G6.3850: Not What You Think
Lucky got her reply the very next day. It came the same way it had before, as a loosely encoded message, though it had been sent by telegraph instead of the mail. She already had the Forerunner ready to help her—easy when she had a dictionary of Equestrian words. It was still just a matter of finding the misspellings, after all. But where she had sent only a comparatively short message, Twilight Sparkle had taken no such precaution, but sent pages and pages of what was (on the surface) to be utter nonsense.
Indeed, the message was an exceptionally detailed account of her five friends in Ponyville, as they traveled around solving various “friendship problems.” Meaningless drivel, but the words weren’t what she was looking for to begin with.
Twilight’s message was simple, nothing more than a radio frequency and a time. It did not say why she expected that frequency to be secure, or if there were any other precautions Lucky might have to take. The time was only a day away, requiring Martin and Mogyla’s involvement along with the Forerunner to get listening equipment in time. As for transmission, Olivia commanded they dispatch another drone to the north of Equestria, where it might add another layer to the persistent fiction of their presence there. This would mean a slight delay, since they would be signaling to the drone via laser-line, but it would do.
When the moment arrived, Twilight’s message did not come as verbal communication, but as simple pulses transmitted with the same encoding as the telegraph system—only over the air instead of a wire.
“She’s probably using a spark-gap transmitter,” Mogyla said, hunched over the screen. “She’s bleeding across half the spectrum. Lots of electricity… she must care about talking to you.” He seemed annoyed to have so many people crowding his sacred space—Olivia had come to listen, and Lightning Dust as well. A few others in Othar knew what she was doing, but she hadn’t wanted the whole room packed full. Too many voices would only have made it harder for her to figure out what she was going to say.
“Obviously.” Lucky rose up onto her hind legs, so she was at head-level with the upper screens. She had to admit, she was a little smug about how well she could use her biosleeve. Only Lightning Dust and Deadlight were better. Even Olivia watched her with envy when she accomplished basic tasks sans the struggle. “If she didn’t, she would’ve left it all secret. I’d never have found it if it wasn’t for her sending me there. Never would’ve learned Eglathrin, or seen what the ring was capable of.” She straightened. “What’s the transmission say?”
“Resolving it now.” Mogyla reached over to one of the screens, tilting it down and away from the rest. Forcing her to leave the area right behind him to see what was on it. She moved over to it, watching as the imperfect machine translation filled in.
“No, use Eoch,” she said, wings flapping about with her impatience. “Translate on another screen for you guys if you want. I want what she actually said.”
“Forgive me, sir,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm. The text returned to Eoch, and she could read Twilight’s simple message.
“I’m here,” it read. “Who am I talking to?”
Lucky grunted. “Can you pass me your keyboard?”
“No,” Olivia and Mogyla spoke at the same time, though only the latter explained himself. “No one touches my stuff. You tell me what you want to type, even if you have to do it letter by letter.”
“Forerunner, translate everything she says into English,” Olivia commanded. “It isn’t that we don’t trust you, Lucky. But I don’t trust you not to do something stupid.”
“Just my name,” she said. “Lucky Break.” She had to spell it out, so it went painfully slowly. Hopefully Twilight was still listening.
Twilight’s response took nearly five minutes. “It seemed unlikely you would get in. I hoped you would get the Crystal Empire interested in it—I might have been able to investigate it myself.”
“She’s clueless,” Olivia said, once Lucky read the translation aloud. “Sent you somewhere valuable without warning you not to go inside? Obviously, you were going to find a way.”
Lightning Dust walked slowly over to sit beside Lucky, watching the screen. She had picked up a few words of English during her time in Othar, but mostly the crew had been using her to practice their Eoch. She had little opportunity to learn the other direction.
“We did get in,” Lucky responded, once her message was approved and translated into letters for Mogyla to type.
“We need to agree to be honest with each other,” Twilight said. “Can you do that?”
Lightning Dust laughed when she saw her words printed on the screen. “Does she really think we’ll believe what she says just because she starts by saying she’ll be honest?”
Olivia seemed to get the gist of what Lightning Dust was saying, and nodded approval. Even though Lucky hadn’t translated it. “We have no guarantee anything she says is accurate,” she said. “We don’t even have a guarantee this is really Twilight. Unless you have some question you could ask to verify her identity. In that case, our confidence is only as good as whatever check you use.”
“Say, ‘I will be as honest as Applejack,’” Lucky instructed. “But I want to be sure I’m really talking to you. What was the message you hid in your letter to me?”
“northheartleagues5west1”
Lucky nodded. “That’s it. Whoever we’re talking to is the same one who sent the letter.”
“There’s more,” Mogyla interrupted, before refreshing the screen.
“Are you a changeling?” Their conversation would continue that way from then on, with several-minute delays between sending messages on both sides, and a painful waiting while Stepan reassembled each transmission.
“No.”
“What are you then?”
This question prompted some deliberation. Eventually they sent: “A young pegasus linguist. I am very good at languages. What did you think we would find in that base?”
“What happened to Flurry Heart?”
There was some more deliberation. Olivia wouldn’t let her send what she wanted, and eventually they settled on: “There were lots of dead ponies. It was difficult for both of us. What did you expect us to find in there?”
“That doesn’t explain why Celestia won’t let her speak with anyone. Are you sure there wasn’t anything else?”
“Answer me first.”
A longer delay than usual. Eventually: “I discovered the Tree of Harmony was a map of Equestria. When correctly read, it outlines points of interest. Discovering one helped lead to my ascension.”
“Ha!” Lightning Dust exclaimed, as soon as that message had arrived. “I knew she’d be giving you broken feathers!” She pointed at the screen with one foreleg. “That’s a lie.”
“Huh?” Lucky asked, sitting back on her haunches and watching her mom. “How do you know?”
“Because everypony knows how Twilight Sparkle became a princess,” she answered. “It was all over the newspapers in the whole country for weeks. She didn’t do anything about the Tree of Harmony; it was something to do with Star Swirl. Fixed a spell he never finished. The papers were always spotty with details, but I remember that much.”
“What did she say?” Olivia asked, watching Lightning Dust.
Lucky translated.
“That doesn’t mean we aren’t getting the truth now,” Olivia eventually said.
Perez agreed. “Sounds like the difference between the cover story and the truth. We already know the intel about the ringbuilder station was good.”
“She didn’t actually give you anything to do once you got there,” Olivia continued. “It wasn’t dangerous, so she wasn’t trying to get rid of you. Nothing to do, so you weren’t her errand-boy. That could mean she’s telling us at least some of the truth.”
“Now answer me,” Twilight repeated. “What happened to Flurry Heart?”
There was more deliberation, before they eventually sent: “She learned things about Equestria that Celestia doesn’t want ponies to know. I think Celestia plans on erasing her memories. She might try to do the same to you if I tell you. She says she plans on killing me.”
“I like the idea of sewing mistrust between these two,” Olivia said. “But that’s it. No further—if we push too hard, she’ll snap back. She might already be doing that.”
But Twilight Sparkle didn’t respond that way. “I need to talk to Discord. Can we talk again in a week? I would like to use voice as well. Can you do that?”
Mogyla nodded. “If she uses the same voice encoding their radio does, no problem.”
“Yes,” they sent. “I will be listening in a week.”
“Well.” Olivia took a deep breath. “We didn’t learn as much as we hoped. Still, good work. Specialist Mogyla, inform me of any sign our transmission was located. Get the drone airborne just in case, but don’t stray too far. We’ll need it back in that same general area a week from now.”
“Aye, sir.” He saluted weakly with one foreleg. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Lightning Dust had almost everything she’d ever wanted. She woke each morning in a richly furnished little apartment, with amenities Eoch didn’t even have names for. Every morning her daughter would bring her breakfast, and they would talk about their plans for the day ahead. Then Lightning Dust would go off to teach flying lessons—real ones, not the sissy stuff the so-called Wonderbolts had wasted her time with.
A few weeks into her stay at the tiny human city of “Othar,” Lightning Dust brought her stack of imprecise drawings into Olivia’s office. These meetings with the city’s mayor were always a little tense—and a little uncomfortable for Dust herself, considering how much the pony looked like her daughter.
At least their fur was different colors, unlike most of those who lived here. Lightning Dust wasn’t sure what was creepier—so many ponies who looked the same, or seeing so many adults without cutie marks.
At least Olivia had one, a dark-feathered owl with wide white eyes. Like a guardspony might have.
Talking to the “humans” had become more natural to Lightning Dust the longer she stayed. True to everything she had once said about learning Eoch, her little daughter was teaching them. They weren’t as quick to learn as she had been, but they were learning.
Even Olivia was learning—she looked up from the filly-sized desk she was working behind, raising one wing in greeting. “Hello Lightning Dust,” she said, her accent quite thick. That was about as far as she went before she switched to English. Fortunately, Lightning Dust had taken to wearing a headset with her everywhere, which had a translation spell cast on it. Not the best translation spell she’d seen in her life, but it always seemed to be getting better. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” Lightning Dust set the stack of papers down on Olivia’s desk. They weren’t nearly as nice as something her own daughter could make, but Dust was proud anyway. She’d done an impressive job to only be working from memory. “And yes. A little. It’s about the weather.”
“What about it?” There was a long delay between each of them saying anything. Presumably, Olivia needed to wait for her own translation spell. She was probably the worst at Eoch of anypony in the city.
“You know why it storms all the time?” she asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “Othar doesn’t have a weather team. That means we get the same weather all the time.” That meant heavy rain almost daily, with worse on the stormward side of the volcano. They were at the mercy of the ocean. “If you want to make Othar a real city one day, you need a weather team.”
Olivia finally looked away from her many screens, up at the designs Lightning Dust had made. She pulled them over with comparative clumsiness. “What is all this?”
“That’s an aqueous accumulator,” she said. “And that one’s a cumulus compressor. I mostly know how they work—all the parts that don’t involve unicorn magic, anyway. That’s the only hard part. You all are so good at building things; the rest should be easy. Island this size could easily be serviced by a single weather station, maybe a dozen ponies when it’s finished.”
The filly mayor pushed all her designs back. Lightning Dust prepared to argue, tensing a little for the rejection. These humans just didn’t understand what was important—being good at making things did not mean everything else in a pony’s life became unimportant. Lucky had understood that, why couldn’t they?
“Right now, the near-constant cloud cover is exactly what we want,” Olivia said. “We’ve built all our structures so they won’t be visible from the air. The clouds mean we can go out on the island without fear we’ll be seen. All this…” She gestured down at the designs. “Looks quite complex. I’m not a scientist, I don’t know what kind of…” A few untranslatable words. “To copy that magic.”
She rose from her chair, turning her back abruptly on Lightning Dust and making her way to another machine along the far wall. She pressed on it with one hoof, and spoke quietly enough that the translation spell didn’t do anything.
Lightning Dust frowned to herself, considering how she might argue her case, but Olivia was already coming back. “Those drawings, those are how ponies in Equestria manage their weather?”
Lightning Dust nodded. “As much as I can remember. I’ve been a technician in several factories. I can explain some of the notes, I know they aren’t written in English.” They also didn’t have nearly the detail it would’ve taken a unicorn to cast the spells they would need. A moot point, since Othar had only pegasi and batponies living in it.
“It might take some time before we have enough people for a ‘weather team,’” Olivia said. “But I think it’s a good idea. Our own weather-management…” More words Dust couldn’t understand. “Requires a planet. I’m sure there are some scientific reasons that none of it would work here. I’m approving your request. You will have to take your designs to the Forerunner—it’s the closest thing we have to an engineer right now.”
“Thank you!” Lightning Dust beamed, scooping up the sketches. Being director of her own weather factory was a long time in coming. She would’ve been there already, were it not for her single big mistake. Starting with her daughter, these humans had been far more forgiving than her own kind.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Olivia watched her make her way out. “Only way I know of to let you fabricate anything is to give you a field promotion. You’re now a free citizen in license to the Forerunner, like Dr. Irwi—like Lucky. I’m sure she can explain any of the details if you’re confused about what it entails. The short of it is, I’m impressed with your work so far and I hope you’ll continue to help Othar for a long time to come.”
Lightning Dust hurried from the room, satisfaction growing by the moment. These humans might not pay her in bits, and they wouldn’t get her on the cover of the Canterlot Tribune. But maybe none of that mattered. She was one of only three proper ponies in the whole settlement—she could use that. One day Othar would be a great city, and she would run its weather station.
“You… wanted to see me?” Melody asked, poking her head into the medical lab. Deadlight followed close behind her—they spent a great deal of time together now that he wasn’t confined to his cell. Mostly she didn’t mind—it was far too late to try and hide their plans from him. The poor bat wasn’t getting released anytime soon.
“Yes, yes,” Dorothy’s voice called from inside, sounding overwhelmed even from a distance. “You brought your boyfriend? Perfect, I need him too. Get in here.”
Spending hours of every day with her had meant Deadlight was learning English almost as rapidly as she was learning Eoch. If nothing else, that meant his curiosity was helping them be more productive—Melody refused to answer him in any language but Eoch, and only if he asked in English. But he kept the headset around for talking to other ponies. That was probably how he’d understood the word “boyfriend.”
At least, Melody took his chuckling to mean he’d understood. He didn’t say anything, so there was no way to know for sure.
Dorothy had taken the entire initial lab block for herself, tearing out the old equipment that had occupied so much of the space, machines for people who didn’t yet exist. There were now half a dozen incubation machines, each one filled with stacks and stacks of plastic disks. There were at least six new screens she could see, each one filled with constantly-updating information she couldn’t make sense of. Something to do with the “survival rate” of whatever “trials” she was running.
The strangest thing about the lab were how many drones she saw rolling around. Enough that at first glance she’d taken the lab to be fully staffed. Drones washed equipment, worked the centrifuge, cleaned up empty cups of coffee. One of them was even running one of the cultures through a strange machine, spindly limbs working the equipment with apparent skill.
“I’ve never seen any of these drones before,” Melody said, walking over towards the only area free of activity to stand in—the table for eating meals. It didn’t look like it had been used in a while.
“Forerunner is giving me new resources,” Dorothy said, waving one wing dismissively. “Honestly I hadn’t seen them either. I’m guessing they were invented after my imprint was taken. They’re better lab assistants than nobody.” She made her way across the lab, to a bit of medical equipment against the far wall.
Melody recognized it as a standard medical unit used in clinics all over Earth. It was commonly called “robo-nurse” because it could perform just about any basic procedure a human nurse could. It was like the surgical units in the medical bay, but far less sophisticated. “I need some of your blood. And Deadlight’s too. I’m taking samples from the whole crew.”
“Why?” Melody followed her anyway, Deadlight trailing behind her. For his part, the bat seemed fascinated by the hardworking drones all around them. She could only imagine what he must think of them. But if they disturbed him, he said nothing to suggest that fact. No doubt he would have questions, but Deadlight had gotten very good at holding those back for when they were alone. Other people would be annoyed by his constant pestering, while Melody would sit and talk with him for hours if that was what he wanted.
“Because someone needs to find a cure for the prion disease killing every human we try to grow, and that someone is me.” She gestured at the empty seat. “Go on. I only need a small sample. Five minutes and you can get out of my hair.”
Melody sat down in the empty chair, tensing as the straps wrapped around one of her forelimbs, holding it in place. Deadlight tensed beside her, eyes narrowing as he saw the whole mass close over her leg. He wouldn’t be able to see the needle, or any of the machinery underneath. The nurse concealed its operating parts from view.
“How does a sample help?” Melody asked, through gritted teeth. She hated needles. “We’re all clones, aren’t we? You could take your own blood just as easily and it would be the same. You want Deadlight and Lightning Dust, they’re the only ones who might have new information for you.”
“You’d think so,” Dorothy muttered, her tone slightly distant. “But the cure isn’t what we think it is.”
Melody felt the cool touch on a part of her leg as something shaved a small patch of her coat away, then applied an antiseptic. She tensed a little more, knowing what was coming next. But she didn’t try to get away—it wasn’t as though being able to make humans wasn’t important to her. She still would’ve preferred to wake up in her own body (albeit a younger, healthier version) than this new, strange form. Though being a pony did have its advantages…
“Can you explain?” Deadlight asked, surprising them both. His English was sloppy, and heavily accented, but clear enough that they could both understand him.
“You were listening?” Dorothy asked.
“Yes,” he said. “To what I could. Not all of it was clear. Melody says there is a disease here in Equestria—every living thing is infected, but it doesn’t hurt us. Is that right?”
Dorothy nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Are pony doctors familiar with it? Did you, perhaps… develop the cure yourselves?” Her tone was highly skeptical as she said it, though. Obviously, she didn’t consider that a likely possibility.
Indeed, Deadlight shook his head. “Ponies get sick like other creatures. Sometimes there is magic to cure it, sometimes medicine, sometimes not. I’ve never heard of a sickness everypony is carrying.”
“Well, you are. You couldn’t understand the how, but…” She looked back at Melody.
For her part, Melody was trying to ignore the slight pain as the nurse drew her blood. It wasn’t bad—the anticipation had been the worst part—but was still unpleasant.
“Native cells have an adaptation, organelles that appear similar in basic structure to our mitochondria. They reproduce to their own schedule, have their own genetic material, and appear to serve no other purpose than cleansing cellular debris. But when implanted into human cells, these organelles self-terminate. I’ve modified the human tissue to prevent rejection, it isn’t that. It’s more like… a security measure. Like they know they’re in the wrong sort of tissue, so they die.”
The robo-nurse released Melody. She quickly sprang free, before Dorothy could decide more invasive procedures might improve her odds of success somehow.
“Now him.” Dorothy gestured for the empty chair, nodding at Deadlight.
Melody turned to explain in Eoch. “Please. Dorothy would like your help curing the disease. She wants you to sit in that chair.”
“You looked like you were in pain. It hurts?”
“Only a little,” she answered. “I’ve always been… squeamish around needles. It’s going to take a little blood, that’s all.”
Deadlight didn’t argue further, but plopped himself down into the chair far more bravely than she had. He looked completely unconcerned as it closed around him. He trusts me.
“So how does taking samples from a bunch of clones help you? How would we be different?”
Dorothy made a frustrated sound. “The science is… you wouldn’t understand. Simply speaking—everyone seems to develop their own unique biological ‘key’ which the organelles respond to. With enough samples, the Forerunner believes it can model this relationship, and extract an arbitrary set of keys to use for the human bodies we would like to grow.”
“You aren’t going to learn what you need from the ponies you have,” Deadlight said, matter-of-factly. As though what Dorothy had said had made complete sense to him, though Melody knew he hadn’t learned most of the words she had used. “Whenever they’re trying to come up with a cure for something, they always get ponies from all three tribes. I don’t know exactly… but there are differences. Between them.” He switched to Eoch. “If we’re lucky they include thestrals or zebras as well, but often they don’t. Just mix us in with pegasi and earth ponies.” He switched back to accented English. “If you want to find your cure, you’ll need all three types of pony.”
To Melody’s surprise, Dorothy didn’t react with frustration at having suggestions made by someone who was obviously ignorant in the science behind what they were discussing. Instead, she nodded in agreement. “I have considered that possibility. So far, the differences between my own samples and those taken from other crew-members have been… insufficient. Ideally, I’d want thousands of them, but a few from each tribe would be enough. Even though the next generation won’t all be clones, they’ll still all be…” She trailed off, eyes narrowing as she looked at Deadlight.
She switched to Mandarin, obviously not a language she had used much since high school. Though apparently she still remembered enough of her required education to speak it competently. “If we had samples from all the native subspecies, the next generation wouldn’t all be children of whoever we are and Deadlight there. I don’t think you have to be a scientist to understand the genetic bottleneck that creates.”
Deadlight tensed a little in his seat, though Melody couldn’t tell if that was from the needle or the obvious attempt to keep secrets from him.
I’ll have to explain what she said later… as much of it as I dare. “I thought we were waiting on more samples to make the next generation,” she said, in English. “All those biofabs are covered in plastic, gathering dust.”
Dorothy laughed bitterly, stomping one hoof so hard on the ground the plastic strained with the pressure. “The Forerunner listened to me, then it stopped. Isn’t it worried about incest? Our starting population needed more variability than three samples. Not even two males, either. It’s gonna be a shitshow.”
“I thought…” Melody got as close as she could, lowering her voice. She still used English, though. Deadlight would still be able to hear with those sensitive ears. “Didn’t the Major want to wait for your cure, so the next generation could be humans? She made Othar human-sized.”
Dorothy nodded. “That’s what I thought. But then she changed her mind.” She flicked her tail towards the door. “Take the elevator, see for yourself. Probably don’t bring the native, though.” She sat back on her haunches, looking back to him. “Deadlight.” She spoke slowly, obviously fighting back her anger. Returning to the subject at hand. “Do ponies live somewhere outside of Equestria?”
“Yes,” he answered immediately. “Equestria is the safest, but it isn’t the only place. Not everypony likes the princesses and their rules.”
“Are any of these places… close to where we found you?”
He shrugged. “You want to get to know more of us? Not trap them here like me?”
“No!” she insisted. “It’s for this.” She gestured at the machine. “You’re probably right. The Forerunner agrees with your speculation that the differences between each of the native subspecies are somehow significant. We might need samples to make our cure, and the major won’t even hear about anyone going back to Equestria. After they killed Karl… she isn’t going to risk losing more of us unless she has to. Do you think ponies would help us with a cure if we asked?”
At that moment, the robo-nurse released him. Deadlight glanced down at his leg, which had a little band-aid covering the tiny incision it had made to draw blood. Otherwise, he looked unharmed. “They might,” he said. “If you had me there. And if you had something to offer. Ponies south of the border… they have it harder than the ones in Equestria. Not as safe, not as willing to just do things because they’re the right things to do. But if you had supplies to trade, maybe they’d be willing.”
“Hmm.” Dorothy turned away from them both. “Thanks for your help, both of you. I’m sure your contributions will be instrumental to developing a cure, and all that.” She switched back to Mandrin. “You haven’t even introduced the native to his own clones, James. Don’t let him see he’s got thousands of kids too. That little primitive mind won’t be able to handle it.”
Melody wasn’t even sure she believed what Dorothy had said. She must be in error, or exaggerating—Olivia wouldn’t have turned on the biofabricators meant to create Othar’s first full generation of starting population.
“Your doctor is strange,” Deadlight said, when they had made their way back out into the lab. “I’m not sure I like her. What did she tell you she didn’t want me to hear?”
“Well, uh…” Melody hesitated for a few more seconds. Of course, there was no way she would be getting around this. Deadlight couldn’t be kept to just a few rooms forever. Olivia had practically forgotten he existed—she didn’t seem to mind if he went anywhere in Othar. Except for the surface or the armory, that was.
“Forerunner, where is Lieutenant Perez?” she asked a random patch of wall.
As she expected, the computer was listening. “Lieutenant Perez is in the gym, Dr. Irwin.”
“Thank you.” She turned that direction. “I can show you, Deadlight. What she was talking about. I’m not sure… how you’ll feel about it. But someone should tell you.”
“Tell me what?” He followed along beside her, doing a poor job hiding his discomfort. “I don’t know why it would be relevant to me, Melody. This is your city. I have no living family, so I know you couldn’t possibly have captured them. And I know you well enough to know you have no hostile intentions for Equestria. What is it I wouldn’t like? More… doctors?”
“Not quite.” The gym was a newly-installed area, one built to Lucky’s instructions. This meant it was the size of three entire segments, large enough for them to stretch their wings and get some basic flying practice while indoors.
As they reached the entry segment, the doors in front of them slid closed, with bright red symbols appearing on the screen there. “Entry not permitted,” the Forerunner said. “Your instructions prohibit captive Deadlight from entering any segment occupied by Diego Perez, Stepan Mogyla, or Yusuf Abubakar.”
“Disregard those instructions,” she said. “That will no longer be necessary.” The doors flashed green, then slid open again.
Melody turned around, meeting Deadlight’s eyes. She spoke slowly, and only with great difficulty. “You know how we all look the same?”
He nodded. “Many-times twins. But you act so differently—nothing like twins at all.”
“Well… what if you had some twins? Triplets, actually. There are… three of them. Four of you.”
He shook his head, smiling slightly. “Can’t fool me, Melody. I already told you, I don’t have family. I was an only child, and both my parents are dead. There’s no chance in Tartarus that you have secret family of mine hiding in there.”
“Not secret,” she corrected. “Look, you knew we couldn’t all be girls, right? There had to be stallions somewhere. Right?”
He nodded slowly. “What does that have to do with my family?”
She rested one hoof on his shoulder, forcing him to meet her eyes. He wasn’t wearing the translation headset, and her Eoch was only passable. Explaining the technical side was going to be impossible. “Our civilization has magic. Somewhere deep underground, we have… spirits. Lots and lots of spirits, without bodies. We’re waiting to give them bodies. We hadn’t found a stallion before, so we didn’t know how to make them. But then you came along, and we learned how. We made three stallions. They have different minds inside them, different memories, but they look exactly like you.”
She was hyperventilating now. Explaining all this was incredibly difficult—Melody never would’ve captured this stallion, probably wouldn’t have even wanted to take samples of his DNA without permission. She hated to be the one to have to explain this. But it was either tell him outright, or let him discover the consequences on his own by accident.
“They did it without your permission, and I’m sorry. I was against it, but nopony listens to me. I’m just a second-rate translator. Once we go through those doors, you’ll meet Perez… he’s one of your clones, the one in charge of our soldiers. You can see for yourself.”
Deadlight stared, watching her discomfort in near silence. She looked for anger in his body-language, or maybe fear. Instead, he only smiled. “Really? You’re saying… because of some weird magic you did… there’s four of me now? You picked the right pony to copy.” He stood a little straighter, flexing his wings for her. Displaying in a way that Melody knew she should look away from. But she didn’t—just now, she didn’t have the strength to try.
“You should see,” she said, her voice a little distant. “So, it doesn’t surprise you when you meet them.”
“Okay.” He nodded absently, though he still seemed to be watching her reaction. “But after that, I want you to explain exactly how this magic of yours works. Where I come from, there’s only one way to make bodies. Is that why you’re all mares? That way you can…”
“No!” she squeaked, not nearly as loud as she would’ve liked. “No, that’s not why. Yes, I can explain, or I can try. We’ll probably need the Forerunner’s help. One thing first, though…” She looked back to the wall panel. “Forerunner, I need you to send a message to Lucky Break.”
“Ready.”
“‘Check the biofabricators. Don’t tell the major.’ That’s the whole message.”
“Message sent.”
By the time she had looked back, Melody realized she’d stretched out her own wings, and couldn’t realize why. She forced them back to her sides as quickly as she could, ignoring Deadlight’s grin. “Let’s, uh… let’s introduce you to Perez. I know he’s grateful for your help, even if you didn’t know we’d done it. Otherwise, he’d be a mare right now.”
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Incoming Drama!
🤔 I wonder how trading with ponies outside of Equestria will be handled. For sure they would love to have weapons to help defend themselves with which might cause Equestria to notice though Celestia shouldn’t intervene since those small countries aren’t her to rule because could raise conflict between her and other nations.
I was a bit disappointed with the part about Twilights message. I kind of thought it was going to be like the last message we’re we the chat figure out what she said but this was mostly rude interruptions from so many people in the same room that Lucky never got to talk to Twilight...
Also I think the Tree of Harmony is part of some reason why Twilight became an Alicorn.
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The in-the-clear radio transmission was reminiscent of "numbers radio stations".
Good to see Deadlight at ease with his cloning. Was wondering how and when that would be addressed.
Lucky still counts as a proper pony then?
I really enjoy the relationship that's grown between Lucky and Dust.
Wait, Olivia, why are you making thousands of clones? Is there some kind of time crunch for which you desperately need that many peo - oh right the whole 'Celestia, the Ring, and your own Forerunner are trying to kill you' thing...
Melody's first wingboner
I suspect a WINGBONER from Melody! She's got the hot's for Deadlight!
Hmm... If "Magical Mystery Cure" is a cover story, then everything we think we know needs to be put under scrutiny. At the very least, "Princess Twilight Sparkle" does; she'd hardly need a flashback potion to learn about the Tree of Harmony if she'd gotten her wings by studying it. Indeed, the Tree might be some kind of access or focus point for whatever Harmony actually is, similar to some of the facilities Lucky and Flurry uncovered.
Whatever the truth is, Twilight's going to have a very interesting week. How much stock does she put into a stranger's claims? How much can she question her mentor, both openly and in her own mind? What will she believe when it's time for the next transmission?
Oh, sweet irony.
I do love how Lightning considers her daughter a "proper pony." That says a lot. I also like to see her trying to contribute to her new community. Even now, Lightning wants to belong to something bigger than her. She wants to be helpful and useful. Life's just had a habit of kicking her in the gut up until now.
Hmm. Key-encrypted lysosomes. Deadlight's probably right; jailbreaking their way past the prions will likely need a broader sample size. The negotiations for getting those samples will be very interesting indeed. What will ponies, especially non-Equestrians, think when mysterious ponies appear offering bizarre goods in exchange for their blood? (Or cheek swabs, but those might actually raise more questions.)
And I have to love Deadlight's response to this revelation. "An entire city of twins likes me so much that they made more of me and you expect me to be upset?" Still, I don't think he'll be quite so sanguine should he learn about his thousands of genetic offspring. Hope he always wanted a large family.
Now, how will things go from here?
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I suspect that the new Forerunner is designed to be both a leader and an autonomous unit. Olivia may be a competent military officer, but as a Governor, she is both prejudiced and inefficient. Sooner or later, Olivia will be “reassigned” by the Forerunner.
Drama ahead, especially if the Forerunner is capable of lying.
Just what we need!
There's got to be a scene where Lucky tells Twilight she thought her friendship report was just noise to disguise the secret message! Bricks will be shat!
I'm also wondering why Deadlight is so calm: is he really okay with it or does he think it's a joke?
Hmm.. Olivia likes the tactic of setting friends against each other -- offers Lightning Dust a promotion.... I wonder if Olivia is considering playing Lightning Dust against Lucky Break, or at least testing that relationship a bit. A little bit of poison to be able to be called upon at a key moment.
It is interesting how provincial LD's goals are. It will be a great city, and I will be in charge of the weather facility. With those thoughts, Olivia might be able to drive that wedge stated above with an appeal to greed/stability.
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You in charge? Not a chance I’ll race for it
You know. . . Since they already know how to synthesize ponies, it seems like they could synthesize a body that has the physical form and gross anatomy of a human but the bio-chemistry of a pony -- effectively, a human-shaped pony. Sure, they might be able to cloud-walk or get sigils (ahem, I mean "cutie marks"), but those seem like tolerable side effects.
I actually hope they crack this. The Ring is already home to ponies, donkeys and zebras, yaks and buffalo, griffins, dragons, gnolls (ahem, I mean "diamond dogs"), changelings, etc. Adding humans to the mix doesn't seem like a problem to me.
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I am more interested in her reaction to "Celestia wants to edit my niece's memories, and to kill somepony."
Shouldn't she be a little bit more shocked about her teacher and role model doing such things?
Olivia's still a bitch, but at least she recognizes that she needs all the help she can get.
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The way it currently seems, is that a previous James/ Lucky has already met and befriended Twilght. They probably both discovered the ruins. Celestia has then killed off that lucky and tried to alter Twilight's memories. Something has given her back the memories, maybe her ascension, or her skill with magic so she's now trying to solve the issue incognito.
There's a lot going on that has yet to be revealed.
I am curious what would be the long term effects if one (or some) of the more familiar characters, like Twilight or Lightning (Twilight cloning sounds more exotic), agreed to have themselves copied as well down the line. Inevitably, they would have to find more to mix into the gene pool.
It would be an interesting thought imo.
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I doubt they would want to be a pony-human anthro hybrid. They don't like being ponies as it is, hence why they're trying to find a cure for humans.
Huh, you'd think Deadlight would be upset at the cloning. Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine.
Melody's wingboner was adorable.
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That would be interesting if Twilight had already been friends with the last two Luckys before... Maybe the reason why we don’t get a full answer what happened to the last crew is because Celestia killed them
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We don't know about her true reaction. There was a lot of time between messages. Enough to calm down, think things through, and write something that won't reveal anything compromising. They don't have any reason to trust each other yet, so it's more like a negotiation for information; you don't want to let on more information than necessary.
I suspect that's the main reason she asked for audio. It's harder to fool anyone and easier to get information.
I'm going to guess that Twilight is telling the truth and that in this AU her ascension happened differently. Why else tell a different story than what was known far and wide publicly? She has to have known that Lucky might be aware of the public story, so I think she's telling the private real story as a bit of a trust exercise.
Wow!
Looks like Olivia is finally coming to terms with being a pony on a ring world, learning to speak Eoch, to fly, working in furniture made for her size, heck she might even call the ring by it's proper name by this point.
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I think Twilight might be referring to the main six going to the castle of the two sisters when she mentioned that discovering one location of interest contributed to her ascension. After all, that's where it all started.
I felt that after Twilight mentioned Discord lucky should have also mentioned that Celestia said she had taken precautions to make sure Discord won't be helping them anymore after and asked Twilight if she knew what she meant by that, but since they were wrapping up the conversatin and they probably just went and turned Discord to stone again I guess it wasn't too important for the story to ask that question yet. But I imagine they must be wondering.
OMG I can already see it now, lots and lots of Dust Melody and Deadlight thresomes everywhere.
lots
and lots
everywhere
Then it say's thousands of children? But... I thought the forerunner only had like less than 400 crew members stored in it's memory. Only the best of the best, but that would mean... they are fabricating new scanned brains from a different time and/or Forerunner that came with the new update!
Oh God what the hell is going to come out of this new development!
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Well, even tho it was meant to be mostly a cover for the real message, I can see her taking offence at her exploits being called "meaningless drivel" xD.
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You are right! I thought it was 400 too but then that update happened... Oh no... This new part of the story has been pointing out hints of Harmony holding memories or souls which we don’t what kind of people does this Harmony have in its data... Sure it’s going to be Ponies, griffins, Dragons, etc and now that I think of it... 🤔
What if Celestia found a way to control who gets reborn in Equestria so that Harmony doesn’t kill everyone on the RingWorld to finish whatever it wanted planned. Though the other creatures haven’t really been said if they reborn maybe they are just normal people that don’t know what is happening.
Anyways... Since we came here... maybe... Harmony is using us for its goal of RingWorld domination! That’s why Celestia was surprised Harmony isn’t noticing Lucky and us humans because it wants us to make Equestria open to invade since it’s been trying to take out Equestria for over 1000 years!
Nightmare Moon, Discord Madness, Weddings, Sombra, Trak, Starlight, Everfree forest crazy S4 1-2, Pony of Shadows, Snow King! It’s all a setup by Harmony but always fails because these 6 ponies who found friendship is real magic that has saved everyone for so long!
Man, this story is crazy
OK, so Forerunner has samples and I got the impression that in future pony generations it plans to mix and match the samples to grow ponies that are more like children than clones of the originals. Add bat pony and female, and you get a likely new character because it is the only OC to appear in multiple of Starscribe's universes: Jackie.
The question is, what is Jackie's human background that would necessitate her instantiation, and what excuse will Starscribe create to give her a sword or knife?
I take it that it might not have fully sunk in for Lightning yet where Othar's ponies are coming from. When your definition of "making things" includes "can literally construct sapient beings chosen for a specific purpose," you tend to think making stuff is pretty darn important.
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Okay, two theories.
1. Twilight's telling the truth in some way. Star Swirl's spell had something to do with one of those "points of interest."
2. They're not talking to Twilight, and somebody else has intercepted them. (We haven't seen Moondancer in a while, have we?)
Welp discord is fucked
It looks like Deadlight might actually roll with the revelation of cloning pretty well, but I bet Lightning Dust will flip her shit.
Lucky needs to steal some genetic samples from Twilight so Othar can have an army of book princesses!
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Why would an impostor change the details of Twilight's alicornication, when there is alredy a public official version?
If anything, it adds credibility to the belief it's the real Twilight speaking and her ascension was different from canon.
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I agree and like that idea. I didn’t think about that and now with the plan to create new people that means Celestia won’t be able to control or notice at all till it’s to late.
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I would not give them advanced technology. I’d trade food for bits and offer bits for participation in Medical Scans and Free Genetic Testing. You are 5% Thestral, 25% Pegasus, 2% Earthpony and 48% Unicorn. You are recessive for two color tail, rainbow tail, long fetlock hair, tufted ears, rose eyes, yellow eyes, thestral eyes, and counterclockwise spiral horn, and recessive for 2 of the genes for long legs, and 2 of the genes for smooth coat. You are recessive for 1 of the 4 genes for socks and 3 of the 4 genes for spots. You do not have any genes for two colored wings. Your ancestors are likely from Unicornia and Pegasopolous with a small remnant from the Hollow Shades and Grove. You are a perfect genetic match for 1 pony In our testing - Miracle Worker from Outerland who has all of the recessive traits you also possess. You are a further match for 3 other ponies who are participating in this testing but who declined to allow their names to be used. You are a great match for your special somepony Switchback, who exprsses 71% of the recessive traits you tested for. You have no known genetic diseases or predispositions for them.
So Twilight's ascension was something to do with the Ring? Maybe we'll get the alicornification that we all want Lucky to get on the inside...
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As much as I admire the detail you put into this, they unfortunately do not have that informtion cataloged yet. They’d have to be trading for awhile to gather enough info to do that.
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Key-encrypted lysosomes, hmm. I wonder if they will also use simpler animal life to break this encryption. If they can find a similar cellular analogue, the process may not be so complicated.
Also, if small scale automatons are ubiquitous, are bio-synthetic bodies a possible choice for the future residences? It would be an easy way to bridge the time till they can get a real body, and would be especially useful to soldiers.
Olivia is actually an extremely agreeable commander, normally people always portray the head honcho as a total douche. Nice change of pace.
Not the best explanation, given that there probably actually is something living under the island.
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Dude that’s a amazing comment right there and makes sense 
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Well they will eventually have that. They can mail it to them later once they have enough testing to do it.
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She certainly began that way to an extent.
Begs to question how different she has become due to the Cutie Mark.....
well first i am not convinced Twilight is Twilight. this is some kind of trap.
Lightning Dust i am so happy to see Dust is getting the recantation she deserves.
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I suppose. Of course, at that point, it becomes about who you keep around you. I can imagine having friends to go into eternity with can be just as bad as mortality if you have shitty people to spend eternity with.
Looks like somebody plays modded minecraft
My theory is that the prions / organelles have something to do with Harmony, and are necessary for magic and cutie marks.
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They'd have better luck using diamond dog samples, I think.
Human intelligence in a diamond dog body. That would be interesting.
the fact that I don't know how much of this story matches the mlp canon annoys me.
Is the fact that they live in a ring world and that there is an alicorn languaje the only reasons that there is an AU tag? or is there other reasons?
AAAAAAARRRGG!!!!
2 much 4 me