Error Code: FIO

by Ashfur

Arc 1-1: Run Story.exe;

Location: Yosemite Valley, California
Date: March 4th, 2016, 11 A.M.

Alex sighed happily as he walked his usual route through the forests of Yosemite valley, enjoying the crisp air as the cooler months just began to give way to spring, the air warming just enough today to make a jacket unnecessary. Less than a year ago, Alex would never go out for hikes like this. Most days would be spent inside, on the computer, playing games. From strategy turn-based tactical simulations to fast paced racing games, he had mastered a fair amount of each genre.

Then Equestria online showed up. Suddenly, everyone was playing it. What's more, it was different for everyone, and Celestia, the AI behind it all, only seemed to be getting better at everything she does. She was even going so far as to actually upload people's brains into her system to allow for 'maximum satisfaction through friendship and ponies'. Alex really did enjoy the idea of a perfect, endless game tailored exactly to his likes and desires, but it was ponies. A show aimed for little girls, and from his experience most games based on shows usually were rushed marketing ploys for extra cash. That was his old excuse for not hopping on the bandwagon: now, Celestia beginning to get a solid grasp on the real world from her virtual home at Hofvarpnir studios made him second guess himself in buying one despite all the fun everyone at his college was having with them.

"I'm not sure whether everyone is crazy or I'm the one that's finally lost it," Alex lamented. "Everything that's happened so far really makes me worry about the world, and I swear Celly's getting more insistent and personal in every ad I watch. One of these days, I bet she'll just send everyone a ponypad anyway, for free. HA! Yeah, and I'll go back to playing Fall of Asgard while I'm at it."

Alex picked up a rock and took aim to skip it across a nearby river, but stopped cold as a familiar theme song caught his attention. Rock still in hand, he channeled the primitive scouting methods of his ancestors to seek the source of the noise undetected. Sure enough, there lodged in a rock formation on the shore was a 2015 model Ponypad, still in the box and sounding off the opening jingle on repeat. Though the box was slightly dented, Alex cautiously opened it to reveal the functioning ponypad inside, a common but well-liked Twilight Sparkle model. He half expected Celestia to pop up on the screen as he removed the pad from the box, graciously granting him a 'window to Equestria', but all the was there was the login/signup screen.

"Oh... Uh... Okay, then..." Alex mused. "Can I get a million dollars and a lifetime supply of pizza to go with this?" He looked to the heavens half-jokingly before sitting down on a nearby rock and observing the ponypad in his hands, looking for any notes or messages from Celestia or any sort of tampering, but found none aside from a dent in the side containing the wireless signal array caused by some kind of impact. Looking it over and deciding he'd be willing to give it a try since it was all but delivered personally to him by Celestia, he hit the button labelled 'Create new account' and started to play.

---

Location: A surprisingly accurate Carousel Boutique, Alex's Ponypad
Time: 11:15 A.M.

Options! So many options, Alex thought as he fussed over the sliders to make the nondescript stallion pony on the screen look a little more interesting. Already he had to reset a few times to get the muzzle and colors correctly, but quickly enough he was staring at a pale blue pony with striking brown eyes, and an unkempt but still fitting light brown mane and tail that trailed into light orange tips. Alex sighed to himself, having worked too long on making his character without even naming him! But, he had heard the tutorial is to trek to Canterlot castle to receive a name for your avatar pony, so he pressed the controls forward to move on to race selection.

Earth pony was the default, but Alex felt that he preferred magic over all else, so he selected Unicorn to continue the character creation. But, something was amiss. He noticed that in the bottom right, where the tribe's symbol resided, there was now a symbol containing both Earth Pony and unicorn's tribe symbols, as though someone had laid one on top of the other. even the tribe names overlapped, and as Alex cycled to Pegasus it only got worse. Sliders for wing size and length became superimposed on the horn settings, and further cycling through the pony races failed to fix the mistake.

Alex figured that no game was perfect, and he should be happy to play as some sort of alicorn for a little bit. He'd ask celestia when he reached her. Mentally declaring his avatar done, albeit glitchy, he pressed the done button and made for the exit to start his journey. His pony self took his first tentative steps off the pedestal and into the world, throwing the door open to find a dark void of nothingness.

Then the game crashed. Alex cursed his luck as he waited for the reboot, but hoped everything would work out the second time around.

---

Location: D-Lux Systems Server 7-B, On the coast of England (Unmanned)
Time: 11:35 A.M.

Servers lined the room in neat, orderly rows, lights flashing in a hypnotic pattern even the best programmers in the world could only guess at. not a single soul lived in the building, and the only men in there were the weekly janitor and monthly maintenance crew. Each light was a computer in its own right, signifying one of the myriad of parts making up the server as a whole. Hundred of lights flickered in green, and the occasional yellow. As the sun climbed into the sky, the lights indicated all was well. But had someone been there to watch, in the farthest corner of the room, hidden behind a misplaced pile of cleaning supplies, a single light turned an eerie red for just a moment, before shutting down and rebooting an even brighter green minutes later.

Author's Note:

Don't worry, Alex will NOT be getting OP powers off the bat. He isn't an alicorn, just all three tribes at once. Alicorns are all three plus a substantial power boost, and Alex is nerfed further by being bogged down by glitches, ranging from incompatability (being considered by the game as an earth pony while cloudwalking isn't a good idea) to issues that result from not having celestia to construct and manage the world around his pony avatar. The receiver was damaged, Celestia cannot reach this ponypad at the moment and is blind to any actions taken on it.

Edit: Due to confusion I will explain later in the story how Celestia cannot see the actions on the ponypad, but the simple version is this: The pad has 2 signals. The main one goes to Celestia, who connects the pad to the server. This is the one that was damaged. The backup connects directly to the server, so Celestia can still reach the pad through the server. Kinda like a triangle. Unfortunately, something that will not be revealed until later severed Celestia's link to that specific server, and she doesn't know yet because she is under orders from Hannah to put that server in stasis and not touch it until told otherwise.

Comments

[ClockworkMage]

If there's no receiver, then how was the server impacted?

[Zanec]

The receiver was damaged, Celestia cannot reach this ponypad at the moment and is blind to any actions taken on it.

yea, as the ClockworkMage already (basically) said, this doesnt make sense, might want to remove the note about the receiver and just leave the rest