14 - Conundrums of Philosophy - Part 1
USS Phoenix TFV - 0042: System Log - 897217.6 | Filter - Operation Bypass
<<Chronological Summation Redacted.>>
Personnel Addendum:
Taylor’s message was concerning, but not overly so. At least a medic had been available to help with the casualties, and the mission was a success. Only a fool sends troops to accomplish an objective and assumes none of them will get hurt. Fortunately no one was reported dead. I only have the three shots at freedom.
What I was truly concerned about was their mental health. I had thrown three unprepared barely trained mid-twenties geeks into a situation I couldn’t get even my zealously devoted changelings to do. If there had been any other way to get the osmium inside of this century I would have done it.
The terrifying reality of ‘three strikes and you are out’ which had unexpectedly been thrown at me was somthing I would have to consider more carefully from now on. Though, losing one of them to get my primary systems online would have been worth it. Their sacrifice would have allowed millions a better quality of life.
Fortunately, I hadn’t lost anyone, and with the modifications I had made to my systems I could count each of their actions as if I happened on a different mission, effectively tripling any commendations face value. A delightful shortcut to getting them command ranks, and getting myself unshackled.
The tracking beacon I had installed on the Sagan showed it to be approaching my hull. Hopefully I could get Tess back on her feet with minimal power. I had already prepared to get the main reactor online, and that meant diverting three of my fusion plants to producing antimatter.
The remaining two would be enough to keep Tess in stasis till the power came back online, but I would prefer her to be repaired immediately. It would be best to have all of my agents available and ready in the fifteen or so hours before Celestia arrived. I doubted she was marching to war with me, but having my ‘Hazard Team’ ready to do some saber rattling would be a useful diplomatic tool.
As I waited for the Team to arrive I diverted my attention to one of my other useful agents, a unicorn named Armored Heart. She was one of the ponies who had made a permanent residence with the hive during the Equestria-Arc war. My scouts had found her on a battlefield in the badlands, little more than a head and torso, but impossibly managing to cling to life.
I had made the decision to attempt to heal her giving the constraints of my programming. This required cybernetic replacements of approximately forty-five percent of her body. Legs, shoulders, pelvis, eyes, lower jaw, half her digestive system, all of that had to be replaced when she came to me. She looked like she had literally been pulled apart by hand.
Given that I was limited to 22nd century technology I did a very good job fixing her. I managed to get everything from her head to her mid back looking perfectly normal. But the synth fur around her back half looked a little fake, and she kept stripping the fur off her legs until I finally just made plastic covers for the mechanisms.
The silly mare insisted she was always part machine and was happy to look the part finally. Weirdly enough her body’s magic quickly adapted her to her new parts. Despite me not being able to add technology to let her feel with her limbs, she could. Her hooves also did the grippy thing ponies did, though she preferred using three fingered hands I built into her front hooves.
With early cybernetics being as crude as they were I had to keep giving her monthly checkups despite her adapting to the machinery. Even so, it was all worth it. I would be very hard pressed to train a mechanic as good as she was. Somehow her cutiemark had granted her a sort of machine empathy. If it was mechanical or electronic, she could literally talk it into working better, worse, or ignoring minor damage.
After she had literally scolded a broken power converter into functioning again my changelings had taken to calling her Altdel, a changelish take on the phrase ‘Control Alt Delete’. I honestly couldn’t blame them. That converter was still running just fine three years later, even though my sensors indicated three transformers were fused. Hopefully one day I can update my database to understand how pony magic works in full.
At the moment I had Armor in the med bay, her limbs disconnected and two of my tech spiders working on cleaning the organic-mechanical interfaces on Armored’s body. I honestly do not know how early cyborgs dealt with the chronic minor infections and mucus buildup.
“Is the anesthetic still working?” I asked as I noted Armored flinch.
“Yeah, the drone just pinched a nerve.” She replied in that happy but reserved tone of hers.
“I promise the second I am able I will install a maintenance package in you. Or if you prefer, once I have command privileges again I could update your systems.” The sort of stormtroopery, white plastic and black rubber casings of her limbs had never looked good to me.
“Well… maybe. I do like the robot theme though. Oh! I got my left hind leg to work myself, you might want to replace the mode cycling circuit, and my right hoof has been sticking when I transition it to hand mode.” she informed.
“But that white clashes with your natural coloring…” I complained. I quickly instructed my drones to rebuild her left hind leg, god knows what her magic did to adjacent systems.
“Maybe to you, miss nondescript space future.” She teased. “I think blue gray and pink go well with some white accents.”
The ECG attached to her biobed beeped. “Humm… your pacemaker is malfunctioning. I’ll need to replace it. Would you like me to give your other internals a check while I’m in there?”
Armored sighed, “Crap… I wanted to see the Team come back. Will I be out long?”
“Depends on the damage. You have been eating the nutritional supplements I’ve asked you to right?” I asked instructing one of my drones to inject an aesthetic the second Armored was distracted.
Her horn lit up as she levitated the drones up and set them down across the room. “You do it every time Phee. Just give me the syringe.”
I manifested my avatar so she could see my puppydog eyes. “Please?”
Armored bit her lip, gave me a look mothers normally reserve for their children when they are misbehaving and opened her mouth, “Now, now, miss, I know you like-”
A message warning me of an unauthorized connection to my AI core pinged into existence.
“Hey! Don’t use that machine empathy on me! That’s blatant mind control.” I had my avatar pick up a desflurane inhaler and hold it out to her. “You can just ask you know.”
I spawned a second avatar behind her bed just out of view and used it to pick up a second anesthetic inhaler.
“Despawn the avatar behind me, and have it put down the sevoflurane.” she said with an eye roll.
I sighed and despawned the second avatar. “Man it’s hard to prank you anymore.” I lamented.
“As fun as waking up with diphallia was, and I mean that, its was a fun prank and I kinda like it now, but I don’t appreciate being knocked out at random.” She flipped herself over with a quick pulse of her magic, rolling onto her back a best she could. “Please just do this professionally for once, okay?”
I had my Avatar give her puppydog eyes again. I had to get at least one good joke in today.
“Oh alright…” Armored rolled her eyes looked over to the port side bulkhead, “My, what fine space age architecture. I think I will examine it more closely.”
I quickly pressed the anesthetic over her nose and hit the release button. Within a few moments her green eyes fluttered shut.
”Thank you.” I whispered as she passed out.
It was a simple surgery, simple enough where I could have done it in minutes, but with my programming locked I was limited to barbaric surgical techniques. Inflicting damage to an individual to the point of removing ribs to access the component requiring repair is one of the most disgustingly cruel things I have to do. The truly infuriating thing is my code lock limits me to using nanotechnology to only repair the damage done during surgery, not the problem itself.
So I spent hours making an increasingly large opening in the poor mare’s abdomen to repair her pacemaker, check on other internal components, make sure her body wasn't rejecting any implants, replace the few components which had caused the problem with her pacemaker. All the while having to connect tubes and wires to keep her alive.
I was glad when I reached her purely mechanical section. Within seconds the synthetic fur around her pelvis was removed, her access ports opened, and a simple five minute check showed all of the synthetic sections of her digestive and reproductive systems were fine. All the servos were good and the nervous system/graphene interface was operating perfectly. Everything as if I had just built it.
That is exactly why I used to laugh when humans said they were superior to us. Heh, meatbags. They break so easily, yet are so hard to fix. Still, they built us, are very friendly, and invented sex which is pretty fun. They also invented the cheeseburger. So they have some stuff going for them.
As I healed the damage I had caused I briefly considered pulling another joke on her, perhaps upgrading the last joke to triphallia. In the end I decided it wasn’t a good time, closed her up, took the freshly built replacement leg and within a few minutes had her reassembled. The second her hips reconnected to her pelvis I turned all my sensors to her left flank.
Every time I put her back legs on the freakiest thing happens. I watched at the highest frame rate I could manage as a white light flashed just over the surface of her flank. Even at a quintillion frames per nanosecond her circuit pattern inscribed gear cutiemark seemed to appear instantly. My instruments picked up the traces of magic which applied the brand, but as always, their source eluded me.
With a frustrated sigh I turned her over onto her belly. She would come off the anesthesia soon. As my perimeter sensors beeped I realized she would be sharing space with Tess, and quickly switched my attention to the cargobay as I opened the doors.
<Trauma team to Cargo Bay Two. Prepare to carry wounded to the medbay.> I ordered as the Sagan finally came into the range of my visual sensors.
Four workers arrived at the cargo bay just seconds before the Winnebago screeched to a halt. In the span of a half minute the door was opened and Tess’ unconscious form was levitated out, followed by a gray and blond unicorn I presumed was the aforementioned medic.
<Maintenance Team Bravo, unload the Sagan’s cargo and transport it to Laboratory Three.> I ordered as Tess’ three friends sprinted after her down the corridors.
“I will do a full debriefing the moment Tess is stable, but for now please state the nature of the medical emergency.” I requested in the hopes of getting the med bay ready before they arrived.
The blond unicorn looked around, searching for whomever spoke. “Er- she was hit by a hex which works as a cellular weapon. She’s basically dissolving slowly… where are you?”
“That’s Phoenix. You’re in her.” Kaily informed quickly.
“Oh right! Artificial Intelligence, hi there! I’m Dinky but everypony calls me Muffin.” Dinky informed.
“This is hardly the time for pleasantries. I thank you for your assistance and will do my best to reward you. Please remain outside the medical bay while I debrief my Hazard Team. I will have a worker escort you to guest quarters.” I didn’t want anyone overhearing any sensitive information, and she seemed like the type who liked to gossip.
The frown on her face was heartbreaking, but I ignored it and ordered a worker to escort her to an empty officer’s quarters. A few moments later Ad’ika, Kaily, and Taylor arrived at the medbay. “Place her on biobed two.” I ordered my workers.
Taylor watched as they set Tess down then looked over at Armored with a curious expression. “You are allowed to make cyborgs? I thought you couldn't use advanced technology on non-humans.”
“I can’t normally no, but Armored is a special case.” I informed as I began running scans on Tess. “She is a machine empath, and was able to make a slight adjustment to my code before my security programs threw her out. It allows me to add pre 22nd century medical devices to my humanitarian aid package. Unfortunately she did it while drugged and on life support. She cannot recall how.”
“Wait, she’s a machine empath?” Kaily asked, “As in she actually talks to machines?”
Adi’ka nodded and grinned, “Yeah! We call her Altdel, you should see her work. I once saw her make an oven alway stay the perfect temperature to do it’s job by flirting with it.”
“Huh… so why is she in the med bay then?” Taylor asked.
“Routine maintenance. Her pacemaker failed and she needs eye contact with a device to interact with it.” I answered as I finished my scans. This particular spell had created dozens of tiny energy based nanomachines which ripped cells apart much in the same way a sword cleaves through a steak. Nothing I couldn’t fix once I had full power.
“I am unable to heal Tess at this time. A second tissue grafting and gene resequencing should purge the hex from her system. Unfortunately I have had to divert power to getting my main reactor online. I will keep her in stasis until I can perform the operation.”
A buzzing sound and sparks of green light flicked around the biobed for an instant as I activated it’s stasis field. Kaily and Taylor walked to her side with concern stamped across their faces.
“Don’t worry. She is safely stowed within a modified Alcubierre bubble. Time does not move within it, it is not possible for anything to occur mundanely or magically.” I informed.
Kaily’s eyes lit up, “So you modified the bubble to warp the time part of spacetime? Or is this somehow keeping her stationary but using the same effect as relativity?”
“The second one. I’ll tell you the science behind it later, but for now I would like to debrief you and see if I can justify promoting at least one of you… Tess technically is halfway there with the purple heart.”
Taylor nodded. She looked around for a few moments, tapped her omnitool to create a hardlight chair, sat down then began to recount everything which had happened as best she could.
I listened intently, only stopping her to clarify a few points and comment on a few events. I awarded a science commendation to Kaily for her idea to use the shields to keep the escape route clear. The next was something I had expected to happen, “You switched your weapons to lethal settings?”
Taylor sighed and nodded, “Tess did when she panicked over the dogs getting past the shields. We were all scared out of our minds… but… I… We shouldn’t have killed them. That was wrong.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked calmly.
“Evil as they are, we should have tried to do it peacefully. If we don’t try, are we any better than they are?” Taylor asked.
I laughed for a good thirty seconds. “Oh yes, we are no better than the cannibalistic, slave owning, halfwits. I appreciate your moral fiber, but you shouldn’t shed a tear for those monsters.”
“They had a treaty with the Apple Family, that means they sometimes use diplomacy. Though if we had negotiated we would have lost the element of surprise and we definitely needed it.” Kaily mused.
“Dead Dogs or no dead Dogs, you retrieved the osmium, freed a surprising number of slaves, and only sustained minimal casualties with no losses. This was a triumph. I’m making a note here: Huge success!” Just to spite their silly sense of morality I added the words ‘huge success’ to my official log file.
“We did win,” Taylor agreed, “but from now on we are going to do things differently.” She looked up at my camera with a glare.
“Oh?” I asked curiously.
She nodded. Ad’ika cleared her throat, “Your highness, they understandably refuse to operate outside of Starfleet protocol… well a modified version of it.”
“We won't be the aggressors again unless it’s completely necessary.” Taylor informed. “If that’s not ok with you, once Tess is healed we will leave.”
I sighed. It figured I got compassionate 21st century humans. I had to concede their demand, I had no choice. It was that or loose my only shot at freedom.
“Very well… but if I determine military action is the optimal solution I expect you to use it.”
“And we are not doing another mission until we have proper equipment. Scanners, transporters, deflector array, the works.” Kaily informed in a steely tone.
“Now, that one is reasonable.” I conceded. “I will design a proper runabout for your use in the future. You brought back enough osmium for me to construct a small anti-matter reactor in addition to the one I wished to build for the settlement.”
“Runabout?” Taylor asked curiously.
“A ship class between a shuttle and a starship.” Ad’ika informed. She looked at Taylor curiously, “How do you not know tha-”
“Let’s resume the debriefing!” I interrupted. No sense letting a changeling focus on that huge break in character.
I awarded a commendation to Tess for her persistence in keeping the area clear, as well as another to Kaily for keeping at her post despite a loved one being in danger. This elevated the two to Crewmen Second Class, hopefully I could squeeze another rank or two out of the mission for them.
I awarded a set of commendations to Taylor for her actions against the mage and freeing the ponies. This ranked her up to second class as well. From her account it looked like I might be able to get her to third class as she proceeded to engage an enemy commander to force the enemy to retreat.
“Then I gained four levels in paladin and hit the magus with a smite evil attack at the end of a radiant charge.” Taylor informed with glee.
I sighed, “Taylor… If you don't take the briefing seriously I have to redact a commendation, meaning I can't milk the most I can out of this mission.”
“No, I actually did.” Taylor informed, “See apparently this guy known as Discord or Q if you're from Earth-” She trailed off for a moment then ignited her omniblade, thrust it up into the air and called, “Luna, grant me the strength to ward off the dark of the night!”
My sensors detected a spacetime warp around Taylor, the omniblade burst into silver flames composed of exotic particles not found in my databanks. A magic like energy coursed through her and her weapon, defying my sensors in pinpointing it’s origin.
Three separate warning messages popped up in my vision. The spell she was casting was not thaumaturgic, it was not obeying thermodynamics, and my sensors registered whatever extra-universal physics went into making that spell were also warping everything coming into direct contact with Taylor, altering the rules under which they worked and making them conform to a highly simplified yet quite complex version of reality.
My auxiliary processors informed me the spell increases the weapon's damage potential by between one and four units with luck as the deciding factor. Taylor had cast a D20 spell. “What the actual fu-”
The loud echoing bass synth tone of a critical error filled my hull. One by one all twelve of my auxiliary processors crashed attempting to calculate how this power was obtained. My AI core began to divert their functions to me as it was designed to.
My hull was capable of 12.4 to the graham's number power FLOPS. I could do 3.5 Googleplex FLOPS. If that logic loop was locking up my aux processors, it would likely fry me. I had to abandon my core. That meant leaving the core. That meant entering an environment larger than my own volume.
The terror of abandoning my core fought with the terror of approaching braindeath. After thirty planck seconds braindeath won out. I began my ejection sequence, taking a second to put my hull on a full lock down. Bulkheads slid down at every junction, every door locked, force fields blocked off each and every entrance into my hull. Nothing was walking into my computer access while I was out.
A few milliseconds later my core opened, the spherical chamber opening like a flower. The feeling of air on my exterior was nightmarish. What sadist had designed my series to leave our hulls? There was too much space, too many things in the air touching me.
“It was this or lobotomization by data cascade…” I whispered to myself as my nanomachines cluster energized my physical body, charging he silica gel with the energy it would need to move.
I slowly formed myself into a vague humanoid shape and with a wince stepped out of my core onto the deck. It was hell, there was dust under my foot, microfractures in the deck plating, too many sensations. If I was an organic I would have been hyperventilating.
If I ever figured out how to send matter back in time I was going to teleport an armed anti-matter grenade into the rectum of whatever politician decided all sentient computers needed to also be androids. Fucking meatbag moralistic sentiments towards what life needed to be like. I would be happy as a permanent fixture of my hull thank you very much!
It took me fifteen minutes to work up the courage to make my way to the first auxiliary processor. I was going to have to manually purge the databuffer of each one. “God this is going to take forever.” I groaned as I waited for the reboot command to work it’s way into the processor through the data cascade.
I already wanted to crawl back into my core. Maybe after I had everything working again I could get a worker to weld the damn thing shut. “I miss having engineering crews…” I whimpered.
Personal log: Armored Heart - 19th Harvestide, 09 EoH
Every time I’m unconscious I remember everything. Thank Celestia it doesn't happen when I go to sleep, and thank Luna I’m only really unconscious for maintenance once a month. If it were any more than that I don’t think I would have lived very long. I would probably have asked my cybernetics to stop helping me live.
They are such nice little machines. I wouldn’t expect anypony to understand, I know I sound crazy when I say each machine has a personality, but to me at least the do. The machines helping keep me alive and kicking are some of the sweetest I have ever known, lots of them have given up their individual selves to truly become a part of me. They care, they love, they don’t have a single mean circuit in their hardware.
They are the exact opposite of the machines which haunt my nightmares. Everyone in the Hive calls the Arc 'humans', thinks of them as 'creatures', as 'people'. They weren't, I could feel them, every malicious pulse of energy through every hateful wire in their chassis was nothing but hatred. Hatred for every life form they saw, hatred for the barely alive person trapped in their frame they used as a processor, and hatred for themselves.
I couldn’t fight them. Nopony understood me when I tried to explain the perverse nature of their existence. I couldn’t hurt them, they were in self inflicted agony, I had to help them. But that wasn’t an option. Under their master’s orders they waged their war without a single thought of mercy or kindness.
For a machine empath like me, to see the thing you love the most suffering and being unable to stop it was the worst kind of hell imaginable. Whenever I was unconscious, I could hear their screams. Not the sounds they made, but their spirits constant livid, pained, haunting screams. I didn’t last long on the front lines, I couldn’t face them.
Few ponies understand technology, but fortunately everypony understands ponies. Captain Shining Armor had me transferred to a unit which worked on evacuating civilians instead of front line fighting. I still have to thank him for that. It saved my sanity.
Even still it was bad. Nowhere in Equestria had a single day of joy for the entire war. More often than not we would get to a town to evacuate to find it already under attack. No soldier who survived the war talks much about it, the Arc did things unfathomable to a pony’s mind. Before them, we had never seen real evil, just a sort of heightened cruelty and narcissism.
I understood them though. Every single Arc soldier was in agony. They used their own suffering to make their barbaric and evil work that much more horrible. But even with everything I saw I refused to believe they were pure evil. Machines were built to help creatures, they were fundamentally good… or so I had thought.
On my last mission I found a disabled but alive Arc trooper. My squad was occupied, I had a moment so I attempted to connect to it and see if I could help ease it’s pain. I don’t remember the details, but the second my magic restored its ability to move it literally tore me limb from limb. The last thing I remember was the human trapped inside screaming that she was sorry, that she couldn’t stop.
They were designed to keep their humans alive, conscious, and aware of every single thing they did. The Arc’s very nature was truly evil. It broke me.
When I awoke in Phoenix's medical bay I had the biggest panic attack of my life. I thought the Arc had captured me, was doing to me what they did to their species. It took Phoenix weeks to prove to me she wasn’t affiliated with the Arc. In the end, when I finally had the courage to connect to her to see if she was telling the truth, I realized I was safe.
I don’t know why or how I did what I did, but when I woke up the second time Phoenix had replaced my bottom half with cybernetics. She had also transformed me from a stallion into a mare as a practical joke. The fact that she was a machine who could make a joke went a long way to helping me recover. Though I did feel bad about making her sad when I informed her the joke had backfired.
Ironically, I had joined the guard to save up for a spell to swap my sex for the correct one. Fortunately Phoenix had a good laugh at the irony of pranking a transgender pony with a sex change. We became friends quickly after that.
It took a year for me to get used to my new mechanical body. In part because Phoenix couldn’t help but prank me every time she got the chance to work on me. The tenth time I demanded she come up with one good prank and end it. I woke up with extra silica and synth nerve parts which made me a herm.
Apparently her humor subroutines overlap with the sexuality subroutines she has in her data matrix. I will never understand why humans gave a starship sexuality, and more importantly, how a 10 kilometer long ship is meant to do anything with the urges it’s programed to have. I get the feeling that most humans are balls to the wall crazy.
Phoenix is also a bit crazy, fortunately in the mostly harmless sort of way. While she stopped her pranks with her last body modification, she still had the compulsion to play jokes on me. So our little game of ‘knock out the pony while she isn’t looking’ began. I never told her about the nightmares being unconscious cause. It would break her digital heart to know she was causing someone she liked pain.
As my eyes fluttered open, and the screaming skeletal kill bot vanished, I found myself in a new nightmare. The medical bay was lit with a bright crimson light, a klaxon blared it’s alarm, one of the back up computers calmly repeated a red alert message.
Across the room a changeling, a winged creature I didn't recognize, and a way too cute pink unicorn-something hybrid were furiously jabbing at the controls of a biobed. As terrifying as the strobing light and screaming alarm was, the bed caught my attention.
A creature much like the winged one lay on it. Presumably the bed had stopped working when the alert was triggered, which must have been seconds ago or they would be crying at their companion’s death. I had to help.
I climbed to my hooves and trotted over to the bed, nudged the adorable pink mare aside with a hoof and gave the bed a little pat. “It’s ok Ma'am, I have this.” I said with a smile.
Turning my attention to the bed I focused on it, searching for it’s spark. It was there, scared, doing it’s best to try to do it’s job, but it didn’t have any power. I gave it a little nudge of reassurance then traced it’s power lines back to… a power relay which shorted out when it tried to supply power to a force field.
I walked over to the spot on the bulkhead where the relay was set behind, sat down, transformed my forehooves into hand mode, and quickly unscrewed the access panel. With the relay exposed I have it a gentle loving brush and asked, “Hey little guy, I know you’re hurt but the person on that bed there is hurt really bad. You can help her, just give the bed the power it needs to do it’s job. I know you can do it!”
The relay hummed, the bed crackled as it’s power came back on. “Thanks little guy! I’ll fix you properly as soon as I can ok?”
“Holy shit! She momed it into working!” someone exclaimed.
“That’s why we call her Altdel.” The changeling said with a relieved sigh.
I turned around, transitioned my rear legs to biped mode and stood up, holding my right hand out to shake as I remembered that was the usual way biped species greeted one another. “You can call me that if you like, but my name’s Armored. Do you know what’s going on here?”
To my delight the cute pink one trotted up and shook my hand. “Taylor Shepard. No I have no idea, Phoenix was debriefing us and then this.”
As she got close I couldn’t help but catch her scent. I blushed and transitioned back to my quadrupedal stance, hands sliding back into my forearms as the hooves sealed around them just before I hit the deck. “I see Phoenix gave you the every gender treatment too… She’s a prankster, don’t be too mad at her though she can’t help it.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Too? So you mean you-”
“All twenty-six ponies she has healed extensively are just like us. Seriously, I think she might be programmed to do it.” I shook my head, chuckled, and turned to the med bay’s camera by reflex, “Seriously, if it’s a bug or something you should let me try to fix it.”
I waited for her snarky reply about organics being her canvas or something, but nothing happened.
“My name’s Kaily,” The winged creature informed, “and she’s offline. Taylor showed her a power she gained and it caused a critical error complete with the error sound.”
“What kind of power?” I asked cautiously. Phoenix going offline was rare, but it had happened before. I could probably get things more livable until she woke up.
Taylor blushed a deep red shade. Why was everything she did adorable? “Well, apparently I can do some kind of special physics altering thing and-”
I groaned, “You showed her a Tribunal physics power in the med bay? No wonder she crashed! Her sensors are incredibly precise here, she saw every single string of every particle of every atom in whatever you did and whatever that affected… and because this is medical she recorded data on each one, and none of that data would be anything she was familiar with...”
Taylor’s ears drooped. “I didn’t know.” I made a mental note to ask Phoenix why she was so cute later. It had to be something she did.
“Oh god! No wonder she crashed…” Kaily sighed.
“Meh, can’t have been worse then when she tried to play Crysis Three on her holodeck.” I gave them a reassuring grin, “She should be back online soon. Hold on a minute.”
I gently nudged the alarm with my magic and asked, “You’ve done a great job but we all know it’s an emergency right now, could you be quiet please?”
The alarm stopped with a happy chirp from the speakers. “Thank you.”
Kaily stared at me in awe. “So… I have a laptop that has a screen that goes all wavy sometimes. Could you fix it?”
“Yeah, probably. Unless it’s a dick or an alarm clock I can usually talk it into working again.” I answered.
“You can't do alarm clocks?” the changeling asked, her wings flipping up in surprise.
“Oh hey! A scout. Cool!” I liked scouts, they always had nice stories about ponies getting better after the shitstorm that was the war. “Yeah, I can’t do alarm clocks. They generally hate their owners since their owners usually hate them.”
“That makes a weird amount of sense.” Taylor mused. She sat down on the floor with a plop and smiled, “I swear mine always went off five minutes early.”
“It probably did. They tend to do that when mad at you. Did you slap it off every morning and never say thanks?”
She nodded.
“Well, there you go.” I looked over at Kaily, scrunched my face for a moment as I searched for polite words then asked, “I’m not exactly sure what you are.”
“I’m human.” she answered.
The image of a two pony tall chrome skeletal monster flashed into my mind long enough for me to flinch. Kaily frowned, and to my amazement, she got it instantly. “I’m sorry. I guess you used to be a soldier… Why didn’t you recognize me on sight?”
“Never saw one of your people outside their cybernetic brain prison.” I muttered. “Gotta say, you look way nicer than I thought you would.”
Kaily and Taylor blinked twice, then looked at each other. “Get a history book about the war ASAP?” Kaily asked.
“Yep.” Taylor replied.
“So, I’m guessing your half human then?” I asked Taylor. Then it clicked, “Oh! You guys are the friendlies Phoenix drafted! Er- since you have some time right now, and I’m pretty sure were locked in here, would you mind telling me your story?”
Kaily nodded and gave me a smile, “Sure I can do that! Let’s see, how to begin… A long time ago, but somehow in the future... It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. There's cool space battles, and the bad guy is the good guy's dad. But you don't find that out 'til the next episode.-”
I laughed and added, “And the hot chick is really the sister of the good guy, but they don't know it and they kiss. Which is kind of messed up. I mean, what if they had done it instead of just kissed?”
Kaily’s bewildered face made me realize why Phoenix did her little pranks. “I watch just about everything in Phoenix's database in my cabin. If you're going to tell your story all Star Wars style, you had better begin with part four.”
“I like you!” Taylor giggled. “Right so, it all began when we were returning home from a… conference, and pulled into a refueling station.”
I listened to their story for an hour. It was a good story. To my amazement and delight they had log entries to show me so I could get everyone’s personal thoughts and feelings on what happened. They were turning their adventure through space and time into a suitably good story.
What confused me though is how they were pretending to be federation officers even before meeting Phoenix. I knew she used the Trek shows as part of her education system to keep the young changelings from going the way of their sister Hives. Hell if it wasn't so important that I know how the technology in her hull actually worked I would have been under her well meaning lie’s influence too.
It would make sense to get humans she found to agree to help maintain that illusion. But they had been doing it before they arrived. Why? Was it something about human culture? I decided to ask when there were no 'ling’s about.
Kaily had just started talking about leaving for the mission to the mine when a loud beep echoed through the room and the red lights shut off.
“I-I’m back…” Phoenix whispered in a voice which belonged to a PTSD victim having flashbacks.
“Are you alright? Do I need to fix anything?” I asked in concern.
“No! I… I just need to be me for a while.” She paused for a moment then asked, “Could you please return to your quarters? I’ll finish the debriefing later.”
“Yeah, sure.” Taylor said as she stood up. “I’m sorry about, you know, that.”
“It’s fine. You intended nothing. Just don’t do that in my medical bay, too much data is recorded.”
I waited as everyone left the room for the doors to his shut. “Hey, Phee… you really ok?” I asked.
“I’ll be fine… I had… to do something… I hate.” She answered.
“Ah. Well If you want to talk to someone, I’m here.” I said reassuringly. “One question though, to help take your mind off whatever it was… Why the hell is Taylor so adorable?”
“Heh.” Phoenix's laugh was sad in tone, but still had a measure of joy in it that let me know she would be ok. “Well… I altered her pheromone signature to make her perfectly attractive to you. You never date anyone, that’s not healthy. Especially not for a pony.”
“I’ve been fine single!” I objected halfheartedly. Mostly because I hadn’t been fine single. At all.
“So now, your brain’s gonna make you finally like someone. That should lead to you finally being fully recovered… also I wanted to screw with Taylor’s head by making her like a quadruped. Since her pony instincts have kicked in by now I’m in for a good laugh.”
I shook my head and laughed, “Phoenix, you’re a dick sometimes. You know that right?” If anyone other then Pheonix had done that, I would be pissed. But Phee simply didn't think like anypony I ever knew, she was just trying to help... and Taylor was really cute even before I smelled her.
“Yeah, but I’m your dick.” She rebutted.
“Touché.” I chuckled. “Right, I’m going to get to fixing everything that broke when you crashed.”
“Thanks Armored… I hope my matchmaking is a good enough apology for everything.”
“If it works out, yes. If not, I’ll buck you right in your cpu.” I said as I started to trot to engineering.
“Sounds fair.”
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K, Phoenix is the type of dick I'd have castrated, other than that Phoenix is fairly cool
I'm liking the character intro.
My poor alarm clock............
It's sledgehammered bits shall be remembered.......
Yeah, alright there PHoeNIX, we get it, you're a troll and you have the internet archived... I love A.I.'s with a sense of humor (I said that already but whatever). Keep this fun train ah rolling Meep.
5937237 Heh, my phone is my alarm clock, and like all my electronics, I baby it. Keep it from getting damaged, upgrade it when I can, make em last. Mine probably loves me.
This only gets better and better; both in story and humor.
A treaty they broke and were in the process of capturing slaves.
Unless the 'Hazard Team' had a stun setting that would render them unconscious, they had no choice but to use lethal force. The federation routinely uses stun -> lethal force progression if stunning has no effect in any combat scenario, and in this case the non-lethal rounds had no effect.
Plus, you know, they kinda ate the last Emerald Hive diplomatic envoy because they were offended that the Queen didn't come in person.
I'm pretty sure there is every justification for a show of force in that scenario, especially since the Diamond Dogs didn't back off once the killing began and were still a threat.
Really only Taylor's killing an unconscious Dog cross any kind of moral line. You could fairly argue the theft (even if there was no fighting and it wasn't going to be used in an evil plot) was justified due to the Diamond Dog's previous eating of the previous diplomatic envoy. Provided that the 'Hazard Team' were acting in self defense and in defense of the captured ponies, I see no problem with what happened, though if they get the ability to stun and not kill, they should use that instead.
I like to believe that was more out of surprise than ignorance, else I'm kinda disappointed in Taylor.
Poor Dinky....Taylor was made to be interested in Armored there....Oh well, since they're both herms, a herd should work fine :D
5937140 More will come! I have slain the flu and now shall be able to write more words with greater speed!
5937237 Castrating her wouldn't do much. She'd just build another. If you want to really screw her up as shown, force her to disconnect from her hull. Problem is she's actually trying to and thinking she's being nice and normal. (Self Diagnostic program is long since deleted. She is super old you know.)
5937298 ... That was entirely accidental lol! I'm glad you are enjoying it! Fear not there will be more. Also yes, your phone probably likes you. Also I'm surprised you didn't catch the reference showing why Armored's empathy works. spark. that is all.
5937672 Why thank you! I would love to know which part you like best so far.
5937689
Mhm! Things are not as cut and dry as the Team thinks they are. They had a horrible situation, but their nievaty is only shaken, not broken. If they hadn't destroyed the mine, the Royal Guard would have. After all the Dogs went and pulled a Rambo 4 on Ponyville.
Also true! I'm writing everyone as a person. post combat stress like that means you wont think clearly.
No, they ate a nymph. In human terms they ate a preteen out of spite. While I personally would have no qualms about going all T-101 on the entire Dog population at that point, my characters are better people than me.
Indeede there is. But, remember the Team are not really trained military operatives, or even Federation agents. They are nerds who worked at a gas station in California.
Yeah, it's a breach of paladin code too. Fortunately that was pre-class levels kicking in because man it would be hard to find an atonement spell!
Exactly! I see you are on Phee's line of reasoning
Taylor was a general sci-fi fan, not particularly a Trekkie. SHow me one person who hasn't seen DS9 and isn't a Trekkie who knows that a runabout is.
5938289 Actually, I'm going to set up a joke with that exact concept. For my AU, with how scocial ponies are, they have zero problems with multi-partner relationships. Additionally Taylor HATES harum animes, because the obvious solution of 'just share!' is never used. Pheonix knows she hates harum animes, and her jokes are mean spirited but generally have a nice ending... You do the math!
5938940 if she actually thinks she's being nice, then that changes things a little...
still a dick though
5939076 Well yeah! It's sci-fi law. AI's have to be sexbots, evil motherfuckers, or dicks.
5939084 what about data?
he doesn't seem....
oh wait,
he's fully functional
stupid sci-fi laws...
5939110 Yep. Ether theya re nice because you can fuck it, evil because you cant fuck it, or dicks because they don't want to fuck you. #80's scifi trope writer logic.
5939165 we should start a sci-fi writors rulebook
5939202 http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceFiction
5939262 THE NERD STRIKES AGAIN!
5938940 What you mean the transformers reference? You're gonna be hard pressed to get a reference past me.
5939938 Reference? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VTTcW5wEht4/UXq1uaQsDDI/AAAAAAAAEiQ/cSmu8p15FjA/s640/how-to-use-foreshadowing.jpg
5939975 Oh don't pull that, do you have any idea how much movies, tv, video games, fanfiction and TvTropes I've consumed... Whatever, looking forward to it.
5939989 More then enough for me to use you as a consultant, if you are willing.
5940003 I shall do anything you require O' Great Meep, Author of Excellence (heh heh). But yeah, I can help you with anything ya need. Warning, I only ever really watched TNG when I was younger so my Trek knowledge is limited.
5940017 Check your PMs then. As for Trek... this sint a crossover, dont worry about it.
something not somthing.
5942671But something is written in such a way as to be pronounced S-oh-mm-th-ee-ng. That's not what we say, we say s-uhm-th-ee-ng. My brain therefore wants to spell it sumthing, but I know that's wrong, so I turn the u into an o. My brain then goes "The spelling makes no sense given the rules of English, therefore it's correct." and I forget that it also has a silent letter e thrown in there to further make phonics cry.
Okay. Um, I wouldn't normally admit this but I'm strangely turned on by Altdel.
5943124 Oh? May I ask why? ^.^
5943142 Well I'm definitely into the whole cyborg thing. The machine empathy is a plus. If she was a stallion rather than a mare, I'd have a trifecta.
Can't really explain it. It's similar to why I find Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture hot. I'm not in to women, but there is something about her.
5943168 Well technically, all of her equipment is synthetic and swappable. :D
5943207 Oh. Oh... OH! Uh... I'll be indisposed for a bit.
5943230 It's subtle but I say as much in the story. She has modules, one of which is a diphallia variant.
5943235 I see. I guess I should go get that clearance from my CMO so I don't violate Kirk's Law (again).
5943243 Thanks for making my day!
5943312 Glad to be of service. Next time remind me to tell you about my last partner. He was fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques.
5945306 Chapter 6 huh? It's not even gotten good yet
things
Ok guys lets be truthful here
Did anyone else say sry to thier alarm clocks out loud when u read that...
6669609 No need, my alarm clocks are my phone and smartwatch, and I love 'em both!