32. Worthy Opponent
The throne room was not the ideal place for the “interview,” but with Smooze one could never be too sure. Having him in close proximity to all her books just seemed… unwise. To keep things from being excessively formal, Twilight abstained from using her throne. She sat on a cushion along with Moondancer and, who had just arrived, A. K. Yearling.
Discord was nowhere to be seen, as per her request. They didn’t want his presence possibly influencing Smooze’s recounting of events long past. Unfortunately, “seen” was the operative word. He was, by his own admission, a habitual eavesdropper.
“Now that we’re all here,” Twilight began, “let’s get started. Smooze, allow me to introduce A. K. Yearling, a famous author. She’s doing research for a new book that takes place in the distant past, and she would like to ‘pick your brain,’ so to speak, about what it was like then. Practically nothing is known about those times.” She directed her gaze to the computer on a nearby table. “This would also be a good test of your voice synthesizer.”
The synthesizer wasn’t ready yet, but Yearling had insisted on sooner rather than later. Nopony knew when it would become ready, and it didn’t help that Meg was with Celestia on a trip to Tartarus. Moondancer was filling in for her. The raw data would be recorded so that Meg could later use it to improve the translator.
The synthesizer spoke: “Okay.”
“All good stories have conflict, threats, danger,” Yearling began. “You were once one of those threats.” She hurriedly added, “I’m not blaming you, I want to make clear. Whatever you might’ve been back then, you’ve become a friend to ponies—just like Discord.”
For some definition of “friend,” Twilight thought to herself regarding the draconequus.
“So, while I understand this may be an awkward question for you to answer, please remember that I only want to understand what it was like back then.”
She waited for a response. Smooze’s goofy smile remain unchanged.
“Okay.”
She took a breath. “Why would you destroy villages? What was your motivation? Was it simple hunger?”
The answer came surprisingly quick. “No. Was. Told. To. All. Empty. No. Harm.”
That was the last answer Twilight expected. “Just to make clear, the villages you ‘ate’ were all abandoned, unoccupied?”
“Yes,” he replied to her immense relief.
“And somepony told you to destroy them?” Yearling asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Not Discord?” Twilight warily asked. It was a fact he knew about it; he admitted it to Meg a while ago during the Grand Galloping Gala.
“Not. Discord.”
Then he did nothing to stop it, either—not that he ever implied he had. “Okay, who?”
Smooze’s response was a single word: “Alicorn.”
“Alicorn,” Twilight flatly repeated. “I assume we’re not talking about Celestia or Luna.” That was simply inconceivable.
“No. Different.”
“Me? Cadance?” Was this another case of time travel? Not that that would be more conceivable.
“No. No.”
That was every alicorn in existence, that had ever existed—so far as she knew—which left one possibility. “Was this alicorn from the future?” After all, other ponies might ascend in the future, obviously, though why they would do this…
Yearling gave her a curious look. Her curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied.
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“Could you des—”
Steve came barreling in. “Twilight! I’ve got it! I know… what…” He looked around at those present.
Twilight gave an exasperated sigh. “Kind of busy here, Steve.”
“I’ll make it quick.” He gathered his breath. “The stars. I know what they’re doing. Two things, actually. They’re keeping outer space cold, eliminating infrared radiation—most light, actually—so that the planet can continue to cool off at night.
“But that’s not the big thing. They’re actively maintaining the curvature of this realm’s space-time, creating or destroying energy so as to keep this realm balanced on a knife’s edge, neither expanding nor contracting.”
Okay, that was important—inconvenient timing, but still important. “How are they doing this? What kind of magic?”
Steve shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it’s definitely magic.” He looked at Smooze, paying attention to him for the first time. His horn lit up. “I’m sensing a similar kind of magic from you, believe it or not.” He looked back to Twilight. “He destroys energy too, makes stuff vanish, sorta like the stars.”
“He’s clearly not a star,” Twilight said with tilted head.
He shrugged. “Similar magic, regardless.”
“Yes.”
Everypony looked to Smooze.
“You know about this?” Twilight asked the blob.
“Yes.”
“But you’re not a star?”
“Not. Scaring.”
Twilight was baffled by that response. Moondancer explained. “The word ‘star’ is not in the translator’s database.”
This was frustrating. If only the translator was fully functional. “I guess there’s no point in asking further about this, not until we have a much larger vocabulary to work with.”
“Yes.”
“What about spelling the words out?” Yearling asked.
“Cannot. Splat.”
“‘Spell’ isn’t in the database either.”
Twilight sighed. “Let’s resume where we were interrupted.”
Yearling did so. “Could you describe this alicorn? Mare? Stallion? Coat color?”
“Mare. Orchestrate.”
Twilight shook her head. “Orchestrate. Let me guess: another word not in the database.”
“We did cover a lot of colors,” Moondancer said.
“Not that one, apparently.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” Twilight said. “If that alicorn really did come from the future—our future—it might be better if we didn’t know too many details.”
Yearling quirked an eyebrow. “Why would that be?”
Discord appeared. “Because, my dear, the future is just as immutable as the past. Knowing it ties your hooves. If you don’t like it, too bad; you can’t change it, no matter what you try.” He glowered. “Don’t ask me how I know.”
Somehow, Twilight doubted he was referring to that incident in the Everfree. “You were supposed to stay away,” she said, glowering a bit herself.
Discord waved off the complaint. “You asked him your questions; he answered them. This is no longer about him.”
No, it wasn’t; it was about this mysterious alicorn—and conveniently here was a somepony else who had happened to be there. “You were around then. You must have sensed this alicorn.”
He eyed her warily. “Of course I did.”
“Did that alicorn belong to that era and was somehow lost to history, or did she arrive from the future?”
Pinkie entered the throne room, carrying a large box of stale leftovers on her back. She trotted over to Smooze and dumped the box on the floor in front of him. “Here’re some snacks for you!” she said, opening the box up.
Smooze oozed a part of himself into the box, being careful not to consume the box itself.
Discord sighed. “If you must know, the future. I have not sensed this alicorn since that time.”
“Has she been born yet, just not yet an alicorn?”
He walked over to the preoccupied Smooze and put an arm around him. “This interrogation is over.” He softened, almost pleading. “Be content in your ignorance.”
They vanished.
“Hey!” Pinkie shouted. “What about my box?”
They entered the prison. Two guards were present, same as Meg’s previous visit. Whether they were the same two, she couldn’t say; she lacked the experience to easily tell minotaurs apart. Both of them stood up and bowed upon seeing Princess Celestia—only one had done so for Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Your Highness, what can we do for you?” asked the taller one.
“We are here to see Lord Tirek,” the princess said. “I believe you know two of the humans accompanying me, Agents Fowler and Reubens. The third is Meg Coleman.”
The shorter guard sat down and recorded the names; if he thought the third name seemed familiar, he showed no indication of it. The other guard went to the gate and unlocked and opened it. He held it open as Princess Celestia and the others walked through. The door closed behind them with a thick metallic thud and relocked with a sharp clank.
A deep and carrying voice drifted from far down the corridor. “It has been a long time, Celestia. Far too long.”
The alicorn did not respond. Silently she led the procession to the end of the corridor. Lord Tirek was standing in front of the bars, bereft of clothing as usual, when they rounded the corner. Celestia held up a hoof, informing the others to remain out of sight.
“Perhaps it has,” she softly responded, finally, “though I’m sure you can understand. There seemed little point, as there was nothing left to say.”
He grunted in agreement. “I suppose it had gotten repetitious. So why now?”
What really had happened? Meg wondered. She doubted she’d ever know. Celestia had never volunteered any information about what had gone down between them.
A smile graced the princess’ muzzle. “I’m here to inform you that the humans have agreed to take you back. It’s only fitting that I be the one to deliver the news, as it was I who put you here.”
Tirek was speechless for a moment. “It’s really over.”
“Not quite over, but soon. There are details to work out.”
Celestia nodded to the agents, and they came into view. Tirek studied them. “You two look familiar,” he said.
Meg’s turn would come. How familiar would I look?
“Not as familiar as we’ll become,” Reubens said. “My partner and I will be in charge of your security in our world. We work for the branch of the government that, among other things, provides security for visiting foreign dignitaries, as which—for now—you are being classified. As I’m sure you can imagine, there are numerous potential threats.”
“I am hardly a stranger to such threats.” He paused. “Though I may be surprised by the forms they take in the world as it now is.”
“Precisely. We have arranged for your accommodations—nothing fit for a prince, I must confess, though still superior to this cell. It won’t be much longer, a few more days, a week at most. We also need to coordinate the media coverage of your release.”
That caught his interest. “Media?”
“They want to cover your release from Tartarus; they’ll be positioned just outside the gates. You can make a statement, if you wish—or not—but they will not be following us back to your new accommodations. Twilight will be transporting them back separately. In fact, the location of your new residence will not be made public, though admittedly it’s only a matter of time before someone figures it out. Perhaps by then you’ll have found a permanent home more to your liking.”
The centaur turned away from the bars. “It has been so long since I have had to concern myself with such mundane facts of life.” He turned back, addressing Celestia. “What about Discord? Will he show up to deliver his final words to me?”
“Yes,” she replied, “he will. He wants to ensure that you depart for the human realm without any… detours.”
I hope the media is prepared for that. Not that they’d have any right to complain. It’d be good for ratings, whatever he does.
Tirek sighed in resignation. “I’d expect nothing less from him.”
He turned back to the agents. “What about money? I would expect the generosity of your government to have limits.”
Reubens let out a breath. “No doubt, it has limits. But I have a feeling you won’t have much trouble earning an income. Write a book about your life; it’ll be a best seller, I’m sure. Sell the rights to Hollywood—you’ll know what that means soon enough. We can certainly put you in touch with people who can get the ball rolling.”
Fowler took over. “But the best way to make that happen is to keep yourself in the public eye. You appear to know something about the My Little Pony cartoon?”
“I was informed by those human prisoners who briefly shared this prison with me. Quite honestly,” Tirek said, pointedly looking at Celestia, “I half suspected you put them up to it. How could this ‘cartoon’ possibly have known of my recent efforts to conquer Equestria?”
The princess permitted a small frown to form. “We wish we knew how it was possible.”
“And by ‘we,’” Reubens said, “she means humans as well as ponies.”
Tirek was silent for a moment. “And what it reveals is not totally accurate, as I found out during that press conference.”
Reubens shrugged. “It is what it is—for now, anyway. You’re free to ‘correct the record,’ as we put it.”
Tirek eyed Celestia. “Even if it would meet with disapproval?”
“You shall be released from this prison, regardless. The so-called ‘bronies’ will assume you are lying, and those who protest our presence will assume it is I who is lying. No minds will be changed by facts—true or not—uttered by either of us. We both have been around long enough to understand this.”
Tirek grunted. “That you did not prevent my release will not go unnoticed either. It signals that you fear not what I might say. You have always been a worthy opponent, Celestia.”
“As have you,” she replied, slightly bowing her head.
The agents had closely followed that exchange. Meg could imagine the executive summary they’d give the President: don’t let Celestia become an opponent. Never mind that since defeating Tirek, she has gained at least another millennium of experience.
The centaur turned back to Fowler. “So as I was saying, yes I know of it.”
“There are conventions organized by fans of the cartoon,” Fowler said. “Attendance can easily exceed a thousand people. The next one is in a few weeks. They’ve already booked a few ponies; they’d like to book you too. In fact…” She waved Meg over. “We have a someone with us to discuss that with you.”
The moment of truth. Meg stepped into view, nervously waiving a greeting. “Uh, hi. I’m Meg Coleman.” The centaur didn’t look so tall, now that she was much taller herself. Tirek studied her, clearly aware of something. “I’m with the convention,” she continued. “I can answer any questions you may have.”
“How much would I be paid?” he asked bluntly.
Either he had decided he was imagining things, or he had decided to keep the uncanny similarities between herself and “Common Ground” to himself—for the time being. The sooner he saw her with her changeling doppelgänger, the better.
“We cover expenses, like travel and hotel room, but that’s all. That’s typical. The primary benefit to you would be the public exposure. That exposure will go well beyond the thousands who’ll be seeing you in person. The event will be recorded and made available for everyone in the world to see.”
“Recorded,” he repeated. “By the same people who recorded my press conference?”
“No, we can do that ourselves. Pretty much everyone can do that now—maybe not as well as the press could, that being their job, but well enough.” She took out her phone and held it up. “A device like this can do it.”
Tirek gave it a skeptical look. “Could you prove that right now? That’s a lot smaller than what was used at my press conference.”
“Uh, sure.” She switched to the camera app and centered the centaur on the screen. “It’d only take a minute.” She held a finger just above the record button. “Say something…” She tapped the button. “Now.”
Tirek uttered a surprisingly meek “Something?”
Meg tapped the button again. “Good enough.” She started the playback and turned the phone around, so he could see it.
“Something?” came Tirek’s voice from the phone.
Meg returned the phone to her purse.
“I’m impressed,” he intoned. “Could I get one of those?”
“We can arrange that,” Reubens said. “We ought to, really. It’s hard to live without such a device in the modern world. It can do far more than take pictures or record video.” He took out his own phone out of his jacket and briefly showed it before putting it back.
Tirek’s attention returned to Meg. “What else takes place at one of these conventions? Would I be able to partake in them?”
That was a question no one had even conceived of being asked. “Well, quite a few things take place; it lasts several days. Other speakers related to the cartoon—writers, voice actors—vendor area where you can buy pony-related stuff, various contests… autograph signings… We have to make it worth the admission fee, after all—”
He gave her a flat look. “You will make money off it, profiting from my presence, but none of it will come my way?”
Meg was suddenly glad he was on the other side of those bars. “It goes to covering our expenses; we don’t really make a profit. None of the guests of honor are paid, other than to cover their expenses for showing up. That’s true for all events like this.”
“You should be aware,” Fowler said, “that the talk show circuit you’ve heard about is not much better. They pay, but very little. The benefit is the national exposure you get for whatever it is you’re selling or promoting—like, say, to promote a book you’ve written that’s just gone on sale.”
“I see.” He seemed mollified by their explanations. “Now answer my other question. Would I be able to partake in those events you listed?”
Clearly he could use some coaching on how to interact with people in the modern world. Meg was spared from answering the question.
“It’d be best if I answered that,” Reubens said. “It’s a matter of your personal safety. You would be the center of attention wherever you go, and going about from one activity to another like that makes you an easy target. We’ll certainly try to accommodate your wishes, but we may not be able to. A schedule should be available in advance—” He looked at Meg, who nodded back. “—so you could pick what seems most interesting to you, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Tirek walked a circle about his cell, head down in thought, before returning to the bars. “Yes, you’re right, of course. It has indeed been too long since I had to think about such things.”
Meg could almost feel sorry for him. He had a long road ahead of him; it would not be easy for him to fit in to modern society. She just wished it didn’t have to be her problem.
Tirek addressed her. “You mentioned that writers will be present.”
Uh oh, this can’t be good.
“Does that include the one who got my brother totally wrong?”
How to answer that? The answer was no, fortunately, but that was kind of missing the point.
Tirek waited for her answer.
She didn’t have much choice but to give it. “No, it does not.”
“How can I contact him?”
Meg didn’t think it was worth correcting his erroneous assumption. She looked to the agents for assistance.
Reubens provided it. “We must ask that you do not do that.”
Meg was glad not to be on the receiving end of that glare.
“Let me explain. We have already conducted a thorough investigation and questioned everyone associated with the cartoon. We are satisfied that all of them were oblivious to the reality of your world. They thought they were creating a fictional world from scratch. There is no evidence we could find that their interpretation of Equestria had come from anywhere but their collective imaginations.
“I know that’s not a satisfying answer. We’re not satisfied either. I can understand your displeasure at your brother being inaccurately portrayed—there are other inaccuracies too—but you are not going to accomplish anything by confronting them. By all means, correct the errors, set the record straight, but please do not do more than that.”
Princess Celestia chimed in. “Trust me, you are not alone. You’ll understand when you see the cartoon for yourself. Nonetheless, I do not hold those associated with it responsible. As Agent Reubens just said, they were unaware, and they had fully and without reservation cooperated with the investigation. They were no less shocked at learning of our existence.”
“How can I see it for myself?” he asked.
“I believe Meg would have the full collection,” Celestia said. “You should arrange a viewing with her, once you’ve settled in. I’m sure she can answer whatever questions you may have about each episode. Be aware, though, that it’ll take several dozen hours to watch them all.”
Did you have to do that? Tirek’s eyes were on her. Couldn’t you have given me a heads-up? “Uh, at least three dozen hours,” she said, her barely contained annoyance at the princess eliciting a knowing smile from the centaur. “Not counting the current season, which has diverged from reality anyway.”
Tirek covered his eyes in thought. “Fine,” he finally said. “Obviously you all know more about what’s going on than I do, even if that’s not saying much.” He resumed eye contact with Celestia. “But what doesn’t make sense to me is why that cartoon would be mostly right. That cannot be coincidence. Yet where would the mistakes come from?”
“If we knew the answer to that,” Celestia said, “I imagine it would explain a great many things.”
Meg stood alone in the observation lounge of the Zephyr, gazing upon the Gates of Tartarus and the Royal Guards still patrolling the ledge. Celestia was returning the agents back to their world. The princess only knew where to take them because earlier that day Meg had brought her to the agreed-upon location to pick them up.
She had been a pony for that trip, of course. The pendant was once again suspended from her neck, having been left behind in the ship during her visit to Tartarus. She would go equine again, but not just yet. It was easier to wring her hands when she had hands—not to mention it was also easier to confront the princess when they were more or less the same height.
Celestia returned. “You have words for me.”
Meg didn’t bother to turn around. It was a simple statement, but one that derailed what she had planned to say. Was there any point in saying what the immortal alicorn already knew she was going to say? “Why?” was the only word she could eke out.
Celestia stepped closer. “You need to spend time with him, to find out what you can about how you and Sunset Shimmer aided his escape.”
Meg turned around. “I get that. What I mean is, why couldn’t you have warned me in advance you were going to do that?”
Compassionate eyes answered her. “Would it truly have made it any easier?”
Not really, she had to admit. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she muttered.
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She looked into the eyes of the mare who condemned her sister to one thousands years on the moon. It made her issues look so piddling in comparison. She didn’t know what to say.
Celestia walked over to the intercom. “Captain Shooting Star. Prepare for departure. We’ll leave as soon as the guards are onboard.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
She paused for a moment. “Meg, please keep me informed on your interactions with Tirek. My experiences in dealing with him shall be at your disposal.”
Meg made a beeline for Twilight’s castle. The Zephyr had slowed down as it approached Ponyville, allowing her to jump off. Possessing wings certainly had its advantages. If only that pendant would work in her own universe.
She spotted them on the main balcony—some of them. Smooze was definitely not there. As she got closer, it become clear that Yearling and Moondancer weren’t there either. Were they still conducting the interview? It’d be a nice distraction from all things Tirek. But she could see Twilight; wouldn’t she be with them?
Steve was down there—and so was Pinkie Pie? Was there a Smooze-was-interviewed-by-a-famous-author party? But where was everypony else then? And it didn’t look like a party. Just a patio table they were all seated around, with nothing on it but glasses and a pitcher. And why were they outside? Well, it was a gorgeous day. She was half-surprised Rainbow Dash wasn’t down there bragging about it.
They all watched her come in for a landing. “How did it go?” Twilight asked.
“About as well as can be expected,” Meg replied. “Tirek and Celestia were actually civil with each other, believe it or not.” Steve looked rather pleased with himself. “Something you want to tell me?” she asked him.
“Nothing much,” he said with fake casualness. “I may have solved the neither-contracting-nor-expanding realm problem, that’s all.” He got serious. “But I can tell you about that later. This is more important.”
It looked like Twilight already knew about it. Yeah, it could wait. “Where’s Smooze and the others? Still talking?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, it didn’t last long, actually. Discord took Smooze away after he revealed who put him up to destroying all those villages in the distant past—you’d never guess who, and, fortunately, the villages had all been abandoned.”
Never guess who. “Not Discord? Why would he care, then?”
Twilight sighed. “Meg, we have another time loop here—not one of us, but an unknown alicorn from the future. Our future.”
Another time loop. Suddenly, all things Tirek sounded rather appealing. “And… what did Discord have to say about that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Three guesses. No, make that one guess.”
Meg offered the obvious guess: “Too soon for us to know?”
“Uh… actually, ‘be content in our ignorance.’” She grimaced. “I suppose it means the same thing. Anyway, Yearling and Moondancer have already left town. The sensor data from the interview is on your laptop for you to look at later.”
That ought to include an audio recording; there was no point in asking questions that listening to it would answer. “Another time loop,” Meg glumly repeated. “And I still think that whole Lyra and the changeling thing must be tied into one as well.” She looked at Pinkie. “I don’t suppose Pinkie Sense has anything to say about that?”
The pink pony looked up for a second. “Nope!” she chirped.
That was hoping for too much. Pinkie would’ve said something before now, anyway, if it had registered on her Pinkie Sense.
“And I still got that damn, encrypted message. Probably another time loop, given my luck.”
“Nothing we can do about that one, unfortunately.” Twilight drank from her glass of apple juice. “Do you know what your involvement will be with Tirek?”
“I certainly do,” Meg said listlessly. “Celestia volunteered me to watch all the episodes of MLP with him, to answer his questions and hope he spills something about how he broke out of Tartarus.” She found a cushion and moved it next to her husband and sat down. “That’s dozens of hours of quality time with him.”
Pinkie perked up. “Maybe the big meanie knows the encryption key to your message?”
To her shock, Meg couldn’t reject that possibility. It wasn’t that Tirek knew he had the key, but maybe the key was something he knew, like lyrics to his favorite Minoan song. Time loops seemed to be full of crap like that. “Well,” she conceded, “guessing keys at random sure ain’t working.”
Pinkie was oddly focused on her. “Maaaybe you haven’t tried enough of them?”
“Pinkie, I tried I don’t know how many millions, billions of them. Cracking our encryption that way just doesn’t work. The set of possible keys might as well be infinite.”
“Maaaybe you need a super duper random key?”
Meg blankly stared back. “A super duper random key.”
Pinkie shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
Spoilers if you can successfully decrypt this 
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Stand up for yourself Meg. Even if Celestia's reasoning was sound she should still have had the courtesy of telling Meg beforehand. Who knows what Meg's reaction could have been to that surprise. You don't throw the people you work with curveballs like that when it can be avoided. Celestia should know that.
While I am not a cryptographer, I'm pretty sure dividing the code in groups of 2 units is either showing each group is a letter or just to confuse us since it looks like hexadecimal sequence if grouped together
…..yeah ithink we all know who the smooze was talking about
a question about the encryption (answer as Discord would), is there a hint in this chapter or story anywhere?
by ‘answer as Discord would’ We mean in some vague answer which may or may not be a riddle and possibly no a simple yes or no.
Common man I have trouble with my HOUSE KEY. :/
That looks really complicated.
Uhg I can't even get decoder tools to work with the data to even begin to guess at a key it keeps telling me the data isn't in 64 bit or that there are supposed to be 16 pairs per line which there are.
Only thing I can say is what the story already tells us. It's probably AES encrypted which means the decryption key is either 16, 24, or 32 letters long.
Superduperrandom is 16 letters exactly but that would have been my first obvious guess.
Hm... I wonder if this hex ciphertext is what Meg got on that piece of paper near the beginning of this story.
So far I've had zero success decrypting it, attempted a few things including xor and addition modulo 256 with short keys, but nothing generates a coherent message.
Honestly, I expect this to be a troll, with this ciphertext being encrypted by some one-time-pad we have no way of knowing.
Some nitpicks:
Something about "What really had happened?" doesn't sit right with me. Maybe try "What had really happened?" - I think that the latter puts more emphasis on "really happened", which I think fits in context a bit better.
"millennia" is plural, "millennium" is singular.
So, either:
-> "she has gained at least another millennium of experience",
-> "she has gained at least another millennia of experience".
9374115
You think wrong, I have no idea what "Orchestra" is attempting to approximate here!
9374101
This assumes Celestia planned it beforehand, and didn't just realize "oh hey, that would be a good excuse for Meg to spend time with Tirek and fish for information!" on the spot.
9374384
What's a color that begins with 'o' but is fairly rarely talked about?
9374114
It looks like raw bytes, encoded in hexadecimal. Each group is a number in the range from 0 to 255 (00 to FF) and is not necessarily a letter since you can encode any binary data that way.
(Hexadecimal is used for this sort of thing because it neatly fits the 0 to 255 range of values that a byte can represent into two digits with no waste from impossible combinations, making for nice, clean, fixed-width rendering. See this screenshot of a hex editor for an example of viewing an HTML file this way.)
For example, I had a 111-byte PNG file containing the Wayback Machine's favicon kicking around, and the raw contents of said PNG file can be represented as:
9374597
Depends on who you ask. I love citrus, so "rarely talked about" can't be referring to "orange", and my brothers love olives. My mother paints, so "ochre" doesn't qualify. "Onyx" is a little too close to red-and-black alicorn territory.
...and opal, orchid, and oxblood seem a little too rare to be "fairly rarely" talked about.
9374687
Better than I was thinking... besides, none of those seem like it would be someone that "we all know" anyway.
That looks like a 16x16 one time pad. If every doublet is a coordinate, and location is a letter, that's about 10^362 possible combinations.
Though anyone with time to work it out might want to try assigning each doublet to its apparent coordinate, and see if any pattern emerges. Maybe the coder was in a rush or lazy.
Assuming it means anything at all, and the author isn't just trolling us.
9374705
I think it was cadence you know "orchestra"
Well geez, if only we had an expert in randomness. Like some sort of 'lord of chaos' or something.
You know, just a hunch.
Geez! There's more time travel content in this story then even ALL the other fim stories involving it combined! Xp
Celestia, stop being a dicklestia. Dont care how old you are there's no excuse for using people that are like a friend as tools.
9375265
But discord said he hasint sensed this alicorn smooze talked about, if he's telling the truth.
I'm guessing...flurryheart?
9375265
So it can't be her, or any other alicorn princess.
9374437
Well, you have this, the implication being yes, she could have warned her but chose not to.
I should point out an error about conventions. The voice actors get paid anywhere from 3 thousand to 10 thousand dollars for showing up. I was head of contracting for PPC and negotiated those contracts. How much of that goes to their agent is between the agent and the voice actor though.
9374675
9375190
I don't remember the exact chapters but if you download the whole story you can Ctrl+f to find the word encrypt which will bring you to most of the relevant parts of the story.
She specifically mentions that if it was her she'd encrypt it using AES, this was before the time loops were known. She was basing her line of thought as if someone were trying to give her a message only she could decode, but we know now that it was probably herself that gave it to her. I'm not an expert on hex or AES but the few decryption sites I could find mentioned that the passcode had to be a specific length, either 16, 24, 32 letters long.
Also along the line of the idea that it's herself giving it to her everything that future her knew was what we already have read up to this point at least.
The sites I could find wouldn't work for me cause I apparently am missing some part of how hex works cause it keeps saying the entries aren't an even number of bytes, which they are exactly 16, or that there needs to be 16, which they are exactly 16. No way I entered the data was working so I had to give up.
If you can actually plug in the passwords to figure it out I'd suggest "superduperrandom" (which is exactly 16 letters long) to start cause Pinkie is unusually prophetic and Meg even mentioned that she'd settle for a pinkie ex machina.
9379039
Sorry for the delay in responding.
As a programmer who actually once reversed AES to dump a video from a player widget that youtube-dl doesn't support (the IV and key were in the m3u playlist which also specified where to get the chunk files, so it was basically just a way to foil casual use of the Network tab in the browser console for saving videos), I can think of several reasons it might not have worked for you, but I'd need to see the specific AES decryption sites you tried.
For example, an AES key is any random string of bytes and there are no shortage of sites on the net which expect you to be exact in your input format when UI design experts will remind you that it's both good design and not difficult to be permissive (eg. sites that say "no spaces or punctuation" on phone number fields when it's easy to just strip them and accept any of
18005551234,1-800-555-1234,1 (800) 555-1234, and+1 (800) 555-1234).Maybe the site expects you to hex-encode your bytes, which would mean that
superduperrandomwould have to be entered as7375706572647570657272616e646f6dor perhaps73 75 70 65 72 64 75 70 65 72 72 61 6e 64 6f 6d... and hex-encoding doubles the actual length from 16 bytes to 32 bytes (without spaces, which would add anotherlength - 1characters for a total of 47). (ie. Maybe it expects 16 bytes, in an encoding which represents them as 32 characters)Modern browsers even support in-form verification, complete with a structural placeholder pattern, so, if they wanted hex, they could make
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __the placeholder and allow only digits in the range 0 through F (case-insensitive) to be typed and it'd be a pretty strong cue, while also Just Working™ whether someone types or pastes, with or without spaces. Heck, even a simple pair ofminlengthandmaxlengthattributes would help the various AES sites I poked at.Either way, I'm too busy to find cryptanalysis engaging right now without also trying to solve the problem of why the specific site you tried was unhappy.
To put this in Tirek's perspective: When he was last on Earth, the biggest city that ever existed was ~100,000 people and he was from one a bit smaller than that, (Knossos was somewhere between 40-100k at its peak). So the convention size would be like telling you there would be a quarter million people there.
9388747
Sorry for my delay too, saved the tab to respond when I got home and forgot.
This was the site I was using.
https://www.devglan.com/online-tools/aes-encryption-decryption
9392681
Just gave it a quick try and I got a different error than you.
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)superduperrandomas the key and also triedSuperDuperRandom,SuperDuperrandom,SuperduperRandom,Superduperrandom, andSUPERDUPERRANDOM.Everything I tried produced a "Given final block not properly padded. Such issues can arise if a bad key is used during decryption." message in the output field.
In this situation, that basically means "wrong encryption mode, wrong key, or input gibberish isn't actually encrypted data". (If your input is the wrong length, you'll get "Input length must be multiple of 16 when decrypting with padded cipher" on that site instead but raw encrypted data is only distinguishable from random gibberish in that a key is known to exist which will transform it into something useful rather than other random gibberish which just happens to be the right length when it comes out of the decrypter.)
Flurry Heart could still be canon.. lol