting or fillings, cause it was just a job?”
“I still do not see..”
Pinkie interrupts again, “Look at it this way. You do a good job all day long, you come home, you want something fun. So you go see a play. All the actors and everypony, that’s their job as well as their mark, so they do it, they make it special, “ She points a hoof at the camera, “But what makes it super special, is somepony that say, works construction, but his cutie mark says he does scenery super good! So they do a really really really good job on the sets and it makes the play that much better!”
“So by having that one pony come in, everyone’s time is that much more fun. It’s a wildcard. I bake, but because I also throw parties, I make sure everything comes out extra-special! You never know when you might need them for a special party or something. Same thing with the actors, they do a really good job, they play their parts really well, but it’s that one pony who comes in, works on the sets and makes it tons better. He may be a hardhat during the day, but when he gets the chance, he may work on plays, cause he’s really good. Maybe he’ll get hired to do so someday, maybe not, but either way, he gets to shine.”
“So you are saying that the magic in the world, adds these ‘wildcards’ to help ponies make more of themselves?”
“Yepperooni!”
"But that still does not justify saying that I was what the world needed here.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No.. I am not going to argue.”
“Good! Then it’s settled!”
“No, Pinkie, it is not.”
Pinkie sighs, looking at the camera lens. “You’re really not getting it, I mean, you’re getting some of it, but not all of it.”
“Explain.”
Pinkie sets upright on the couch, staring at the camera lens in a way that’s almost disturbing, as if she is another pony altogether.
“Magic has been in this world for a long time Crusader. It can reach deep into the past and future, and if it needs something, really needs something, it can bring it here. How many ponies would have been hurt when those things came out of the forest? How many ponies would have been lost?”
“I have not cal..”
“A lot. And that family? They wouldn’t be here today if somepony, you, hadn’t been setting in this exact spot, made for doing exactly what you are doing, and stopped them at the forest.”
“That’s purely coincidence.”
“Is it? Is it really?,” She stares at the camera, looking intently with blue eyes, “Is it a coincidence that you, a machine we could never build, never make with all our magic, ends up right here, in this place, to be befriended by us? Who then turns around and stops that forest from tearing apart Ponyville?”
“But why not just transport me here directly? To do such a thing?”
“Because you have to learn what it is to know. To accept us as we are, see our world, learn to know it, live in it, love it as we do.”
“...and I have.”
“Yes, and why did you do what you did yesterday? Was it because you were MADE to do it, or because you wanted to?”
“..I...” My internal arrays go into overdrive, her conversation is strangely making sense now. I begin to recall the memories of the battle. It is all so clear, but I had not noticed at the time, the desire to wipe those things off the battlefield, they were endangering those I had sworn to protect! I was enraged, I was angry, I was moving faster than I had ever done, my weapon banks using more ammunition than I had thought possible at the time, chalking it up to misses.
I see it now, looking deeper, I see the blind rage that something was threatening my friends!
“...I wanted to...”
“If you had just been put here, would you have trusted us so readily without learning about us?”
“No, I would not have done so.”
Pinkie stared warmly with her eyes into the camera lens, I could see them inviting and calm, “But you had a chance to learn about us, know us, know this world. It made a difference didn’t it?”
“I believe now, it did.”
Her eyes keep looking into my camera lens, “Magic is not all about bangs and explosions. It’s so very subtle sometimes, it can creep up on you and you’d never know it. Our world needed you to be here, maybe for this, or something bigger, I don’t know, but you’re here. I’m so sorry your friends aren’t here, or everypony you knew, but we’re here, and we care.”
“ Ask yourself one thing, what do YOU want to do?”
I remain silent for a few moments, thinking of the implications of this conversation. Being brought forward to do something nothing else could accomplish. But was it that easy to explain the why? The how I have almost figured out, but why? I have never wondered why, I have never questioned why, it has never been in my thoughts. I do what I do because I was made to wage war, born to war, tempered in war. But in all my long years, I have never asked myself why I do this. Beyond the normal it is for the good of humanity and the Concordiat, I have never wondered WHY. As well as, I have never been asked in all my years, what it is I wanted to do. This truly makes me think.
“I believe I shall think on this.”
Pinkie bounced off of the couch, smiling and cheerful once again, her normal state of affairs, “Good! We’ll have to get everypony together one day, have a party, just for all of us!”
“I would like that very much.”
Pinkie made her way into the tunnel, but suddenly stuck her head out into the command room again.
“Oh!”
“Yes, Pinkie?”
“Stop trying to make us hate you.”
What?
“Pardon?”
“Stop trying to make us hate you, it’s not working, even Fluttershy likes you a bit.”
“How could you...”
“Ponies know.”
With that she bounced out of the tunnel and zoomed off in my cameras into town.
It seems as if ponies do indeed know.
Pinkie is awesome!!!!! I'm guessing that Crusader somehow gets a Cutie Mark when he figures out his destiny is to protect the ponies. I think the Crusaders could have listened to this talk, it sounds like something they could really be reassured by.
On a side note, this chapter made me realize something: RARITY IS FREAKING GOOD AT MAGIC. I mean, she did a job that normally takes a team of Pegasi, maintaining the weather around Ponyville all by herself when her Cutie Mark got switched, from Ground Level and arranged in a Checkerboard pattern. Just maintaining the cloud arrangement is impressive, but to have it last as long as it did while right next to the Everfree??? Yeah, she's stronger magically than I gave her credit for.
5487086 Yeah it kinda made me wonder too, alot of folks just debated the whole thing, but dang, I mean the whole sky! In a pattern? Just awesome As for the talk, I've always thought Pinkie had depths no ones ever really looked at, they take the canon Pinkie, and that's pretty much it. Me, I break canons all the time
Im looking forward to the next chapter.
5487193 Hope you enjoy it just as much then Get it out as fast as I can!
5487196 yay
5487115 Forget canon... Pinkie breaks the Fourth Wall!!!! I can't wait to see what Crusader has to deal with next... wait, what if he could give the Cutie Mark Crusaders a ride on a drone each??? Not very high, but enough they can have fun????
5490002 Honestly Ken, I never thought anyone would like the story. I'd always wanted to tackle a Bolo and this was a perfect setup. I really didn't think it'd go on this long, I wrote it for a one-shot, but it got too big so I broke it up. I mean, it's not going to go forever, but I hope at least I can make the interactions fun, revealing, and something that would fit right in with the situation. But I seriously thought it would just disappear into the myriad of stories on the sight. I'm really pleased you and Wacky and everyone else likes it, I truly am humbled.
As for riding drones, thaaaat's not exactly safe I'd think, even with Pegasi nearby
What's coming up next, lots of things can happen. Equestria is a land of magic, and there's always something around to cause problems, of course, they never counted on a Bolo being around.
5490235 I honestly want to see Crusader vs an evil dragon.
*cough*Harmony Theory*cough*
Phew.
This chapter is something, whoo-eee.
I shall refer to it as "A Dissertation on Magic and Destiny".
holy shit. there are only two other stories on fimfiction that really make me think about life.
This chapter, and this story will be added to them. To think, and actually be able to convey the concepts of "knowing" and the differences in that and faith, knowledge and use... man, you just added a new perspective of pinkie pie i didn't have.
thank you. i really am enjoying this story. I have bought two BOLO books, but work and of course fan material has kept me from actually reading real books.
are you a BOLO fan author on fanfiction.net? if not, there are maybe five stories there i really loved.
Oh. Alright then.
And like that I'm much happier. I like your philosophy.
Oh dear... the good old "everything happens for a reason" cliche...
I hate that cliche, because it's completely wrong. If something happens or doesn't, it's so easy to chalk it up to being destiny, or fate, or something like that instead of just accepting that things happen because of the choices we make, that everything happens because we choose our own path. It must be comforting to believe in a world where you don't have to take responsibility for the things that happen to you.
Magic may have altered his "mind" over time, the friendships he's formed have undoubtedly changed his perspective and outlook on the world, but to believe that a force that didn't even exist on Earth thousands of years in the past plucked him out of his time to land in that exact spot is absurd unless we assume that magic itself is a sentient force that chose to bring him there.
On a different note, I like this story a lot. However, there are several things that should be corrected. As someone else pointed out, there are several issues with overuse of commas in the earlier chapters. The other big thing is the formatting used for thoughts of characters besides Crusader. Typically thoughts are denoted by the use of italics, but since those are being used for Crusader in this, you need to use some other method, such as single quotes with italics or perhaps colored text, because not marking them uniquely is very, very confusing.
WOW.... Pinkie is DEEP... and scary... very, very scary.
5543754 It's the smiling ones ya gotta beware of
quite possibly one of most comprehensive talks about cutiemarks and magic that i have ever read. well done.
An AI, especially one designed to be a soldier, asking why always has been a dangerous thing. Hopefully we won't have any rogue Bolo's running around soon.
And by that I mean wanton destruction is super funny!
Shut up me, we're supposed to be nice
Nu-uh!
Yeah-huh!
...
Let's not argue in front if the whole internet, ok?
Agreed.
5550888 Look, word(s) of advice... If you're going to have a conversation with yourself in anyway that involves multiple sides/personalities/facets of your personality then please use the various colored text.
It makes it a lot easier for others to follow along and not get confused.
Okay, so, this story already got my like after chapter one.
This awesome interpretation of Pinkie just earned my favorite.
Bonus for awesome pInkIe.
Damn girl.... You confused me.
Great job on the story I love it sooooooooooo much
Pinkie's theory doesn't fill me with confidence. If magic is traversing time and space to do weird stuff like this, what does that say about Crusader's free will? His code is being altered at its base-level, he did discover that earlier, which sounds a lot like mind-control oriented slavery. And not even slavery to ponies, just slavery to this 'magic' phenomenon.
5653287 Nope just Nope... Pinkie is not a Maximal... At least I hope not
Interesting take on Pinkie Pie, I haven't decided if I like it or dislike it yet.
(I'm [still] kinda disappointed Apple Bloom lost the position of Command though. -- )
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Should be "taking care of the other day's battle damage".
Should be "Bolos are made of sterner stuff".
Such an interesting, and to me, refreshing take on Pinkie!
Honestly when I first started reading this I honestly wasn't expecting much, I mean a war machine in equestria... I haven't read many of them but those few I've read weren't that good.
So... yeah I am pleasently surprised! I shall read on!!
Though the whole romance tag is confusing me, and I don't want any spoilers! Though to be honest I imagine Twi and Crusader hooking up for the lack of a better term.
But for some reason... I don't think that will be happening...
Wow. Never knew Pinkie could be that deep. I mean, I knew she could be deep but...
Not that deep.
The whole conversation she had with Crusader felt very meaningful, and I loved it.
And was that slight foreshadowing I detected?
This story has done the impossible: it has gotten even more interesting.
Carry on!
I kind of want Crusader's 'mind' to be transferred to a pony body/ robot. That'd be cool. I love this fic, though :D
5731417
And ruin part of what makes him interesting? Don't be thoughtless.
5672609
Agreed. It was nice to see someone finally give Pinkie a more respectable interpretation instead o just stamping "brainless ditz" on her forehead and moving on. Being a hyperactive goofball of a partymonger (she's so far beyond the level of a mere party animal) doesn't mean she has to be a borderline drooling vegetable any more than being a socially awkward bookworm means that Twilight has to be an out of shape stick in the mud
... well okay. Maybe the drooling part applies to her; we've seen proof of that in action. The vegetable part still stands, though.
5752310 I do not think it would be thoughtless per se, more along the line of not entirely well thought out. I could see Crusader constructing a pony shaped drone so that he may freely mingle with others and interact with them himself, instead of through the com bracelets.
Could be interesting.
Well fuck you too you little ball of bipolar cotton candy. :V
Also I hope by "we" she's not meaning "only ponies" because holy shit I am going to have so many problems with this story if she is
This sounds similar to the concept of 'The Will And The Word' from David Edding's Belgariad series. You have to just know that what you want to happen will happen when you put your Will to it, or it won't work. I would imagine that the other races of Equestria have a similar concept, expressed differently from the ponies.
I'm glad she didn't go the, "It's fate route." I hate fate, I hate the concept of it. It's the most damning and terrifying thing I can think of. Nothing you do matters because it was all planned out before hand. It means there is no true free will and no true freedomand that's a concept that's horrifying.
What does Crusader want to do? Well, we could always use a daycare... filled with 50 Cal. Machine Guns and Nuclear Warheads...
That Pinkie speech was something else. Well done!
5783016
Aye, trying to explain it in such a way as to linking awareness of something to the marks is dubious. How do Zebras factor into things, then?
The worst error I can see is trying to explain away Magic mystery cure into all of this, which never made sense to begin with. Establishing that the cutie marks outright overrode the pony's memories and their own decision making ability made no sense. Establishing that the cutie marks, not the ponies themselves are what define them, makes no sense. This trend was continued in the most recent episode with Trouble Shoes. There is a big difference between the show and a fanfic though.
Still, it's fortunate Trouble Shoes likes being a rodeo clown that everyone laughs at, or was written that way, or he would have likely stayed miserable.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/5/1/886858/large.jpeg
6037909 that is some trippy shit right there
Woah *hits blunt*
I'm gonna flip tables if when Crusader emerges from the dirt he has a new 'decal'.
*is munching a cookie while reading the chapter*
Okay~
*stops eating the cookie midway through the chapter*
Holy shit, Pinkie is deep... this is... trippy... *carefully puts the half eaten cookie away*
I felt like this needed to be seen by the world, whether or not it is basically Pinkie.
I'm sorry.
So, to sum up this chapter;
Cutie marks,
Crusaders existance,
Life the universe and everything,
Because magic.
That's pretty fukken deep.
I am reasonably certain that Pinkie Pie is a benevolent eldritch abomination from a higher dimension that hands out advice and knowledge at random, because it amuses her.
7651398 Basically every religion ever...
This proves that the quiet ones aren't the only ones you have to be careful of. Imagine the force that would be unleashed if Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie joined forces?
7936481
Quite plausable
8643748
She even has her own summoning rituals!
For a pony who has more than a few screws loose Pinkie Pie can certainly be QUITE the philosopher at times.
Crusader had a vegeta moment... I'mma just leave this here.