Human Rituals
Ghost in the Machine
(1 Year, 2 Months Since Arrival)
“Neig-g-g-gh! You’re missing a great party!” Pinkie Pie burst into my room like the rubberized super ball that she was. “New Year’s only comes once a year you know!” she said, stretching a party-hat band under my chin and shoving a kazoo in my mouth.
“N-not right now, Pinkie,” I husked softly, sitting hunched on my bed.
“You sure?!” she gasped. I rarely turned down Pinkie’s special occasion parties. “Hey, wassamatter?” she sat on her haunches next to me, throwing a comforting arm about my shoulders. “Your eyes are all puffy and stuff!”
“They are not!” I huffed, but a fresh tear went down my right cheek and a cursed. Twilight’s translator bracelet grunted, but didn’t translate that bit.
“You can tell Auntie Pinkie,” she said, sidling closer. “I hate it when my friends are super sad like this. Tell me?” Sighing and having no one else to spill my guts to, I showed her my cell phone. I’d only turned it on a few times since I’d arrived. I’d not shown it to Twilight, for fear she’d try to take it apart. When my MP3 player had died, she tried to re-juice it with magic and it had burned up in an instant. “What’s this?” Pinkie turned it over and over. It was an old cell phone, the sort that only made calls and got texts. No emoji’s or internet or anything like that, just a regular phone. Call me old fashioned.
“It’s a cell phone,” I said. Twilight’s bracelet buzzed, having no context of translation. I sighed and looked at the ceiling, trying to think of another way to say it through my tears. “It’s a… speaking stone. I used to it talk to folks that were far away from me. No matter how far. But it hasn’t worked since I got here.” Pinkie gave it back. Somehow through her hoof she could tell it wasn’t very well held-together. I’d worked in printing press factories, dropped it on the pavement… it was old and beat-up. The battery clip panel was brand new since I’d shattered the old one. “The power is dying.” (Don't ask me how it lasted so long, I honestly could not tell you. I had one of those old 'brick' cells that lasted forever in the battery area...)
“You don’t seem like the sort to cry over a speaking stone not working anymore,” Pinkie said a little delicately, offering a cautious but still wide smile.
“You… wanna hear something from it?” I asked.
“Sure!”
Moving slowly, I un-clipped Twilight’s translation band. Lifting her hoof gingerly, I put it about her ankle. She looked at me questioningly. I pressed buttons as fast as I could. The LOW BATTERY warning was still flashing red. Not long now. This was probably my last chance for this anyway. After a time, I lifted it to her ear and leaned so I could hear too:
“Hi honey! I’m gonna be a little late tonight! This snow is just awful! Traffic’s locked up. Get dinner ready for me? I’m starving, hahaha! Be safe out there today, I love--!”
The phone died just then. We sat there in silence. I flipped it closed and slowly leaned to set it on my bedside table. It was just a piece of plastic and metal now. I sank down, my head in my hands. Pinkie stroked my back a few times, carefully leaving my translator band. “Was that your very special some-hyoo-man?” she asked softly. Her mane slowly sagged down about her shoulders, an amazing ability I’d only seen a few times.
“My fiancé, yes,” I nodded. “She probably thinks I’m dead or run away from her or something by now, it’s been almost a year. And even if and when I go back, she’ll never believe I was lost in another dimension full of magic talking ponies before coming back to her. Not for one second.”
Pinkie scratched her head, not used to such seriousness. Perhaps I’d shown the wrong pony my Briana’s final message. Maybe Rarity would’ve appreciated it more. I just wanted ONE of them to hear it, sort of, down deep in my heart. So they’d know she was real, that what we had was real and I had something to look forward to when I finally went home someday. “I’ve never had a very special somepony, but…” she trailed off for a time. “You seem like a nice hyoo-man. If it were me, and I thought there was some chance you’d come home, I’d definitely wait.” She smiled, patting the top of my head like a puppy. (So that’s what that was like…) I smiled, drying my snot on my sleeve. “If you don’t wanna be social tonight, I’ll save you some cake, okie?”
“Thanks, Pinkie,” I nodded, smiling. “I didn’t mean to drag you down with the ghost in the machine.”
“What’s that?” Pinkie asked gently as she made for the door.
“It’s uh,” I paused to sniff, then picked up the wallet-sized picture by my bedside. “It’s a human thing… a recording. You know, of someone who’s gone. Someone you can’t reach,” I paused to blow my nose. “That’s prolly not even the right phrase. ‘Ghost in the machine’ usually means it’s a recording of someone that’s dead. But you get what I mean. Th-thanks for listening,” I dismissed her as politely as I could so she wouldn’t see me blubber.
Pinkie gave me an odd smile and slid away to rejoin the others at the New Year’s party. I thankfully wasn’t disturbed for the rest of the night. Four or five years is a long time to wait and not even hear a loved one’s voice.
=-=-=-=
“Hi honey! I’m gonna be a little late tonight!” Spike’s ear fins perked and I dropped my breakfast plate. It shattered into a thousand pieces as my heart skipped a beat. “This snow and ice is just awful! Traffic’s locked up.” I stampeded past Spike and out into the hallway. Where was it coming from?! “Get dinner ready for me? I’m starving, hahaha!” My Briana’s laughter rang through Castle Friendship and drew me to Twilight’s Human Studies room. I flung the doors open with a crash, sending an avalanche of papers flying all over the room. “Be safe out there today, I love--!”
Pinkie and Twilight stood in the room, Pinkie hooked to one of Twilight’s machines. She was wearing a silvery helmet covered with colored lights and wires, all connected to a rather normal looking phonograph. The record spun, silent now. They stared at me. I stared back. I could hear Spike scampering up the hallway, complaining about my long legs and his stubby ones.
“Wh-what did you do?” I asked softly. “Pinkie I showed you that in confidence! How could you?! That wasn’t for Twilight to study!”
“No its not,” Twilight said softly, lifting the phonograph need back to its starting position. “Pinkie said your uhm… speaking stone?” she checked for a moment and the pink mare nodded. “She said your speaking stone went dead forever and that there was a message from your fiancé on it. So I pulled it out of her memory of listening to it and put it on this record for you.” She set the needle down again.
“Hi honey! I’m gonna be a little late tonight! This snow is just awful! Traffic’s locked up. Get dinner ready for me? I’m starving, hahaha! Be safe out there today, I love--!”
I slowly fell to my knees, a great rush of sobbing bursting out of me before I could stop it. “I-is it right?” Twilight and Pinkie both dashed forward to keep me from hunching over onto my face. “Pinkie only heard it by proximity of your speaking stone and the translator band, we only hear gibberish right now.” I nodded pathetically, taking off my band and putting it rudely over Twilight’s horn. I buried my face in Pinkie’s chest while Twilight replayed the message again. Her face softened at the simple, everyday message one would get from one’s intended. She put the band back over my limp wrist. “She sounds like a nice mare, Neig-g-gh,”
“But… but how?” I whispered, pulling the dead brick out of my pocket I’d only put there out of habit. (Twilight’s eyes raced back and forth across it.) “I’ve had this the whole time.”
Twilight smiled proudly about herself, puffing up like a big smart peacock. “Well first I localized the memories in Pinkie’s mind for the past twenty-four hours, locking into her habitual auditory synapses and withdrawing that imprint from her short-term memory I made a binary sound track for the--” Pinkie put a hoof in her mouth.
“It’s magic, Neig-g-g-h,” the pink mare said softly.
“O-of f-fucking course it is,” I mumbled into her shoulder as I squeezed her tight. Twilight’s bracelet buzzed at my swearing, but the two mares could guess at that one. I played the message again after Twilight had shown me how the record player worked.
Spike reached the room at last and I put the band on him so he could hear it too. “She sounds nice!” he smiled when I got the band back.
“She is,” I smiled. “I don’t know what to say,” I sank back down to my knees to hug Pinkie and Twilight in my arms.
“Say thanks!” Pinkie piped.
“Thank you. Both of you,” I said, squeezing them both again.
When at last I had gathered my dignity and huffed out a cleansing breath, the record was put in a protective sleeve and Twilight promised me my own record player for my room. Then she stared at me. I smiled, rolling my eyes and handing over my cell phone. Twilight squee’d in delight, flipping it open and playing with all the buttons. It was dead, but thirty seconds hadn’t passed before she’d started taking it apart and squeeing over it even more.
I spent New Year's day with Pinkie Pie. She's very good at cheering folks up.
Happy New Years!
Such a bittersweet chapter
...I kinda want a chapter where Twilight successfully restores the cell phone by plugging the hard drive into a computer like what she had in the basement of the Golden Oaks.
Pretty sure that's not what 'ghost in the machine' refers too. Like, 100% sure, actually. Go google it, and I can almost guarantee that you will not find Neigh's definition.
6786920 I would think it w...oh what, that's Ghost in the Shell, nvm
The new record is in Equestrian, and still needs to be translated to English to be understood. It's an imperfect solution, but it's a solution.
6786920 It has several meanings, thank you. But I'm sure folks will argue about it either way so meh. Here's the list, I suppose, according to my own research. It can mean:
1. A recorded message on a phone's inbox of a deceased person or persons. (technology)
2. "Sapient" code that comes together by chance, coding/copying/etc, or otherwise taking on their own thoughts. (advanced AI computing)
3. The idea that the mind and body are completely distinct entities, and thusly your mind is said ghost. (philosophy)
4. An Album by the Police (music)
In this story's context it just means "recording from someone that is completely unreachable".
Wow. That is some serious feels to end/start the year with.
Thanks for the chapter!
That was great which is especially impressive given that it was Pinkie. She is so easy to screw up it is often hard to really say exactly who she is supposed to be even in the show, but this felt absolutely perfect with her blend of goofiness, understanding, and most of all caring making it clear that she is really out to help make her friends feel better.
Happy new year. Now... i have to cry drinks with wine.
i.imgur.com/MOdakVAh.jpg
6786918 Well done--very realistic response from someone stranded away from earth.
Best chapter yet!
This is an amazing story!
Surprise feels!
33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbyk2aylGp1ry9dn6.gif
Cutest imagery ever.
The feels. That gets me where I live. (taps my heart)
Happy New Year!
Right in the feels...
orig03.deviantart.net/fba4/f/2013/051/5/0/cry_liquid_pride_by_potatoevomit-d5vorzg.jpg
Feels. I have them.
Constructive criticism
Pretty good chapter overall, but it needs a bit more editing.
"--fresh tear went down my right cheek and a cursed."
"I used to it talk to folks--"
"That’s prolly not even--"
"Pinkie stroked my back a few times, carefully leaving my translator band." She left it stuck there like a kick-me note prank?
"Her face softened at the simple, everyday message one would get from one’s intended." Confusing choice of words. What is an intended?
"--pulling the dead brick out of my pocket I’d only put there out of habit." Needs a 'that' between 'pocket' and 'I'd'.
What touches me most is the idea that there are two "deaths" in this chapter - the perceived death of our hero, and the foretold death of our hero's relationship with his fiance. There's something rather poetic there. Of course, I would love a classic happy ending, but that is not my call to make.
6786934
I honestly can't find where your getting that definition. I found all the ones except for Neigh's. Mayhaps yours is really obscure, like a regional or family thing.
Maaaybe I heard it used when talking about facebook before when referring to profiles existing after the user dies, but I'm not sure.
Why do you make me feel these things?
6786918
1) The thing in Twilight's old basement was a data collector, not a computer. It records data, but it doesn't compute anything.
2) Even if it were a computer, there's no way it could interface with a cell phone's hard drive.
Sorry, but I don't see this happening.
6787589
Well, they do have arcade games, so they could have computers...
6787595
Arcade cabinets are computers, so we already know they have them. I just don't think they're anywhere near capable of reading a cell phone's data. Not yet, anyway.
I think a more realistic outcome to Neigh giving Twilight his phone is that she reverse-engineers it, and learns how to create microprocessors.
6787607
Would she then be able to recover the data on the hard drive?
6787614
She'd have to disassemble the hard drive in order to learn how to recreate it.
So... Maybe? If she were exceedingly careful with it?
Dammit, heart strings are well and fully tugged at by this. Who put this onions in here
6787620
Presumably she could use a restoration to exactly reassemble it, so as long as she didn't damage any of the pieces in the process...
6787637
And so long as she worked quickly enough to minimize the data loss caused by there being no power source.
It's conceivable. Not likely, but possible.
You can trust no better pony than Pinkie to bring a smile to your face. And hugging adorable creatures is always a nice thing.
A very heartwarming chapter, but I couldn't help but notice amongst the feels that the protagonist just gave Twilight a Long-Distance Wireless Communication Device. With enough study, could she understand & duplicate the technology?
It's been long established that Equestria has something equivalent to electricity. What's really interesting to me is the crystals on the Memory Tree in the Map Room. They seem to be holographic stored memories, implying that the Equestrians have got a lot further with brain/machine interfaces and data storage than we humans have ever imagined.
Yay for Twilight and Pinkie. Very thoughtful of pinkie as well.
A warm chapter to read.
Aaaw.... Poor Neigh... I wanna hug him!
Ironically Delta Heavy's 'Ghost' is playing on my electro mixtape. Lovely coincidence.
I started crying so much during this chapter. I'm really liking this story! Keep up the great work.
6788014 We knew that since the whole Sombra thing, when Celestia pulled up the crystal empire in Sombras hey-day, slaves and all. It's kinda like that thing from Harry Potter.
Also, was that literally the last message he ever got? 'Cause of the cut off thing. Really feel for the guy.
aah, Pinkie, always know how to make anyone smile
So much feels.
I feel kind of bad that I expected ghost in the shell.
6785700 Sorry, I'm not the sort of person to obsessively cyber-stalk all comments of someone I'm having a casual conversation with.
I don't think we have anything to argue over anymore, considering your position has changed.
This was wonderful.
An excellent edition to a good story. Neigh's emotions made this one, and his reactions in this chapter were amazing. Bravo.
Awww, how nice!
And Twi better know how to put the phone back together afterwards
Officially faved for this one.
This is such a wonderfully pinkie moment.
After reading this all I can think of is those five years or protagonist must wait.
Five years is a freakishly long period to wait, in fact, it's only 2 years short of being declared dead in absentia or most likely shorter if his family petitions for him to be declared dead sooner.
To be missing and to return after 5 years would be extraordinary difficult to cope with as people like to move around over time and, although sometimes not the case, people just forget about missing persons. After about a year people will have somewhat coped with an outstanding loss, the missing person will be missed but they will have either moved on or will be still looking and hoping. After five years we can only assume only the most dedicated will be waiting and a majority of people will have moved along.
Assuming there is no time dilation between Equestria and Earth, the changes over five years would be substantial as in our modern world five years is a very long time as technology continues to grow and we would expect the globalized countries like the united states to have had some significant change along the way.
Even then returning home would also cause another drawback, relationships built over the five years of waiting will have to be forgotten and everything you experienced with them are but a memory as there is little to no chance of returning.
Unless a possibility to return in a year, maybe two, or pushing three is present; do not return unless prepared for the hardships of reinstating socially, and financially back into society. Doing so will be trying and unforgiving as the time missing will work against you at the beginning but after a few months of successfully reestablishing into society, the rest of the ride should be much smoother.
6786918
That'd be funny.
6786934 Fun part is that this is the name of one a Stars Without Number campaign im in. Yet none of thos definition truly fit the current game. A couple of them could however very loosely fit though. Mind and Body being seperate; Mind for player and Body for character. Sentient computing... Well there is AI's in SWN but we so far havn't run into any.
Liking the rituals so far.
6786934
I believe the main meaning is a glitch or odd behavior in a computer or machine that causes it to do weird things that it wasn't originally intended to do, and can't be reasonable explained by bad coding or manufacturing. These are usually bad or innocuous but sci fi writers like to think that they can lead to AI, like from I, Robot-
"There have always been ghosts in the machine . . . random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. . . . Why is it that when some robots are left in the dark they will seek the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space they will group together rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter moat of the soul?"
6820945
You know, while the second half could be a good argument, I just realized one of your arguments was citing another mythical creature, elves, in defense of another. Now I just think elves are unbelievable too. And really, the whole miscarriage/low fertility thing doesn't make much sense on an evolutionary stand point. The elves who were prone to all their children miscarrying would not be passing on their poor birthing rate onto the next generation for obvious reasons. The ones who got pregnant more often and didn't have all their children die, on the other hand, would be the driving force for their species progress.
Anyway, I'd imagine there would actually be an eventual cut-off point in the correlation between age and reproductive cycles. Humans are a great counter-argument against turtles after all. We can reproduce far faster than them, and our life spans are practically equal. Plus, sea turtles have a lot of young at a time even if most of them get picked off do to bad parenting.
Really, an extremely low birth rate just doesn't make much sense for a species because it limits population growth and potential for evolution. Ponies wouldn't be able to adapt worth shit if they were like the fictional elves... which could explain why they are so slow to advance technologically... hmm.
Anyway, you should have responded to my second comment on the subject, it had some more canon supported evidence that would have been much funner to see people attempt to refute.