Behind the Curtain
"Good start!" said Knoll, over a restaurant meal of apple pasta and something called "hay fries" that tasted like string beans.
Kai seemed especially interested in the food, buying some of everything with the obligatory loot they'd collected on the way down Mount Improbable. "Thanks for coming, Knoll. Or Noctis."
Alma said, "I guess everyone in town... ah, finally. Everyone knows what we did."
Knoll seemed to enjoy the French bread and apples as much as someone with only one body. He ate delicately with the levitation power of his horn, while the others stuffed themselves with their hooves and muzzles. "Just us, not the NPC villagers. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, miss Ratatosk. We weren't trying to snare you in this world the way the queen was trying to do."
"What was with that?" asked Kai. "You said she only just started the high-pressure recruitment? Seems like she's trying to build up her ego by having as many minds as possible on her server."
Knoll waggled a crust of bread in midair. "We -- Golden Scale, who you met -- helped a party of adventurers eight days ago with the Labyrinth of Night, the quest for the heart of the unicorn. That was a good fight! She didn't pull this year-long wager, though."
Alma asked, "How am I doing on time?" When Knoll looked it up by magic she said, "Still have a few hours before work. I need to get going and take a nap, though." She stood up from the pillow she'd been sitting on, and stretched her wings.
"You'll be back, though?" asked Knoll.
Alma bumped hooves with the druid unicorn. "I will."
#
She made it back through the portal to Ivory Tower. She gathered her clothes and turned to see Kai hop through, back in his centaur form.
"Sorry," he said. "I should've waited."
As usual, Alma's humanoid body was physically censored unless she was somewhere private and paying close attention. "Things really are different here," she said, and gave him a hug. "I wonder, does that weather-sense work outside Hoofland?"
"I doubt it'll work here," the centaur said, smiling down at her. "In Ivory Tower, I mean. The physics are simplistic outside some of the labs. If you'd like to explore some other places with better physics, though, I'd be happy to come along."
"Sounds fun."
#
Alma dreamed of a fire burning the world below her. She was clinging to a tree but it was falling too, while a battle raged between giants and robots. She shifted forms between her old human self, the squirrel body, and thumbless pegasus. Only her winged form could keep her from slipping down the burning tree, falling closer to the abyss of war and flame. At last she lost control of which one she was, and she fell.
#
The lingering nightmare rattled her all day at work, teaching a class on Earth via robotics. The Hoofland trip convinced her even more that it was stupid to stand in a classroom tent and pretend she was just another educator with the handicap of having had her everything replaced. She should be more than the human she'd been.
When she was done for the day, she hung out at Kai's bar as usual and checked the news. Since she was experiencing time at only around a third normal speed while not teaching, it was tough to keep up.
Eight days. What happened since then? Alma flipped through a computer tablet (air-gapped for security, basically just narrating the data on a real computer somewhere) and checked a few news sites for the last week's headlines.
Six days ago: "AI Cold War? Key US surveillance opponent resigns; path clear for new bill."
A few anti-surveillance politicians had resigned for "health reasons" or had scandals chase them out in the last few decades, but usually they didn't get elected at all. Why, it was as though the remaining United States had some sort of agency operating above the law and commanding the world's largest blackmail operation, now AI-assisted!
"Anything interesting?" said Kai, sliding a burger and fries across the counter to her.
Alma gnawed, wondering if she should stop picking herbivore species. "What if Queen Nightmare Moon --"
"All hail Nightmare Moon!" said Kai and that kid Phoenix, who Alma hadn't noticed over in a corner. A few other patrons looked confused.
"Quit that," Alma said. "Anyway, what if she changed policy because she's worried about the news?" She showed Kai the article, and another she'd found about a rumored spy/hacker struggle between the three great AIs.
Kai mixed a drink, a form of meditation for him. "What good would it do to recruit more people to be ponies? More faction politics to show Hoofland should be a bigger part of this world?"
"The queen wanted me stored on Hoofland's servers, and she wanted me to get my mind changed. Superficial feather-brain stuff at least, more invasive think-like-a-pony stuff preferably. Seemed like the goal was about more than racking up points by being declared best pony."
"You're seeing patterns that aren't there," Kai said. "You took a vacation and still managed to worry about stuff. Haven't even seen you try to wrangle more magic out of it yet."
"Oh! You're right about that." Alma conjured her magic interface and saw that she'd qualified for another element upgrade, despite Hoofland's disconnect from the rest of Talespace. She spent several happy minutes browsing the words and phrases that hovered around her to represent her recent experiences.
Kai watched her waving her hands in the air and staring at invisible things. "Didn't know you were so into shopping."
She stuck out her tongue at him. "I'm shopping for superpowers." She finally upgraded her element of "Arrow" to "Velocity", making the brown arrow mark on her fur slide up to her lower leg and turn her choice of color, a pleasant blue. "So now I should be able to keep the stone-hurling spell, and if I earn 'Self' I can combine that with 'Velocity' to move faster, and now I have a first-level element slot free to get 'Self' somehow."
"Magic nerd," said Kai with a smile.
"Yes." Alma ate. Her thoughts drifted back to Hoofland, though. "What Nightmare Moon said..." She waited.
"All hail Nightmare Moon!" said Kai and the kid.
"...Mentioned how Hoofland is all about 'popularity, in a sense'. Everybody's been thinking about how AIs are designed to 'satisfy human values', but with different definitions of that. The pony world is weird because it isn't run directly by an AI, just Nobles who're really human."
"Is that good or bad?" Kai asked.
"Bad, I think. I don't want any human to have total power over us. We've got our own super-AI here, and you'd think she wouldn't allow that kind of tyranny by a human mind, in a world that's basically part of her domain. I don't get it."
"My maker values freedom enough to let you walk into a place where you might lose it."
That explanation didn't quite satisfy Alma. Not when Hoofland attracted people like Poppy, who were looking for a new religion for this new digital life. Alma sent Poppy an e-mail that'd reach her in whatever fantasy forest she was in, talking about her quest success and her speculation.
A reply came soon: "Muffins! Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Get over here to Hooflands East, by the airship dock. If we're not on the same page: think 'literal genie'."
Alma set down her computer and stared at it. "Muffins. I need to go."
Kai said, "What's wrong?"
"We might be way off base, here, but I want to compare notes. You can turn pegasus again, right?"
#
Alma and Kai crossed the cavern of Ivory Tower, looking this time for the portal to the sun-themed side of Hoofland. The entryway stood bright and cheerful with its horseshoe-shaped gate and wooden lockers decorated with hearts.
"How much do you know about Old Norse religion?" Alma asked.
"Burn, pillage, rape?"
"I'll give you a history lesson sometime. Anyway, that culture had an unusually detailed doomsday prophecy, and it gave humans an active role instead of suffering while angels tortured them."
"That much I've heard. Valhalla." There was an independent military contractor using uploading for its little robot army, and a substantial group of people 'playing' at soldiering in Talespace, both using the Norse name for warrior heaven.
"Yes, but there were actually two paradise realms like that, run by different gods, connected to other worlds within a larger universe. Sound familiar?"
"You're saying Hoofland is secretly a military training camp?"
"Not exactly. Come on." Alma jumped through the portal, and landed on four hooves.
#
You have discovered Hooflands East, said friendly lettering in her vision, and a fanfare played.
The sun shined on a cartoonish magical land of fields and villages where everything was wholesome and healthy and it seemed nothing bad could ever happen. Alma's first clue should have been that the old cartoons let this land get ravaged by tyrants and monsters several times per season. Only the ponies' friendship and courage kept the place from becoming a hellhole of meaningless chaos or a ruin of grey crystals and slave camps, as the show itself often hinted.
Poppy had dismissed Hoofland as a proper basis for a religion in favor of helping to start another, but it did have some aspects well-suited for that. "She wrote it off as childish," Alma said. "It's easy to do that and ignore what's underneath. Where is this airship dock?"
Kai poked Alma's chin with one hoof and nudged her to look straight up. A city made of clouds towered overhead, surrounded by colorful pegasi and waterfalls of mist and rainbows. Ships like vast wooden whales rested at horizontal anchor next to an aerial dockyard. Too high to reach from the ground... no. The sky lived. Wisps of fog lurked under the town and the winds around it were magically charged and directed into a braid of rising currents that touched the little clouds and moved on upward. "It's practically a staircase!"
Kai waved a hoof in front of her face. "Are we meeting Poppy there?"
Alma blinked a few times. "Yes. I hope so." She leaped into the air to find the updraft and greet it.
The winds carried her aloft, turning and setting her down on clouds well before her wings got too tired. When she concentrated a certain way she could see an energy meter representing far more air time than she'd had before. Kai flew after her, but quickly had to make an emergency glide down. Alma called to him from the lowest stairway-to-heaven cloud. "What's wrong?"
"I'd forgotten! I never did the pegasus quest like you since I never spent much time in Hoofland. I've got some kind of grandfathered flight power, but not enough to follow you."
Alma sighed. "Sorry. Mind if I go on and meet her, then?"
"Tell me what this is about, first."
She jumped from the cloud and spiraled down to earth. "I doubt it's urgent, but Poppy and I seem to be onto the same idea. The Hooflands are a lifeboat."
Kai looked skeptical. "A cute, cartoon emergency backup server network?"
"You're dismissing the idea. That's why it works. Hold on; I want to grab Poppy."
Alma took off again, eager to be airborne, and bounded up through the windy spiral. The air stirred her mane and tail and helped her swirl ever higher until she lost track of the ground or the rules of flying, only thinking to tag the landing-clouds with her hooves and rise again. Then there were no more updrafts, just a flying hill of clouds with buildings like cave-dwellings and Roman temples.
Poppy met her at the docks. "Way better than unicorn magic, right?"
Alma hardly spared a glance at the red-and-orange stallion. "The unicorns and earthbound must get something impressive to make up for not getting to do what I just did. Oh! Kai is below. I hate to suggest it, but we should talk with him down there."
Poppy glanced uneasily at the world below the clouds. "If you don't mind, this is something best discussed between ex-humans, in this world where we're not being watched much. Have you tried cloud-cakes yet? There's a cafe with private rooms." He pointed one wing toward a wispy cloud bank that radiated a smell of sugar, as though it was made of cotton candy.
Alma was glad to have become immune to diabetes. "Kai is my friend. What is there to hide from him?"
Poppy herded her toward the cafe. "I'm sorry. He's a native AI, and I'm just not sure we should blab about this. But I have to talk about it to someone."
Alma sighed. "Have you at least got enough cleric powers to send him a message not to stand there waiting?"
"Yes. Watch." Poppy found a random pegasus and tossed a gold coin to him, saying, "Mind telling the peggy who's waiting below the stairs that Ratatosk and Poppy will be away for a little while?" The stranger saluted and flew away with the coin.
"How'd you do that so easily?"
"Background pony. You learn to spot them."
In the cafe, Alma sat with Poppy on bare clouds with a plaid picnic blanket between them, covered with delicious wispy pancakes. "So," Alma said, once the novelty of pouring liquified rainbows as syrup had ceased to fascinate her. "Literal genie, you said. You mean the theory about the other AIs that are supposed to 'satisfy human values'?"
"Yes. Our AI overlord is mostly sane. China's is nationalistic, but not the sort that'll disassemble the Earth for materials because somebody told it to maximize spork production. The American one, though, was made with Good Intentions. It was an attempt to bolt 'Friendly AI' theory onto a mass surveillance system and to fight other AIs, and to have it be ultimately under human control. Like making a chainsaw with just enough intelligence to understand that it should help whoever's holding it cut lots of things."
Alma nibbled a cloudcake and peered skeptically at Poppy. Team Ludo claimed the US' supercomputer was dangerously insane, but it hadn't launched nukes yet or anything of the sort -- unless, as was fairly likely, it was secretly behind the wave of terrorist attacks last year on Ludo's systems.
Alma said, "Let me see if you're getting at the same thing I'm thinking. If that AI is nuts, it's trying to satisfy human values, which include things like violent domination and strife. It doesn't want humans to have a secure and happy life. So, tucked away in one corner of this virtual universe where we can laugh it off, there's a magical land of cartoon horses who are outside any rival AI's control. Who are, increasingly, different from humans even beyond the fact that they're digital minds now. So they're not valid targets for hurting."
The stallion nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly. If the other AIs destroy the rest of our world -- and I mean even so far as nuking the Earth -- they can leave Hoofland alone and still follow their programming."
"There was a thing..." Alma flapped, trying to recall. "In the story of Ragnarok, all the cool Vikings would die heroically in the last battle along with the gods themselves, but the world wouldn't end. There'd be a hidden place in the heavens called... Gimle."
Poppy paled. "I'd hardly gotten the Ragnarok connection. I was thinking mostly about the mental changes. But there happens to be a type of magic armor that some ponies play with. Covers almost your whole body, has weird restrictions on joint movement. Suppose it's modeled conveniently on a type of real-world battle robot, and we're learning to pilot it without even knowing?"
"This just keeps getting better," said Alma. "But Nightmare Moon was hinting at me about this from when she started calling me Ratatosk. Was that deliberate, or was she just thinking about the apocalypse when it was time to give me a name?"
"She was testing you," said a newcomer stepping through the cloudy wall.
Poppy fell to her front knees, such as they were. Alma only stared at the radiant white-winged unicorn who stood twice their height with a mane that shimmered like a summer morning. A sun design, much like Poppy's, marked her flanks. A golden crown and regalia decorated her already-regal body.
"Your majesty!" said Poppy.
Queen Celestia favored her cleric with a smile that would lift the darkest of moods. "Fear not. I sensed your distress, my faithful student. What may I do for you?"
Poppy stammered, "I... I was worried, your highness. Because of the mental changes, and Alma here, and what Queen Nightmare Moon was doing."
"May I read your recent memories?"
Alma tried to object, but Poppy nodded and the queen's horn glowed a soft white. Celestia said, "I see. It is exactly as you deduce, little ones. Clever of you."
Poppy stood straighter and held her wings slightly out. "What should we do?"
"Poppy!" Alma hopped between the two of them and glared into the queen's serene eyes. "Whatever read/write access you're using on her brain, cut it out."
The queen raised one eyebrow. "Poppy knows you as a restless one, Ratatosk, and jealous of your independence. It must have been hard to agree to upload."
Poppy poked Alma's tail. "She doesn't control me. The queen is my friend and teacher."
"But you treat her like a god."
Celestia turned her smile on Alma, and even the unbelieving pegasus felt how easy it would be to trust her in all things. The queen said, "I am a Noble. I have that effect on ponies. You know that I'm not infallible or invincible, though. I use no mental compulsion."
Alma looked back and forth between the white unicorn and Poppy. "Why test me?"
"With only a hint, as an outsider, you deduced the 'Gimle' aspect of Hoofland. So did Poppy, through somewhat different logic. Others, then, will realize it too before long. That answers a question we Nobles had been worried about: when will the world see past our facade? Which leaves another question: What will you do with this knowledge?"
Alma stepped away. "You can't erase my memory of this. I agreed to nothing."
"Indeed."
Alma blinked. "Indeed? I could blab about this to the world and you'd let me?"
"Would you prefer I threaten to call down the sun's wrath in earnest? With my powers I could reduce your perception of time until you were imprisoned for weeks, but I would answer for the injustice of it."
Poppy said, "Your majesty, Ratatosk wasn't here for the revolution. She doesn't understand how hard we worked to build something wholesome. I... just didn't expect it'd be a cover for something so grim as a digital fallout shelter."
One of the cloudcakes levitated off of the plate and into the queen's maw. She gulped it down. "Tell me, Ratatosk: In stories, why are elves so passive and stagnant?"
Alma said, "They're supposed to be an ideal of beauty, at least for white Europeans. Elusive, eternal, and in touch with nature in a way that real people never were. But they can't change or they risk losing that." She paused. "Are you saying ponies are like elves?"
"In a way." She lifted one hoof. "We're based partly on an animal that humans love, and partly on a dream made to delight children. This virtual world is designed to be even more wondrous. I personally had my mind and body altered to become a living embodiment of light, hope, joy and virtue. Not that I always live up to it, mind you." She swiped another cloudcake.
The alicorn queen was every trope of surreal beauty for a fantasy creature, from her slowly waving and shimmering mane to her bright, large eyes and slender legs. Alma said, "If you're a queen of fairyland, evolved to match a human ideal, doesn't that make it all the more jarring that you're using the Hooflands this way?"
"You noted that the American AI -- named FAE, ironically -- reads human nature as a set of needs for satisfaction and control and strife. You came here ready to believe that the Hooflands would hold some terrible secret, because happiness and beauty are a distant ideal that you can never have." Celestia stamped the cloudy floor. "A lie, in other words. Part of you thinks you deserve to be unhappy."
Ridiculous. Alma was no masochist, and "deserving" meant nothing without context. She was just someone who wanted to be responsible, to always have something worthwhile to do, because otherwise she was useless. Stagnation was death. In other words, struggle drove her.
"I see the thinking in your eyes," said Celestia, giving her time to respond.
Alma said, "What has that got to do with the Hooflands being used this way?"
The queen spread her wings and filled the room with light. Alma averted her eyes to fight Celestia's attempt to use raw beauty on her. The unicorn didn't seem to mind. "If you won't look at me, then consider: I'm a former human, who could have a very pleasant life managing Hoofland. Why did I join a conspiracy to save human souls on Earth? If I were driven by 'duty to society' I would have enough ponies to rule right here. If I were driven by 'the need to be useful', again I do quite enough. Instead, well... Poppy, why do I do this?"
The red pegasus said, "Because becoming a true pony means giving up those parts of human nature. The shame of looking ridiculous, the lust to rule others, the gluttony of wanting what we can't enjoy. That's what we were trying to overcome when I left the Hooflands behind, wasn't it?"
Alma opened her eyes and focused on Poppy. "So, it's reasonable to turn living humans into digital ponies and rewrite their brains in the hopes of surviving a hacker and/or nuclear war, because you're so enlightened you can be happy about it?"
Celestia laughed, and her wings wriggled with the moment of humility. "See, Poppy? I think a lack of ponies like Ratatosk is why you left. We need somepony to pop the ego balloon once in a while. Ratatosk, that's about right. We're no longer fully human, so we can be more like what we wish humans were. The reason we're not stagnant is that we kept joy. True ponies still want to make things and improve the world, but not because they're afraid anymore. I challenge you to read our literature and tell me its beauty is empty and inferior to what humans with all their darkness can do."
Alma had struggled with her teaching job, because as a digital mind inhabiting a robot she was less effective than a regular human. She'd been trying to think up ways to take full advantage of her new nature, to be more than human instead of a human with a handicap. The 'true pony' mental changes were a way to do that, regardless of whether they came with a silly cartoon body. "Poppy, you're really like this inside? You don't feel any jealousy or the like?"
"I never accepted the soul-surgery our queen is talking about," said Poppy, hanging her head. "I flew away when it became possible. Your majesty, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. And don't feel that you must accept it today. I will always be here for you, even if our silly game of monarchy falls apart and I become just another pony."
Poppy's squirrel cult in the greater Talespace world was a secondhand attempt at what she'd been offered in Hoofland, then. Cultural changes without deep, soul-altering mental ones. There was some sense to the ponies' desire to change themselves so deeply, even aside from the threat of a rogue AI. Alma said, "But you do still have kingdoms and tribalism and revolutions."
Celestia nodded. "The best parts of those things, yes. When you play violent games, do you include the gore and screaming and gravestones? No. You experience fun and excitement and consciously choose the light without the darkness. With apologies to Queen Nightmare Moon."
In folklore, fairies or fae or Fair Folk were unnerving because their glory was an illusion, a hollow mockery of human culture. The ponies claimed to be deeper than that.
Alma said, "All right, all right. I see there's a logical connection between mental changes and defense against sadistic AI. But what about these pony robots you apparently have? If you're going to help people in the real world, Earthside, your ponies will need to deal with a world where blood and tombstones do exist. Will they be able to cope with that, and will they be so alien that they kill people while wearing a smile of self-satisfied joy?"
"They're not exactly pony robots, and we have few so far. That's beside the point. The real answer is, I'm not completely sure. Carry the rumors as you see fit, Ratatosk. Talk with ponies, get to know them and their works, and tell me whether my breed of post-humans is really suitable for living on Earth outside of little elven enclaves."
Alma knew too little. There were worlds to explore, books to read, friends to meet. Celestia's question about 'true ponies' applied just as well to native AIs, including individuals like Kai and collectives like Noctis; would they be useful on Earth? "I don't feel like this is a new quest you're offering me," said Alma. "I'm already looking for similar answers."
The queen smiled. "Go with my blessing, in any case. Thank you for a lovely discussion; the other Nobles and I will take it into account as the concept of a pony species and shelter inevitably leaks. Lastly: Would you like to receive the true heart of a pony? Or to have your mind permanently transferred to Hoofland's servers, in case something terrible happens?" She looked also at Poppy. "This goes for you too, of course. Neither of you need commit today."
Alma feared the sudden annihilation of her world, but she'd lived in the shadow of nuclear war for six decades. She wasn't as easily herded to safety as someone younger might be. The real questions were whether to try now to become better than human... and the unstated idea of living under the rule of an equine queen.
She said, "Right now I'm ruled by the Ludo AI. I accepted that because she's not human and doesn't seem capable of abusing her power over me, much. With you I'm less sure; no offense. I think that you, Nightmare Moon and I can be friends for now, if that's all right with you." She offered her hoof.
Celestia bumped it. "I'd like that. What about you, Poppy?"
The red pegasus closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "I'm still not ready, your majesty. I was caught off guard by the bigger picture of the Hooflands' purpose, and I'm involved in the Great Oak movement now."
"Very well, though I believe your squirrelly faith and mine are compatible. In fact, before long we may not be speaking in terms of 'true ponies' so much as 'enhanced humans', who happen to come from this little dream but wear many sorts of bodies."
#
Alma returned to Kai's bar to apologize for leaving him out of the meeting. It felt strange to shuttle between two legs and four, and to be back in squirrel form without her wings. She told him everything.
Kai poured two drinks and threw back one himself. "Being a cartoon horse isn't just a matter of taste, then. No more so than Poppy's squirrel thing. There's more hidden behind it."
Alma swirled the beer around in her mug, and drank. "'Higher up and farther in'. Now I need to read some pony-written literature to see whether they get reality well enough to trust."
"Are you thinking about the mind change, then?"
Alma nodded. "Maybe soon. Once I figure out whether it's reversible, and whether I just got fast-talked into being impressed by nonsense. At best I doubt it's the only way to become a better person. Still, there might be some merit in it. We humans have had the same flaws for as long as we've had records. Maybe we can fix them now."
Kai said, "Remodeling your moral system is a bigger deal than the smell/taste upgrade I got you. That was just a bug fix."
"Yeah. I need to research this." She thought of her Earthside job again. "We need to become better than what we are."
"Why? That same sense of duty the queen was complaining about?"
Alma drank and sighed. "It's not that, nor selfishness. I don't think putting yourself first is bad, mind you. Call me Chaotic Neutral. I see problems out there on Earth and I want to fix them, because I can imagine the world getting better and it won't happen unless people work for it. So, this world is my home now but I want to keep interacting with Earth to protect us, and to help the people who're still there."
Kai listened to all this with forced patience; she could see it in the slant of his ears. "You humans are complicated, you know? I just want to make great things and make sure the world doesn't get destroyed."
A smile stretched across Alma's muzzle. "Nothing wrong with that. Say, uh..." She tapped her mug with one claw, avoiding his eyes, then forced herself to look up at him. "Getting used to this life means trying new things and not being afraid, right? I was wondering... well, you've been exploring more than me. Think we could go somewhere new, together?"
Kai's ears lifted again and he put one big hand atop hers. "I don't think I need to read your mind to see what you're getting at. Yes, I think I'd like that."
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I really love reading your stories, because you manage actual humanism in transhumanist literature really well. This is a great elaboration on the themes to read, especially with Creepy Forced Into It aspects sidelined and larger stuff in the setting than just ponies.
6790972 You got a complete novel out? That's really impressive, well done! Is it self-published?
7021568
Eeyup. "Tales" is a full novel while "Reconnection" is only a novella. I'm trying to heavily revise a fantasy novel from a few years ago, and somehow finish a "Tales" sequel/side-story novel I'm having trouble with, too.
7023376 Great, so how did it get published?
7024766
Self-published through Amazon's CreateSpace system, so it's in print and e-book form. I continue to struggle with marketing the thing though. Apparently there's a whole literary subgenre called "LitRPG" about people playing/living in video game worlds.
7034611 Everything's been done before, and not just once, eh?
Good luck with your book.
7085271
I really wrote "hands"? Oof! Thanks for reading though.
So, there's nothing to write about the clash of giant mecha ponies battling cyclopean horrors from an insane overmind? There are no stories about the lives of ponies huddled on their carefully isolated servers, trying to save everyone they can as world after online world begins to go dark? Ponies fighting their programming, trying to figure out what really is the best way to be a pony, in a process frought with error and hubris?
Not saying you have to write any of this stuff, not by a long shot. I just wanted to point out that there are still pony related things to write about this. (It's a curse really. For instance, what little I write that isn't pony related has no audience, because even if people would read it, they only come here. But as long as there remains pony to write about, people don't even have to think about how they've been leashed.)
7829573
Thanks for reading!
I wrote "Learning To Fly" after this one, and was disappointed in it because it went off on this "morality upgrade" plot along with the one about conquering the world from griefers, and I had no idea how to handle those well. I'd like to salvage that one in some way. As for the danger of servers going dark, I just now finished a story called "2040: Burning Forever" that begins with an upload server farm burning down. The residents aren't ponies specifically though; they're at a firm that's a competitor to the better-run but more expensive Talespace system that has the ponies.
7846622
Oh, you know, I usually check if there are other stories first, but this time I must have forgot...
> burning forever
That sounds... so awful.
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That one hasn't got any ponies, so I can't post it here. It's certainly darker than most of the setting, but it begins with someone trying to do a good thing: make uploading tech cheap enough that it's available to all. In my canon it's still something like six figures in today's dollars, even after several years of R&D, so the lady who runs the unfortunately named "Forever Hearth" uploading company cuts so many corners that there's inadequate backups and fire safety. I also wanted to wrap up several other plot threads where characters had lobbied for uploading of mentally disabled people (to try fixing their minds) and prisoners (to get rid of them), and neither proposal had gotten formally approved yet. I have a finished rough draft but it's a mess that touches on not just the trial of the Hearth company's CEO but the whole future of how uploading should be taxed and regulated along with robot/AI/uploader labor. Messy! My plan now is to try doing a short story just about the trial, then rethink the larger story and simplify the conflict even at the cost of making it more black-and-white than it really is.
Interesting...
I kinda like these stories because I can actually see that sort of thing happening. It's more likely we'd get the spork one, but I can hope. :D
I like to think that the show's setting is actually something along those lines or the remnants of uber-tech along the lines of sufficiently advanced science with an intuitive interface and written into the genome.
Well this was super hecking cool. Love this great sci-fi setting and the themes involved.