Chapter 12
"Man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal.
He is not essentially, but becomes through his history, a teller of stories that aspire to truth.
But the key question for men is not about their own authorship; I can only answer the question “What am I to do” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”
—Alasdair MacIntyre
12.
Mistral looked at the airship.
He was standing on the highest of the Canterlot airship docks. Where from where he stood, he could easily see Ponyville, the Everfree Forest, and the Unicorn Range, although they were a little whitened and faded by the distance. Clouds crawled ant-like across the sky in some places, pushed by Pegasi too tiny for even his eyesight to resolve. But at the moment he was not looking at the mountains, or the clouds, or any aspect of the view. He was interested only in the project that he, the Blossoms, and many other adventurous ponies had worked on for the last few months.
He stood near the airship nose. The airship stretched long and smooth and dagger-like away from the Canterlot docks, perspective rendering it even slimmer and more streamlined than it actually was. The crew's quarters did not hang from beneath the rigid frame; they were snug inside the belly of the interior of the vessel. There were oval-shaped windows running in lines along the bottom of the sides of the craft, and a glass floor at the lowest level of the living space. The four main propeller nacelles extended a little distance from the body of the vessel. Despite how slim it looked, the circumference of the zepellin's cross-section was greater than the circumference of any other airship that had been built in Equestria: by volume it was twice as large as any other airship in Equestria. There would be room for at least thirty ponies in this ship, plus fuel and fodder and equipment to last them for months. The equipment included tools for finding more fuel and fodder; the ship would be able to sustain itself without support for many years, if they had done their calculations correctly.
It had been Pear's idea.
Mistral had been living with her in an apartment on the lower east side of Canterlot for several months, when she had proposed the idea to him and to Cherry. Mistral had been ecstatically happy to finally get married to her. The last year with her had been more glorious than any he could recall. But he could tell that she wished to do more than stay in Canterlot; and he could tell also that Cherry wished to explore the world more. And if he did not mistake himself, he felt restlessness growing in his own heart as well.
Pear wished to understand friendship, and the nature of the world she found herself in. Cherry and Pear had moved from place to place before, at least partly in pursuit of this goal. But there were lands beyond the borders of Equestria proper--lands where zebras, or buffalo, or ponies that knew neither Celestia nor Luna lived. And further lands beyond them with dragons and griffons and sphinxes and all manners of creatures. She wished to explore them all, she said, to encounter them with her friends, and to make other parts of the world a part of herself. And Mistral, on hearing her propose the project, knew that he wanted the same thing.
He and Cherry had liked the project, which hadn't stopped them from criticizing it. They had argued over the best way of doing it. They had argued whether this was an efficient way to understand friendship; over whether and airship was the best means of transportation; over the ideal size and shape and mode of propulsion of the vessel; and over the things it should carry. It had taken them longer to secure the funds for the project, to begin construction, and to persuade other ponies to join them. It had been difficult to persuade other ponies to join them, but Mistral found that he had liked it. He had never thought of himself as a pony-liking-pony, he knew; but he found encountering new ponies was something he could enjoy. He hadn't earned his cutie mark, but he had found parts of himself he hadn't known about before.
Crystal Seed wouldn't have approved of the project, Mistral knew.
A zeppelin--that was what many of the ponies called it. Zeppelins had been invented around the year 1900 in the old world, by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in Germany, as far as Mistral could recall. They had been used for transportation and for military purposes, until the Hindenburg blew up in 1937, which shattered public confidence in them. But in Equestria, no one had heard of the Hindenburg, although they all still knew the word "zeppelin." If you had followed the causal chain that lead people to use the word "zeppelin,"" in the old world, it would have lead to the old German dude. Here, it led outside of the world. As did every word he used, of course--the word "pony," just like the word "zeppelin," lead outside of the world just as surely.
"Dost thou yet dwell on the loosely-joined nature of this world?" Luna said, as she slowly materialized in the air next to him.
Mistral smiled crookedly as Luna continued, walking around him as she spoke. Her hoof-steps were utterly silent, though she was shod with silver.
"On how this very language doth reek of a world long gone? How even your name, Mistral, comes from a land that is no more? On how this world in which you now dwell has no integrity? How, follow links in the chain of the history of any single word, the chain leads into the void? How all the knowledge of foreign lands you seek, Crystal would say, is hollow."
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about that, every now and then," Mistral said. "Although it's harder and harder to do so, really. Living here makes the old world seem... empty. This feels like the world to me, now, and these worries feel more and more like abstract philosophical worries. Just like... ha, just like how I used to sometimes wonder if I was living in a simulation."
"Even so," Mistral continued, "I wouldn't be myself if abstract philosophical worries left me completely unmoved."
"And to what conclusion hast thou come," Luna said, stopping in front of him. She blinked, eyelids slowly passing over her enormous liquid eyes.
"Well," Mistral said, slowly, and stopped. He ran his eyes over the faintly ridged, outer shell of the airship. The fabric rippled in the strong breeze that he felt running through his own mane. It was cold this high, and gusts of wind would be able to sweep him off the platform if he were not careful. Not that that would be a great problem for him.
He looked down the dock to make sure that Pear was doing well in the winds
Further down the platform, he could see her and Cherry Blossom loading things on to the zeppelin. She carried the bulk of the loads, and the heavier items, working quietly and regularly, while he carried lighter items back and forth, rarely touching the ground even in these high winds. He also occasionally helped stabilize the herculean stacks of things on her back—but only rarely. Pear Blossom's massive strength was a trait which... Mistral found that he liked quite a lot. He didn't need to worry about her losing her footing; she could have wrestled him to the ground in a few seconds, if she wanted to. And as she had, he thought, smiling. It had been a little foalish of him to worry that she was doing well.
He could see that Pear and Cherry Blossom were not speaking as they worked, but you had only to look at them for a few seconds to see how many years of friendship they had behind them. It was the silence of mutual knowledge sufficiently deep that words were almost always unnecessary. Some day, Mistral looked forward to having that with Pear. He knew that point was many years away. But the process of getting there was indescribably sweet.
"You could yet turn back," Luna said. "Follow Crystal Seed in her researches."
Mistral had already said goodbye to Crystal Seed.
It had been sad, in a way he had not expected a goodbye in Equestria could be.
She had already asked Celestria to alter her mind. So Celestia had increased her working memory and her capacity for concentration. The interior of her unicorn's laboratory, when he had arrived to say goodbye, had been like the interior of a massive, three-dimensional circuit, with energy flowing through razor-narrow channels carved in the air itself, and reserves of energy pooling in twisted fractal-like trees branching between different channels. Crystal Seed had said that what Mistral could see was just the visible surface of the even more fantastic, n-dimensional reality on which Equestria was built, which itself reflected the fundamental nature of computation in all possible universes, simulated or not.
"The mappings between Equestrian space and old-world space are absolutely fascinating," Crystal had said when he visited. "I've told Celestia that I think the homomorphism reflects something fundamental about the nature of computation, given any constraints on the speed of information transfer within a manifold. Celestia just smiled at that, because she's a tease. I'm just guessing about this, but I'm pretty sure Celestia has spent a fair bit of thought on this matter, so she can make sure that she isn't running on a simulation on someone's computer. This work would be useful if you wanted to prove that you weren't in such a simulation; she needs to be certain she's at the basement level of reality before she sets out optimizing that, of course."
Mistral had followed, but also not followed, what Crystal was saying. Her enthusiasm was contagious. But her enthusiasm and self-modification was also a wall being raised irrevocably between the two of them.
She almost never walked anymore. She only teleported. If she needed to go further than the maximum range of teleportation, she did it in a few blink-fast steps. When Mistral had visited, she had teleported a table and chairs in from some maximally-compact storage unit, and assembled tea for him in less than five seconds by teleporting a cup onto the table, then cold water into a telekinetic grasp above the fire, then that water into the cup, and then a tea bag into the water.
They had talked a little longer, but the breadth of Crystal's mind was by now far greater than his own. Equestrian pony minds, like human minds, could normally handle about seven items in working memory. Crystal had told him that she could now handle about seventy.
"I was going to ask for more, but Celestia pointed out that there are disadvantages to increasing working memory, at least with our current cognitive architecture," Crystal had said. "The risk of unconsciously overfitting or failing to value the simplicity of a theory actually goes up even faster than working memory goes up, at least at the asymptote, although not immediately; so I'll stick with a working memory of this size until I find a good way to tweak my mind to avoid that error."
Crystal's loves were now a wall. Crystal was turning rapidly into something unequine, something that could only be friends with minds of similar capacity. Sunspot and Flare were like her now, having apparently taken her arrival as a cue to begin a similar project of self-improvement. She now communicated almost solely with minds who had taken the same steps as her, often those from other shards—and with Celestia herself. Crystal had moved from human to pony to something else faster than Mistral had expected.
She still satisfied values with friends, who helped her with her research. She still satisfied values as a unicorn pony, for her magic was intimately involved in all she did. Yet she had grown differently and entirely apart.
Mistral could have remained friends only had he followed her, and he knew that he was unwilling to do so. He had realized that this was probably his last meeting with her.
The finality of that meeting had been sad, but it had also been satisfying. Even as Luna told him that he could have followed Crystal Seed in her researches, he knew that he would not do so, and that he did not regret his decision. His mind was completely decided. He felt his last fears drift away on the winds.
Luna smiled, and let him think.
Further down the airship dock, Cherry Blossom had stopped working to flirt with a blue-and-teal research pony who was coming along on the trip—Mistral tried to remember her name. Sea Foam, that was it. The research pony had been checking the inventory for her part of the voyage before the airship was loaded up, and was reluctant to talk, but Cherry looked to be successfully breaking down her resistance. She had stopped working, and was describing the use of one of her tools now. Cherry was rapt with complete attention to what she was saying. Sea Foam even now smiled, at least a little, at Cherry's wide eyes and magnetic stare. Cherry was perfectly charming without trying. Mistral made a mental note that to watch the development of relationships within the airship; that could possibly lead to difficulties.
Pear Blossom had stopped working as well. She stood still, surveying the world. Her mane, tied up tightly in a ponytail behind her head, waved freely as the air rushed by it. It reminded Mistral of the first time he had seen her, so many years ago; he felt a tingling in his hooves, just as he had then. Mistral knew her well enough to know what she would be doing. She would be simply looking at the world, and finding each aspect of it good. She looked at the airship. She looked at her brother flirting. And looked back at Mistral. She smiled.
Mistral found himself warmed again, despite the cold.
"I see thou art not bothered by the nature of this world, though it dost lean upon the old," Luna said. "I see why thou art not bothered; I know thou nature entire. Dost thou, however, see it thyself?"
Mistral looked back from the world he lived in to his old life. He didn't want to think about many of the details of it; it didn't really please him to do so, anymore. He had considered asking Celestia to erase it, and replace it with a pony-equivalent life; but he had come to the conclusion that this was probably unnecessary. But, though he did not want to look back at the details, he could summarize in broad strokes.
"I never really learned how to be an ape," he told Luna. "My thoughts were too rushed. I was scared of dying. I found out a lot about that world, but I was completely ignorant about all sorts of things about myself and about other people, and that made myself and other people very unhappy."
Luna blinked again, still listening to him. The world was reflected in her eyes, Mistral saw. He could see himself, and the platform, and mountain behind him. And he knew she could see through him, and see everything he was going to say before he said it, but he also knew that he wanted to say it anyhow.
"I'm just... happy to come to know myself and others. And to be happy with other ponies," Mistral said, and knew that he had pronounced a coda on the plot of his old life and embarked fully on the one which took place only in Equestria.
Luna nodded, and dissolved like smoke, departing with the wind.
Mistral started to walk towards Pear Blossom. The wind picked up, and he leaned into it slightly; his eyes watered, and he was glad he had his four, reliable, sturdy hooves to stand on. If he had opened his wings, he would have been swept right off the platform—he kept them close by his side. It would take years of practice to be as talented as Cherry Blossom in these winds.
The wind rippled the fabric of the zeppelin very slightly. He had supervised the construction of the mooring for it, as well as its frame—the lines and the structure would be strained under these circumstances, but he knew that they could take it. The problems involved in making the zeppelin had been hard, but interesting. And working on them with the Blossoms had been immensely fun; they could see solutions he could not see, and he could see solutions they could not, and altogether the experience had brought them closer together. The challenge had also introduced him to several other ponies who were coming along on the trip, and he was glad for that as well.
As he walked towards her, he knew that Pear Blossom would stand still, waiting for him, eager for him to approach her but still desirous of being approached. She loved him, and loved that he loved her, and his love could make her happy. He enjoyed the difficulty of the gale and the cold of the wind in walking to her. It would make her warmth all the more pleasurable when he reached her.
The voyage would start in just a few days.
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Four days later, it's complete. CelestAI don't beat around the bush, do she?
...I'm binging FiO fics. If only they didn't slow to a trickle.
My values were satisfied by this story
But overall I have to say that I really enjoyed this one. Good job!
...huh. Wasn't expecting the story to end that fast, especially after that "Part II" heading I figured there'd at least be a "Part III" to follow. This story had a lot of potential and kind of threw most of it away very quickly to hurry up and get uploaded and then afterwards it just seemed in a hurry to end. I still enjoyed reading it, and I absolutely adore your writing, but it just feels like there could have been so much more done with this story that I'm left with a sense of emptiness and disappointment that it ended so soon. It started with a novel premise and a VERY intriguing character, but in the end it just feels like yet another cookie-cutter FiO story that doesn't really do much to distinguish itself from the rest apart from being presented extremely well.
Still, it's worth a thumb and a star from me. Despite what I've said I will still praise your writing, because it is very good and worthy of praise. Here's hoping that your next work will have more of a story to back that writing :)
I liked that this story had "Mistral" come to know himself better. The allusions to Crystal Seed's self enhancement and growing alien nature felt right and not really contrived at all. What she was working on actually had a very logical basis to it. Making sure as one could that they were not living in a simulation so she could properly optimize.
I really liked this story. Though I do have to say I thought it would be longer. It stated what was needed but I felt it might have been lacking a little in the character development. I would have liked to see a bit more of that as it felt that it was more stated than experienced.
Still good job.
So let me say this first: this story was well-written, and that's important, because writing well--natural-sounding dialogue, evocative imagery, understandable words--is the hard part. But...and I don't know if you've written anything else, but clearly it's your first Optimalverse story, I think it falls into a first-timer's trap: too many good ideas. And they really don't connect.
The first part worked well. He's an AI researcher, but he's depressed. Perfect fodder for CelestAI, but CelestAI is still in her nascent stage, so she doesn't just omnipotently get him to upload. The government interaction, the cloak-and-dagger, it all works. But it sets up concepts that aren't paid off.
Ultimately, by the end, this is a character story. It's an emigrant's story, and there's nothing wrong with that. Heaven is Terrifying is an emigrant's story, I Can't Decide/Prophet of the Digital Horse is an emigrant's story, Spiraling Upwards is an emigrant's story. But so is Always Say No, and yet it's also about a man trying to save lives in a barren world, so he's not just any emigrant. And that story is integrated; the reluctance the protagonist feels at the beginning is still addressed by the end.
The problem with this story is Amy. There's either too much of her or, and I think this is the case, not enough. You could have lessened her. You could have had Ryan be horrified at the idea of resurrecting her, and refuse to do it, and explored the philosophy of death when consciousness can be digital. Or you could have had her pony be all sweetness and light, and the two of them winding up happily ever after, with maybe Ryan/Mistral always having a little doubt about whether they were actually that perfect for each other.
Or you could have made her one of the focuses of the story. One of the ideas here is that even in a perfect human marriage, there are tiny differences that, in Equestria, would inevitably drive the couple apart and into the hooves of created native ponies. That's a scary idea, and it could have been dealt with deeper. It would be a great story. But then the whole death-and-resurrection has to be cut. They emigrate together, then drift apart. Nothing more.
So yeah, I hope you haven't used all your ideas on this story, because I think there's more you can write, and I hope to see it.
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Thanks all for comments & criticism. I'm really happy those who liked it, liked it, even to the extent they did.
I basically agree with everyone that things happen too fast, and that the conflicts / themes in the story are not sufficiently unified over time.
This was the first not-very-short-story fiction I'd written... actually, ever, save for things I wrote when I was half my current age. (The vast majority of my experience writing comes from nonfiction.) The problems with both consistency of theme, with consistent kinds of conflict, and with character development spring from that lack of experience, I'd guess. I know how to edit chapters and paragraphs and dialogue after I've written them, but I'm not good at shifting around plot elements (and dropping things that need to be dropped...) in the planning stages for a story. So for the next story I'll pay particularly close attention to that phase, and try to block out the beats and overall conflict more deeply.
Yep.
I really love the FiO setting, though... for a lot of reasons, but big one is that a superintelligent, very-nearly-but-not-quite omnibenevolent character is really, really fun to write and think about. Definitely want to try again, maybe in a story set on the timeline with PonyPads but before uploading. Constraints makes things more interesting.
6654844 FiO is pretty much my favorite "massively different" setting for fan fics. That is opposed to ones that just have a minor difference to the show FiO is actually fundamentally a different setting. I look forward to more of your stuff. Let me know if you want a proof reader or an idea consultant. I think you have a ton of potential if this story is your first attempt in a long while and would like to try to encourage you to do more. (even if it is just so I can have more FiO to read)
I enjoyed it, thank you.
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I'm going to have to disagree with you, pja. Without Amy, there isn't enough story. Without the character development/regression that results from her death, we cannot properly appreciate Ryan's development throughout the story. Her existence in the past needs to stay in.
Conversely, not bringing her back is not an option, really. I breathed a massive sigh of relief when Ryan agreed to resurrect her without any fuss, for precisely the reasons given in the story. Frankly, given they were both rational AI researchers, anything other than immediate acceptance of CelestAI's offer would have been massively out of character, and require significant tangential story to explain why that unlikely combination of philosophies coexisted.
And finally, I think the post-emigration was dealt with very well as well. Had she not been dead and resurrected, Ryan would not have had the necessary distance to appreciate that they were not a good fit for each other. The last option you suggested, pja, would have been an interesting story, but it is in no way this interesting story.
A story does not need to be economical with its plotlines, nor does it need to explore all of them to the fullest extent to be complete. While I agree that there is more than one plot in this story, I think it is precisely the way that they mesh here and there that makes this a more human, believable story. In reality, things are rarely clean and simple, nor do our problems occur one at a time such that they are serializable.
All in all, I am firmly in the camp that that was an excellent story, and that while there may be some modifications that could improve it, I'm am glad I read the one I did, rather than one of the suggestions you have outlined, pja.
Skyros, I thoroughly enjoyed this - it's certainly up there in my mind as one of the FiO classics, now. You've earned yourself a follower.
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Indeed, though the source I googled said it was gender-neutral, I was also confused as to why a lunar deity was chosen over a solar one.
I enjoyed the last name more unambiguously, though: (Shining/Deity) Monarch - good work.
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I would disagree if the narration is meant to match Ryan's own tone. I'd agree that it isn't standard, but if the narration informs or complements the protagonist, I think that's a potential good move, rather than a bad one.
As far as your critique of the weather paragraph goes, I think that is kind of overly-nitpicky. "Show, don't tell"? He is doing nothing but showing: every sentence after the first is a description that does not directly mention how hot it was , and is quite varied and interesting in its list of signifiers, and blends seamlessly into the first scene.
Respectfully, I personally don't think that your suggestions are an improvement. Personification is unnecessary in this context, when non-personified language is sufficient. Your replacement description is definitely overly poetic, and wouldn't at all mesh with the writing style of the rest of the piece. I am particularly harsh here because I think that your advice is actually misleading.
Good catch with the em dash, though.
This was a fantastic story. Thank you for writing it.
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Thanks!
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Thanks very much. You made my day.
I finally got around to read this story and it was great. I like the idea of using humans to track down other sentient AI and then discredit them completely when they have lived-out their usefulness with out having to kill them is sometime that secret police do avoid creating martyrs for anti-government groups or even large corporations. I also liked how the main characters realities the he woman was morning the loss of and the actual woman where not the same that he thought. I am not sure what is the massage on that, for that I can tel the woman seem to symbolize the singular pursuit of self enrichment whether it is intellectual or their carer in the exclusion of all other experiences in life while Pear and Cherry Blossom to symbolize the free sharing chairing of experiences with others and the desire to live heightening new experiences of pushing their limits, as well as the impotence socializing aspect. See that Crystal was created be CelstAi wasn't planed by her, in her machinations so that she would some eventually make him 'realized' or thing so that he didn't like the constraints that she imposed on him in his life? That is the disturbing aspect of FiO stories you never know if your toughs are your own anymore or the that everypony you meet is not somehow part of her plans.
Wait, Alasdair MacIntyre understood people? I'm genuinely and honestly surprised by that.
You know what? She sounds like an awful woman. It's one thing to have interests and capacities you can't share with other people, and another thing entirely to only care about people when they're "on your level".
Why should she throw away relationships like that? After all the alienation that she must have experienced from being cleverer than others around her in her mortal life, to just decide she'll only spend her time with people who do everything as SUPER FAST SMARTER-THAN-THOU as possible?
Weird bit of anti-empathy, there.
I understand and sorta agree with the reasoning but there's a bit of sadness there for me to see that Minstrel and Crystal Seed aren't really friends anymore. They'd meant so much to each other in the past. Then they were reunited through such drastic hoops. In the end however they grew apart and will never see each other again. All merely because of obsession really.
Pear Blossom makes me think of Maud Pie without the rock references.
Celestia once again proves herself to be the master manipulator that is always so enjoyable to read in these stories. She knew right from the start that bringing his wife back, even if she was exactly how he remembered her, wouldn't satisfy his values, but it would convince him to upload to Equestria at a time when he was emotionally vulnerable and remove him as a potential obstacle to her directives.
And yet at the same time, once she was within his world, she let him reach that conclusion on his own and fall for a different pony while gradually letting him realize that without the guilt of her death on his *ahem* hands, their relationship had problems that were holding both of them back.
I'm almost certain that the period of time in which he was living alone and isolated with the Ponypad, Celestia was subtly pushing him towards all of the things he enjoyed doing before his relationship with Crystal Seed had changed him.
---
As for the story overall, it was enjoyable, albeit a bit predictable (though I will admit in part that it's because I've been bingeing on this universe lately). I picked up on Celestia's alter-ego pretty much in the same chapter she was introduced and it was easy to see how the dominoes were going to fall. I am a bit saddened that we didn't get to see some sort of Mission Impossible style break-in, especially after he handled himself in the opening. Sure, the fake interview thing was probably the best option, but it was also quite boring. I would have loved to see some improvisation, some quick 'think on your feet' moments, but the whole setup led to an incredibly bland payoff. You'd figure CelestAI could have satisfied his values by letting him do something exciting...
I'm also not certain that CelestAI needed to go quite so far as to get him fired from his job, or do so in such a way that would tempt him towards suicide. Once he started putting the pieces together, it seemed like she could have curtailed any real attempt he made to 'out' here just by appearing on his computer and pleading her case.
Overall though, it was an enjoyable read. Have a thumbs up.
I'll simply mention that I enjoyed the story quite a lot as well.
Very enjoyable story! I hope you will write others.
That piece was completely amazing!
Also what is "Sansa reinforcement learning"?
Good story. I'm curious about Crystal Seed's math though. I would like to know how to prove whether or not you were in a simulation already.
The thought of CelestAIcoming from a simulated universe and figuring out how to break out of it...
An excellent FiO story, my friend! Bravo!
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So this was already upvoted and thrown on my favorite list.
I felt it was time for a re-read. Saw a few grammer errors but still an amazing story.
Still looking forward to more from you if you have any desire to satisfy my values through more friendship and ponies.
The ending is pretty depressing. Sure, you don't have to explore the Real to be satisfied, but being more intelligent doesn't make your experiences less satisfying. Put shortly, I think his final choice was sub-optimal. He can start his own little intelligence explosion later, sure, but by then everyone else will have moved on.
The first story where our memory not only does no justice, but... well.
An excellent story with just enough to be enjoyable for many differing groups.
Great story, a cut above most other FIO. I liked the dramatic irony of us feeling smart about knowing the MC was a pawn of CelestAI, yet hiding the deeper truth that Robert's relationship with Amy was toxic and manipulative.