My Little Engineer

by Soren Mercer

Dinner and a Show?

---

Pilot’s Log

Date: 01/05/2406 18:26

---

My table, which while being called small by the welder’s blueprint system, was still large enough to seat at least eight humans. That being said, four ponies and myself shouldn’t be enough to fill the table with various foodstuffs. So how is it possible that since everything I was going to eat sat under two domes, the entirety of the rest of the table was not only decked out in a table cloth but had been adorned with everything from flowers in a vase, candles and every form of equestrian food available to the mares. Table set for royalty I suppose.

“Thank you for having us.” Celestia announced, taking to using the Griffic Language as Luna was. Twilight and Sunset were both stuck with relying on their language and as such had to be translated into text for me. I had set up a small datapad resting on a makeshift stand that I had hand welded without the use of blueprints set up at the end of the table for myself whenever the smallest ponies spoke.

“It’s my pleasure. If I’m to eat at regular intervals, might as well eat with Royalty, right?” I nodded back and took a pull from a bottle of some random ale I didn’t hate. Setting the bottle back down on the table I sat forward and set my folded hands on the table before me while the mares all surveyed their own spread. “I must ask though, going off what I see before you all, what’re your opinions of omnivores?”

“They’re a natural way of life for many of the species living in Equestria and beyond. If you are worried that you being an omnivore and partaking of the consumption of meat will put us off or offend us, you’re mistaken.” Twilight explained casually as she and her own began dealing their dishes out. With a shrug, I proceeded to pull the cover off my Caesar salad and set to eating in peace with the others.

“While I wasn’t very worried about that, given that I don’t know what my meal is made of; I just know it’s not actually meat so there’s nothing to worry about.” I remarked once my mouth had been emptied into the pit that was my stomach.

“Then there is nothing to concern yourself with. If whatever you’re eating isn’t really meat, then there won’t be an issue even if we were to be offended.” Twilight remarked through snacking on her own salad. “I am a bit curious about what your food is actually made of if it all comes from the same source.”

“I prefer not to thinking about it, actually.” I mumbled back and took a drink of the ale. “Since yes, all my food and drink comes from the same source, I prefer not to try and imagine what it’s all synthesized from.” I smirked with the fork hanging from my lips before pulling the metal item from between my teeth to properly consume my appetizer. “So, how’s things going on out there? Ponies getting settled?”

“Indeed, it seems that most of the new townsponies have established the land they need for their tasks. With Twilight’s and Sunset’s help, they’ve all managed to coordinate themselves and no pony has more land than they need at the moment. Everyone has equal shares.” Luna reported with content, giving Twilight a pat on the back with a hoof while her fork hovered in the air in her magic.

While Luna was out getting her own for dinner, I had taken to applying a coat of dark green paint over the building to make it look less uninviting. I was still somewhat confused how the welder painted things but I’d learned in basic training not to question the multiple uses of the welder and so left the question alone. I had also, upon seeing the candles, lowered the brightness settings of the lights in the room, just enough that while the table was well lit through the combined effort of the candles and the ceiling lights while the rest of the room remained fairly dark.

“Sounds like we’ve turned to a communist community. At least maybe Socialist.” Sunset groaned and stabbed at her dinner. I chuckled in reply and worked to finish off my salad before sitting back for a couple minutes and work on my libation.

“Well, I told you it would happen before we could move to a proper economy. We’ll just have to deal with sharing everything for a little while until I get the first Refinery and Assembler going. Then we’ll also need to get the mine actually going and mine out the Silver…” I said in attempts to be helpful but I ended up just going back to the to do list in my mind that kept reminding me of how much we still had to do to reach any milestone.

“Regardless, It’s going to be a while. Isn’t it?” Celestia sighed and pushed aside her empty plate to switch out for whatever main course had been prepared for the ponies. “How much longer till you and the work force can begin mining?”

“I have to weld the Refinery together since it’s nothing but a frame with parts scattered on the floor. At that point ponies can begin the digging process.” I explained and rested both elbows on the table. I know it was rude to do so but hopefully no one would-

“It’s rude to rest your forelegs on the table, you know?” Twilight noted from behind her cup of tea, glaring at me from over the rim. I glared back.

“Not in my culture.” I lied, “It’s perfectly acceptable to rest one’s elbows on the table during conversation. Since I am not eating at the moment, it’s fine.” I hid a small smirk behind my clasped hands, the bottle of my drink hanging from my right under my left.

“This is still a dinner table at the moment, please remove your elbows.” Twilight requested, looking at me with disapproval as she set her teacup back down on it’s saucer to continue picking at her appetizer.

“Please…” A ghostly whisper of a woman’s voice repeated, echoing from deeper into the room. There was absolutely no way for anything to have gotten into my shelter without either going through the airlock or without anyone at the table having noticed. “...move… So… Dark…”

“Uhm, who’s that?” Luna inquired as everyone’s head swivelled around towards the darkest parts of the room, everything that was still stone wall and the Processing Facility behind that. “Where is that coming from?”

“Please… Dark…” the female voice whispered again as a light breeze began to stir the candle lights and the manes and hair of those whose manes weren’t already in motion. “...one… save…”

“Show yourself!” Twilight demanded, casting some kind of spell that sparked a small orb of blue light from her horn. The orb then was launched from the tip of the magical tool and fired off towards the far wall to rest and shine light on everything. “Who’s there?”

“...Must… be freed…” the voice whispered again, sounding desperate however the echoes soon gradually faded into nothing and the breeze died down to nothing once again.

“I don’t suppose there were legends that these mountains were at once point some kind of native burial ground, are there?” Sunset wandered, her eyes wide with fright and sitting noticeably closer to Twilight.

“Of course not, not in a thousand years have there been any tales of hauntings in this mountain range.” Luna announced warily, her lovely blue eyes searching the light before the orb faded away into mist. “I’m sure there have been no similar tales in my absence.”

“Not that I’m aware of… No.” Twilight replied calmly, but her eyes too searched the darkness before giving up. Turning to address me, “You had a habit of making personalities of your machines while on your ship, right? Is there any possibility-”

I held a hand up to stop the small pony’s suggestion. “There is no way any of my equipment would have developed even a Virtual Intelligence level awareness. It’s not scientifically possible. As for Vinyl, she’s still deactivated and sitting in her storage unit until I can find something safe to upload her into.” I had set my nearly empty bottle down on the table during the whispering and instead opted to exchange it for a new drink at the machine behind me.

As I stood at the machine making an order, “What if it was somehow Vinyl?” Sunset suggested, freezing my hands. Frankly, I was quite worried that Vinyl was becoming an Artificial Intelligence after all and a simple storage unit would not be enough to hold her down in that case. It wasn’t shielded properly and would let her leak out if she was strong enough. “You all have to admit, it did kind of sound like her.”

“I suppose, but she sounded weak, as though she wasn’t entirely there.” Celestia remarked with that same sound of concern in her voice that I was feeling tightening up my chest.

“That’s impossible,” I took a heavy breath and let it out slowly to approach the table with a bottle of Racnid Original Draught. “Vinyl is a VI, she wouldn’t have the strength to breach her storage unit.”

“But, she told me she’s not a VI anymore…” Sunset announced, looking at me in confusion. “I’ll admit she’s not sure what she is when she was turned off, but she knows she’s not just a VI anymore.”

“So, she’s becoming something else? Maybe an Intelligence all of her own? How exciting!” Twilight beamed with energy, no longer phased by the spooky events that had just transpired.

“No, that’s bad. If she’s becoming an AI then she needs to be deleted. Artificial Intelligence is a Class Four crime, punishable by eradication for being in possession of an AI. You all may not have the same laws, but it’ll only be a matter of time before she’s found out and I’ll be punished.” I announced firmly, sitting down hard at my seat to take a pull on the bottle. Setting that down shortly after pulling it from my lips, I made the purposeful motion of moving my main course in front of me and pulled the lid off to set aside.

“How exactly would any of your law enforcement know that an AI was developing or even around?” Luna looked worried for my safety if the penalty was as severe as she thought it could be.

“I don’t know the specifics, no one does. All anyone in the Galactic Human Alliance knows is that if an AI is ever detected, through whatever means the Enforcers have, a whole platoon of the Intergalactic Police will show up in mass and hunt down the source.” I explained, looking directly at the ponies before me with my fork and knife in my hands. “They are ruthless, they don’t care about anything but the creature they’re hunting. If you’re unfortunate enough to be found with an AI in your possession then you’re executed on the spot. Judge, jury and executioner all at the same time. Try to stop them, even if you’re not their target, and you’re eradicated too.”

“That’s horrible! Have they no regard for life or the laws of local worlds?” Sunset announced, stamping a hoof on the table to get the various metal pieces to clink against the metal of the tabletop despite the tablecloth. I shook my head and cut into the thing that was the chicken.

“They’re bred and born to enforce Intergalactic Law and nothing else.” I remarked and set into my plate. I’d had previous run ins with the IPF in the past when they were hunting a creature that had been hiding between dimensions and had emerged to feed for the next hundred galactic cycles.

“Then is all we can do for Vinyl to delete her? Can’t we hide her or send her away to safety?” Twilight asked, looking fretful over the potential that a brutal force like the IPF would show up out of the blue and terrorize the continent.

“No, the only thing we can do is delete her before she gains true awareness. Delete her while she’s still confused. We can’t hide her, they’ll find her no matter where we put her. We can’t send her away, that’ll just make it easier for them to find her and trace her back to me.” I stared down Twilight and Sunset, the both of them looking quite depressed that they’d lose a source of information and intelligence like Vinyl because of Intergalactic Law.

“What if she’s not an actual AI? Can’t you stop her from turning into one?” Luna looked into my eyes for any kind of hope but found nothing.

“Artificial Intelligence isn’t something that the Galactic Community knows how to prevent. It’s banned across almost all planes of reality so no one knows how to stop or reverse the process. The only thing we can do is destroy it before it fully develops.”

“But, I can’t just give up on Vinyl! She trusts me! We can figure something out!” Sunset shouted angrily, now on all four. “We can’t just delete her!”

“It’s too late!” I shouted back, remaining seated but startling the females at the table. “I should have deleted her when she started making notes about liking the ‘pretty blue one!’”

“She said that?” Luna gave a hint of a small smile, obviously missing the point. “Well, I'm honoured!”

“Don’t be, she has since changed her mind before I deactivated and stored her.” I replied with a lower tone of voice to try and calm myself down.

“Oh…” Luna’s head dropped and her eyes grew downcast in disappointment before returning to her meal. Celestia took the silence in the room as the cue to join the rest of us in eating, as did Twilight while Sunset remained apprehensive about deleting her new friend.

“Look,” I began a few minutes of relative silence later. “I don’t want to do it either. Vinyl’s been with me since I was shipped out over three hundred years ago. Frankly, she should have another half millennia before she should even have begun threatening to evolve herself so I don’t know what’s happened to her.”

“You don’t suppose… It was my fault she’d begun evolving so quickly, do you?” Sunset looked up at me with the makings for waterworks. She was quickly surrounded by the princesses in a large hug with aims to calm her down.

“Since we the galactic community don’t know anything about this planet, I can't say. We do have planets that’re listed too dangerous for a VI to be around for whatever reasons, so it’s entirely possible that this would be a similar planet. My best guess would be your magic.”

“So if we took Vinyl off planet before she evolves? Could that stop her from becoming an AI?”

“No.” I shook my head in firm reply, a chunk of chicken and pasta on my fork hanging from my fingertips. “She’s already begun the evolutionary process. It’s too late for her now.”

“Since you said that your galactic community doesn’t know about our planet, is it possible that the Intergalactic Police won’t find her until we reach space?” Celestia questioned as she too searched for a non-lethal option.

“They’re the Intergalactic Police. My community may not know about this planet but they have working records of planet’s billions of lightyears away from us. They’re the only ones alongside the Wardens who’re rumoured to have mapped out the known Universes.” I announced, dropping not only the jaws of two, but the hopes of saving their friend for the others.

“Universes? As in, plural of Universe?” Twilight raised an incredulous eyebrow and dropped her fork to the plate under it.

“Yes, as in plural of universe. The Wardens are the oldest recorded race who mostly stick to themselves. They’re billions of years old and as such have had technology still only found in fiction. The IPF are the next oldest race in our known universe with the closest similar technology. The IPF are still many millions of years younger than the Wardens and millions of years older than every race registered under the Galactic Human Alliance.” I announced and took a bite of the food on my fork. Despite it being made up of I don’t want to know, it tasted like it looked and was pretty damn good.

“Only a couple hundred thousand years in our family and I thought we were an old race...” Luna mumbled under her breath, earning an agreeing nod from Celestia.

Everyone remained silent as they processed their new information and ate. The conversation eventually turned to other things more cheerful than our last topics and soon the Princesses all bid me farewell with Sunset the last to pass through the airlock. Cleaning up, I turned the lights in the Facility back up to full but with calmer bluer light to keep from immediately hurting my eyes.

Stepping into my room and locking the door behind me, the vents letting the purified air pass through to keep my room from growing stale, I dropped down on my bed and hit the lights in exhaustion.

“...Blue one… must not return…”

Comments

[Soren Mercer]

7606871 Regards to both of your comments:

The Pilot wasn't carrying anything resembling a weapon in his hands at the time that Pinkie approached him. He was carrying the ship's black box (Literally just a large black box) at the time with his weapon concealed in his backpack. Upon Pinkie's surprising arrival, he dropped the box and retrieved the rifle from his pack with help from his frame.

I do admit that my vocabulary can be fairly... limited at times and whenever I go searching around for a better word I end up spending half an hour researching Quantum Communication and the temperature of Nuclear Fusion. As for her rough behaviour waking Pinkie, that was most likely just a slip of my own personality into Twilight since I don't bother wasting time trying to be nice about waking people up with quiet voices and gentle nudges.

Her quick warming up to the suit, if I forgot to write it my apologies, was attributed to Celestia and Luna telling her to let him work on her.

Overall, because of how short I had expected this story to be and how short I still expect it to be, I do feel like I'm rushing myself to get through everything as quickly as possible so I can get back to my other projects. My apologies.

[Coranth]

Screw the intergalactic pigs! Keep Vinyl (Scratch?).

[Soren Mercer]

7606955 No, not Scratch. Not yet anyways... Maybe an encounter between the two? Could be funny in the future...

Addition: Oh, oh oh! What if Vinyl Scratch was Vinyl in a pony-like frame?

[NotSoWickedWitch]

7606882

Thank you for clearing that up, and I hope I didn't come off too bitter myself. ()

[Soren Mercer]

7607608 Ehh, in the end it's all constructive criticism.

[Dreadknight garen]

The elbows on the table thing triggered me, do some people actually get mad over something so stupid(

[Soren Mercer]

9835741
You would be surprised.