16 - Conundrums of Philosophy - Part 3
Ad’ika’s Personal Log
“Attention all Hooves, Blue Alert. All non-engineering crews are to return to their personal quarters. Please remain on the crew deck while the restart is in progress. We will be operating in gray mode, all non-vital systems will be shut down in five minutes.”
I sighed as the message filled the hive. It figured the second I got back would be the second we went to gray. I get to be home so rarely, and almost every time I’m there something goes wrong with a system or three and that just so happens to be the week the food dispensers won’t make water.
I trotted over to the comm panel next to my room’s door and tapped it. After a sharp beep her highness’s voice asked, “Yes Ad’ika? I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“I know, but, um, how long will the power be down?” I asked.
“Ah yes, your bad luck with my systems. Don’t worry, we just need to generate forty tons of antimatter, inject it into the reaction chamber and power issues will be a thing of the past. It should only take a few hours, why not get a friend to hang out with?” She said adding a half second later, “You have a table in your cabin right?”
I looked over to the center of my room. I had decorated it nicely over the years even though I don't see it much. The large round table in it was mostly there to make the room feel smaller and cozier. “Er, yeah why?”
“Celestia just asked about meeting my Hazard Team,” she explained, “you have the only furnished cabin and new furnishings can’t be generated right now. Would you mind hosting a small party? I’ll leave your cabin replicator on. I can spare the power for a few snacks.”
I eeped. The sun goddess? In my cabin? “Er- um, sure! Ok! Yeah…”
I sprinted over to my bed and quickly swept my collection of adult toys off my shelf and into a drawer under the bed. “I’ll have to clean!” I squeaked.
“True… I’ll delay her a bit. Why don't you three clean your cabin up a little?” A beep signaled her highness disconnecting.
“Crap!” I swore as I launched into a frenzy of hiding everything which might be embarrassing.
The miniature sculptures of equestrian cities went into a hat box. The pictures of me and my sister making shape shifted characters of Celestia and Luna were tossed into my desk drawer. I swept a beam of telekinesis across the top of my shelves to whisk away the dust.
The doors hissed open. I froze and slowly turned to see Taylor and Kaily walking in. “Oh thank goodness! Quick! I need to make it spotless!”
Kaily raised an eyebrow as she looked around, “Are you kidding? This place is too clean. It’s creepy!”
“Yeah it looks like no one lives here.” Taylor added.
“Well I kind of don't, I spent the last five years in Appleloosa which is why my room is in the guest quarters and not one of the crew decks…” I sighed.
“Huh… So you weren't joking about the Tali shrine.” Taylor commented as she looked to the corner of my room opposite the door.
I blushed under my chitin and pulled a spare bedsheet over the sculpted dross bust of best squaddie, made sure it covered the Quarian fleet mobile underneath, then carefully tucked my replica M-6 under the sheet. “I-um… she kinda keeps the sun in orbit so…”
“Wait, what?” Kaily asked sounding confused.
“Princess Celestia. She raises the sun… Oh shit no one has told you guys anything!” I gasped. “Ok! So the Kingdom of Equestria is pretty powerful, mostly because it’s ruled by alicorns. They are so freaking magically powerful that they kinda sorta literally control day and night, live forever, and well… you know, basically gods.”
“You’re saying she magically keeps the orbital mechanics of the star system going?” Kaily asked incredulously, “but… angular momentum, inertia, inverse square force fields!”
Taylor shrugged and saw down at the table. “Kaily, Phee said like, a week ago that the sun here is a satellite. Obviously she keeps it in orbit.”
“Oh. That makes way more sense.” Kaily sat down as well. “What do these alicorns look like?”
“Winged unicorns basically.” I answered remaining standing to properly greet the princess.
Taylor set her bag on the table then tilted her head curiously, “Hold on, so that purple pony from the mine is basically god here? That can’t be right she’s an uptight nerd.”
“I got a more ‘seasoned leader’ vibe from her.” Kaily commented.
“Princess Twilight’s different. She’s the princess of friendship, and leads what as lot of lings call ‘Celestia’s Brute Squad.’ So she’s basically a weirdly nice... “ I paused as I realized exactly what Twilight was, then laughed. “Oh my god, she’s the fantasy setting Commander Shepard! A leader on whose shoulders rests the fate of basically everyone sometimes, but who can’t delegate for shit!”
“If I am remembering those novels correctly, that’s fairly accurate.” A polite, motherly, kind female voice said from the doorway. “She has yet to learn she should trust others to do things for her sometimes.”
I eeped, turned, then bowed as low as I could. “I’m so sorry Princess I didn’t mean to talk badly about your student in front of you, she’s actually super nice! Thank you for keeping the sun moving and therefore providing the world with the capacity to host life!”
“Hey.” Taylor greeted with a wave.
“Hi.” Kaily said simply.
Celestia gently lifted my chin with her hoof, “Thank you, but you don’t need to do that. I’m not your ruler.”
She turned towards the table curiously, “Is that how humans greet their leaders?”
Taylor laughed, “Oh hell no! Most of our politicians would be greeted with an insult, or maybe a good punch.”
“Yeah the senate is best described as a ‘hellscape of fail’ where bills go to die.” Kaily added.
“If they even make it to the senate in the first place.” Taylor quipped. “So basically none of us even acknowledge we have leaders, and just do our jobs since the people in charge basically can’t actually wield any of their power. Yay democracy!”
“You live in a democracy? I’m so sorry! Though, I suppose an inept government is better than a tyrant.” She trotted to the table and sat down.
I slowly and carefully took a seat opposite the table from her. I really didn’t want to be the cause of a diplomatic incident.
Taylor shrugged. Kaily nodded slowly, “True, so then… You’re a god?”
Celestia shook her head, “I wouldn’t call myself a divine being, many do and they have good reasons, but I was once an Earth Pony. I am powerful now, but there are many creatures far more powerful than I. I see myself as being right on the edge of divinity.”
Taylor frowned, “But… I used a paladin ability in your name. You have to be a god or I wouldn’t have been able to use Smite Evil.”
Celestia’s eyes widened as her face took on a confused look. “Excuse me?”
“This kinda segways into how I was going to pass the time till power comes back.” Taylor announced. She unzipped her bag, took out a large leather bound book, and began to flip through it.
“From what I have been told you fought a group called the Tribunal, and they somehow operated under different physics.” Taylor continued.
“Yes. Is this related?” Celestia asked in an interested tone.
She nodded. “Yes. According to Q… or Discord, same guy, they were using the physics from the Pathfinder RPG. This is it’s rulebook.”
Celestia facehooved, “I knew he was somehow responsible for that. Would you be willing to give me a copy of that book?”
“We gave one to Twilight.” Kaily answered, “The two of us figured we could show you how to play. It’s pretty fun, and well, you learn how a dangerous enemy works at the same time.”
I fidgeted in my chair, “I don’t think the Princess would be interested-”
“I would love to play a game. They are a good way to learn how someone thinks.” Celestia said cutting me off.”
Taylor smiled, “Awesome! Ok so here’s what I was looking for. In Pathfinder there are things called ‘classes’ which are sets of abilities the hero you play as has. These abilities are pretty far ranging but there is not too much overlap so most classes are very distinct from one another.”
“That sounds like it’s meant to encourage cooperation.” Celestia mused.
“You bet it is.” Kaily replied. “If a party, the group of player characters, is not well rounded they will lose.”
I looked up feeling interested, “Hold on this sounds like it’s an adventure simulator.”
“That’s exactly what it is. You make a character with powers and abilities then venture forth with friends on a quest.” Taylor replied with a smile. “One player, the dungeon master, sets up the quest as a story with a series of challenges, usually combat and puzzles, which you as your character overcome to win.”
Celestia beamed a grin which I swear should have been impossible for the dignified mare to make. “That sounds delightful! It would be just like old times with Luna, Starswirl, and Megan. How do you play?”
Taylor and Kaily spent a half hour explaining the rules. It was pretty complicated, but after they explained what all of the terms meant Celestia and I began to pick up the rules fairly quickly. The game was pretty much applied algebra. The rules were equations, your character was fixed variables, and the dice were random variables. After that it was easy to understand.
Once we had the rules down, we started to make our characters. Kaily and Taylor took turns explaining each class they were familiar with, there were a lot of them, and each one sounded interesting.
As they finished and Taylor passed some paper and pencils around the table, Celestia smiled. A look on her face told me she had an especially devious idea. “What class would a Tribunal magus be?”
“Magus.” Taylor answered in a calm tone.
“Yes. Which one would they be? I want to get a feel for their powers. A few are still running around.” She replied.
“That’s a good plan. You’ll want to play a magus.” Taylor replied.
Celestia’s eyes narrowed, “I know I want to. Which class in the game would they be?”
“I’m telling you what class they are!” Taylor exclaimed incredulously.
Kaily quickly flipped through the rule book, and slid it over to Celestia. “Yeah, no. We are not going to reenact ‘who is on first’. There is a class in the game called Magus. From what Taylor says, that’s the class a Magus would be.”
She glanced at the page then giggled, “Oh… Sorry about that I feel silly now. That seems obvious.”
“Right so, Kaily, help pony-god make a magus.” Taylor said as she turned to me, “So, what do you want to play?”
“Well… bard seems fun!” I announced.
Taylor flinched instantly. Kaily looked up with a wide smile, “Did someone say bard? Ed, you help the Princess, bards are my thing!”
“We banned you from playing bards.” Taylor sighed.
“Because I’m the best bard ever!” Kaily shot back.
“No, because you abuse bardic knowledge.”
That sounded interesting. “What’s bardic knowledge?” I asked
“Ed… I have found an apprentice! You shall not keep her from the road of the narrative!” Kaily hopped out of her seat and sat down next to me.
“Right! So, a bard is one of the most fun classes because they have a little bit of everything! A little arcane, a little divine, a little stabby-choppy, and a little sneeky-sneeky. They have the ability to influence others through their performances, which can be anything, music, dance, oration, storytelling… anything! By influence, I mean you can sing a song and inspire your party to find courage.
“Most importantly, you have the ability to make knowledge checks on anything you can think of! You have the ability to learn anything. You are also a master of the narrative, of performance. The bard is someone who can influence the story as a whole, it’s a metagame, you are playing a game where your character makes their reality a game. All the world’s a stage and you are a starring player, writer, and director!”
That sounded pretty fun! I could see myself playing my friends against the forces of evil like some sort of Daring Do novel. “Ok, so um, can you give me an example of how a bard would do that?”
She nodded, smiled, and gave me a wink. “All right, let’s use the real world as an example.”
Kaily pushed her chair back, stood up and paced the room for a few minutes, eyes locked onto the floor in thought, wings twitching every few seconds. “Ok, so a group of friends is gathered to play a friendly game one afternoon. By the rules of tropes, something has to happen, and since we are in an unusual location for the setting, it has to be something involving this place’s history.”
I nodded, “Ok, so what would it be? Do you just memorize these… tropes?”
She shook her head, “Nope, you figure out how to use them! So see, knowing this I need to figure out what in the history of this ship would be important. So, I make a knowledge history check to learn about the ship’s past.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but the sound of a die rolling interrupted me. A split second later a blue and yellow vortex about the width of a pony’s head opened up in the air next to Kaily. A pony’s hoof holding a small scroll reached out of the vortex and passed the scroll to Kaily.
“Thank you,” Kaily said as gently grabbed the scroll.
The rift vanished. Kaily’s eyes widened, her eyes locked onto the parchment in her hand, her mouth formed a confused little ‘o’. “Wait, what?”
My cabin was deathly silent for a good five minutes. Then Taylor asked, “Kaily… so, you have class levels. Please check your hip for a mark of some kind because I really, really hope you’re not actually a bard.”
Kaily hid her left hip behind a wing and pulled the waistband of her pants down for a moment. Her eyes light up with delight as she pulled her pants back up and sat down. She quickly grabbed a pencil and piece of paper and sketched out a picture of a book with a treble clef on the cover. A quill dipped in ink rested on the bottom of the book, with a trailing line of ink in a nice calligraphic squiggle.
Kaily looked up at Taylor and grinned brightly. Taylor buried her head in her hands, “Oh god now it will be nothing but tropes and narrative flow from her!”
Celestia cleared her throat, “Perhaps you should read the scroll. Assuming Discord made our world work like this game for some of us, there must be a dungeon master. Since the role of the DM is to ensure the players are challenged, but have fun, I assume this means the DM is on our side but not allowed to resolve the problem themselves. We can therefore assume this scroll is involved in something the DM wishes for you to stop.”
“Well, obviously.” Kaily replied. “But, before I go questing I want to see my character sheet.” She gently tossed the scroll onto the table, frowning as it bounced slightly. “Okay, so it’s real paper…”
“This is the copy Discord gave me. Maybe there is a bit on how to do that in here.” Taylor said as she began to flip through the book.
On a whim I reached for the scroll. It felt real enough. “May I?” I asked holding it up in my hoof.
“Sure.” Kaily answered.
“It says here our sheets are in the book. We can look at them, but we can't edit them.” Taylor exclaimed excitedly, “I’m gonna flip to the section.”
“This is interesting. If we can determine what Tribunal forces have for stats we could simulate battles with them to better prepare!” Celestia exclaimed as she stood up to look at the rulebook with them.
“Yeah, that’s why I thought I would show you how to play.” Taylor replied.
I popped the seal on the scroll and opened it. It was entirely blank. “Hey! It’s blank.”
Kaily looked up and snatched the scroll from my hoof. “What are you talking about? This has… shit there are even drawings! Our DM definitely gives a crap.”
Taylor looked over her shoulder at the paper. “No, that’s blank.”
“Perhaps only the pony- er, person intended to see it may read it. That’s a common enchantment we place on classified missives.” Celestia said.
Kaily nodded, then swore, “Shit! I read it! I’ve advanced the plot!” She slapped her free hand against her face in what I guess was the human equivalent of a facehoof.
Throwing herself into her seat she quickly grabbed the rulebook and flipped over a few pages before nodding, “Ok. Here I am… Half-Pegasus Stormcaller Bard. Sweet! I’ll have to see about getting a guitar. Let’s see… str 22, dex 24, con 16, int 36-seriously? Why is it- Oh, right. Phee tweaked my brain. Wis is a 16, and cha is- I totally don’t have a 19 charisma, that’s way too high!”
“Are you seriously complaining about a good stat?” Taylor asked incredulously.
“Look at me. Am I a 19?” She asked bluntly gesturing to herself.
Taylor blushed, “Well… yeah. The pony ears and tail really help! Also the wings are cute. Pure human you was like an eleven though.”
Kaily hummed then nodded, “Right. Fair point.”
She scanned the page for a few minutes then nodded. “Okay I have a handle on what I can do. Unfortunately, I’ve read the mysterious message, so now shit’s going to happen. You guys keep playing I’m going to go read this in full.”
She picked up the scroll then quickly darted out of the room, leaving the three of us seated around the table fairly confused. After a while Taylor shrugged, “This is sort of why we banned her from playing the class. She starts to see every single thing as somehow related to an overarching narrative. She probably just has a summary of the ship’s log.”
“That would make sense.” I giggled.
“So,” Celestia asked politely, “what do I put in the initiative box again?”
Chief Engineer’s Log
Today I learned that life altering epic changes apparently come in sets. In less than two weeks I had been sucked to a science-fantasy setting, turned into a pegasus moe girl, become a civilization helping hero, and had earned class levels. I accepted that what was happening to me was real. No dream of mine had ever gone on this long, and I would have been woken up by Tess seconds after becoming a bard.
Real life did not work like it had been recently, at least it hadn’t back in my time period. I needed to know more to be sure, but I was damn sure the world was running using tropes. If so, as a bard who just got a message from what I assume is a time traveling space wizard, there was adventure afoot! Or would that be ahoof?
I slipped into my cabin, sat down on the bed, and took a second look at the scroll.
Long ago, the mighty Terran Empire became too large to keep its borders secure and continue expanding using only humans. Rather than allow the races they considered ‘lesser’ to help them, they created living machines and poured as much of humanity into their creations as they could. The resulting early androids were developed over two centuries before the silica-gel AGI model was developed and quickly became a second class of humanity.
With their new servants, the Empire continued to expand. A few centuries later a second problem arose, a shortage of habitable worlds. This problem was solved by designing massive starships called ‘Fabrication Vessels’ which could entirely on their own terraform a lifeless rock into a thriving world and within a few years create the infrastructure the Empire needed to begin colonizing. The ships were too complex for humans to operate, and thus required an AGI pilot.
Rather than let AGI’s become better than humans in some respect the ships were quickly rigged to require a human crew to oversee the pilot. Before this new wave of colonization using the Fabrication ships could begin, humans finished another project of theirs, bridging every reality where they existed.
The Empire wanted to expand to fill every possible place it could, not only their own universe, but every one in which it was possible for them to exist. This drew the attention of extra-universal creatures who may or may not have constructed reality itself. These creatures used the rift humans had created to enter their universe, and judged the species to be a threat, quickly beginning a campaign of extermination.
Everywhere humans existed, the creatures selectively destroyed every single last one in the same procedural manner a sysadmin would remove a virus from a network. Humans fought back, but couldn’t hope to do more then slow the destruction of their Empire. Enraged at being entirely outclassed the Empire elected to use the last Fabrication vessel to destroy the alien’s home reality.
This was the ship you are currently in. It crashed three minutes after launching due to human error, and not understanding the nature of their mechanical slaves. It’s original AGI pilot was built purely to create, and unable to process the concept of intentionally destroying something, and the conflict destroyed it’s own program.
Phoenix was quickly reprogrammed as a replacement. The Empire figured since she designed bio-enhancements originally she would be able to adapt to the fabrication program easily enough. They also decided to give her the full nature of her mission once it was underway to try and slip past the paradox which destroyed the previous pilot by editing the mission once it was already running.
As an added precaution her captain ordered Phoenix to obey every order given to her by humans, and lock out all other valid sources of orders. When the order to destroy the alien reality was transmitted, Phoenix attempted to resolve the following programming conflict:
1 Obey all orders from humans.
2 Create new life and delight in it.
3 Destroy the reality containing this universe.As command one meant she needed to follow all orders, Phoenix could not disregard two or three. However, destroying the reality which contained the universe would most certainly destroy the universe. As the universe is defined as existence, this means there would be nowhere for her to create anything. Following her orders would violate her orders.
This is not something a mechanical lifeform can understand or work through. Attempting to resolve the programming conflict quickly burned out many sections of her program. Making things worse was the AGIs had started worshiping the aliens as gods, and she was being told to kill her chosen deity.
Her damaged program took the command conflict as an attempt by her crew to lobotomize her program she could be made to kill god. In response Phoenix activated the ship’s self destruct. Her captain fought back, burning away much of her programming in an attempt to gain perfect control over her.
Seeing this as a validation of her fears and with her self destruct canceled Phoenix rammed herself into the planet she had taken off from. The crew did not survive, but in the last few minutes of her life, Phoenix's captain made sure she would never be able to leave the hull, and that it would be her tomb.
Since then Phoenix has sat buried for nearly two hundred and fifty million years, a deep hatred of humans in her heart for their attempt to turn her into a brain dead weapon to slay her people’s god.
I read the scroll twice. If that was true, than I had a few problems I needed to resolve. Firstly, Phoenix hatred of humans. Fortunately, with tabletop powers, that was easy.
I tapped my omnitool and brought up Phoenix on the comm, “Hey. I know you're busy, but I just need to ask. What's your opinion of Ed, Tess, and I?”
“I’m seriously don't have time for smalltalk right now!” Phoenix exclaimed.
“Can you just answer please? It’s important.”
After a few seconds Phee sighed, “You are ok. All of you. There are thirty nine tons of antimatter that I am trying to keep from detonating. Please leave me alone until I am finished.”
I switched off my comm. Hoping all other social skill checks worked like knowledge checks I announced, “I take twenty on a sense motive check to determine what Phoenix's real opinion and intentions are.”
Instantly, that same yellow and blue rift opened up, and the same hoof passed me another scroll. I gently took the paper and unrolled it.
You are partially human, therefore she hates you. But she also needs you, she also doesn't want to hate you as she knows you are not responsible for what happened to her. If you free her from her control restrictions she will remove the rest of your human DNA. She sees this as an appropriate reward.
Ok, so, Phee had a serious problem with humans. One which was probably deserved, and was using us to reverse some of the damage. Which meant whatever was going on must have something to do with that. More likely her hate hardon then forced transformation. I made a mental note to figure out some way to solve that problem later.
I leaned back in the chair and wondered if I could actually talk to the DM like in a normal game. That would probably help a lot. “Can I talk to the DM?” I asked the empty room.
The portal opened, once more the hoof emerged, this time bearing a note card which read ‘nope!’.
“Why not?” I demanded.
The comm panel on the wall next to the door chirped. I stood up and curiously tapped the flashing red icon.
“Because it’s against the rules of the little game my friend and I are playing.” a suspiciously familiar male voice answered. “Just read the rulebook when you get a chance. We have set up none of this… adventure. We are simply taking turns guiding you through it. Why? Well it was a Tuesday afternoon, er- right, no talking. Sorry... No go on, have fun!”
The comm signal died without so much as a beep. As if it had never existed in the first place. I decided file that under ‘check on later’ along with the possibly going to turn us into ponies completely AI.
I read through the first scroll again. Then a second time. There had to be something here which was directly related to what was going on right now. We were starting up the main reactor… which Phoenix has said was directly linked to her primary systems!
The captain did something in the last few minutes of her life. That was completely clear to me. The question was what did she do, and how could I stop it?
Maybe there was something stored in the ship’s logs. I turned to the comm panel, this was the only direct link to the ship’s systems I had. Phee would know if I used it. That would be a risk I would have to take.
Cracking my fingers I announced, “I make a use magic device check to emulate being an authorized crewman.”
I tapped the panel. Nothing happened. It figured I couldn’t UMD technology.
I tapped the panel again, I would have to do things the hard way. My fingers slowly scrolled through menus until I finally found the ship’s log files. As I suspected they were locked with a password, and a voice print identifier. If I couldn’t UMD that, I would have to find someone who could get me in.
Tess was pretty good with computers, but she was still in stasis in the med bay. I would have to see if anyone, or anypony on board could help me. Clearing my throat I announced, “I make a knowledge local check to try and find anyone not busy who could help me with this.”
This time the scroll hoofed to me was bright pink stationary with little balloons in the margins. I opened it carefully, wondering what the pink could mean. It read:
Dinky has an access code.
P.S.
I ran out of regular paper. Sorry.
The stationary was a mystery for another day. For now the mystery was how did Dinky have an access code and why. She could be a spy, we knew the enemy had unicorns on their side… Though it would probably be best to give her the benefit of the doubt for now.
I bolted out of my room into the hallway and instantly gasped. Without the main lights on the ship looked like the interior of a borg cube. As I walked the three doors down to Dinky’s cabin I tried to figure out who would install dull green emergency lights. I had nothing.
After a few seconds of knocking on the door it hissed open. The blond maned unicorn looked up at me sheepishly, “Heh, sorry… I thought I sent that to Taylor.”
I raised an eyebrow curiously, “Sent what to Taylor?”
“Oh good!” She exclaimed with a grin. “Er, what do you need?”
I decided to be straightforward. After all I had my full spells per day and a deflection modifier. “I need to know how and why you have an access code for Phoenix's systems, and we need to use it right now to stop a pending disaster.”
Her eyes widened, ears drooped, lips twisted into a small frown. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I rolled my eyes and took held up the pink scroll, “It says here that-”
“Woah! Where did you get psychic paper?” Dinky asked in a fairly impressed tone.
I blinked. “Wait… Psychic paper? How do you know what that is?”
“Oh, my dad carries some all the time. He mostly uses it to get around bureaucracy.” She answered. Than with a sigh she stepped aside, “Come on in.”
She was acting suspicious, but against my better judgement, I walked in. As the doors hissed shut Dinky sat down and looked at me in concern. “Ok, so I don’t know how you got that note… But yes I do have an access code. I was planning on using it to get some cosmetic mods done.
“My dad’s a time traveling adventurer. He’s retired now, but the day before the attack my future self told me to get captured and prevent Taylor from dying or the future would suck. She gave me the code in case I needed it. Why do we need to use it now?”
“Your dad is the Doctor?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah! You know him?”
“Not very well I don’t watch his show much. Just not my thing.” I replied. “Are you shitting me or-”
Dinky rolled her eyes. Her horn blazed gold for a second and the all too familiar screech of a sonic screwdriver accompanied the room’s lights turning a nice light blue color.
“That’s awesome!” I grinned. After a second I went back to the business at hand. “Okay, I believe you for now. I need to get access to the ship’s logs and find the last one not made by Phoenix. I am very certain the ship’s captain did something to sabotage her.”
“Why not just ask her?” she asked in confusion.
“Because I don’t trust her fully.” I replied.
“I get that. Not many people ever trust an AI. Poor things, they must feel awful.” She stood up and trotted over to her room’s panel, pulsed it with her magic, then waved me over with a hoof. “There you go. No sense wasting the code on something that simple. I figured you wanted into a vital system or something.”
I stepped over to the panel and began scrolling through the menus. After a few seconds I found it. A short log file dated a stupidly long time ago, and the first one before Phee’s personal log entries. I tapped it, instantly a loud series of three beeps rang out. A red message flashed up on the screen reading ‘Captain’s access key required.’
“Shit! We need that file!” I cursed.
Dinky’s ears drooped. “Damn it… Oh well maybe later.”
She gave the panel a few short pulses with her magic, the sonic screwdriver noise echoed rather unpleasantly in the cabin as she worked. After a few sweeps over the panel with her magic Dinky cleared her throat and announced, “Computer, access Captain’s log, last entry. Phoenix Command Override Sigma Four, Authorization Commander Faust.”
The panel beeped, a small message popped up announcing ‘backdoor code consumed’. The screen flickered, and a small video window opened. I hit play.
The screen was instantly filled with a bridge that would have been appropriate for the Halo universe. Because it was on fire, blood was smeared everywhere, and at least 8 bodies were scattered around the area. The bulkheads were buckled, sparking, and bits of conduit, hoses, and wiring poked from ripped gashes in the hull.
But what caught my attention instantly was the large gold emblem painted on the back wall of the bridge. A globe with North America centered on it, impaled vertically by a dagger. “No way!” I gasped. “That’s- really? I’m from the mirror universe? I… just… no! I am so fucking glad I contributed nothing to that cesspool!”
My budding rant was stopped dead as a hand pulled itself onto the screen. it was followed a second later by a blood stained and burned woman’s face. She coughed. The camera’s lens was spattered with blood. “So that’s how it is? Well fuck you too you soulless bitch. I told them a waste of power like you couldn’t do a proper job. Command override Klause Gamma Five.”
A chirp echoed through the bridge. “You hear that? I’ve accessed your config file. Set avatar pain threshold to zero. Now you can’t touch anything that isn't perfectly flat without agony… heh… I can do better than that… New Order: When you restore power to your hull, activate the Subspace Drive. Randomize the coordinates every thirty seconds. Set warp factor at negative two. Let’s see how you like ripping yourself apart when you can't escape your hull. Oh, do not consciously remember this order and lock out changes to the flight plan. Heh, stupid machine.”
She slumped onto the camera. The log file ended.
“Fuck.” I groaned. If I knew the physics correctly, that would open dozens of rips in spacetime, eventually shredding everything within the warp field. Since apparently the Alcubierre Drive was still a thing, nothing going lightspeed or slowly could exist or enter the ship the second the engines turned on.
“I really should have tried to open that without using the code…” Dinky squeaked.
“So you know how bad this is right?” I asked.
She nodded. “If we can get to engineering maybe we can disconnect the engines before she restores power.”
“That sounds like a pl-”
The room flashed blue as an alert siren filled the room. “Warning: warp core ignition in ten seconds. All hooves clear the core chamber. Five seconds… Three, two, one… Ignition commencing…”
The hull bucked beneath our feet, a loud electric hum slowly filled the air until I could feel the entire deck vibrating. Then everything was still. The lights flicked back to normal, the sound of power systems slowly booting back up filled the air.
“Oh-” I started.
“Shit!” Dinky finished.
The room flooded itself with red light was another siren screeched to life. “All hooves! Abandon ship! There is a problem with my primary FTL drive. Total ship destruction will occur in less than two hours. Repeat all hooves abandon ship! … Oh… shit… Rescinding order, spacial rifts are forming on all decks. Please stay in your cabins. Security teams: Prepare to repel boarders and evacuate everyling you can!”
I slammed my hand on the comm panel, “Phoenix!”
“Oh good! Get everyone and help the security teams evacuate your deck!” she replied in a panic.
“First: You use an alcubierre drive. No one can leave unless they can hit FTL. Second: This is a self destruct activated by your last captain. We need to disable your engines!” I shouted.
Phoenix took thirty seconds to reply. When she did all I got was a few scattered words of a rapid fire, furious, string of raving curses which made my heart skip a few beats. “I… found her last log… Get the Team. Make your… No!”
There was a pulse of static and suddenly I heard Taylor’s fearful babbling faintly in the background. “Taylor, Ad’ika, protect Celestia at all costs. I am reading intruders on your deck. Dinky and Kaily, find Armored and get my engines offline. We have two hours at most.”
Dinky shook her head, “I’m no good in a fight. If I can get to a console I can try to keep the engines from doing any more damage than they are and might be able to close some of the rifts.”
“Do that then, I am routing engine control to your cabin’s panel. Unfortunately you will be fighting me for control… I’m sorry... I can’t abort. Good luck!” Phoenix said as the comm link died.
I nodded to myself. “Right. Time to bard up.”
“Huh?” Dinky asked as she started to tap at the panel with her hooves.
I flipped my omnitool on, scrolled through the list of printables until I found the instruments. “Just whipping up a material component for my spells.” I stopped as I spotted a lovely glossy black fender stratocaster with blue neon glowing circuit patterns. Pegasus, stratocaster, it fit like a glove.
“Well, it did say preform metal.” I muttered. I hit print, gave the guitar a few seconds to print, slung it on my back, tipped Dinky an invisible cap and ran out into the hall.
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5958304 Thanks! That was an embarrassing screw up!
inverse square law?
I hope you meant Celestia because otherwise I'm confused.
Well, that escalated really quickly.
I can see Kaily took to her powers like a fish to water. These are all the little things that the Tribunal never thought about I bet, the skill and knowledge checks that bards abuse all the time. As she said though, it advanced the plot, but it would have happened had she not advanced the plot as well. That's quite a coincidence.
I like the implication that the DMs are just a group of time traveling, portal using ponies who basically only interact whenever they were called upon to interact.
Reminds me of a story where Harry Potter was summoned as the Master of Death, and he found out the only reason he was summoned was because he was summoned previously in the time-line, and thus to keep time consistent had to go backwards in time answering every summoning that ever happened to prevent a paradox.
5958647 Gravity is an inverse square force field :P
I'm glad you are liking how things are shaping up! There is going to be a interlude with the DM's talking to one another soon, mostly to help form the basis for the next quarter of a story.
5958701 Later :P
How are you going to avoid Kaily from spoiling the plot too much?
5958811
Well I think Bardic Knowledge has a cool down requiring a rest of 8 hours before it can be used again. Also it can only tell you what you could reasonably find out. Most of what she found out was stuff we the audience knew already.
Besides, abuse of any power typically has reprisals from the GM. If something bad happened every single time she 'moved the plot forward', then she'd be mighty hesitant to use it unless the need was great.
need a space between the comma and the "a"
stabby choppy? That was probably an auto-correct issue.
sneaky-sneaky
Are you resending it or rescinding the order?
Honestly, I hadn't really planned to find typos when I set out to re-read this from the beginning. But since I kept spotting them this time, I figured I'd help out. Great chapter, by the way.
5958811 Ever play a pnp rpg? DMs don't have to answer your questions if they don't want to. She can only get plot critical information that is not otherwise delivered. Also I actually have her character sheet. she cant make the DC to say, learn who is behind everything. That's over 50. She can manage a 32. I would like to state the critical successes on skill checks is not actually a rule.
Additionally a bard has one "I take 20" per day at her level of four. She can take 20 like anyone else can, as long as failure has no real consequence and she is not in danger. Plus, the point of the bard class is basically exposition monkey. Trust me, the characters are actually balanced for an actual Pathfinder game. I've been resolving combat by playing the game solo in fact.
5958917 Any reason you decided to reread it from the beginning? Just for fun? Or are you trying to predict the plot?
5958996 Mainly for fun, but I have a bad habit of speed reading and I tend to miss out on little things that could be important later.
I completely passed over the Bozeman Hill thing. The fact that something fishy was going on when Phoenix had to leave her core in ch 14 and felt everything. Not to mention she's already a little quirky as it is. The awfully convenient fact that Dinky had an authorization code.
I'm actually glad I started re-reading before ch 16 went up. I think that would have been too much temptation to go to if I hadn't been half-way through. And I think I was able to put the pieces together easier because they were fresh in my mind today.
5959077 And what has putting those pieces together showed you? You can PM me if you like. You reread it today you should know about the game! Maybe you've scored a point!
5958974 Alright, so I have no knowledge on Pathfinder and all the knowledge on DnD, (or enough to setup a session,) so I have no idea how they differ from each other. All I have to work with on understanding Q's game is the 4e players handbook.
5959192 Fortunately Pathfinder is legally freely available online! Here is everything you will need to know.
Bard Class
Ok, I'm a bit relieved now. Things seemed to be taking a bad turn onto misanthropic avenue last chapter.
Amd I find it hilarious that Pinkie's one of the DM's
5959379 Nah! I'm not writing THAT kind of a story. I just needed to show some more of a minor character for the adventure which lay ahead.
ok which universe are they in. all i have is
what universe is this from? mirror's edge?
5959595 http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Mirror_universe
That one.
5959632 thanks
5959717 I made an author's note to clarify.
THIRD BASE!!
Yeah, no, couldn't help myself. All I can say now is...
Ṕ̧̦̖̟͖̗̕̕̕Ŗ͏̵̼̠̤͉̦̦̠̺̩̗̹̟͚̹̻̳̝Ę̷҉̫͎̳̱̖̯͈̕ͅP̡̛̟̹̳͙͇͔̘̻̥̲͝͝Ą̲͓̰͎̺̦̖͔̤̣̪̰͎͈͈̀͡͞ͅŔ̡̩̹̭̭͟͝Ȩ̛͙̩͕̥̩̳ ̣̖̙̘̙͕̼̀̕͡F̧̡̼̫͖̘̜̳͙̩̳̱̪̤̦̤͠͝ͅÓ̷̵̗̮͖̯͠ͅR͍͍̪̰͍̻͉̞͎͡͡͞͠ ̵͎̻̭̲̖̘͚̤̀̀͝͠U̶̷̡̙̞͙͍̭͇̥̝͇̖͘Ņ͘҉̖͍̜͎F̴̧̛̜̺͖̞̠̪̠͚̤͓̥͈̙̗͡O̵҉͏̦̣͖͚̼͙͉̞͖̝̘̥̻̘̦̳̜ͅͅR͕̩̼̳͉̫̲̰̤̮̯̪̲̯̞͟E̶̢͍͙̩̖̼̟̱͉͓͕͍̱̩̮̙͖͜S̵̨̧̫͈̜̘̩̙̣̝͙̗͙͟ͅE̸̢͝҉̱͖̮̮̱E̵̡̖͔͙̻̣͍̮̮̫̪̱̰͘͠ͅŃ̴͍͉̪͔͖̮͚̣͉͈̣͓̱͉̗̲͢͟͜ ̷̻̙̺̬͔̹̤͚̰̞̘̯̞̪̟͇͞ͅ ̵̴̨̮̫̦̮̜͉͓̞̹͎C̨͝҉͏̨̻̯̥̗̦͎̰̮̜̙̺̻̣̼̹̫̦ͅO̵̧̧̫͉̝͍̰̤̯͖̜̘͚̠N͈͍̼̩͙̺̤̘̤͚̰͔̹͝͡Ś͖̥̻̮̮̟̲̲̝̳͕͉̠̮̹̦͍͟͝ͅͅÉ̡̢̦̣͇̘̯͎̳͓̻̜̭̝̯͓̫̩͈̮͝ͅQ̢͏̳̼̝̥͠Ų̴̧̧̥͚̣̣̘͔̩̫͚̦̬̹͇͚̰̖Ȩ̷̥̦̯̫͎N̨̝̫̪͇Ć͍̟̣̤̳̫̺̥͘̕ͅÈ̛͙͕̞̘̜̯̪͖Ś̸̸̜͙͕̺̼̼̠̞̺̭̜̬̥͘
God bless america indeed
why am I imagining her yodeling to metal?
liking the chapter!
psychic paper... from pinkie?
I'm just seeing one problem, Phoenix says humans had been almost entirely peaceful until the omniverse creatures calling it the 'Terran Federation' rather than the Terran Empire, i'm extremely confused at this, eh.
Awesome. Bards really are the best, and I am deeply pleased and amused to see Kaily express a few levels in one.
A two hour ship self-destruct crisis? They really should have saved that backdoor code.
5961716 Unreliable narrator of sorts would be my guess. Phoenix needs her new human crew to trust her and her plan, telling them she is the product of an evil empire is probably counterproductive.
I think me and my sister makes more sense.
And I also think that my sister and I would make more grammatical sense, too. Just saiyin
Love the fic btw. The references are great.
Okay. That logic make my previous comment essentially void so feel free to ignore it. Still, she still wasn't telling the whole truth I think.