Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 5
Joseph knew almost nothing about how to be in a successful relationship with a woman. Indeed, he had never been in one prior to the Event, and his brief experiments and attempts had shown him that what little he had learned online and in printed media fell woefully short of the mark when it came to providing useful instruction. So far, he had only managed to discover a few things. The most important thing was that, just like men, women liked it when you spent time with them and cared about the things they cared about.
It seemed a revolutionary idea to him, so much so that he wrote it down somewhere on his computer where he would see it every day. Of course, the most difficult part wasn’t writing down something that seemed wise, but living it.
Finding a shared interest with Moriah hadn’t been difficult; both of them enjoyed video games, and they probably played more of them than anyone else in the colony. Indeed, they had spent a good number of hours making changes to one of the town’s theaters so they could play games on the big screen. A colossal waste of resources, but also an amazing way to let off steam.
But what else did he have in common with Moriah? A love of magic, for one. Moriah’s generally disastrous results when she tried doing magic had cured Joe of any real interest in helping her with it. Her power was tremendous, probably greater than his own. Unfortunately, the prosthetic seemed only to be a way to open up the floodgates at will, not a way to improve the quality of what came through.
There was one other thing they both loved, and it happened to be the only other thing that presented tangible benefits to the colony: solving mysteries. Moriah didn’t have any particular skill for it (or anything besides flying, that he knew), but she was fiercely stubborn and attentive to detail. That was often the most important factor.
The Edgar County Courthouse was located in the center of the town’s square. It was quite large and would probably make for all sorts of things for the community one day (as it had for two hundred years), but for now, one of the courtrooms made for an exellent work area. The building already had power for the radio (which Moriah had got working over a week ago), along with a wifi network sharing the satellite connection.
Joseph had his laptop upstairs, along with several rolling cork boards, all arrayed on the floor in place of the tables for defense and prosecution. The semicircle was ringed with the text of the transmission, covered with all sorts of printouts, probabilistic models, and charts from his attempts at hand-translation. So far, nothing he had done had turned into an answer, which was more or less to be expected at this stage.
Joseph liked to pretend he was a cryptographic genius, but in truth he was far better at keeping people out than breaking in. His “cutie mark” didn’t help him either, so much as he had otherwise felt his ability with computers had improved after he got it.
Moriah sat beside him in a hard wooden chair, sipping black coffee and scanning the text of the message. She looked to be deep in concentration, though Joe couldn’t even guess what she might be thinking. He was thinking that she looked cute when she was thinking, but he wasn’t going to say so. Moriah didn’t like it when he initiated things. She had to be the one in control, or she would shut down and not want to be around him for hours.
He would save the compliment for later.
“I think we’re going about this the wrong way,” she said, rising suddenly to her hooves and setting the coffee aside.
“Oh?” He watched her, trying to sound curious. He would never have admitted it, but he didn’t really think there was much chance she would solve it. She was here to help him, not the other way around. Still, he had to keep an open mind. Commercial pilots were many things, but he had never known them to be generally stupid.
“I think we should take a step back. We need to figure out who’s sending the message before we can try and decode it. Figure out why they’re encoding it. If we can crack their mindset, cracking the code should be easier too.”
“Okay.” He rose too, pacing along the length of the boards. The text itself was printed in gigantic letters to huge paper signs, a poster that spanned the whole distance. “So who’s sending it?”
“I don’t think it’s survivors, first of all.” Moriah gestured around the empty room. The courtroom could’ve easily seated 75, though they were the only ones inside. “We thought we were the only humans in the world for months. Why would we hide ourselves? We want to be found!
And no, don’t say it’s bad people left behind, because that doesn’t make sense either. What’s there to do that’s bad? There are so few other settlements, and they’re so spread out, you could rampage through half of them and nobody would know if it wasnt for the satellite phones… which I think it’s clear they don’t know about.”
“Because…”
“Because if they did, why would they be broadcasting their code for all the world over a transmission anyone could pick up and try to break? Those phones might be monitored, true, but they could’ve used their code over the line exactly like they’re using right now! That would’ve reduced the number of people who could try to break it to whoever is in control of the Iridium network.”
Joseph took a moment to process all that. Eventually he nodded. “Okay, so it wasn’t someone from the settlements Adrian has visited, because it makes more sense for them to be using the satellite network… and if they were, we’d never have known, because we actually don’t monitor anything. Who does that leave?”
“Not the HPI, we can kick them off the list. They have their own military satellites, and they don’t use vocal codes. We wouldn’t get anything from them. I don’t believe it would be other survivors at all… pretend I’m right, okay? That only leaves aliens. Equestrian aliens, to be specific.”
“The other universe is sealed off, right? For thousands of years.”
Moriah’s eyes narrowed. “That information is suspect.”
“Seriously?” It was his time to look incredulous. “If we can’t accept that, what can we accept? We’re not here to question everything they told us. We’re trying to crack a code.”
Moriah gave an exaggerated sigh. “FINE! We’ll pretend the ‘princess’ was being honest. Equestria has been cut off, so there wouldn’t be any point in sending radio messages back.”
“Not to mention this isn’t the Equestrian code. That was numbers, and it was a transmission powerful enough that we heard it all over the world. This one isn’t. The HPI didn’t hear it, and they’re only a few states away.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Consider this: Sunset Shimmer sent her messages in code, and Alex never learned why. It wasn’t us she was trying to keep her messages from, it had to be other ponies. I would bet receiving a transmission from another universe takes some specialized equipment. I would bet that the people she was afraid would overhear were on this side. It’s even possible: likely given the evidence, that the ponies she was trying to conceal herself from chose to stay behind when Equestria supposedly drifted too far to allow for travel.”
It was quite the string of inferences, no doubt about that. Joseph didn’t know if he should be impressed or merely annoyed by it. He supposed that would come down to whether she turned out to be right. “Suppose that’s what happened: you’re saying the code is coming from more Equestrians. They’re stranded here for the rest of their lives. What’s the point of using code now? If they were opposing Sunset Shimmer and her group, it doesn’t matter because all of those ponies went home.”
“Let’s say they did.” Moriah paced past the corkboards, not seeming to really see them at all. “What kind of person is willing to leave their old world behind forever? Willingly sever themselves from family and friends forever. Like what happened to us, but… doing it to yourself.”
He considered that a moment, before finally answering, “Heroes and monsters. Could be ponies even more noble than Sunset and the ones like her, staying behind to help us rebuild. Or… Or it’s people who are so dissatisfied with their lives that they wanted a fresh start. Pioneers, or… revolutionaries. Criminals, political dissenters.”
“There would be no reason for the first group to hide. But the second-”
Joseph levitated a pen in front of him, guiding it and an empty piece of paper to the table and beginning to write. “So let’s assume we’re dealing with bad ponies from Equestria. What does that tell us?” He frowned. “They’re going to use an analog cypher. They won’t have or even understand computers. They’d be hiding either from… us, or from each other. Maybe they’re competing, or…”
He set the pen down. “It’s just speculation at this point, but it could be. If we could only decode it…”
“Hope to god it’s actually a code, not just some Equestrian language we don’t know. None of the books have anything about them. Unless they didn’t want-”
“Stop.” He put a hoof on her shoulder, though not in a romantic way. "We’re not trying to second-guess Luna or any of the ponies she sent. That’s another discussion, not related. We can’t have confounding variables. So… it’s bad ponies, or just political dissenters. They’re separated in more than one group, and they’re close enough that their transmitter doesn’t reach that far. What are they saying?”
Moriah stood beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. “That’s the question. Figure it out, Joe. I know you can.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’ll… figure it out.”
The code had confounded him for over a week now. He would get it this time, and soon enough to actually make a difference.
“When you do, we can give them a call. Use their code… If they’re ponies who disagreed with how the Equestrian monarchs handled Earth, then they’re our friends. Maybe they can learn all the things we didn’t get books about. Learn how we can get even for what they did.”
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Huh, clever Moriah...
...oh dammit Moriah.
You. Would. Be. Dead. If the Princesses hadn't intervened.
Hmm... Well then, ahead is quite a challenge, Joe and Moriah is currently a very cute relationship, and we have possible ponies from another dimension... well, no one can accuse you of not being creative.
Also, I love that Joe is very observant in his relationship where is counts, even with the lack of experience in any regard, he's still working through the good sides of their relationship and not going against her on her opinions simply because she's being prejudiced, he simply enforces logic that proves differently, and she's fair enough to accept that logic.
For now, this code here is puzzling...
6250468
Assuming they told the truth...
-If- they told the truth about the ponification then why inflict changlings on the earth? And why not warn alex about the changlings, what changlings could do and how they could -possibly- live peacefully?
Ah Moriah, everytime you take a step towards me liking you, you take two steps back.
6250522
I like to think that a perfect relationship doesn't exist, people work well together, but it's not until they have problems to overcome and yet still stay together can they be a truly great couple.
What? Would you rather have a lovey dovey married couple saying 'smoochie pie' and 'huggy bunny' to each other -_- believe me, perfect relationships are over rated.
6250498 They did. A whole damn library, remember?
Look, we're working meta here, but let's back up:
1)Everything the princesses told them-- about the transformation, about how ponies would reappear randomly, etc-- has proven true. So assuming they're deceivers before actually catching them out in a deception is overshooting the mark. Plot conventions to the contrary, in a crisis situation it's generally a bad idea to assume the worst of your rescuer. If Celestia and Luna intended evil against Earth, they could have marched in and taken over one day after the metamorphosis spell triggered. You don't give the equivalent of the National Library to people you intend to conquer-- especially as even a rudimentary understanding of magic turns any unicorn in to a deadly threat.
2)It's obvious that the Princesses were juggling a mountain of variables. Why didn't they tell them about changelings? Why didn't they mention gryphons, or dragons, or manticores, cragodiles, poison joak, windigoes, parasprites, twittermites, the cutie pox... there are so many dangers associated with equestria and its species, hell with just magic in general, they could have talked for weeks nonstop and not hit on whatever it was that would stick its head up next. They could have warned about changelings (that they know little about anyway) only to have the next arrival be a dragon. Which is why they gave them the library.... in case they forgot anything.
3)Moriah's problem is that she's in pain, and she wants to blame someone so that she can hit them. In addition to waking up in the wrong body, she woke up in one that was crippled with a broken horn... so she's got a bit more loss than anyone else there. So she's going to be far more bitter.
3)Celestia isn't the only magic slinger in Equestria, after all.
Yes yes yes
No no no
6250550
And yet Joe accepts her crazy prejudice rants, and Moriah doesn't call him spineless or inattentive, I'm not saying they are perfect people, their relationship works towards the normal factors of a give and take relationship.
Joe is socially malnorished, yet they are in a romantic relationship, they have sex, he is willing to help Moriah with her magic and humor her ideas of evil ponies from dimension Equestria, he is the logical and understanding piece to the relationship.
Moriah is aggressive and kind of bitchy, yet she managed to hook up with the socially inept guy that is the furthest thing from physically active, and she doesn't say a thing bad about him, belittle him, or anything like that, she is controlling, but Joe is hardly complaining that much, and it's not like she stops him from voicing his opinion or something, she confides and relies on him.
Say what you will about their characters, but when I see them as a good couple, they are a good couple, you want something to complain about? How about Joe being seen as a attractive partner despite them having used to be humans, Cloudy wanted him, Moriah is in a relationship, and Alex once entertained the idea WAY back... I think. It's been a while.
Talk about big chips on shoulders.
And yet again, Moriah's mentality strikes once more.
Moriah...
(and to think this is supposed to be Joseph's chapter, she stole the spotlight here)
Starscribe... I suppose having so many strong reactions from that flying unicorn means you've been writing her well enough, I goess.
6250498 I can think in a reason easy enough, since we don't know how the magic races in Equestria were programmed into the spell.
If we suppose the Equestrian races are taken from the people (ponies, griffons, etc.) who contributed magic into it then it's only needed some changelings disguised as ponies for the spell to get the imprint of the changeling race. Luna said the whole spell was a Equestria-wide project after all.
6250468 She'd probably reply to that with:
> "I'd rather be dead [that this]."
> "There had to have been another way."
> "They could have told us first."
> "I didn't agree to this."
Whether she means what she means it or not is up for questioning.
Moriah is like that one relative you can't talk to for more than ten minutes without feeling an eye start to twitch.
6250468
Moriah is definitely the most hard headed and complex of the gang that's for sure
6250797
She reminds me of my Papa Dale for that matter
This would be hilariously stupid hardheadedness if it wasn't such an intellectually impressive way to put all of little Alexandria in potentially grave danger.
You know, I think Moriah was male before the event. I remember her asking what gender she was before. She's the most angry of everyone over the change, insists on being in control when she and Joseph are intimate, is into video games (a typically but not wholly male hobby) and a few other things make me suspect this.
6250447
That would be awesome. The HPI is a seriously good brainchild of yours.
Write it and put it on fanfiction.net (yes, interface, ugh) and link it... yeah I know. Not the same, unfortunately, and wouldn't get the readership.
Still. HPI is thumbs up.
Moriah has quite a plausible string of suppositions there, but she doesn't really seem to consider the danger at all - if there are forces opposing the Equestrian government still on Earth, why wouldn't they have come in sufficient strength to not need to care about the natives' opinions?
Even if she was correct about the Equestrians being enemies, if the enemy of their enemy isn't going to be worried about the Equestrians for thousands of years, they're not going to care much about co-operating with former humans.
Tangentially, was there ever a mention of how communication works between Equestrians and humans? Since Alex toured Equestria meeting ponies other than the ones specially chosen to come to Earth, presumably it's not just that the agents learned English, so there's either a translation spell or Equestrian just happens to be the same as English.
Pretty important to whether the solution to this cryptography would even be readable...
Heh, who would have guessed?
I am both amused by this and impressed at the effort Joe is putting into this relationship in spite of flying pretty blind when it comes to the subject.
An actual movie theater for your gaming system? Suddenly I'm impressed and a bit jealous.
Wow, for once Moriah is asking all the right questions. Well, right up until that last bit.
Joe, you are so wonderfully clueless.
...and Moriah might need some help. What are the chances a psychologist comes wandering through?
Joseph has a leg up on many, but why haven't they ruled out an automated thing to authorities that's saying something vital is failing?
As for moriah, she's going to have to deal with her issues. I just see a little changeling sorta getting hurt for it as an easy target.
Oh no! Evil Ponies (Or gryphons! Or dragons! Or changelings! Or....) From The Equestrian Dimension! What are their dastardly plans?!?
Of course, knowing Starscribe, it won't be anything as simple and straightforward as, say, the Gryphon empire shoving a battalion through to take over the Earth, so that when contact is resumed, the whole world is Gryphon only or the like.
And besides, if it IS some straight up world conquering bad villain, I'm seeing a phone conversation along these lines...
Alex: Hey, HPI guys, you still have all those remote control aircraft and stuff, right?"
HPI> Yeah? So what?"
Alex> And you must have picked up a bunch of nukes when you were picking up fuel and stuff, right? And I'm sure you've got all the codes somewhere, right?
HPI> Um, maybe. Why?"
Alex> Well, it seems we have a bit of a pest infestation from Equestria. Got anything in the 10-20 kiloton range handy? That should clear it right up. We'll magic away the radiation later or something.
HPI> ... We'll see what we can do.
Okay, probably not. Alex probably isn't as big of a jerk as I am.
I'm just gonna say that Moirah's lucky she didn't end up someplace with me in charge, because after hearing her say that she'd be out on her fucking plot faster than you can say "revenge-crazed madmare".
Star, you definitely have given us a pony we agree on...
If you weren't so excellent when it comes to doing the unpredictable, I would think that Moriah would eventually try to take over and drag Joe along with her. On the other hoof, if she tried to drag Joe too far out of his 'comfort zone', I could see him just letting her go. He can be quite the 'rock in the river', when he chooses to be. Either way she is far too volatile. If this were Equestria, her friends would come together and try to get to the root of her anger and help her heal. (Yeah I know, root/horn, but what if it goes deeper than that?) But instead these are humans, and humans behave like humans.
All we can do is wait, and hope she doesn't do anything disastrous.
Why do I get the feeling that Moriah is going to be the first magical big bad of Earth?
Dare I say it?
unorthodoxthoughts.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ancient-aliens-guy.jpg
Oh, she's a commercial pilot! Well shit, that makes me rethink some stuff.
Man...im getting annoyed...
While they removed the choice...I would rather live a pony then die and disappear into oblivion.
6250468
Yes, well... I doubt she would dispute that. I just don't think she's fully considering it in the face of all the things bothering her. WHICH we'll get to learn more about soon. I just wonder if they'll be enough for people to forgive all her faults.
6250489
I'm sure someone will break it before another week is out! If not now, then as soon as another clue or two has been revealed about it.
6250522
He's working on it! But with the new minecraft server they set up in Alexandria, and all that skyrim to play, I just don't know how soon he'll be able to give us more hints! >.>
6250527
I think most people would prefer to be in a perfect relationship. I also think NOBODY wants to read about a perfect relationship. Because it would be boring. It would be the same as me writing a story where the colony always worked perfectly, nothing unexpected ever happened, and their lives were perfect ever day. Geez I'd burn that story myself.
6250529
All absolutely correct points!
6250652
I actually hadn't considered that the changeling contributions to the spell might have been completely behind the backs of the Equestrian ponies. That's actually a really good idea! No way that'll happen now, nope! Planned the way it was the whole time, obviously!
6250711
It's way easier to wine and complain about the indignity of being saved when you're saved. If the princesses had asked while she was dying a painful death from magical poisoning, I bet she'd have been all for whatever it took to be saved.
6250942
ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BucyCB7AL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
6251166
We'll know for sure after her section.
6251290
I'm not sure if I'll have the time. I've been thinking of ways to dance and phenangle it onto here. It might happen. MIGHT. Not promising. We'll just have to see how I feel after story three.
6251305
I don't think it's been mentioned in the story. I'm sure something happened to facilitate communication, but since I'd already gone into it in the last story I wrote, I didn't feel like doing the whole song and dance a second time. Something happened, it was just out of scope what that something was.
6251317
I know I would totally want to play my video games on a movie theater if that was a thing that was possible. I don't even want to think about how much power that would waste, though...
6251529
I think Moriah could really use some psychological help. I imagine that's a profession that will be very much in demand for many ponies in the coming, eh, 10,000 years or so...
6252244
HA! They don't pay me the big bucks to write predictable plots like that!
Although... I guess they don't pay many of us authors on here anything. They don't... give me the big comments? Er... I guess that's true. Wouldn't be very much to speculate on if all the plots were simple.
6252435
But how mad is she? TUNE IN TOMORROW TO FIND OUT!
6252661
Would Joe join Moriah over her loyalty to Alex and Skyand the rest? I think the question is, as the "everything wrong with..." movie guys might ask, will the power of boners be stronger?
Not saying Moriah's likely to do what you describe. As you say, that would be predictable. I wouldn't want to be predictable, unless I did it in an unpredictable way... whatever the heck that means.
6253079
I don't think I was clear in the last story, so I tried to be more explicit in this one. There was some confusion about what sort of experience she actually had...
6254820
Me to, totally. Actually, being a pony is much better than a large number of possible bad things that could possibly happen. I'd just like to point out that her views are by far the minority in her group, even if she thinks they're justified. The others are... much more moderate about things.
Hey, Moriah! What does a 'Paranoia' cutie mark look like?
uuuuuuuuuuuhhh.........
I'm a little apprehensive about where you seem to be going with this.
Well fuck you too Moriah....
6255091
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/Paranoia_25th_Anniversary_Troubleshooters_Edition.png
Mystery solved!
Yeah, brilliant idea Moriah. Contact a likely criminal group from another world on a whim just because of petty spite. You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid cunt.
Well, bravo.
While reading the previous story, one of my hang-ups was indeed "Why is Sunset encrypting her messages?" This question was never addressed by the author, and I ended up feeling that heshe was just having fun with the code nuts in the readership. Nice to see that it isn't just gratuitous pandering.
You mean the part where they saved the lives of every human being alive?
6282386
That's not what they did, silly. They doomed hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death from starvation, illness, fiery crashes and from the environment. I mean, yeah sure hundreds of millions will survive but let's focus on ourselves here. That's what's really important.
As much as we want to hate her and Joe, we all gotta admit that's a realistic reaction to so many sudden changes. While I hope they both see what's really happened, I doubt they'll do so.
Moriah is a frigginn time bomb. She will tear the group apart at some point, because she's a stupid self-centered bitch. She thinks like Alex but without the logic and pragmatic big picture view. It's only me, me and me, and oh how unhappy I am.
Equestria made a call, life above death. There will always be those who resent them, praise them and everything in between. Sure, some people will die, and the surviving family will be extremely pissed off. But right now, it isn't about individuality - right now you should care about the survival of the species and culture, to lay down the groundwork for future incoming people.
Fucking cunt, wish she'd die in that plane
6301661
Billions. Not millions, the population of a big city. Not tens of millions, the population of New York. Not hundreds of millions, the population of our entire continent.
Billions. An entire order of magnitude above that scale.
Over thirty thousand people in the United States die yearly in car accidents. The death toll from displacement would be less than thirty thousand if we assume everyone in the air at the moment of the event dies horribly, which we already know they do not.
Your logic isn't just obviously biased, it's also monumentally incorrect on a matter of scale.
Have you read Stephen King's The Stand? Because I'm REALLY getting a Boulder, Colorado from the Stand feel to Alexandria.
6250468
Yeah, she's a damn fool if there ever was one. To try and save all of humanity is a noble goal, even if misguided. How would people feel if they knew that Equestria had only been interested in saving a few hundred thousand (a more sensible decision in some ways). Getting even ought to be the least of their concerns, even if it was a legitimate concern, which it isn't. Hopefully Joe can get her to give up on that one... or else she'll be worse than any criminal elements or dissident. Honestly they should get their own infrastructure, governance in order before they try contacting any of that kind.
Moriah. You poor fool.
Best! Idea! Ever!
EVER
!!
Why.
Why would this make them your friends.
Disagreeing with how they handled Earth means they wanted humanity scrubbed clean from the face of that rock. It suggests that they want the planet to themselves. If anything, it suggests most strongly that they are your enemies!
Moriah is always depicted as a violent idiot, though, so fair enough. Even Alex thought she was going too far.
6250468
Yes, yes exactly.
If someone disagreed with the princesses, they weren't humanity's friends. They wanted humanity completely stone dead.
That is the most toxic thing I’ve ever heard.