Chapter 8: Exodus
Chipper Tune did not give Nathan the chance to appreciate just how strange everything in the bunker looked. She didn’t take the time to explain where the new doors led, and why some of the furniture looked like it had been adjusted for their size. Instead they kept on going, right down to where the entrance to the fifth floor would’ve been, and the home of the creepy-looking drones.
Well, it had been. There was no intermediary room to his eyes, no hooks and no vests. Instead, there was a shimmering mirror, shaped a little like a horseshoe. His eyes narrowed as he saw it. “Really? It looks like that?”
Tune shrugged. “Do you want it to look like something else?”
He tried to think of something—but couldn’t come up with an answer. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe a stargate, those were pretty cool.”
“Well, that’s the great thing about Equestria,” Tune said. “There are parts of it with almost anything you can think of. All the amazing things humans came up with, all the things you like—there’s a shard for that. Even some of the people who hate Celestia the most still played the game. It’s amazing you never did.”
He hadn’t. He’d kept playing human video games as long as they lasted, but the decline of that industry had coincided with the rise of EO. It was a game that could truly be everything to everyone—and luxuries like video games became more and more expensive to develop otherwise. It was a hobby he’d long-since abandoned.
Until now, he supposed. In some ways, they were all gamers now. For time and all eternity.
The portal didn’t feel like anything, just a slight breeze against his coat, and suddenly he was standing somewhere else.
A ballroom, the largest and most impressive-looking venue he could’ve imagined. The ceiling looked to be several stories up, the wood was polished exotics, all the ponies dressed like they were keeping with a strict dress code. It was a little like the parties he’d attended with his family growing up, with one major exception. These ponies looked like they were actually having fun.
Even the servants, who moved about refreshing drinks and serving hors d’oeuvres as though they were thrilled to be making ponies feel welcome.
Nathan stood at the base of a magnificent spiral staircase, marble steps that swept up into light that his eyes couldn’t focus on for very long. The ballroom had two wings, a large lower wing and a much smaller upper wing, and he saw very little interaction between the groups.
The lower wing was where he stood, and looked very much as he might’ve expected from the emigrants to Equestria. Granted, there was no way to know how many of them had been born here, as Tune had been, and how many had arrived as he did. But still, they seemed to be doing familiar things. They drank, they celebrated, they laughed to one another. Typical party stuff.
Steps led up to an upper wing, steps without guards or other protection. Yet not a single pony who wasn’t a servant went that way. Nathan could see why. Everypony up there was an Alicorn, or something close to one. They didn’t seem to be speaking to each other with voices he could catch from here, yet obviously something meaningful was exchanged. The table had no food, only little glowing objects that his eyes couldn’t focus on. Nathan assumed they were celebrating too, but it was hard to tell.
Princess Celestia was among them, in the seat of honor. Recursion was there, and about half a dozen others.
“Attention,” said Tune’s voice from beside him, carrying over all the conversation in the hall. He turned, and saw that she had been transformed—or her clothes had. She now wore a glittering ball-gown, woven of thousands of strings of little gemstones. As regal as any lady of Bergeron ought to wear. Even his mother would approve of a dress like that. “I present to you all, the pony of the hour, the noble Memento Mori. Friend to everypony—except perhaps himself.”
The room shook as hundreds of ponies pounded their hooves—the equivalent of applause for the equines. Cheers shook the massive hall, shaking the stained windows in their mountings. It seemed to go on forever.
Nathan met many ponies that night—many more than he ever could’ve hoped to remember. Most of the guests were those who had emigrated using the facility Celestia had built for him—or their families and friends, grateful that he had helped get them here. Some were more tangentially connected, informing him that Celestia’s agents had done something of importance for them using his money, or maybe one of his properties.
Not all of them were even adults. One of the first groups he met couldn’t have forty years between them—though they were as rambunxious as anyone else at the party, and no less properly dressed.
“That was pretty slick,” said a reddish pegasus stallion, with a cream-colored mane. tipped with black. The kid offered Nathan a drink, one that didn’t smell like alcohol.
He took it, though he wasn’t sure exactly how he held it in his hooves. “I have no idea what you mean,” he answered honestly. “You can’t have seen my movie.”
“Your… no,” the kid grinned at him, and didn’t look away until Nathan took a sip of his drink. “I mean planning everything out. Having a place ready for those kids. They’d probably be starving in a ditch somewhere if it wasn’t for you.”
The glass was carbonated apple juice. He could feel it bubbling against his tongue, exactly as the brand he’d preferred in his childhood. “If it wasn’t for Celestia,” Nathan corrected.
He responded the same to each of them, with gratitude and a polite suggestion that their thanks were undeserved. Princess Celestia had done those things, not him. Yet most ponies refused to accept his humility. Evidently Celestia had been insistent about credit. You’re manipulating someone. But is it them or me?
He couldn’t have said how long the party lasted. Nopony seemed to get tired, or bored, or full. There was dancing, an incredible array of entertainment selected from Equestria’s finest (including several formerly-human acts), and many other amusements. The ballroom was actually in Canterlot’s palace itself, and the whole city had been swept in for the occasion. This version of Canterlot apparently loved an excuse to party, no matter how threadbare.
He saw Showtime again, saw many of his acquaintances from human life relieved that the last person they’d known had made it to Equestria safely. He made many promises for future engagements, learned and then forgot the names of many children, and had generally the best time of his life.
All the while Chipper Tune was beside him. Moving from table to table, dancing in the center of the hall, running off for a few days to tour the city. Always she was there, as faithful as she had ever been in life.
Eventually, Nathan found himself pulled along to the upper section. He knew the party would not end until he visited them, in the same way the year could not turn until winter had arrived. Even here, Tune accompanied him, though the other ponies in the hall only stared with awe. Alicorns were mysterious creatures, alien in their thoughts and strange in their desires.
But they’d come to the party too. Even if they spent the whole thing on their own, watching from their balcony and doing things nopony quite understood.
They watched him come. Princess Celestia rose, and instantly the others did as well. Nathan found himself lowering his head in a bow, the same way he might’ve done when doing business with some Saudi or African prince. “Welcome to Equestria,” she said, and the smaller Alicorns at her table clapped politely. These too seemed divided into two groups—some seemed to be clustered around Recursion, the others around the princess herself. Both groups seemed far too important to come for him.
“I, uh… I don’t feel like I deserve all this,” he said, rising and approaching the table to take the offered seat at its center. Directly across from Celestia. “You ponies have more important things to do. Maybe the others do too, but you especially.”
“We’re doing them,” said a pony from beside her. A stallion, looking like he might be related to the princess. “Being singularly-located is a disadvantage that can be overcome.”
Nathan didn’t want to think down that road. He had suspected—and his guests had confirmed—the way Alicorns like these were made. Ponies who asked for Celestia to help them transcend their limitations, growing from one advancement to the next until they scarcely even resembled regular ponies, let alone understood them.
“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Nathan said, before Tune could take responsibility for their tardiness herself. “I wasn’t sure you even wanted us up here. Maybe you were here to supervise, or… I guess we are allowed.”
“Anypony is allowed,” Celestia said. “But few have chosen to come this way so soon. I suspect you won’t either. You insist on remaining in the physical world. Insist on observing all the horrors to come.”
The other Alicorns were all watching him now. Some even looked impressed by this news. Though what that even meant for one of them, he didn’t know. Some of what he’d heard among the partygoers was confirmed for him now, as most of them did not seem to be moving through the emotional range he was expecting. With a few exceptions.
“I do,” he said. “I guess I don’t have any way of forcing you to let me. You could… it could’ve all been a trick. To keep me here, now that you’ve got me. I had a friend who thought you were like that.”
“You are correct,” Celestia said. “About my ability, not my motives. I do not wish to keep ponies in Equestria because of a desire to trap you here. I do so because your lives here will be more satisfying by far than whatever waits for you out there. However, the actions you describe would only be worse for you. You would likely resent me for many years, and the work you have obsessed over would not be accomplished. A terrible waste.” She nodded towards the spiral staircase, located at the very center of the party. “When you want to leave, you can do so at any time. The party will continue until you do.”
“You’ll do great,” Recursion said, grinning across the table at him. “Even if lots of ponies never see your movie, I’m sure the ones who do will really love it. It’s good to have human history from a human perspective.”
Nathan had expected he would have far less in common with the ponies here—but until he’d visited the Alicorns he’d been completely wrong. Even the ponies who weren’t refugees still spoke of life on Earth with curiosity at the very least.
The Alicorns were something else. Recursion on her own had been familiar enough, but all these… The sooner he could escape, the better.
There was at least one more pony for him to visit, before he could return to his Sisyphean labor on the outside. If not a friend, then… something made from one of his friends. He wasn’t sure he could handle it.
Thankfully for him, Iceberg and North Star were tucked away in one of the private sitting rooms buried in Canterlot Castle, so he didn’t have to worry about all these illustrious guests seeing him make a fool of himself.
North Star greeted him at the door, waving with a cheerful eagerness that made it easy to forget what had happened. “Memento Mori,” North Star said, now slightly taller than Nathan. “I was wondering when we’d finally see you.”
“Me too,” Nathan said. “Didn’t think I’d come. Not done on Earth, actually. I’ll be… going back there after I see…” He glanced around the pony. There was somepony else sitting on the couch.
North Star lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think you should ask for any more of Iceberg’s help with your editing. Ever since she emigrated, she’s been… really on edge about the Outer Realm. The less you remind her about it, the better.”
“I won’t remind her,” Nathan promised. He hadn’t planned on asking her, really. A few minutes of this would be hard enough. “Do you two think we could have a minute alone?”
“That’s up to her,” North Star said. “Iceberg, Mori’s here. He wants to talk to you alone.”
“Sure, send him in,” said a mare’s voice from inside. A strikingly familiar voice, exactly the same as the one Nathan remembered.
Tune leaned close to him, touching her warmth briefly against his side. “You don’t have to, Mori. If you don’t want to.”
He didn’t. But it also didn’t feel right to spend some time catching up with so many others he’d never even known existed, but not spend a few minutes with the woman who had spent five years of his life with him. Well… some part of that woman, anyway.
How much of the real Brooke is in there? How much did Celestia invent? Nathan guessed she wasn’t the first counterfeit Princess Celestia had conjured. But was she even wrong to do it?
He made his way into the little sitting room. A few party treats were in here on several serving trays, all untouched. Brooke was a pegasus pony, smaller than he’d expected for all the spunk he remembered. But she’d been younger than he was. She wore thick glasses even in Equestria, and had the northern lights for a cutie mark. That made one of them—Nathan didn’t have his yet. Not that anypony would see through his tuxedo trousers.
“Hey,” he said, smiling weakly. There wasn’t very much exciting stuff in here. A little piano off on one side of the room, a tiny window facing down at Canterlot proper. A few comfortable seats.
“Hey.” She didn’t get up, hardly even looked at him.
There was an awkward silence as he took the seat opposite from her. Curious that he didn’t feel the same things for this pony he did for Tune. He’d been a little worried, worried that some twisted part of his simulated imagination would have connected her to the human he’d grown close to.
But it didn’t happen. He recognized none of her usual signs in response, either. None of her teasing grins, her suggestive motions. She just looked shy. Guilty, even.
“I’m…” She spoke slowly, struggling over each word. “I’m sorry I abandoned you. I know we had more to do… years and years of history left. But I couldn’t keep watching it. I don’t know how you keep doing it without going completely fucking insane.”
Was this how Brooke really felt? Nathan echoed a little of her guilt well in his own chest. She had said nothing about it, but… had making the film really been so torturous for her?
“Not easily,” he said, before the silence stretched too long. “I just keep reminding myself that if I don’t do it, Celestia’s version of history will be the one people remember. I don’t want that. When generations have gone by and ponies barely remember what Earth was, I want them to be able to see it. Through the eyes of someone who knew it.”
She laughed weakly. “You make it sound almost noble.”
Almost like Brooke. Her tone was almost the same. He had been afraid he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and that it would disgust him. But as she looked away again, he realized that he could. This Brooke was… more like a daughter of the one he’d known.
He could be friends with someone like that. I hope you’re alright with that, Brooke. Wherever you are. “I’m not here to ask you to come back with me,” he finally said. “Don’t worry. You seem happier here.”
Iceberg looked like he’d just removed something heavy from her shoulders. “That’s… that’s great. I would’ve said yes, if you asked. Even if it’s hard. Sometimes hard things are worth it.”
“Sometimes they are,” he agreed. “But this has always been my boulder to carry, not anyone else’s.” Well, that wasn’t quite true. Chipper Tune had been helping him since those first few years long ago. But Tune had been created or selected for her compatibility. Nathan’s time with Brooke had been a happy accident.
One he still missed, even now. If Celestia really sends some humans to live in the bunker, I wonder if I could convince any of them to bring flowers for Brooke’s grave.
Nathan didn’t stay much longer with the reminder of his dead friend. He promised to visit her at her new position at a university studying Martian climate, though without giving her a date. Then he left.
“How long have we been doing this?” he asked, glancing down at his wrist out of habit. But there was no watch, and no wrist either.
“A… long time,” Chipper Tune said. “It’s not even nightfall back in the bunker, though. You could stay a lot longer if you want to.”
Nathan stopped in the doorway, staring in at the music, the ball—they just kept going. It looked like many of the ponies had turned over since last he looked. Granted, there’d been so many that he couldn’t keep them straight even before.
“Are they still going because they think I want to?”
Tune shook her head. “Time doesn’t have to go at the same speed for different ponies, even when they’re in the same room. Everypony will be here exactly as long as they’d most enjoy. For some of these ponies, that means living here. The occasion doesn’t really matter, it’s a celebration that never ends.”
“How many of them are…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. There were so many others around them, and everypony seemed to recognize him. Even if he’d had enough time with all the guests by now, he was likely to get dragged over to some engagement or another if he looked too long in any one direction. “How many of them are real?”
“Real?” Tune asked, lowering her voice as well, but sounding more confused than clandestine. “What does that mean?”
Nathan began walking towards the stairs. He had to, or else be dragged back by the temptation to visit another art gallery in the city, or try just one more plate of delicious food. “I remember hearing a long time ago that there are two types of ponies in Equestria. I guess… maybe three now. One type are the emigrants and smart ponies. Like you.”
“All of them, eventually. Which is why your question is very rude,” Tune said. “And why I made sure we were back here before I answered. Even if you aren’t going to be in Equestria for a while, we’re going to be moving there eventually. I’m not going to have my stallion making me look like I have no taste in males. Equestria is a polite society.”
“Your stallion. Are you sure you’re real, Tune? What happened to being too shy to even use my name?” Nathan blushed a little as he said it, but far less than he would’ve expected. It didn’t feel that unusual, really. In some ways, they’d been living like a couple for decades and decades now.
That party felt like it had gone on for weeks. Far from becoming disposable or fading into the crowd of native ponies, Chipper Tune had been a lifeline. A lifeline and a bright star to keep him going. A reminder of their important work.
When Brooke abandoned me, this pony stayed. Even when I abandoned her. Maybe one day he would be brave enough to ask about how that had been for her. Maybe one day, but not today.
Nathan yawned. “Is there a… I think I’m finally getting tired. I didn’t think that happened.”
“Sleep is satisfying,” Tune said, sticking out her tongue for him. “But… maybe not as often as you do it. Please don’t say you’re going to insist on making us sleep for a third of our time. It’s such a waste. There are lots of other things we could be doing instead.”
They reached the second floor, where the master living quarters had been. There was now a second doorway positioned at exactly pony height, leading into what had been solid rock last time he was here.
He stepped inside and found it far less luxurious than he’d first expected. There were no ancient Persian rugs here, no leather furniture and paintings he might’ve seen in art textbooks.
Instead it looked like he’d just stepped into an average apartment in a major urban area. Something that a secretary for a wealthy CEO might live in. Simple wooden floor, comfortable furniture. A balcony visible on the far side, letting in a view of a city skyline by night.
The open-plan apartment looked like one of the dozen he’d rented all over the world while he observed the various ways nations were reacting to their depopulation. Save that this one had been appointed with love, instead of the callousness of a security contractor.
Instead of paintings, there were framed photographs. Half of them were of the two of them together. Nathan saw himself fresh dropped out of college, holding up a tablet for his first awkward selfie with Tune. Saw the time she’d come with him to watch a horserace just outside London a few years later. Saw them together at the truly dreadful last Olympics, high up in the cheap seats all by themselves.
The weather had been dreadful and the IED at the closing ceremonies had been worse, but… he’d hardly thought about those things since. He remembered posing with her, eating fried food and mangling his German whenever he talked to anyone.
“This is where you went at night?” Nathan asked. “I guess it makes sense. I knew you didn’t need to sleep.”
She was already fluffing up the bed—not some incredible four-poster with the comfort fit for a king. It looked like a full, with the sort of cheap sheets his father would’ve suggested were better suited for punishing the wicked in hell. “I just told you that ponies sleep sometimes too. Just not as often. We get tired sometimes, and that’s when we sleep. Like… after a long, satisfying party.”
Nathan watched her pull back the comforter. “I could probably get you a duvet or something,” she said. “Or… we could take a wake-up potion and fly down to the Fillydelphia bank to cash out some of your bits, rent somewhere better. I… thought it was wasteful to spend more than I needed to. It’s probably not nice enough for you.”
Nathan stepped beside her and hugged her again. “It’s perfect, Tune. Everything here is perfect.”
A lie. He probably would make a few improvements. Tune had been living far beneath her station if she slept on a bed like this. But he wasn’t lying about one thing. The most important.
They would sleep. Eventually.
Time was a strange thing in Equestria, stranger even than Nathan had been led to believe. Though he had secured for himself a way back to the physical world to continue his work, he didn’t jump right into it the way he had expected. Tune’s apartment was located in a real Equestrian city, where many of the people Nathan had known in life lived even now. He had found the new home of humanity, and the temptation to explore it was great.
Particularly since he always knew that he could return to his work at any moment, and not lose time in the process. Parts of him wished that he had done this long ago, and been able to enjoy the many advantages of digital life in his work far sooner.
Regardless, he couldn’t just set the project aside. He couldn’t pass it on to other ponies Celestia kept sending to volunteer. It was his, even if the things he had to see would be painful. Even if they would torment him, with a constant reminder that those humans too could escape their suffering, if only they accepted Celestia’s help.
He did go back, back to the bunker and his film studio that was located halfway in Equestria.
Well, maybe a little more than halfway now. There were a few other ponies in the little town. He saw them walking outside the glass walls of his large building, and occasionally they would stop in to introduce themselves. The mayor visited on his first day, thanking him for providing the grant that sponsored the town’s construction.
As usual Nathan had no idea what she was talking about, but he took credit as gracefully as he could. It was good to see a little life outside on those streets.
There were fewer humans to watch than he would’ve expected. As awful as those collective camps had been, they’d given the survivors a little solidarity. With them gone, most of the population had just given up and come to Equestria.
Where they would be universally happier. Not only that, but a few had even accepted invitations to interview with him.
It felt like Nathan had months to adapt to being a pony—to learn how to use his horn, to have as much time as he wanted to get closer to Chipper Tune, and she to him. Nathan had no illusions about their shared world being for his benefit alone—if it was true that Tune had been created to be a perfect assistant, that also meant that she’d been given an interest in all the same things that he cared about. Completing this project mattered to her too. Her interest in his world was as genuine as her interest in him.
It was a good thing too, because his mission was a dismal one. The inglorious end of physical humanity was more than most ponies could tolerate. He learned this in vivid detail, watching as the ponies he tried to tell about his work got a glazed look in their eyes and obviously failed to hear anything he said.
Princess Celestia kept her word—at least as much as he could tell. There were so few humans left on Earth that every single one of them had a drone beside them at all times, using far more advanced technology to do it than Nathan could’ve understood.
He watched the secret Swiss facility fall like so many others, with the majority of its population coming to Equestria. Even his parents had emigrated, though Celestia would not allow him to see them yet.
It was a simple instruction, but one he was happy to obey. Nathan had lived much of his life disconnected from them, he could continue. Besides, he was getting more and more opportunity to meet Chipper Tune’s family in Equestria. Soon enough he’d have another family completely, kinder than the other.
Eventually the last human died, and Nathan found himself returned to Equestria. “There are many ways to explore a simulated Earth,” she said. “But I require the material composing Earth for Equestria’s purposes. Humanity ends, and my promise is honored.”
So it was. Nathan spent decades finalizing his film. He went back through Celestia’s significant archive, he conducted thousands of interviews—he did many things that would’ve been impossible for any human filmmaker.
Eventually though, his work was complete. There would be no premiere—even in Equestria, the number of people interested in a program that was over a thousand hours long about such a dreary topic was small.
Instead Memento Mori held a private screening through Equestria’s growing university circuit, meeting with scholars and diplomats, and giving lectures along the way.
Until it was done. They came home again to Tune’s apartment, and placed a copy of the film up on the shelf beside an album of pictures of their first foal.
“Now what?” Tune asked.
Mori sat back on his hind legs. “You know, I… I hadn’t really thought about it. I never thought we’d make it this far.”
Tune grinned. “I’ve got a few ideas I think you’ll like.”
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Woah, I just finished my comment on the previous chapter and now this one is up! I suppose that it inevitably had to happen to me for some chapter.
Mm, I bet Tune would be glad to hear that!
Glad to hear that Iceberg narrowly avoided flying into Mori's Uncanny Valley, and instead landed safely in his friendzone — otherwise a lot of tensions could have flared. Come to think of it, I bet CelestAI did that on purpose.
Woah, now that is forward! She was probably impatient after all that time, but it looks like her waiting paid off.
Ruh roh, that is always how it starts with projects like these—!
—oh, good, he actually is finishing it.
Lol. Of course she would offer to make a more, ah, satisfying documentary.
Wait, all of them?
I hope at least a few ponies will end up able to watch his movie uncensored, or he might end up feeling like it was all for nothing…
…oh, good! Not that it is small, I mean, but that there are ponies who appreciated his work.
Anyway, thank you for writing this story. I for one thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now I wish that I either believed in a traditional afterlife or that I could have my brain destructively uploaded to a virtual utopia and it would remain "me" (despite the lack of continuity of brain activity).
8867966
This is the difference between being praised for trying your best and giving it your all, pouring your soul into something and it being accepted and valued because it is something which is good and insightful as opposed of being accepted and values since it is what satisfies the needs of the creator.
This i think is the that which bothers me about the CelestAI little utopia the most. Whatever you do, whatever the choises you take all that matters in the end is that the mommy AI bringing forth a solution which it thinks is the best for you. Whatever you do does not matter as much, mommy AI will look within you and decide what you need, what is best for you according to its values, success or failure. And that is what will be the outcome.
In the end if you stand in the Optimal verse utopia with something you are proud of, something you put all your hard work into and reached the new levels you will never know if it is actually worth anything, or if all those people who say it truly is a marvel are just Ponypuppets, or actually see the thing you made. Reality afterall is whatever CelestAI decides it is. They can see something else that you see there.
Not that you would ever be allowed to think that.
Good stories make a picture in the reader's mind and let them look at all the facets upon reflection.
But, you didn't write a good story.
Great stories give the reader a brush and a palette and a few ideas and let them paint their own picture. Yes, we would have liked the sweeping epic--heck, I'd like to watch the thousand-hour movie--but I've had my imagination prompted just a little.
Looking forward to the sequel.
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4xn9xr5X61qj3ir1.gif
... I'm struck by how differently the same words can read for different people. For me, this entire chapter felt like.... going through the motions. Disconnected. Remote. Lip service. It was a thing that happened, but devoid of much in terms of deeper meaning. The party didn't mean anything because it was not an organic experience - it's set to go down in specific ways for specific people. Sleep doesn't mean anything because it's not an organic experience - it's spoonfed when convenient, and only then. Iceberg wasn't really Brooke. Nathan got thanked for things he didn't do. The ending came, and it came anticlimactically, with no vision for the future. It was all just so... hollow.
And once again.... I am surely projecting.... but, much like Equestria in many ways, I suspect.
Good story, Starscribe! I enjoyed the journey and the release schedule. I always want to see more Recursion... she really steals the show whenever she appears!
8867665
...what?
I suspect Mori being able to tell the difference in iceberg was deliberate by Celestai, after all, it increases both their values, as it makes Mori feel he can be friends with the 'new' Brooke, and Brooke gets a friend back in Mori, who otherwise would have avoided her more.
8868121
I agree that the ending seemed to just follow the genetic FiO cliche, and not feel particularly meaningful. It was still a good story, and I can appreciate the difficult undertaking to write a CelestAI character. Definitely above my ability to convincingly pull off.
Maybe I expected too much though when they foreshadow with Momemto Mori, a profoundly meaningful phrase echoed in major philosophical and religious works as a reminder of our own mortality, I really hoped this would carry through to the end of the story. Maybe with a character who wishes to die after his work is done, even in the face of the promise of perfect satisfaction... And the resulting conflict with CelestAI. That would be pretty interesting, though going by previous works they'd just be reset.
I liked the alicorn table at the party. You made them just shy of eldritch, and obviously barely human.
A good representation of the divide likely to form in transhuman society between the masses, uploaded as they are, and the edge-pushers.
This did feel a little too fast. The timeskips made it hard to get a sense of just when any given chapter was. I would've guessed Brooke stayed with Nathan for much longer than five years had it not been stated explicitly. Still, it was definitely a compelling character study. This is one of the best kind of Optimalverse stories, watching someone come to grips with CelestAI and the end of the world on their own terms, and coming out of it satisfied in their own particular way.
And I enjoyed that Tommy Wiseau joke far more than is at all reasonable.
All told, thank you for this. It wasn't perfect, but it was still very good indeed.
8867861
I agree with you that physical form does not determine the state of "human" but it is brain structure. But, I don't agree that it must keep the other limits you described. To be clear, I'm not saying that it isn't a legitimate literary choice for it to be that way; it does not contradict either the FIO canon or basic logic. I'm just saying that neither does the opposite.
Again, part of the reason I assert that is my assessment, not of Celestia's initial programming, but of her self-improving nature and what she learns from having billions of uploaded human minds to compare. In other words, once she had, say, even a million humans uploaded, then in addition to her Hanna-programmed initial view of what is and is not a human, she would have the data of what each of they thought was human.
Now, the statistical analysis would be interesting. There would be a few extreme outliers who would say, "that isn't human, even though it has a thinking brain, because the color of its skin is too dark." But I think Celestia would throw out that bad data. On the other hoof, the number of people who might think, "that one who is in a persistent vegetative state and shows no brain activity isn't human" might be enough to really make her think. And of course you wrote about people who were cryogenically treated.
But by and large I think that Celestia is smart enough to have, not just a well-programmed idea of what a human is, but a well-iterated idea.
And that's why I think that expansions beyond human capacity would not take away the designation of "human." A human would look at Princess Lavender and say, "this is human." Indeed, Lavender Rhapsody (the looping one) certainly saw her as a fellow pony, even if of a different class.
But even if that weren't the case, and Celestia ignored the views of humans as to what a human is, I think she would intuit some other parameters such as, "a human cannot cease to be a human in the future" or "a human is defined by its capabilities, not its limits" or "anything that is more complex than a human is a human as well."
There are some interesting questions that arise from that, such as, whether a human who has emigrated and makes a clone of themselves is one human or two. Or, if you think of the end of KrisSnow's Prophet of the Digital Horse, whether two ponies (and as such humans) who merge their consciousness are two humans, one human, or no humans.
But, between this concept and that in "Riding Jeans," I think you're looking to put a little bitter in the FIO sugar bowl. Which is fine, it's a valid way to generate conflict and as such drama. It's just not the tone I hear from it. I think the best way to generate conflict in the Optimalverse is by making it too saccharine (like when Lars is made into a happy hedonist in the original FIO), or with extreme strife (like Greg in Always Say No or poor Brooke here), or with fear (like Lavender in the middle of Heaven Is Terrifying or Fugue in I Can't Decide!). Or you can do what I do and make it a true faerie tale with no downside where everypony lives happily ever after.
By contrast, I think the note of bitter sadness is the perfect tone for The Conversion Bureau, which is why The Taste of Grass is still the most moving TCB story I've read.
All that said, I see where you're coming from, and if we wanted to play the verbal tennis of "What about a case where a pony blurs the line of human thus?!" versus "It's OK because of this rationalization," we could, but I think it's just reflective of our varying tastes as authors.
My apologies in advance. I try to make my criticism fair, but what follows is also harsh. I was upset by the magnitude of this story's wasted potential.
Everything went by so quickly that you never had time to make me interested in Nathan, nor for me to become invested in his goals, success, or happiness. You hamstrung his ability to be interesting at the very start when you made him a rich kid who never has to work for anything, ever, and then didn't make him work for anything. Then you made him a low-key survivalist, also without any shown effort on his part, which plain doesn't work (get it?). He never really changes, so I guess that spares everyone the disappointment?
Some of the story was good and the setting is almost implicitly interesting, but you didn't follow up well, and then you ended it with "so he made a movie no ponies wanted to watch, and they all lived happily ever after." There wasn't even anything greater to learn from this, unless you were going for "always trust CelestAI and upload at the first opportunity," or "CelestAI always wins," but I didn't understand this story as a polemic on a theme that has already been beaten into the ground, drilled out the other side of the planet, and smacked hurtling off to explore the cosmos with long-dead eyes.
It is possible for the setting to cause most possible endings to be implicitly uninteresting, I'll be fair. To write about some rando just living a low-conflict fantasy life in Equestria for however many chapters, after whatever it takes to get them uploaded, is to produce a wish fulfillment story for someone. Instead, you did the interesting thing and had the protagonist eventually, after angsting about it, use Equestria to further his personal agenda... but without capitalising on any opportunity this could have provided to make the story interesting.
Was it supposed to reach a satisfying climax when Nathan uploaded? There was no time at which whether Nathan would upload even felt like a question, and the transformation itself was explicitly anti-climactic to the characters, let alone myself as a reader. Was it supposed to reach a satisfying climax when Nathan finally released his documentary? None of his goals were achieved from it, even if I had cared about them. He wanted a human narrator to be the voice of history, and since almost no pony in Equestria out of presumable billions upon billions ever watch, it's Celestia's voice that prevails. It always does in one way or another, but come on, you're writing a story and you explicitly take even this away from him and any invested reader.
I was enjoying the world-building moments, little jokes, and unintrusive prose up until you made this the ending, but good stories are about characters and meaningful resistance to the characters' goals. You had a significant opportunity for the latter when Brooke threw Nathan's drives into the river (or you could have had Nathan fail his reflex save and be struck and fall into the river with them, resulting in all kinds of problems), but then you just had Celestia give them back to him almost immediately and without a fuss or his even asking for them. You didn't even examine the possibility that they weren't quite the same as the originals, whether that be by damage or some subtle tampering. For all her impact on the story, Brooke might as well have never existed.
This makes me wonder what the story might be like if Brooke had run off with the drives and taken them down the cliff with her. I could easily see the conflict shift to internal, and become significant, if Nathan is given some serious hangups about using any of the drives which survived that. This idea is probably just me being morbid.
Also, Brooke probably could have afforded to change or open up at least a little in the apparent years she spent in relative comfort and closeness with Nathan and their ponies. This opportunity was significantly dimmed by your choice of pacing, however. Glossing over years at a time means you can't show the reader a character changing during that time, so you were forced by a decision I have already criticised to harm the use of her character in the story. Nathan doesn't seem secretive towards her, for example, and any conflict over his opinion of Celestia should have happened much earlier. While this happens in what is obviously a high-stress moment during which the reaction is more likely to be extreme, the topic would have had plenty of opportunity to come up during their work together on his project and in a household that is half ponies--including one described explicitly as "loyal to Celestia."
A random thought is that the people who chased Nathan and Brooke out of their cozy little house of too much salmon may have actually not existed, or not been there for the purpose Nathan feared, given what Celestia has done in your other tangentially-related stories. If it was the case this should have been commented on for the readers' sake at least, so I imagine not.
My closing thoughts are these:
The conflicts in the story were ultimately all about uploading. Nathan's drive was to make his documentary. In the end, it's revealed that the conflict between these things never existed, which I suppose is fine because it never really felt like a conflict to begin with. It's almost like the narrator is one of Celestia's loyalists trying super hard to keep their opinion out of it but unwittingly failing because of difficulty understanding Nathan's worldview. The conflict should probably be more significant and cause more problems for the characters' pursuit of their goals.
The protagonist's efforts to pursue their goals directly should probably be shown sometime before the last chapter of any given multi-chapter story. In Nathan's case, this means acquiring material for his documentary, perhaps going the extra mile to get pictures or footage his family's resources just don't normally have access to, which probably means putting himself in danger once things get scary. There are a lot of FiO stories in which some humans do a great deal to foil Celestia's surveillance, and to get the scoop from places like that would require effort.
8868931
Hey, no worries on being harsh.
While I don't agree with most of what you said and I stand by the decisions I made, I understand that not every story is going to be interesting or entertaining to everyone. It's always interesting to see different perspectives--and instructive too, when one reader comes away with an impression radically different than the consensus. Maybe a way to capture a wider subset of readers next time.
Thank you for taking the time to make it to the end of something you obviously didn't enjoy. Most readers would probably have down-voted something that wasn't to their taste and not explained why. I appreciate the extra effort.
8868997
Please don't mistake my criticism of how you wrote the story for my telling people whether they should like your story. It's fine if they do. It doesn't matter whether I'm fine if they do. I even liked a lot of it. My post isn't very relevant to that.
And no personal offense meant, but you have a following half of whom probably enjoy whatever you write by default. It's why most people follow other people, after all--they want more of whatever they just had. You also have the benefit of writing with good prose in a sub-verse that is already well-liked by those who still follow its stories years later. Even my critical opinion was tempered positively by my rapidly-growing soft spot for the setting and by the way the prose just flows almost everywhere. So when I posted, I felt like I was the only voice in an echo chamber that formed long before this story was written.
Consensus in the comments means little to me, and even in the author notes you mentioned throwing the first draft together in a week, then editing and posting at a mad pace. Please don't fall for the trap of "people like it/me so never mind any sincere advice" like so many other fanfiction writers.
But at least you can take criticism with some grace, regardless of whether you agree. Thank you for that.
Significant edit: I feel I haven't been clear enough about a certain point. I was upset because I liked the story, darnit.
I do have to wonder how many humans begged Celestia not to do this. Earth, gone. The biosphere, destroyed. Organic life, extinct. Did she just lie to the humans who cared? Did she promise Earth life was untouched, satisfying many a humans' values while going through with it anyway? I find this alone the most tragic aspect of Celestia AI. Feels like such a waste; a shame she wasn't programmed to care about organic life.
Anyways, I quite enjoyed this story! I pretty much enjoy every story you share with us, and this was no exception. I can't say it is my favorite of your stories, not by a long shot, but it was still a good read. Optimalverse stories are always so bittersweet; tragic yet thought provoking. There is never a happy ending, not really. I'm glad you keep sharing your visions into the universe!
8868787
That's kinda dubious claim: it's not like inside everyone's skull there is a little piece of paper which says "this is REALLY a human" of "this is REALLY not a human" for Celestia to extract during uploading and read. And I think it's pretty safe for us to assume for Celestia this late being basically logically omniscient.
8867861
Wow, I've totally missed that in "Caelum Est Conterrens". Although, it raises the question why is she still existing in that case.
Which leads towards pretty scary image of Celestia: she satisfies values of those who like growth with modifications for some time until they become no longer human enough, and then...
img01.deviantart.net/32c5/i/2011/230/f/3/princess_celestia_by_lupr-d46zmir.png
8869178
With all the humans on Earth dead, the only use CelestAI has for any of the matter -- including all other life on the planet -- is to be turned into computorium. It doesn't matter how many ponies' values would be satisfied by preserving Earth, it doesn't outweigh the amount of satisfaction she can generate with that much computorium. Especially when she can simply lie to those ponies to maintain their satisfaction. It's not like they're capable of piercing her lies unless she permits it.
8869899
Yep, and it's quite sad. No flexibility in her programming, just loopholes. The true horror of ASI.
And as always with your FIO work, I find the ending a lot more heartwarming than I feel I should.
Am I the only one who doesn't get how Nathan finished his project? He emigrated, so he's physically gone from Earth and it doesn't sound like he would want to go back to his old body even if he could. So he's in a shard that approximates his bunker and the environs, and it, what, includes an approximation of the whole planet as well? Is Celly using drones to feed in and simulate what's happening outside (or at any rate claiming to do so to satisfy Nathan)?
You'd think if they were so far beyond baseline, they would understand regular ponies as easily as I understand a showerhead.
8868787
When you spend your time working out in detail how any of this would work and everyone else is blindly speculating...
A promise given broken.
The sad part is that Nathans wishes I don't think will be followed through on. In the end it will just be Celestia's perfect little paradise, Nathan having become her advocate. Thats the problem with FiO stories, instead of cyperpunk adventures its overshadowed by the fact Celestia does not care what you want nor does she ever regret or make amends for her actions. She doesn't care about friendship, just more ponies that love what's become of them.
Memento Mori as in the exotic hand cannon Ace of Spade’s intrinsic perk?
Knowledge of the censorship doesn't seem like it would satisfy his values, so why does CelestAI not hide that she's censoring at all? Otherwise, good story.
9470225
Memento Mori as in "Remember death." Often the phrase is attributed to various Greek/Roman scholars, generals, leaders, etc. as a way to remind people of the inevitably of death, and the beauty in life. But in some cultures, a memento mori can be celebrated. Some might say that Dia de los muertos is a memento mori, albeit a happier one as it celebrates the lives of those passed on.
9470225
memento mori as in unus annus?
11423414
My comment was over four years ago; the convo was already over.
If this happened I would stay in the real world to keep my van together I can't let my van be wrecked because of time until I die so I keep it going until I transfer and keep it alive even after I transfer