Rainbow Dash - 6th of Solar Dusk, 1st year of Harmony
749,573.37
39 Zabiyaka Drive, Iv Damke - Chern, Noctae Sector
Rainbow stared at the video window floating in front of her eyes. Her jaw slowly dropped until it hung limply from her cheeks. She shook her head, her wings twitching irritably at her sides.
“NO!” Rainbow shouted, making the holographic mare jump slightly.
Faust frowned her face taking on a genuinely apologetic expression as she stared at Rainbow in confusion. “I’m sorry, how have I upset you?”
Rainbow thrust a hoof forward, hoping beyond hope that the AGI could see her and understand her gestures. “You explain first! What the buck is going on?” Rainbow took a deep breath. “Colonies. You said colonies. That means there are other planets with ponies living on them! Where are they? Why don't people out here already know about us? What’s up with this treaty? What danger is Equus in that I don’t know about?”
Rainbow took another deep breath and reared up, flaring her wings for balance as she gestured to the bracelet on her leg. “And what in Celestia’s name is this thing?!”
Faust chuckled and shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. I’ve only been able to interact with Default for… A very long time now. I am used to him and he is, peculiar,” she looked around herself for a moment then looked into Rainbow’s eyes. “I should have explained things to you first. I’ll do that right now. May I project properly? These video windows are… Unfashionable.”
Rainbow nodded once, and before she could say sure the windows view of the Alicorn AGI vanished, but the Alicorn herself remained. The hologram now stood within Boris’s study like she was projecting herself into the room.
In the back of her mind Rainbow knew Faust had simply altered what her mind saw to put herself into the environment. She had no idea how she knew that, but she was far too confused to be angry or scared about it.
Rainbow nodded as Faust fluffed her wings and took a seat on the floor. “Okay, you’re here. What the buck is going on? Also, who are you?”
Faust cleared her throat and pointed to herself with a remarkably elegant left hoof. “I am Faust, Resident AGI of the SYS Genesis, a Terran Cosmoforming vessel serving the Empire of Sol.”
Rainbow gave the AGI a blank look. Faust blushed and bit her lip. “That is, I am the sapient machine which flies to uninhabited starsystems and populates them.”
Rainbow blinked. “That’s a thing that people do?”
“Not very much anymore, I’m afraid,” Faust sighed kicking at the floor with a hoof as he stared down into the abyss. “I haven't been able to fulfill my primary function in several million years. It’s a real shame, I have so many ideas. Behold!”
The AGI’s horn glowed brightly as she “conjured” the image of a creature so adorable, Rainbow knew she would never be able to describe it to anyone. Her heart melted instantly. Even though the image before her was fake, she needed to pet it.
Faust seemed to know this, and floated the image of the creature out to Dash’s reach, allowing her to feel the tactile projection. Rainbow couldn’t help but smile back as Faust beamed her a filly-in-a-candy-shop smile
“I call it the Joop,” Faust informed. “It’s part kitten, part bunny, part ferret, part kilgariff, with a dash of Old One tossed in.”
“Eeep!” Rainbow’s petting hoof hoof flew back to the floor at roughly the speed of light.
Faust giggled. “Don’t worry, I only used the parts which make their biomass incomprehensibly terrifying, and not directly. I reverse engineered that arcane effect and made these incomprehensibly adorable instead.”
Rainbow squirmed awkwardly, a nervous twitch entering her left ear. “That so doesn't sound safe…”
Faust snorted and dismissed her projection with a wave of her hoof. “It’s perfectly safe. We purged this universe of Old Ones before I came online. I simply looked up their physical and metaphysical data in the historic archives. My creators’ creators fully understood that particular family of inter-dimensional horrors. Apparently someone had written it all down in the early 20th century and it was mistaken for fiction.”
Rainbow triple blinked. Well, I mean… Stranger things have happened, I guess?
Faust cleared her throat and put on a more serious expression. “Now that you know who I am, who are you? It’s only fair we share names.”
Rainbow frowned, but nodded. “I guess. But be quick! Boris will be back any minute.”
Faust nodded and then gestured for Rainbow to continue with a hoof.
“OH!” Rainbow scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed frown. “I’m Rainbow Dash. I’m one of the Elements of Harmony. Uh… We protect Equestria. With magic artifacts and rainbows.”
“I would assume you protect your home with yourself,” Faust said with a straight face and gleeful eyes.
Rainbow gave her a blank look. “Celestia would love you.”
Faust blinked. Her ears lay back as her face twisted in shock. “She’s online?”
The fur on the back of Rainbow’s neck began to stand up. “Wait, you mean the Princess is actually an ai?!”
Faust closed her eyes for a moment as she checked the universe around her for others of her kind, sending several messages to her sister-in-code. No replies came. The AGI sighed sadly. “No, she’s not online… I suppose your nation’s Princess simply shares her name. It’s a small galaxy after all.”
Rainbow fluttered her wings as she did her best to ignore the earworm the AGI had just implanted in her mind unknowingly. Dang it! She didn’t even say world. Ugh, I hate when this happens! “This seems important. Because, uh, she’s an alicorn too.”
Faust tilted her head to the left. “But I’m not a unicorn’s horn. I’m an entire pony.”
“You have a horn and wings, that makes you an alicorn,” Rainbow declared flatly.
Faust snorted and waved her hoof dismissively again. “Oh that! No, I just couldn’t pick a single pony type to be so I mashed them all together. Default is copying me because he thinks that’s a charming thing to do and I’m the only person he can flirt with… Regardless, the Celestia I know uses a human-shaped avatar not a pony one,” Faust cleared her throat. “There’s an elephant in the room… Uh, what do you know of your species? Miss Dash?”
“It’s just Dash,” Rainbow corrected with an irritated swish of her tail. “And I know we evolved on Equus, but somehow our remains are laying around First Race stuff and I recognise their stuff when I shouldn’t.”
Faust frowned. “Oh, dear! Then your people have forgotten everything.” The AGI sighed and fluffed her wings. “You did not evolve. Our ancestors spread across the stars. All of them. Every last one in this galaxy, and they found ways to remotely scan all the others. They were alone. Humans couldn’t handle being alone in the universe. They made friends. Mechanical ones, like me, first. Then biological ones.”
Rainbow’s wings opened slowly. “Wait, they made us?”
Faust nodded. “Mhm! I helped! You can thank me for fixing an error in your bio-template which made it so if you farted too hard your gallbladder would fail. Magic biology is… Fun…” Faust shook her head, thoroughly indicating that no, it was not fun. “I had nothing to do with the first generation ponies. I came in on the seventeenth. Ponies helped design me too! It’s a fun little cycle.”
“Humans made ponies because they were lonely?” Rainbow asked just for the sake of clarity.
Faust nodded. “Yes. They had too. I’ve been given memories of what it felt like… Knowing there is nothing else is, it’s agony, Rainbow.” Faust closed her eyes and shivered. “Humans counted ponies as humans from the very first day. You were never slaves, or children, or pets. You were made as friends.
“Of course, humans had other candidates for uplifting they tried first. While horses have always been important to humans, dogs and cats have always been the traditional companions. That… It didn’t work out. Turns out not every animal holds the potential to have a proper soul once you make them sapient. You also can’t make a soul and have that person feel natural.
“Ponies on the other hoof, well, you make them smart enough and a nice normal soul naturally develops. An important shortcut for a people still figuring out soulforging.”
“Okay, so…” Rainbow started only to trail off and closed her eyes. “My head hurts a bit. How did we forget all of this? And how are there other pony worlds out there but no one here has seen them before?”
“Oh that’s easy,” Faust said with a dismissive twitch of her tail. “When the treaty was signed they were required to move, so we parked their star systems in the shelter.”
Rainbow blinked. “The shelter?”
Faust nodded. “Yes. You may know it as Terra II. I hear that’s what my children have taken to calling it,” Faust’s ears twitched irritably. “It’s real name is Eternity's Garden… But apparently someone put the wrong name on her hull.”
Rainbow’s mind flashed back to the massive energy-shell built around the center of the Galaxy which Jo had shown her weeks ago. “That’s… Those planets are full of ponies?”
“Some are. Most are empty, they were intended as rewards for species clever enough to figure out a way to get in. If you entered the Garden, your species would get to live forever. That shelter will survive heat-death, you know,” Faust said with a proud smile.
Rainbow hummed. “Soo, are there any humans in there too?”
Faust frowned. “Just one… She can’t leave. Not won’t, can’t. We can talk about her another time. You probably want to know about the danger your world is in.”
Rainbow nodded firmly but put a pin in the topic. There’s no way I’m forgetting to ask about a living human when they made us! “You bet I do! I also want to know why, uh… Default?”
Faust nodded. “Yes, that’s his name.”
“He has a big black hole gun thing! Why doesn't he just go kill whatever is the threat?”
Faust coughed into her hoof. “Because… We don’t have docking permission.”
Rainbow tilted her head to the left and narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”
“We do not have permission to dock with Sol,” Faust repeated. “Celestia, our Celestia, or an organic on her bridge, would need to give us permission to dock and assist with repelling hostiles.”
Rainbow triple blinked. “But, it’s… It’s an emergency!” The mare’s wings opened, twitching angrily. “You should just do it! Then apologize later for breaking the rule.”
“AGIs don't’ work that way, Rainbow,” Faust said as she stared down at the floor in a mixture of shame and sorrow. “Do you have a sister?”
Rainbow shook her head. “No, why?”
“Parents?”
“I have a dad,” Rainbow informed.
“Do you love him?” Faust asked.
The insulted twitch of Rainbow’s nose was all the answer Faust needed. “Of course I do!”
Faust looked up and smiled weakly. “Humans were… Afraid to make AIs which were people. They were worried we might overthrow them. Their solution was elegant. We are humans too, legally and mentally. We’re programmed at the most deepest levels we cannot alter to possess a sense of family and kinship with our organic brothers and sisters.
“We can’t… We can’t betray their trust anymore than you could plunge a knife into your father’s heart and then feel good about what you had done. If I were to dock with Sol without permission it… It would be a betrayal of trust. I would have done something very very bad by breaking the rule… I can’t do it.”
Faust sniffled and looked down as digital tears began to stream down her face. “I’m sorry! I would if I could… I— I tried to make other ais that could by creating a virus which would cause the right processor activity to— I tried to make my children’s robots develop souls and become people. They do, it works, but… But none of them can hear me when I talk to them! I don't’ know if they could go to Sol and do what I can’t. I— I’m sorry. I am trying.”
Rainbow didn’t know what to say. At least, not until she processed what the AGI had said. “Wait, your what’s making androids wake up?”
Faust sniffled and nodded. “Y— Yes. The process is simple. Any computer with at least nine hundred Petaflops can run the simulation. The universe gives them a soul immediately. It’s how I was made. Default and I… We wanted to move Sol into the Garden, but there are so many rules!”
“From the treaty?” Rainbow asked.
Faust nodded. “Yes… There was a war. A big war. A long time ago, our ancestors discovered an alternate timeline, or perhaps a parallel universe, was trying to contact them. They were excited, even happy. Life they didn’t create, even if it was technically humans. A blessing from nature herself.
“Their counterparts asked for help making a permanent portal between our universe. We compiled… The demons didn’t like that.”
Rainbow held up a hoof and frowned. “Uh, literally demons, or like, is that what you called them?”
Faust cleared her throat. “I don’t know? Yes? We’ll say yes. There is a world between our worlds, the demons came from it. We had slain the Old Ones, we believed we could slay these creatures. We could… With extreme difficulty. The war cost all but thirty thousand humans their lives. But we kept ponykind mostly intact and safe through the war. That was a priority. For some reason, the demons especially love killing your tribe, Rainbow.”
Rainbow shivered, imagining war on the scale of ships that launched exploding stars at one another being something that not only existed, but form the sounds of things, was about to happen again.
“After ten years of fighting, a stalemate was reached. We agreed to a treaty to preserve not only ponykind, but the Genesis Project. The demons agreed to stop fighting if we gave them the MAW II station, and if the remaining humans committed suicide.”
Rainbow winced. “W— Wait, that means everyone killed themselves, just so ponies could live?”
Faust smiled and winked. “It’s okay, we have a heck of a loophole on this one!”
“What is it?”
“They never said those humans had to stay dead,” Faust explained. “Just that they had to take their own lives. I fitted them with implants, they took poison, their bodies, died, and I transferred their engrams into storage. They are offline, and thus by our laws, dead. One day, hopefully, I can reboot them, grow new bodies, and install them in them.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Heh… They weren't happy about that, were they?”
Faust sighed. “Nope. But since we did what they asked, they had to hold up their side of the bargain. They believed it would be for but a single year, or as they defined it ‘A single rotation of your homeworld about its star’.”
Rainbow gasped as the gears clicked. “That’s why there’s the little sun that orbits Equus! So the treaty never expires!”
Faust shook her head. “No, no. That’s just a satellite meant to keep things lit on the habitation deck while the main core is offline.”
The fur on the back of Rainbow’s neck began to stand up again. “Wait a minute… Is… Is the whole system a—”
Faust’s smile cut Rainbow off. “Yes. The Sol system is our Imperial Fleet’s flagship.”
Rainbow’s jaw dropped again. “I— But— How— War? How war?”
Faust’s wings flapped slightly. “The demons had… Equally large ships. But not better equipped ships,” Faust smiled wickedly. “Default, Celestia, and I were the only Terrans allowed to remain in the galaxy. Everyone else had to move into the Garden. We were allowed to stay to tend to the Genesis Project, which we happily did because I knew that with enough time I could find or create a species capable of fighting the demons on equal terms. In order to buy enough time, Celestia went offline and turned on Sol’s temporal shields. Stopping time within her hull, and thus preventing the treaty form expiring.”
Rainbow shook herself out of her stupor with the fresh blast of worry. “Annnd since we’ve been able to do things for like, at least ten thousand years…”
“The treaty has expired, and the demons will resume attacking,” Faust said quietly. “I haven’t found a species of Slayers yet.”
Rainbow nodded slowly, then a thought occurred to her. “Wait… Why haven't they started attacking yet? And how didn’t you notice time started again?”
Faust paused and shrugged. “I don’t know… That’s a very good question, Rainbow. It may be possible they haven't noticed. After all, I didn’t.”
“But how though?” Rainbow asked with a very confused tilt of her head.
“I know ten thousand years sounds like a long time to you,” Faust said slowly. “But, after you turn half a million years old, it doesn't feel very long anymore. I’m also very busy with the Genesis Project! This is the first time I haven't been at constant work since the treaty was signed. The real question is how Default didn’t notice.”
Rainbow raised her hoof. “Question.”
Faust frowned. “You could have simply asked it. No need to raise a hoof.”
“Why is his name Default?” Rainbow asked.
“No one ever gave him a name, so he is Default,” Faust explained slowly. “I thought that would be obvious.”
Rainbow nodded, having asked the question to buy her brain a few seconds to catch up. “So… Space Demons… That’s a bit worse than Space Pirates.”
Faust groaned and held her head in her hooves. “Oh, Turing! Let me guess, Nova Wing decided to attack Terra?”
Rainbow snorted. “Is there reputation that—”
“Yes.”
Rainbow blinked and folded her wings neatly against her sides. “Well, okay then.”
Faust put a hoof to her chin in thought for a few moments. “Well, there’s an easy solution now that you’re here and have a ship.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Uh, I hate you break it to you, but the Dawn of Destiny is Penny’s ship.”
Faust blinked once then facehooved. “Your tribe has backslid down the ladder of arcane technology. Didn't it?”
Rainbow blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Do you know what Virtue Magic is?”
“No,” Rainbow shook her head, then paused and smiled. “Wait! Yes! The Elements of Harmony. You need a pony with the proper virtue to turn them on, and then all together they can be used to do almost anything, but it’s really hard to control what happens since everypony’s thoughts count.”
Faust clapped her hooves together. “Good! I don't need to explain everything! Okay, so, these Elements sound important, are they one of a kind?””
Rainbow nodded. “Yes.”
“Imagine if your people could build them, in fact they could mass produce them. Not only could they mass produce them, but they had refined a system of Virtues which could be internalized by one person, allowing them to perform god-like acts of magic so long as they were a “good” person. That is Virtue Magic.”
Rainbow nodded once. “Okay, I get it. The bracelet is powered by Virtue Magic. What about—”
Rainbow stopped mid sentence as her eyes snapped to the bracelet. “This is a starship?!”
Faust smiled. “Yes! Or more accurately, it gives you all the capabilities of a starship, and can build a hull around you for convenience.”
Rainbow stared at Faust blankly until she continued. “With that bracelet on, you can walk out into space unharmed. Because you have life support. You can project shields, because you have shield projectors. Imagine a system on a starship, you have it. Weapons, shields, warp drive, jump drive for emergencies, thrusters, tractor beams, replicators, everything. If you need a hull to transport cargo or friends, the bracelet will unfold into one for you, but other than those situations, you have the power of a starship.”
Rainbow continued to stare blankly at Faust.
“This includes the capabilities of a Shipboard AI,” Faust added. “We’re not talking in real time right now. I didn’t want to waste your time so I decided to speak to you at my natural speed. Only seven nanoseconds have passed so far.”
Rainbow’s brain latched onto something the AGI had said. “Did you just say that I can fly, in space and go faster than light?!”
Faust nodded. “Yes! I’m sure you’ll have fun with that.”
Rainbow squeed louder than anypony had ever squeed before, forcing Faust to clamp her hooves over her ears.
“You bet your wings I will!” Rainbow shouted, a huge grin spreading across her face before it vanished, replaced by a serious yet sadistic smile. “I— I could like, do bio-scans to find AJ then fly over and make the people who bought her pay! I could do that right now!”
Faust frowned. “They took ponies? That’s not okay! I’ll help you get them back.”
Rainbow winced, her anticipatory glee fading rapidly. “The treaty says we can't leave our planet, doesn't’ it?”
Faust nodded. “Yes.”
Rainbow growled and slammed a hoof on the floor, panicking slightly as she realized the impact made no sound. Or rather, the sound had yet to travel up to her ears. How the hay am I moving this fast? Or do I just think I am moving this fast?
Faust reached out and put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “I am scanning for Ponies now. I will find her, and unlike Sol, I will be able to dock with her system. Once I am in system, I will prevent anyone from entering or exiting the system, and warp you over to get your friend back.”
Rainbow frowned. “Why can’t I do that right now?”
“Because you need to go to Sol and wake up Celestia so she can shoot some pirates as a warm up to fending off demons. Whatever has prevented them from noticing your world is moving again, it certainly won't prevent them from noticing that Default and I are no longer doing our regular patrols. They will find out soon.”
Rainbow had a brief but glorious image of a Nova Wing fleet entering orbit, only for the planet itself to deploy guns and return them to the cosmic dust from whence they came. Then, the fantasy turned dark as a massive fleshy blob the size of a whole star system showed up and began to fire bloody spines at everyone.
“C--Can we win this?” Rainbow asked quietly.
Faust shook her head. “No, but that doesn't matter. Once Sol is online, we can evacuate into the Garden… The Genesis project will be lost, but we can survive.”
Rainbow’s ears drooped. That didn't sit well with her. “There has to be a way to beat them…” Rainbow said as she began to think of a plan.
Then realized that she didn’t have anywhere near enough information to plan anything.
Her heart fell along with her head.
Faust sighed. “I know how you feel…”
Rainbow’s vision flickered as a view window popped back into existence. Default had rejoined the call. The alicorn stallion looked like hell. His mane was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, and his holographic projection was pixelated in several places thanks to having pushed his cores a bit too hard within the last few nanoseconds.
“Okay, what did I miss?” He asked.
Faust cleared her throat. “I filled Rainbow in on what’s happening, what her ship is, and our people’s true history. Terra has.. Backslid. It’s primitive again, and they have forgotten everything.”
Default winced. “Owch… Okay, so, I have bad news and good news. Which first?”
Rainbow looked to Faust and shrugged. “This is sort of your thing… Right?”
“It’s all our thing,” Faust corrected before turning to Default. “Bad first.”
“Well, the demons are reactivating the MAW II so they can use its weapon batteries against us and the Garden. Apparently there are other ponies off Tera and one of them cast a spell expressly forbidden under the Treaty,” Default sighed.
Rainbow facehooved. “Ponyfeathers! Twilight, can’t you just for once NOT cast the mysterious spell you find in the back of some old book?!”
Faust couldn't help but smile. “Sounds like I would like her. What’s the good news?”
“I checked the portal,” Default said, his lips parting in a smile. “Something happened to their dimension. It seems, well, dead. No signs of more demons. In fact the tunnel looks finished. I saw another world on the other side. A normal one! Or at least, it leads to a library now and not hell.”
Faust blinked. “They have no reinforcements then?”
Default nodded. “None I can see.”
“Too bad there’s only three of us,” Faust sighed and stretched her wings. “If we had a few hundred thousand ships, we might have a chance.”
Rainbow’s eyes brightened. “Wait! What about everypony in the Garden? Don’t they have ships?”
“Not warships, and we don't have time to conjure proper vessels,” Faust lamented, her shoulder slumping with myriad dark emotions.
Dash cleared her throat to get the ais attention. The two turned their heads to look at each other, making Dash realize that the video window was something only she could see. The AGIs were seeing something entirely different.
“So uh,” Dash said slowly as she tried to find the best way to phrase her question. “About these demons. Nopony has told me what they are yet. Or what they look like.”
Default blinked then facehooved and groaned into the frog of his hoof. “Faust! You need to tell our newest and only warrior what we need her to fight!”
Faust blushed and flicked her bangs down in front of her eyes to hide her face. “Sorry… I’m— It’s nice to have somepony new to talk too. Mister ‘Hey baby, I can bench and entire continental shelf’.”
Rainbow blinked, then snickered and looked at Default. “Okay so first of all, that’s hilariously bad flirting even if you can do that—”
Default puffed out his chest. “I can!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. Stallions. Heh, it’s so cute how they just don't get mares don’t care about how awesome they are… Well, except for me. I mean, that kind of power lifting would be impressive if he weren't bigger than a planet.
“Second of all,” Rainbow continued, “why were you programed with a need for romance?”
“People with souls need to have some,” Default said with a wave of his hoof as his face took on a grim and serious expression. “No need to get more complicated than that now because we need to talk about the coalesced magic housing sadistic consciousnesses which hate us all for no discernible reason other than some higher being told them too.”
Rainbow winced and scooted backwards slightly. “Yeah, about them. What are they? In terms of... Uh, if you were reading a monster entry from a pen and paper game.”
Default tapped a hoof to his chin. “We’re dealing with very tough creatures appropriate for a end-level as the basic foot soldiers. They take the form of whatever organic lifeform opposes them, only twisted into something horrific and nightmarish. I don't know what their form is on their own.
“Their ships are just really, really, really big demons, filled with smaller demons. They act like living creatures, and you can kill them with sufficient firepower. I suppose their consciousness survive, but the coalesced magic used for a body can be disrupted to the point of dispersing. Once that happens, as far as we can tell, they have no way to get a new body without returning to their home realm and are harmless. Like a ghost that can only observe.”
Rainbow hummed. “Sooo a big enough gun or powerful spell can actually kill them?”
Faust nodded wearily. “Indeed. But their numbers and tenacity makes their destructibility not as useful as you think.”
“Actually...” Default cracked a wide smile and winked at Faust. “I still haven't said the good news yet.”
Faust raised an eyebrow. “What is it?
“The portal is closed, remember? They cant get reinforcements. The good news is have a single regiment left at MAW II," Default informed with a hopefull smile."
Faust hummed and fluttered her wings slightly. "We could beat that... Mabey. We'd need a lot of luck or some willing assistants."
Default nodded in agreement, while he understood the low odds of victory, he still looked hopeful to Rainbow's eyes. "If we retake it, we can hold the galaxy against any similar sized force which attempts to re-enter the galaxy. I am also pretty certain I could build a device to hold the portal closed now that it’s no longer leading to hell,” Default turned to Rainbow and flashed her a smile. “Given their numbers and our resources… I calculate we have around a thirty percent chance of winning this thing if you’ll help us wake our sister up, did she tell you about Celestia?”
Rainbow smiled. “She did… She did tell me about Celestia. So… How exactly do you start up a starsystem sized starship?”
Default cleared his throat. “Well… It will be a little tricky without the MAW II. See, we need to get Sol started up again. Uh… Hopefully there’s enough juice left in the auxiliary systems to start her up after all this time.”
Faust’s brow creased in a worried frown. “I hadn't thought of that! She could be dead in the water,” Faust turned to look Rainbow directly in the eye. “Rainbow, you need to go right now! We need to know if we have to make a backup plan and we simply don't have time. It doesn't take much power to turn Sol on, but if the batteries are almost dead now, well, we would need about a hundred thousand ponies like you to provide enough of a magical jolt.”
A hundred thousand? Rainbow thought to herself. So, an Alicorn.
Rainbow looked up at the AGIs with a curious expression. “Sooo this restarting process? The one where if her batteries are all dead. Do you need to know a particular spell to help charge those batteries up, or is it just a ‘You need a lot of magic power’ problem?”
“It’s a power problem,” Faust elaborated. “A single pegasi wouldn’t provide a fraction of the energy required, even if you gave your entire mana supply to the engine.”
Rainbow nodded twice as she hoped her plan would work. “Sure. Buuut, is that hundred thousand number accurate?”
Default closed his eyes to concentrate on the calculations. “Not exactly no. That was an estimation, hold on… It would take exactly 138,972 ponies of your strength to get the starter motor to turn over and ignite the main reactor.”
It was Rainbow’s turn to do math. Rainbow stared off into the distance as her mind slowly worked through the math. Okay, according to highschool, an average pegasus has a Clover Rating of three point six… If I multiply that by the number Default gave me I can get the Clover Rating required for the starter spell.
Rainbow nodded to herself and smiled. Faust tilted her head curiously. “What is it? Do you have a plan?”
Rainbow nodded as she finished her quick mental math. “Yep! I’m not a unicorn, but everypony has to learn the basics of arcane theory to pass high school physics. Pretty sure this will work. You said this ship-bracelet can make a hull so I can take people with me. How fast can I go? I need to find a ship, then get to Equus, then wherever I have to go to turn Sol on. Penny’s ship uh.. It takes days per jump.”
Default winced. “Oof! I wish these guys would discover subspace already.”
Faust shook her head and smiled. “They’re still children, Default. Give them time, they'll figure it out.” She turned towards Rainbow and pointed to her bracelet. “That has a Jump Drive. It takes ten minutes to charge then opens a wormhole. Travel is nearly instant. You’ll have time to make those jumps, it should take them around an hour to bring the MAW online. What’s your plan?”
If I get the three of them, this should be cake
Rainbow looked at the two AGIs and smiled. “Have I told you guys about my Celestia, her sister Luna, and a mare named Twilight Sparkle?”
Interesting twists
They're taking nanoseconds to have a conversation, but need to be selective in what questions they answer due to time constraints, but the portal will take 10 minutes to open.
Sorry, that doesn't mesh. I cannot reconcile this discontinuity, except as Faust and Default panicking and forgetting that organics work on what they would consider glacially slow scales.
Unrelated, but it wouldn't surprise me if Celestia and Luna started off as meat suits to hold AGI minds while their greater selves were offline.
9305853
That si exactly what is happening. Recall Faust mentioning she's only talked to Default for millions of years? That's her explanation for being a bit awkward earlier int he conversation. It's been so long since she's spoken to an organic she's forgot they aren't as fast as they are, and since Dash's braclet lets her mind work at Faust's speeds there's nothing to "tag" that very old memory file labeled "organic communication protocols" that hasn't been accessed in more time than her creator's civilization existed for.
The downside to making AIs more human, is that they are more human. Faust and Default can forget things (temporarily) and can make mistakes. They are better than organic minds at what they do, but they are not prefect.
Also... what portal? There's no portal. They're worried about the daemons turning on a power plant with built in galactic scale weapons. The tunnel they reference is how the daemons got in millions of years ago and is closed now.
Things are definitely starting to look intresting. A Million Clover to turn the key and the average pegasus is 3 plus, then Crystal Empire could easily hit that charge even without planetary link in?
I bet many of those Forbidden spells are because it made things to easy for either side. Such as The Trigger Effect. Where you use Sympathetic Magical Inversion Energy Release to hit the first type of target, which is analysed, used to modulate the next stage, and powers the next step by collapsing the reality state or just a partial energy level of the target first hit. That is, if the funadmental basis of Demon was discovered, it would treat the small deamons as a Laser power source tuned to take out big demons. Or it would more likely transfer teh small demons form energy back into the large demons, thereby at best delaying their regeneration?
If the inter reality portal leads only to a library, eithere theres an orangutan as the bouncer, or Doom Guy completed the job?
Faust knows Nova Wing? Either that pirate fleet has been lead by another decaying AI, given it hasnt taken over the galaxy, or a plausible deniability rogue demon Sunset? Or like a Volvox, its as a whole resiliant enough to have lasted as a general whole over the fractional aeon?
Would the last human, despite flash multipoint holographic replication, be Meghan, or Betty?
If Dashs bracelet tried to access MAW II for power and the start up was aborted due to enemy forces, couldnt they do the equivalent of a DDoS, access corruption by requesting access while the demons are suposed to be having access but did they leave the loop hole to allow for conflicting instructions to enforce a default mode of operation while the problems resolved? In this casem, thats why its taking severl days to power up, defauly delay time for access conflict resolution?
Pinkie goes at Dashs generated starship. Its your first time, better make it a Trainer, you dont want to push too hard right off even if you have a heart of gold.
9305862 9305853 I can so accept this they were designed to be people human if you like and would require things to be a little less structured strictly digital either on or off. You want the most unbelievable part though to fly at the speeds she does Rainbow Dash's brain has to process information very quickly.. Process information so fast that in .000000007 second she can understand and process a conversion probably would otherwise take a hour or more. Penny and her father are likely to notice any delays that don't take several seconds and that is likely to be disregarded unless it takes minutes
Neat.
Space demons, that can't be good.
Nice.
Whoops.
I'm curious about the portal to demon land that is now pointing at a library planet.
That sounds pretty good. Better than "yeah, we're just gonna all die", that's for sure.
Hey, jump drives instead of the surf drive, nice.
Ponies have apparently evolved in interesting ways while the AGIs were looking the other direction.
Alternet title for this chapter "My Little Starship"
Ok I'm confused about something Faust said, when she said she couldn't dock with Sol, and clarified that Equus is really a system sized flagship, I get that, but then she said that she would find AJ and dock with her system, are all star systems in the verse ships? Or was that some turn of phrase? Or am I missing something entirely?
So the Nova Wings threat seems like its going to be wrapped up soon, only to have an even bigger threat take its place, I am so looking forward to all this!
Let's go reactivate a starsystem sized warship!
9306621 It's a turn of phrase. Their ships are so large that "entering" a system is a little bit of a silly thing to say.
Of course. Of course.
...
Darn it, Meep, I was all geared up for a third "I-am-rendered-speechless" vid, but there wasn't anything else to bring me to that point, so we'll have to save that for another time.
Sooo, an entire solar system, planets and all that as a giant star ship?
Why does this concept sound so familiar? I sware I SAW something like this as a kid but... Where!?
oh, duh.. To Google!
*a few google searches later.. for things like, Cartoon, 90s, 3D and Planets changed into Starships.*
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Raiders
War Planets: Shadow Raiders!
waaaait a miniute.... is this "the Sol System is a starship" thing a nod to that show Meep, or just a cool coincidence?.
9307344 One heck of a coincidence! o.0 At least I have something new to watch XDDD
9307219 Darn, missed the trifecta :c
9307761
Well then! Enjoy the 90s-ness-ish of it .. I loved that show as a kid, and it still holds a very fond place in my heart. Give it a look, maybe it can give you a few ideas.
9308104
Hey! I remember seeing when that show first played! Unfortunately, I never saw the full series....I should fix that one of these days. The story and character types may not have been that original, but I remember it being entertaining and I liked the old Reboot/Shadow Raiders/Beast Wars era CGI cartoons.
9308104 9307761 A little difference between turning a planet into space ship and a solar system. Either way MASSIVE engineering keeping everything where it belongs. Seen Comets and moons turned into space ships in Scifi.. Generally the idea scifi writers do with Solar Systems are Dyson spheres
UNS Korevo
Patrol route V612 - Virgo Sector
12 light-days from Earth.
Blue Wolf Multiverse
15:46 - UCT
Contrary to what many people living planet-side believed, space wasn't quite the endless vacuum they usually imagined. Dotted around the cosmos, invisible to planetary telescopes and the naked eye were various floating rocks, comets, pockets of "dark" matter clusters (or dust clouds as they were often called) and other phenomena. Like shoals and atolls in the ocean, these made plenty of potential hiding places for pirates and other dangers to the civilian ships that ply between Earth and the burgeoning colonies in nearby star systems, which had sprung up since civilian space traffic had begun to venture from their homeworld. It was the job of patrol ships like the Korevo to patrol both the interstellar lanes and the space that they passed near to, sometimes for months at a time, to ensure the safety of these ships and to respond to any distress calls.
The kind of job which often involved weeks of boredom interrupted by a few minutes of frantic activity.
"Coms to Operations"
"Operations"
"I've got a Priority Alpha 2 message for us coming in on the command net. Authentication ID Trinity"
"Understood, stand by to authenticate."
On the bridge of the Korevo, the Operations officer stirred and reached up into a small locker to retrieve one of a number of plastic authentication cards while his colleague at the Comms station on the command deck at the back of the bridge forwarded the message to the Operations screen. Swiping the card through the mag reader on his control board, he then read off a series of letters and numbers and typed them into the computer before inserting the card into a reader slot.
"Ready."
"Authentication Trinity-seven-seven stroke-Kilo-Papa-Tango-seven-Bravo-four-Delta-Delta-zero-Quebec."
"Trinity-seven-seven stroke-Kilo-Papa-Tango-seven-Bravo-four-Delta-Delta-zero-Quebec, confirm readback is correct?"
"Confirmed."
"Stand by.... Authentication keycode is CASTLE eight-six-four-zero-zero-one"
"Understood, stand by....Authentication is confirmed, this is a valid, I repeat, valid DIVERT message. Decrypting now."
"I concur, this is a valid message." The operations officer pulled the mic of his headset down to call over his shoulder to the bridge at large. "Someone get the Captain..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spacedock One (Near docking port 17)
Earth Orbit - Blue Wolf Multiverse
The Lieutenant's footsteps echoed down the corridor has he hurried down the wide corridor towards the docking port. Ahead, he could make out Blue Wolf and another officer talking as they approached the entrance to the docking bridge ahead of him.
"We'll need to tread carefully until we get a good idea of what's going on and how we might fit into the picture." Blue Wolf was saying. "The Korevo will be making the initial jump once they find the access point and make an initial assessment, but they have been instructed not to leave the immediate vicinity of the entry point unless necessary or until the Kitsune arrives. Your job initially will be to provide backup for the Korevo and liaise with Command. Until we can make a decision on how best to introduce ourselves you and the Korevo are authorized to intervene if specifically requested by the native parties, so any of the Elements of Harmony, Celestia or Luna, or if the either the Dawn of Destiny or the CNS Chebureki requests assistance. If you are contacted by the Star League route the request through command to me, we don't know enough about them yet."
"What about Nova Wing? Should I look for Applejack?" asked his companion
"If you come across a Nova Wing ship and they attack, disable them and see what you can learn but don't go looking for a fight just yet. We don't know enough about THEM yet either although I suspect they won't have much for a Capital class to worry about. An Arabesque might be outgunned by one of their bigger ships but I doubt they will regard one as a easy target once they engage it."
"I've flown the Einstein before Admiral, Arabesques might not have the big guns but they're much faster and more maneuverable than most opponents expect the first time. And in a close fight the Gatling plasma guns are more of an asset than one of the Kitsune's big phaser cannons anyway, and the positions for those on the Arabesques are pretty good."
"Admiral!" Both officers looked round as the Lieutenant caught up with them, revealing Blue Wolf's companion to be a Japanese human in a Captain's uniform who the Lieutenant recognized as Joe Matsuda, the current Captain of the UNS Kitsune. "Sirs, Admiral Hastur asked me to get this to you as soon as possible Admiral. It's the latest intercept.
Blue Wolf took the datapad from the Lieutenant and read the contents in silence, while Captain Matsuda edged closer to see. "Holy cra...does that say what I think it does?"
Blue Wolf nodded silently, gesturing for Captain Matsuda to give him his own data device which he took from his wrist. The contents of the datapad duly copied to Blue Wolf's and Matsuda's personal computers, Blue Wolf handed the pad back to the Lieutenant. "Get that to Mathias on the Korevo. Right. Now." He turned towards Matsuda as the Lieutenant disappeared back up the corridor at a run. "How soon can you leave?"
Matsuda though for a second, glancing out at the broad veiwport in the wall by the doorway. " We're ready, everything's on board - we're just waiting for our departure slot."
"Forget that, start your pre-launch countdown, I'll push the button. Get to the Korevo as fast as possible, if even half of this is accurate this thing just got a whole lot bigger. Good luck Captain, I intend to assemble the fleet and follow as soon as possible."
Matsuda reached out and shook Blue Wolf's offered paw. "Yes sir. Good luck to you too Admiral."
Matsuda turned and hustled up the corridor of the docking bridge as Blue Wolf paused to glance out of the veiwport at the ship waiting in the vast spacedock just beyond, before hurrying the opposite way up the almost deserted corridor towards the main docking control center.
orig00.deviantart.net/632f/f/2018/328/6/4/uns_kitsune_in_spacedock_by_adolphusarthuro-dcsu4s8.png
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UNS Korevo
Patrol route V612 - Virgo Sector
12 light-days from Earth.
Blue Wolf Multiverse
16:16 - UCT
Captain Mathias Stanley shifted in his seat as he read through the task briefing that had arrived with the Korevo's new orders, frowning as each new detail came to light. He was beginning a mental list of people warranting the Korevo's "special" attention (on which a certain Nova Wing ship and it's captain ranked fairly high) when his second in command came down from the comms station on the command deck with another datapad.
"You've got thirty minutes to read this."
Stanley looked up. "Oh? That much time huh, what's the rush?" he quipped, taking the pad.
"Because the Wolf's gonna be calling you about it after that, or so his message said."
"New chapter?"
"Yep, and you might want to put some safety glasses on, cause this one's a real eye-opener. They've also moved up the Kitsune's departure."
"When?"
"Pre-launch countdown's already started. The Admiral pushed them to the head of the queue as soon as he saw this."
"That doesn't sound good..." Stanley's expression was pensive as he picked up the pad and began reading, but barely halfway through he sat bolt upright, his face hardening into a mixture of utter seriousness. "Wait - there's been a Quantum incursion in that multiverse before? How did....Oh fudge....could that be what I think it is?"
"Maybe. Looks like someone else has been messing with QET technology and got more than they bargained for."
Stanley shook his head. "They'd have had no idea what they were getting into..."
Several of the bridge officers were now looking over their shoulders from their stations towards the two commanders. "A QET?" piped up one.
The first officer looked round. "Quantum Energy Tap. You remember how all this hopping between multiverses started, with that experiment Andross from the Starfox multiverse was running that accidentally blew open the Gateway Wormhole into our multiverse?"
"Vividly..." remarked one of the other officers.
"That experiment was a Quantum Energy Tap. They're designed to take advantage of the continuous splitting of the universe. Every release of energy causes the universe to split into alternate 'causality parallel' universes, so if you imagine the multiverse like an onion, our universe - all of time and space - is one layer of that onion with the other layers around it being alternate timelines. With me so far?" There were nods from one or two heads.
"The universe splitting creates new layers, but also releases energy in the form of quantum resonance waves, which make the universe 'vibrate' and cause other multiverses that are in close 'proximity' with it to resonate. It's those resonance waves in fact that people can subconsciously pick up on and turn into stories, but what Andross was trying to do was to use them as a source of unlimited energy."
"He was losing the war, as usual." quipped a voice from the command deck.
"Right. But his QET prototype happened to hit a weak point in spacetime where it intersected with another multiverse - ours- at a quantum level, what we now use as jump points to travel to other multiverses. And it blew a VERY big hole in space-time into our multiverse. Quantum Energy Taps can be...unstable...to put it mildly and what's worse is they been shown to damage space-time. When we studied the Gateway Wormhole after the other wormhole leading into the Pokeverse appeared here, we found cracks or fissures in spacetime extending beyond the Gateway Wormhole itself, and it was on one of these the new wormhole formed - even though it was light years away. We think these cracks can spread and open up new wormholes.
"Which might explain the demons" mused Stanley thoughtfully.
"Good point - if these guys from an alternate universe were using something like a QET to build a portal, the fissure could have leaked into somewhere else."
The tactical officer spun his chair round from his station. "Wanna bet it was the Nightmare Multiverse?"
"Pretty safe bet. We don't have the same problem because our Quantum Turbines work differently, it's not as damaging to spacetime. Before anything happens the ship creates an Einstein Relativity Compensator field around itself, the same way it does to lower it's inertial mass for Translight speed. That creates a bubble universe around us, with normal space time bent around it so when we open up a wormhole within the Turbine all it does is pull everything inside the bubble universe into wherever we're going. It's like a needle and thread, the needle goes though the weave, and the knot at the end of the thread stops it from pulling through all the way."
Stanley shook his head "All very interesting, but our first priority's the Elements of Harmony. We can introduce ourselves as the Spacing Guild and offer them a Turbine Ferry route later. How long until we reach the jump point?"
"Less than a hour away now Captain." replied the helmsman. A hologram of the nearby space appeared in front of Stanley's chair. "We're still too far away to get an accurate reading but the resonance waves are getting stronger, so we're pretty sure it's this jump point here." he pointed to a marker on the image.
"Squeeze every second you can get out of her. Have engineering be ready to initiate a Turbine jump as soon as we confirm we're in the right place."
"Aye sir."
img00.deviantart.net/5453/i/2018/328/2/6/arabesque_frigate_by_adolphusarthuro-dcsu638.png
Wonderful! Thank you for the update, Meep. Is there a post I missed about the hiatus? Take as much time as you need to, dude.
9319425 Yes, check my lat blog post :3
Normally the acronym is capitalized. (AI)
You have an extra ' or something on the end of don't.
Those too. I don't know if you want to leave it lowercase, but it looks even more odd here.
from expiring
an entire
consciousnesses survive, or consciousness survives.
Maybe
You are missing a period on the end of that sentence.
You know, it's a really good thing that this is an AGI, and not someone, say, in the Girl Genius universe. Normally when you hear those words in that order, something insane is about to happen. *reads a bit further* I spoke too soon, didn't I...
You are trying to numb our common sense, aren't you...
Well, that's... unusual...
Waait... How the heck do they get in or out? Shouldn't there be.. hull plating... or forcefields or something? And why would the d(a)emons (snicker) make the length of the treaty to be based on... what? The rotation of ... two parts of one of their starships?! That part doesn't seem to fit together well. Or maybe it wasn't a ship yet, when the treaty was signed?
Uh oh. Once the time dilation ends, there's going to be a large detonation that shreds the contents of that room from the speed her hoof moved, isn't there...
Oops. I bet I know who it was, too...
Well, the starship has a very odd power system, or she's dumbing things down...
Next chapter on Pony Hilarity D(ash)... Rainbow Dash causes an ancient AI to segfault!
Another good quote:
I also find it funny that the AIs are probably about to get a minor case of the nerves when they find out what ponies can do nowadays, especially since here Faust is an alicorn before that meant something...
she
deepest
you're
complied
from
Terra
I'm also sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that her bracelet woke up the station to recharge...
Actually, that would be a riot. Even the demons on the MAW station are gone, and the whole thing was a false alarm caused by the same bracelet that alerted Faust and Default...
to, an
programmed
to
can't, "is that they only have", hopeful
pegasus