The rest of the trip back to Twilight’s castle was uneventful, aside from the odd presence looming until we walked across the open lawn, the sky turning dark as we walked through the towering front doors.
The gentle knocking of them shutting echoed a little through the half-empty hallways, reverberating through the massive structure for a good few seconds as we headed towards the large table that contained a map of Equestria and the surrounding lands. On the edge of the table sat what seemed to be a scroll...
“Hmm? What’s this?” Twilight approached the scroll, levitating it in her magic and getting a closer look, “Huh, this is from Princess Celestia. Spike must’ve gotten it while we were gone...”
“You want to read it now? I can wait...”
“I was about to ask. It might be important...” she unfurled the scroll and started reading through it quickly. “Hmm... Oh... Celestia says she’s... proud of me for looking past my fear to pursue friendship...? Well, that’s a relief... I was worried she’d be mad...” She read on, “She says she’s still fine with me handling it, but Princess Luna is still showing up in the morning to come see you...”
“Right, Luna...” I got that nagging feeling like I should be excited by this again, as if some part of me was sure that Luna was like, the best princess ever, or something... I pushed it aside again. This precognition thing was odd, and I felt like it was spurious at best.
Twilight looked at me, misjudging my sudden pause, “Don’t worry, Luna is an expert on Conceptual Thoughtforms. I’m sure she’ll be able to shed some light on what’s going on...”
“Yeah... I hope so...” I said, glancing up the stairs, “Hey... You think now would be a good time to talk to Spike?”
Twilight thought a moment, then nodded slowly, “I don’t see why not... he should still be up a bit longer, and I suppose I should go prepare you a room. His room is, um...” she winced as she looked back and forth between two doors.
“It’s fine. I found it...” I said, trotting off.
“Wha- You found it? How?” Twilight called after me in confusion.
“This place has magical markers. If you know how to sense them, they’re like direction signs.” I called back, following the path laid out for me.
“Wait... really?!” I sensed Twilight focusing behind me as I walked out the door, “Wait... So those are actually.... AAUGH!! Why didn’t I figure that out before we started mapping the castle!!”
Sad Twilight.
Here it was. The door to Spike’s room... I lifted a hoof and gently knocked on the crystalline material, “Hey... Spike? It's Meta again. I just want to talk for a bit...”
After a few moments, the door cracked, and a slitted green eye peered through, “Where’s Twilight?”
“Somewhere else in the castle... She said she was going to prepare me a room...”
“Right... and I’m assuming you’re here to try and talk me into trusting you?” he raised a brow, scowling.
“I’m just trying to figure out how to convince you that I’m not here to destroy your planet or something.” I plead, ”Spike, I’m just as in the dark about this as the two of you, and I don’t want you worrying about what I might do if I can somehow convince you that I’m not a threat.”
Spike sighed, opening the door a bit more, standing there and crossing his arms. You know, there seemed something odd about how his head came up to the same height as mine, and how his slender reptilian form seemed to be bringing on some muscle beneath the scales, as if he was an adolescent. I had no idea why this person I had just met who was clearly a young adult should look any younger, but some part of my mind kept conflicting, as if I’d thought he was a few years younger...
“Look, Meta, I think I understand why Twilight's not afraid of you, but I'm not ready to just let my guard down on someone who could literally kill us all with a single spell, and might not even feel remorse about it. I literally have no way to know you’re not just this year’s big villain biding your time until you have the perfect opportunity to attack.”
I sighed back, “Well... Will you at least give me time to prove to you that I’m not malicious before you go and do something about it?”
He winced a little, looking away, “I... probably shouldn’t tell you this, but... unless Twilight changes her mind, I’m not really sure what I can do about it...”
“Oh... Well... I’ll be sure to give you your space then. If there’s anything I can do to make you feel safer around me, just let me know.”
Spike put a claw to his chin, tapping as he thought for a moment, “Well... When you put it that way...” he sighed, deflating as he relented on me for the first time since we’d met, “I suppose that nothing short of you leaving would make me feel safe... And I guess Twilight’s right, it’s not fair for me to push that sort of thing on you just because of my feelings...” He straightened back up again, “Alright Meta, you can be friendly with Twilight and all that, and I won’t try to stop you or anything. Don’t expect me to suddenly want to jump out of my comfort zone and be friends though: I’m still keeping my eye on you.” he pointed to his face with two fingers, then to me...
I smiled, “I can do observation. All I can ask for is that you give me the chance to show I'm friendly.”
“Right, right...” he nodded, “Well... if there isn’t anything else, I guess you shouldn’t keep Twilight waiting for too long.”
I nodded, “See you around, Spike!”
He smiled, just a crack, but I saw it, “Yeah, I’ll definitely be seeing you...”
The room Twilight had gotten me seemed to be pretty standard fare for a royal guest chamber: big bed, big window, big armoire, big mirror... I even noticed the attached bathroom was pretty nice, not that I was likely to need it for anything...
It’s the odd things you notice when you lose basic bodily functions: I didn’t need to bathe anymore at this point, because I could just dissolve the dirt off of myself, and I didn’t sweat because I didn’t need to maintain any sort of body temperature, so the beautiful bath that had been stocked with luxurious shampoo would just sit unused as long as I was here. Hell, I didn’t even have a reason to brush my teeth or wash my face, no matter how pleasant the sink and mirror were. Don’t even get me started on things like the toilet...
Part of me lamented the effort that must have gone into making these things so elegant, now sitting here with a guest who no longer had purpose for them. I’d lost some element of the experience of being a living being, isolated from others through simple things that we take for granted, from taking a relaxing bath alone to eating a cupcake at a party...
...Maybe, in a sense, I really was dead. I certainly had more in common with an automaton than a real pony...
Twilight’s voice broke through my brood, “Sorry if I seem, you know, a little too excited by your situation... I’m sure it’s a lot to go through.”
“It’s fine, Twilight. Like I said, I purposefully made it so those emotions can’t cause me discomfort anymore... Besides, an inquisitive mind is exactly what I need right now!”
She smiled, “Mhmm... To be honest Meta, it’s kind of refreshing to meet a pony who acts as logically as you do...” she scratched the back of her head, “I may be the Princess of Friendship, but when I was younger, well... irrational behavior was sort of a thing that drove me away from others...”
I thought for a moment... “Hey, Twilight... Can I ask you something kind of personal?”
“Um... sure! I’m an open book!” she smiled at me.
“Do you have, like... some sort of social disorder?”
“I’m... not sure what you mean” she tilted her head.
“It’s... I guess I’m wondering if there’s some sort of neurological difference in you that makes social isolation normal for you.”
Twilight opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, furrowing her brow slightly in thought. She put a hoof to her chin, tapping slightly. I could literally feel her thinking hard about it, no doubt going through her memories and analyzing them as a whole, trying to decide if there was some common thread which would agree with the notion. Finally, after a few moments, she spoke again, “You know... I suppose I’ve always felt like I was sort of... Different... In a way that isolated me. I’ve thought about asking a psychologist about it, but it just... never seemed the worst of my problems.”
“Well, I wasn’t really an expert in psychological disorders, so I wouldn’t know anything about it... I guess I was just wondering if that was something you went through.”
“I mean, I do have trouble associating with other ponies, but I always assumed it was because I was just interested in different things from other ponies, or, well, on my worse days, that maybe I was just too smart to relate to...” she cringed, cutting herself off, “Well, I don’t think it’s good to think that about myself...”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“What’s wrong with asking if your intelligence is something that isolates you?”
“Well, I mean... I don’t want to go around saying I’m smarter than anypony else. I mean...”
“But Twilight...” I pressed, “You and I are smarter than other ponies. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think all your friends are great, even Spike. But at the same time, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that they aren’t as smart as you.”
“I don’t know... That doesn’t sound very nice... though I guess there was that time that I was afraid to show how good I was at magic...”
“So what’s the difference when what you’re good at is learning and processing things?”
“I suppose you have a point... It’s just that it’s so rude to go around saying it, that’s all.”
“I’m not saying we should like, hold it over others... But Twilight,” I argued, “don’t you agree that it’s a barrier? Sometimes I feel like I have to pretend I’m someone I’d never want to be, just so everyone else doesn’t get confused, but if I ever complain about it, everyone is suddenly mad at me! I mean, how often do you try to explain what’s on your mind to someone, and they get lost a few sentences in?”
“I... I guess I see what you mean... It’s not that I want to be better than others, but sometimes...” she sighed, admitting it, “As much as we’d like to think about it, not all beings are created equal...”
“...And it’s not like I want to argue with people all the time... but...” I looked out into the darkness beyond the window, “it’s just so frustrating when they’re baffled by things that just feel... obvious...”
“...I... I haven’t felt that way...“ Twilight took a step towards me, “...with you.”
I glance at the hood, “I... I guess... You’re right...” I looked up at her face, just staring for a few moments. I let my gaze fall to the floor, a little smile forming on my face. “You know... Twilight...” I glanced down at my hoof, scraping it gently against the beautiful crystalline tile, eyes wandering to the ornate, plush rug that I probably wouldn’t appreciate as much as a pony whose body was real, “I don’t remember much about my old life... but I do remember that it was really hard for me to make friends. I mean, I just... kept seeing problems in things like sports and movies, and there weren’t many people who liked stories that really got into science and magic, or to talk about logic and ethics with. They definitely didn’t understand a lot of the things I was afraid of, or upset by. So I just... Well, I never got that close to many people...” I looked back up at her, smiling a little as I let my emotions show, a few ‘tears’ starting to form in my eyes, “But I feel like... I guess what I’m saying is... In spite of everything else, I’m glad that I got to meet you.”
Twilight blushed again, smiling a little. “Wow... Meta... That really means... alot to me... I’m glad I met you too...”
I took a step towards her, leaning in as we wrapped our forelegs around each other in a firm embrace. That’s when I felt it... that connection that I’d sensed between Twilight’s friends all day, except now, I finally knew what it was...
Love.
Not, like, romantic or sexual attraction. Like the love felt between friends, or the love you feel for something you enjoy. Just... pure, innocent, Love.
I smiled at the feeling of her body pressed against mine, that energy of her affection pushing into me. I knew I wasn’t able to reciprocate with her, but part of me didn’t mind so much: it was enough to be with her here, knowing the mutual affection we shared, her soft breathing as she gently nuzzled my mane, while my forehooves felt at the soft fur of her hide, her warm body against my room-temperature one. We stayed like that for a few drawn out moments before slowly relaxing, her head resting comfortably on my shoulder. Our forelegs slowly fell, but we stayed like that, close to each other, for a few moments longer.
As we moved to part, I remembered a feeling I’d had earlier...
“Hey... Twilight?”
“Yes Meta?” she looked at me with that adorable smile.
“This may be a little weird to ask but... Can I like... Brush your hair?”
“Oh! ...you mean like a slumber party, right?”
“Um... Yeah! That would be great!”
And so, after a bit of rummaging and moving about, the two of us were lying on my bed, side by side, gently running soft brushes through each other’s manes. At some point I remanifested my wings, to which Twilight expressed some interest in preening them. Some part of my past self was practically squeeing with glee with every stroke of the brush, though none of it really seemed too novel: we were just two good friends, sharing a relaxing moment together... I guess I’d always wanted to have a sleepover or something?
In any case, the conversation wandered in the direction that such conversations are wont to do...
“So...” Twilight asked, leaning her head against my foreleg as I ran the brush down the back of her neck, “What was that earlier with you and Discord?”
“Oh that? Well... Obviously, he’s powerful and funny... quite handsome too. I really liked his style, just... I dunno. I’d hit that...”
“Meta, you are so weird!” Twilight laughed, “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with xenophilia, but Discord? Really?”
I rolled my eyes playfully, “What can I say? He’s an impressive specimen of his species, and I’d like to get to know him better! At the very least he’s funny...”
“Right, when he’s not acting crazy...” she deadpanned. “What was that whole bit with the coconut about anyway?”
“Oh Twilight...” I chuckled, patting her on the head with a hoof, “If you gotta ask, you’ll never know!” I giggled at her pouty face, reaching over and pulling her into another hug, nuzzling the side of her neck.
This devolved into more giggling and more cuddling, which struck me as a bit... “intimate”, for how well we actually knew each other. It occurred to me though that, compared to humans, ponies evolved from a herd species, and must be particularly used to close contact, seeing as huddling was a defensive mechanism in their ancestral environment. Now, it’s just a normal bonding ritual, which brings them comfort in stressful situations, like humans hugging and patting each other to show affection.
Our cuddle session died down about as quickly as it began, leaving us casually stroking each other with idle hooves.
Twilight yawned, “Well meta, I’m about ready to call it a night. You ok if I head back to my room now?”
I waved her off with a hoof, “You go ahead and head to bed Twilight. I’m gonna stay up a bit longer... Collect my thoughts and all that...”
“Alright Meta, Luna will be here in the morning, but I’ll come wake you if we need you when she gets here...” she said as she slid off the bed and onto her hooves, walking back towards the door, “Goodnight Meta.”
“Goodnight Twilight... Oh and Twilight? Thanks again for being my friend.”
She smiled warmly, “Glad to be yours too. I’ll see you in the morning.” And with that, she turned and left, the door closing behind her...
...And there I was, alone with my thoughts... For the first time, really, since Twilight had come down to check on me that morning. Perhaps even for as long as I could remember, seeing as I’d only managed to form a functional personality the night before: one might even say that I was able to reflect for the first time in my life.
Walking over to the window, I thought about what had happened over the past few days... What I’d remembered... What Discord had said... Somewhere out there was a powerful being who’d decided to abduct me from some festival, magically mutilate my body beyond repair, and hurtle me into an unfamiliar world. I didn’t know why anyone would do this, but I couldn’t think of a realistic justification for it. What had happened to me was in the past though, and changing that was far beyond my will. For now, I could only move forward, and try to make the most of the situation I’d been thrust into.
I looked over the peaceful view of rural Equestria at night. There was something I’d been meaning to try. In my non-corporeal form, I had pretty much levitated at will. I didn’t yet know how to do much more than reach in non-cardinal directions, but I hadn’t found much limit to what I could do with the cardinal ones. It was time to put that to the test. I glanced back at my wings: they really weren’t built for flight, and were more for show and the projection of magical force, but I didn’t need them for that. I had other means to work with...
With barely a glance back at the room, I braced myself on my hind legs, and launched myself forward, jumping out the window and spreading my wings. Immediately, I began plummeting fast, the force of my will alone unable to match even a fraction of gravity’s as I dropped several stories. Unable to think of any way to stop myself in that brief period of falling several stories, my body slammed into the ground full force, legs instantly buckling, pieces of my flesh literally exploding outwards as my entire body was shattered against the hard dirt of the ground. I felt ichor ooze from the sockets where my eyes had been before the sudden pressure of my skull flattening had blown them out, lying splayed and broken on the ground.
It was quite the inconvenience yes thank you sense of panic at being maimed, your input is so appreciated. The pain was excruciating... Or, it would’ve been, if physical pain were still a meaningful stimulus to me. But alas, I did not have pain receptors in my body which was literally just a shell.
Woe is me.
I lied there thinking for a few moments about the predicament: apparently my physical form had mass, and thus weight, and as long as I had weight, I couldn’t levitate like an incorporeal being, Without matter though, I would be subject to the magical ether of the planet trying to whisk me away, and out here, it was coming in gusts. I looked internally, trying to understand what exactly the situation I was in was...
I remembered that gravity is caused by some effect that mass has on spacetime, though I was a bit fuzzy on the details. An occultist-turned-physicist named Isaac Newton had theorized that it was the result of planetary auras pulling each other at a rate equal to the product of the two masses, divided by the square of the distance between them, (an inverse square law) multiplied by some constant which was around 8 or 9, and that inertia meant that the objects were moved towards each other at different rates according to their mass, meaning a relatively small object, such as my body, would be moved much faster than a large object, like the planet it was splattered against. I also remembered that another physicist named Albert Einstein had disproven that model, showing that Gravity was really caused, not by attractive forces innate to matter, but because matter warped space-time with its presence, something which was made clear to me based on the fact that I could see 5 of the dimensions curving around the matter around me.
...Wait a second.
Realizing I was basically experiencing something that even Carl Sagan couldn’t have experienced no matter how many mind-expanding substances he used, I reached some tendrils of raw matter out of my body and raised it back up, pulling the viscera back in and snapping everything back into place as I set myself back down on my hooves. I focused on the functional concept of what I was made of... Matter bent space-time, and was affected by its curvature... What if... What if there was some way that matter didn’t have that property? What if one could tune out the presence of space-time? Scientists had theorized such methods, but they could never actually produce them outside of heavily controlled environments... But they couldn’t literally see the presence of dimensional warping. Tearing down the existence of my own matter to its most fundamental level, I found it...
...And then I was weightless.
It’s a cheeky little feeling, you know, being able to just will yourself to move in any direction, and simply floating about under your own power. When I say “my own power”, I don’t even mean like a pegasus: the wings helped with stability and aerial maneuvers, but at this point I was literally willing myself in a direction and going there, physics need not apply. It wasn’t long before I was taking a leisurely glide about 20 meters above the rooftops of Ponyville.
I wondered how fast I could go. I’d found that I didn’t have any sort of momentum to keep me moving, nor did I accelerate according to Newtonian physics: gravity and inertia are results of the same aspect of mass, which meant that by subverting gravity, I had equally subverted inertia. I could basically maneuver on a dime, but I could only move about as fast as an average pegasus. Seeing as will played a large role in this, I wondered if there was some actual peril, if I would be faster. Could I outrun Rainbow Dash if someone had turned her evil? Was that kind of speed possible with this mode of transportation? There was so little information for me to draw on at this point, I had no idea what sort of equations my powers were bound by.
I’d realized by now that will was becoming the main limiting factor in all of this: Magic = Will + Intent, after all. I remembered the being which had “Displaced” me having a colossal amount of will and energy to draw from, but I didn’t know exactly what it was. I wondered if I could some day bring that sort of force to bear: before all this I might have thought it impossible, but here I was, re-enacting some sort of fanciful thought-experiment to literally levitate on a whim. What was once “impossible” was now a simple matter of understanding. With previously working models crumbling before me, I could only reject “reality”, and assume anything was possible...
...But what sort of being could have that kind of drive?
I remembered that Friedrich Nietzsche had theorized that all things, from humans, down to the smallest atoms, had an innate “Will to Power”, which drove them to seek a position of greater control over their environment: just as man builds his empires, so too does the wolf stake his territory, so too does the spider toil, so too does the bacterium feed, so too does the molecule within form the bonds of the lipid bilayer, so too does the atom vye against the subatomic forces to stabilize its own electron shell. All will was really the Will to power, only directed and harnessed, made into a fraction of what was truly beneath the surface. If directing it towards more specific goals fractionalized its strength though, I wondered what it would look like if that Will to Power could be harnessed in full. What kind of force could a being which had harnessed the will of its entire being bring to bear? If Nietzsche was to be believed, the being which could do that sort of thing would be like the over-the-top hero of an Ayn Rand novel.
But if the Will of this entity was simply that innate need for power that all things supposedly have, then what would the Intent of such a being even be like?
...some sort of paperclip optimizer for power?
I glided back into the window, alighting on a moment and glancing around the room Twilight had provided me... It was dark, yet I could see everything, the presence of magic humming through the crystal structure. I slipped inside, walking calmly to the bed and crawling up on it. I hadn’t slept in several days, and wasn’t really sure if I could still sleep at all, but I decided to lie down at the least to have some down-time, perhaps meditate. I knew all conscious beings needed to rest periodically, and that without that time to process memories and relax they could literally go insane, but I wasn’t sure what all applied to me at this point...
I was lying on my back, eyes closed, splayed out in a position that might’ve been uncomfortable for a real pony, but which gave me ample room for the spellwork I was made of to spread out a little, relaxing and readying myself for dormancy...
Within an instant, I slept.
I did something very different than dreaming...
I love all the pseudo science in this, Currently, I'm working on my Information Technology degree and I'm very interested in Artificial intelligence, I liked the reference to the Paperclip maximizer but yes this is a very captivating story and I hope you continue it, perhaps include a reference to the little Albert experiment.
i reject reality and substitute my own
This chapter is cool and all, but there was one part that kind of leapt out at me:
I realize why it's there, and why you built up to it, but it just kinda seemed out of place given that Meta is still sorting her memories out. And, given that, it just reeks of manipulation - as if Meta is trying to reinforce such behaviour by making Twi aware of and fine with it.
Forgot to capitalize "Meta".
That experiment when Meta separated herself from effects of mass was extremely dangerous. Seeing as she kept floating close to the ground we can assume that the planet is actually stationary in space because if it were, for example orbiting around the sun then shouldn't Meta be flung into space at like 30 000 km/s?
I have been thinking about your question (about why I avoided your fic) and the answer is: based on how you described your fic, I personally though that this would either be some edgy crap with overpowered main character or a fantastic and interesting story, nothing in between. And I was apprehensive to discover which is it.
Don't you mean chapter 6, not five?
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Twilight likely has very good analytical intelligence, but I kind of take issue with Meta's idea of "more intelligent" actually being a meaningful qualifier; Rarity, for example, could be said to have much better social intelligence than Twilight.
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It's actually worse than that: in a relativistic setting, all massless particles must always move at the speed of light.
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AAAAHHHHHH!
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I meant for this and the last chapter to be one chapter, but released them separately because I was tired of looking at them and not releasing anything. I plan to repost this as a single chapter when I'm done with Chapter 6.
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Well, considering the situation...
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Yeah, I thought about this, and it's a good point. I was sitting there trying to think of a way to have her fly with physics, but in hindsight, manipulating gravity might not be as good as the standard Dragon Ball Z "focus your ki beneath you" fare...
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Yeah, I noticed that too. I really wanted them to bring this up at some point though, and I'm thinking of having a poll to see who's interested in me further exploring these concepts. There are a few explanations for why she knows this, the one I had being that her memories are reestablishing themselves, and that's Marilyn Susan, the evil Dream Sorceress, coming out.
8394922 An intelligence barrier is totally a thing that exists: in particular, you can't have a meaningful conversation with anyone who is more than 3 standard deviations above or below you, as measured in IQ. If you have 100 IQ, you can talk with 98% of humanity, barring everyone in the top and bottom 1%. If you IQ is 130, you can talk with just under half of humanity, around 49.95%. If you IQ is 160, you can meaningfully interact with about 1% of all people. That's a sharp drop off, and the smarter or dumber you get the sharper it becomes.
If two people who are beyond this limit try to talk, everything the dumber one says will be painfully obvious to the smarter one, and everything the smarter one says will sound confusing or just plain crazy to the dumber one. Meta may not have expressed it well, but Twilight totally can and has been isolated by her intelligence.
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Right. It's something me and my few actual "close friends" have talked about a few times: if no one else understands what's on your mind, you become isolated from the general population. What's worse is the frustration of living in a world that is literally built around people who can't comprehend things on the level I can. I remember someone else putting it better, with something like "People kept telling me it was more complicated than I understood, and I thought, I guess I just don't understand. No. That was their excuse: I DID understand, it was the people in charge who weren't able to, because in the end, they literally just weren't as smart as I was."
Seeing as this is a decidedly non-professional story, written at a college level, about a character who is an actual genius, I felt like I might actually be able to get away with talking about that at some point later on...
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Glad you're enjoying it! I really wanted to write a story which talks about all these high concepts, and brings them to bear in a Displaced setup, because I really like to think about them and it's a fun way to break down a setting. The best part is, every time I start working on a new concept, I feel like I've expanded my mind, because I've done something like reconciling Will To Power with the Magickal Formula...
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What else can you do when you're a reality melter?
Heh. The signs make sense the Tree of Harmony, Twilight. It's hardly its fault if you didn't think to look for them.
Interesting. No unaging, Simpsonian time abyss for Spike. I wonder how the Crusaders look.
It's kind of sad that Meta can't seem to reciprocate love on the energetic level. It definitely seemed like she was doing it on the emotional level, but I suppose it doesn't count when your emotions are the playthings of your mind rather than the other way around.
As for that flight scene, it does a great job of casually demonstrating just how alien Meta is to reality as we understand it. This was a well done two-parter overall. I look forward to seeing what further madness ensues.
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I have an IQ of 160, and I don't have this problem. In fact, I had a retarded best friend in 5th through 8th grade (though I have to admit that as we approached graduation, I was getting more and more impatient with trying to talk to her.)
A lot of it is about your interests, and also your skill level at explaining things to people. I'm interested in a lot of stuff that isn't particularly limited to the realm of intelligentsia. Theory of mind and philosophy and my theories about memetic evolution and crap like that are interesting to talk about and I can't find that many people who want to, but there are a zillion people I can talk to about Star Trek and My Little Pony and whatnot.
I will admit that most people that I don't meet in the context of the Internet are not interesting to me, and without the Internet I'd be seriously crippled in my ability to find actual friends or even people I can hold meaningful conversations with, outside my family... but I suspect that very smart people are both more likely to be introverts (and therefore need fewer friends), and to have a wider circle of people they know who are also very smart (due to sharing interests, meeting in school, and the limited degree to which intelligence is heritable) than would normally be suggested by a "1% of humanity" figure.
This might actually explain part of why Twilight was so eager to embrace friendship with someone who is crazy enough to try to destroy the world over cutie marks. Starlight is probably the only unicorn Twilight's ever met who has close to her grasp of practical magic. (Sunburst would probably become a good friend if Twilight actually lived in the Crystal Empire.) Starlight's really smart, and older than Twilight by all measures I can see (the fact that she and Sunburst both know more about some types of magic than a bookworm who reads quickly, is totally obsessed with magic, and was personally taught by Celestia, is really only possible if they're both older than Twilight and thus have had more time to study.)
But it does make good sense that she'd quickly become close to Meta, because Meta is the only character we've seen thus far who's more intelligent than Twilight (Celestia is wiser and much more experienced, but I am not sure she's smarter; ditto Luna, and Discord is such an incredible dipshit about pretty much everything except magic and the cosmic level of reality, and also gets a lot of pleasure out of winding Twilight up and irritating her.)
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*squees and fangirls over Alara J Rogers still following this.*
Ahem, anyway, it might not be everyone, nor might it simply be "intelligence": the reason Economics is called "the dismal science" is because once you know it well you have to watch helplessly as politicians who have never studied it play insane political games with the economy. Every time they lower taxes or welfare spending to "stimulate the economy", people who actually understand those systems are left holding back vomit.
There's quite a bit of data out there though that discusses the social isolation that people can experience when they have significantly higher intelligence than average. I wanted to talk about it a bit because it's been a major isolating factor in my life, and I like it when my own internal problems come out in my art, because then people who are going through the same thing can find something to relate to. And it's a serious problem for me: I find most of my extended family, classmates', and coworkers' mentalities completely unrelatable. Granted, I also have severe PTSD, which is also very isolating, but once again, having a high intelligence makes people more susceptible to that.
And yeah, Twilight and Meta get along so well that the end of this chapter implied some sort of romance at without me meaning for it to. I think the Twilight I've portrayed is, on some level, starved not even for someone who has her level of intelligence, but simply for someone to validate her feelings of isolation. Meta is not only intelligent, curious, and rational, giving her common ground for Twilight to relate to, but she's also everything Twilight isn't: a risk-taking libertine with a hard-core attitude. They really are an awesome power duo, and I'm gonna have some fun exploring that in the coming chapters and sequel.
By the way, any thoughts on the fact that I was specifically thinking of "No Escape from Yourself" when I wrote the bit about forgiving Discord?
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Yeah, I didn't want to make her know something that Twilight didn't, but it was both funny and it moves things along quicker. I'm gonna have Twilight come back in the sequel with "Meta, you were wrong, those weren't labels... That was the code for me to modify the layout!"
All aged properly. One of the concepts I wanted to throw down here was the idea that the show we know them from is inaccurate: artists are getting slightly distorted peeks at them from across the collective unconscious, and then industry people are meddling with them.
No, she's not doing that because it's something she didn't build into herself and doesn't know how to recreate: love is a function of the soul, and hers is still broken.
Yeah, I had some fun writing all of that: the part where I comically described her splattering on the ground, the part where I had to actually read up a bit on physics to make sure I was demonstrating the thing about Inertia and Gravitation properly, and the part where I felt like I was actually getting smarter when I reconciled the Magickal Formula with Will to Power.
It wasn't intended to be a two-parter, I just got so tired of not releasing anything that I popped out what I had when I thought my eyes were going to start bleeding again. (they literally did that on Friday from eye-strain) I plan to merge them when I go back to revise this chapter later.
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Even if it was unintentional, I still ship it. They would be so adorkable together, if for no other reason than all of the points you just posted. They're so similar, yet they each have qualities that the other lacks, giving the ship a sort of "my other half" feeling.
I have to say that this is a very good twist on a Displaced story. I hope that you will continue writing it. It is very interesting. :)
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I'm almost done with Chapter 6, and am planning on revising the first 5 chapters around the time I release that. :3
8403827 Yay! I can't wait to read it. Keep up the good work with things. :)
This is by far the most complex and interesting displaced fic I have ever read (and I have read a ridicules amount of them) I hope to read more :)
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I'm glad to hear that: complexly interesting is what I was going for. Specifically, I wanted to write something that explored the concept in new ways, giving future Displaced writers something to mine for ideas.
I love trying to figure out something so fantastical as magic with science and logic; with every theory our minds open up to impossible concepts that in turn allow us to accept new scientific knowledge more easily. Man used to think the earth was flat and at the center of the universe. People rejected the truth even though it had factual and observable evidence, but because a few people thought to question its validity, nearly all on earth know we live on an orb revolving around a star. Fiction like this is what make us more open-minded to outlandish theories, and allows us to excel as a species.
...
Love this story, btw, it intrigues me to no end.
" so too does the atom vye against the subatomic forces to stabilize its own electron shell. "
I remember reading from a book that dealt with matter itself, about how in the seventies, they managed to discover and prove that there is a subatomic particle constantly shifting at the atom's nucleus, shifting the protons into neutrons - thus rendering the nucleus neutral and avoiding the attraction issue that a positive nucleus could have on the electrons.
This particle also had the quality that it prevented repulsion from the protons lodged inside the nucleus, preventing the unravelling of atoms and matter itself in the process.
I think the illustration used in that book was "like a small mother bird trying to keep several oversized chicks on the nest."
Awesome stuff one can find at an used bookstore.
That, and that book about summoning daevas. Heh, those fools didn't see that earth daeva coming...
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Thanks for the feedback and the correction. Will fix it. :3
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This is why occult studies are good for expanding the mind.
Yeah, I love when the fantastical tries to make sense of itself, and I feel that just seeing the attempt can benefit other writers. That's part of why I wanted to write such an over-the-top rationalfic about the subject. Glad you're enjoying it so far, we're coming up to one of my favourite parts. :3
Oh. Oooooooooh.
Are you going to come up with an explanation for Pinkie Pie's abilities?
Is Meta going to self-optimize to a point where she can both understand and harness blatant violation of magical physics and access to outside-knowledge commonly referred to as "Breaking the Fourth Wall" and "Cartoon Logic" in a manner equal, if not superior to, one Pinkamena Diane Pie?
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Nah, thinking of revising that joke out.
This has been fairly interesting so far, I'll keep an eye on it. I'm liking the CompSci/Maths references.
Thanks for writing this.
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Boundless yet finite? Not sure how that works. What about complete dimensional transcendence? As in exist beyond the concept of dimensions?
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Meta has some bullshit capabilities dude, I'm just trying to reconcile multiple canons into a single system, and "there is a virtually infinite number of dimensions" is a theory that Meta would entertain.
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Awww, don't be like that!
You have a rare opportunity here - your main character is better at understanding magic than Twilight Sparkle herself, can do dream magic even Princess Luna couldn't do, and is presumably heading to a position of equal footing with Discord.
And you've managed to make this plausible.
Your explanations about the physics of magic are well-thought out, and interesting to read. You certainly have a unique story on your hooves here.
I'm sure you can come up with a great explanation for Pinkie Pie's set of uncanny abilities --- whatever forces our beloved pink party pony is tapping into, who's to say what she is doing isn't simply a subset of a larger whole? Perhaps Pinkie Pie is actually limited to cartoon logic and fourth wall awareness --- which makes you wonder what someone like Meta could achieve when studying her.
In fact, you've already layed the groundwork for an explanation:
Extrapolate from this point onwards until you have a partial model of Pinkie Pie's ability-set. Then work your way up to a continuously improving working model, perhaps with Meta encouraging Pinkie to break reality in ever-stranger ways, much to everypony else's shegrin. Meta then goes to match Pinkie's abilities in a sort-of content -- gradually improving in certain areas until perfection, while being barely able in others. Presumably, at some point near the end, Twilight walks in on the two.
And then, Meta does something Pinkie can't do. Something Pinkie genuinely didn't expect was even doable. That actually leaves her puzzled.
...Or, if you want to see somepony else's unique take on explaining Pinkie Pie, look no further than this excerpt taken from chapter 4 of the genious Fourth Wall meta narrative Aporia:
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Not entirely. Twilight spent most of her formative years studying magic, of which she is a prodigy. Meta is an analytical math-genius whose brain has become something like a computer. She can sense things Twilight can't, but Twilight's brain is pretty much wired for understanding advanced magic.
Only because she's from a world which doesn't have a lot of innately magical things due to a catastrophic event, making Dream Sorcery actually practical.
Part of the point of Meta is that power levels aren't as meaningful to her: she doesn't have access to the kind of raw power Discord and Twilight do, but she has an ability with extremely broad application, and she's extremely clever with it.
My rule with this story is that nothing gets handwaved: if I can't explain why Meta can do a thing, she can't do it.
While I do plan on her delving a bit into Pinkie's abilities, I'm worried what it will do to the tone if I have "fourth wall breaking" be part of it. This is a Sciencey Horror series, and that runs the risk of being too jarring from the theme.
I've read a bit of Aporia. I'm probably going to go with a more in-universe-believable reason she can do what she does, probably involving something Twilight doesn't yet have the scientific knowledge to test or hypothesize. Once again, the rule with this is that Meta can't do anything that isn't explained.
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A "bit"? I'm currently reading it for the third time!
And to be honest, I can already tell your story is going to be on my "read multiple times" list also.
Well, you can always go with the more standard explanation of Pinkie being to a degree subconsciously aware of events and popculture in one or more of the many human universes that happen to air a television show which in turn describes part of Pinkie's life. It's about her, so it caught her subconscious' attention. Perhaps it even is a form of dream magic, tapping into a certain subset of dreams from billions of humans across several "adjacent" universes, which all condense down into their lowest common denominator - which are vague impressions of pop culture references and a TV show about ponies.
Once Meta understands this, I'm sure she can pull some neat trick with her knowledge of dream magic to either replicate Pinkie's seeming "fourth wall awareness" - only, focussing it on something other than humans watching My Little Pony, perhaps to gain knowledge on a subject otherwise outside her reach - or temporarily alter Pinkie's own perception, either messing up and temporarily cutting her off from it, and/or guiding her towards better clarity and focuss.
Fun fact: Personally, my own dreams are mostly in a videogame / movie format, and more often than not involve videogame and movie references and characters of some kind. (I once had a dream where Sonic the Hedgehog traveled to Star Gate Atlantis' pegasus-galaxy on the USS Enterprise to find Action Replay codes which would reveal the memory adress storing the position of Sally Acorn's lost father. Oh, and then the camera panned out and it was all a comic I was reading. Right before I went up to the attic to catch the wormhole back home before it closed. )
So it'd make sense if there's enough people who dream in a similar format, given enough universes to average out the random combinations and insanity.
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Well I'm dumb.
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No, you saw a typo. Thanks! :3
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Ahhh, it's no big deal. After all, if I didn't someone else would have eventually.
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I suppose I could consider Dream Sorcery as a possibility, though I was thinking of going with her being some sort of "error in the universe" or something along those lines. Something I want to get into is that "magic" is really a catch-all term for many different things: what Meta does is very different from what Twilight does, and I feel like Pinkie should be doing something different from both of them.
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Do so if it's appropriate. If it's odd or unusual, one of them might point it out and hang a lampshade. If it's evidence that reveals something about the nature of our dear abomination and her linguistic skills, then you can let it and further evidence build until one of the characters notices it. It stood out to me because it seemed like an unlikely coincidence, but that may just be me; whether it is or not, it could be a part of the story should the characters or audience take note.
I can understand the horror aspect of this fic, but i just am not feeling it at all. But i do still see the horror point. I just lack the feeling of actual "horror" since i'm imagining what i would do if i were in this situation
This is the first Displaced fic that I've actually bothered reading. The whole thing of doing Isekai/portal fiction with cosplayers being morphed into their favorite characters and so on and so forth struck me as a mite dull, to be honest.
This is the exact opposite of dull. This is like HPMOR, only much, much better. You have my attention, and a much-deserved fave.
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It's subtle, and it's not something that's going to disturb everyone equally. Some of the more direct, eldrich and body horror, isn't going to come up until Chapter 6. Even still, I think the story has appeal on multiple levels, and all horror really is is a fascination with the macabre.
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I'm glad you like it so far!
Displaced is a subgenre which people have done some really interesting things with, but yeah, most of it is poorly written wish fulfilment. Part of the point of this is to show just how far from the norm a fic can deviate (Subversion) while still being solidly rooted in the setting, while exploring the concepts (Deconstruction) through science and critical thinking.
As for HPMoR comparisons... This isn't going to be nearly as long as that, and thus won't be able to cover as many topics in as much depth, but Yudkowsky is known to write far below a college level, and the two of us differ greatly in worldview and background.
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If you want other examples of really different Displaced stories off the top of my head, try Casting a Shadow, A Skitch in Time, or Equestria Digital.
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I see the subtle horror but i doesn't affect me at all