Send the Probe. 68%
There was much Twilight could’ve suggested they do about the strange new information, but in the end she was left with one decision that rose above the others. “We’ll send a probe. A month from now, we’ll use what we learn to decide if we want to try and send another message. Talking to them now won’t let us get there any sooner, assuming there’s anypony to talk to.”
Some members of the crew grumbled, but none was quite brave enough to argue with her. Twilight helped with the modifications in the workshop, standing beside Node and Apple Bloom as the fabricated something from both pony and Signaler technology.
“We’ll only have a split second for the probe to make a decision,” Apple Bloom said. “We’ll program it with all the logic we would’ve used if we were there.”
“Sure,” Twilight said. “Just make sure it doesn’t smack into the thing we’re observing. Those might be our ponies down there, and I don’t want to blow a hole in the roof.”
“No promises,” Node said. She still used Starlight Glimmer’s voice, but the illusion of emotions was long gone from it. Now every word she spoke sounded as though it came from a real pony. There was a whole lifetime of memories in there, that Node hadn’t yet been forthright about explaining. But Spike had made it clear that she did still have them.
When Twilight was a little more confident in the Equinox’s repairs, she would probably try that interrogation again.
Gravity brought its own difficulties, particularly for the members of the crew who were in the worst shape. Sunset Shimmer was suddenly stuck in sickbay, with Fluttershy on standby for the (relatively common) medical emergencies that followed.
Twilight met her there a few hours after the latest near-miss, this one a minor brain hemorrhage. Well, minor in that there hadn’t been permanent damage.
Fluttershy basically collapsed into the nearby chair as soon as she had cleaned herself off, barely awake. Her own body looked to be suffering the stress of hard work, though so far she’d kept working diligently.
Apple bloom, on the other hoof, was working as her nurse without any sign of fatigue. “You know, Sunset… one of these things might kill you,” she said. She seemed like she was trying to be tactful, though like her older sister she didn’t do a terribly good job. “You can only put so much tape on a leaky boat before you have a boat made of tape and the whole thing sinks.”
“And what are you… recommending, engineer Apple Bloom?” she asked, leaning weakly to one side. Twilight watched from a little distance away, keeping silent. Sunset was Apple Bloom’s original captain. In a way she had no business even listening. She listened anyway.
“Well, uh…” she nudged Sunset’s leg. “You’re already 60% artificial, captain. If you pushed it to a hundred, you wouldn’t be dying anymore. You wouldn’t need to eat, or sleep. I ain’t sure, but I think we might be immortal? Or at least… real easy to fix. Maybe that’s the same thing.”
“True,” Sunset croaked. “All of that is true. Except… I’d be giving up my magic.” She reached up, tapping the side of her horn with one plastic hoof. “The one thing I didn’t give up. Otherwise, my brain would’ve been completely scrambled. I might be your best spellcaster aboard. Or…” she glanced to the side, eyes narrowing as she met Twilight’s. Despite everything, despite the bandages on her head and sedatives on her system, she was aware of her situation enough to see her there. “Maybe second best. I haven’t gone up against your captain since she became an Alicorn.”
“And you won’t have to,” Twilight finally said. She wouldn’t have said anything at all, except that Sunset had invoked her specifically. Now she didn’t get to complain. “We’re on the same side, Sunset. No old feud matters. If there’s any hope for Equestria left, we’re it. We have to be united.”
Sunset turned away, hacking up another mouthful of blood. “Spoken like… a true captain. But tell me this, Twilight. Are you willing to act like one?” She didn’t wait for Twilight to wonder what she might be about to ask, didn’t give her a chance to think. “When I realized the mission required my ponies to take a risk, I ordered it. When I needed a pony to sacrifice so we could reach our goal, I ordered that too. Now this is your mission, your ship. Your maybe-living, maybe-a-dragon ship, but we won’t…” she coughed again, covering her mouth with one plastic leg. “Forget the details. You have a… virus. It changes ponies, maybe kills them. No offence, Engineer.”
Apple Bloom looked away awkwardly, but didn’t say anything. Whether she was actually hurt by Sunset’s words, Twilight couldn’t tell. Apple Bloom didn’t have to actually show her expressions if she didn’t want to.
“So here’s your dilemma, captain. I am not going to take that virus unless I’m ordered. If I don’t, there’s a good chance this trip will kill me. Really I should’ve known there would be trouble, I was held together with prayers as it was. So what do you order?”
Fluttershy perked up from her seat, watching Twilight intently. Unlike Apple Bloom, Twilight could read her expression just fine. You should’ve done that before I spent two days saving her life again.
Regardless, Twilight had a choice.
1. Twilight doesn’t give the order. (roughly 40% chance Sunset dies during the trip)
2. Twilight gives the order, and forces her to convert like Apple Bloom, possibly killing her and certainly taking her magic away.
3. Twilight uses the contingency instead, probably not killing her but certainly letting her body die. She may never get another.
(Certainty 200 required)
Now that's a hard choice.
Hmm...tough call here. I suppose what the decision comes down to is what part of Sunset is more valuable: Her knowledge and experience as a captain and someone who's been in the system, or her magic? I'm throwing out option 3. Leaving her body to die while her mind stays in the Contingency helps no one. Sunset hasn't been awake for long, and as far as I can tell from a brief look back, she hasn't really done any spell-casting. I keep glancing at the results, and every time I look it's split 50/50. I'm....going to say give the order. If anything, just so Fluttershy doesn't drain herself completely dry trying to keep Sunset alive. Spells aren't usually what's kept them alive so far, barring Twilight's jump to the Prospector. I get the feeling that a failed spell cast will just kill Sunset anyway.
Edit: 10 votes, 50/50. Whichever way this goes it'll be interesting.
Tough choice here.
But one thing nibbles at my mind. If magic in this story is anything like the show and comics. Then that would make Equestrian magic very adaptable in situations like this. You can turn your parents to patted plants then back again to ponies. You can give life to oranges by turning them into some weird frog orange hybrid. You can teleport. And a whole lot of other things.
Who's to say Equestrian magic can't be made to work with a Signalers technology? The Elements of harmony and the Crystal heart seem to work just fine as inanimate objects. Heck they might even be alive in a sense with what they've shown in the show.
It certainly would be a boon considering magical does seem to be harmful to the Hunger. It eats organics, but magical weapons did hurt it. I'm going to go with Nanite changing her now and possibly figuring out magic later. Keeping an active member of the crew sounds better then risking her on every trip. That's right, if this is going to be a problem, then it will have to be rolled on for the trip there and the trip back.
We don't know if the virus can be trusted. It's a last resort weapon only.
To be clear; I'm voting no conversion.
Sunset's quality of life is already terrible, and taking away that last vestige of her freedom would be a crime.
It's up to her to make that choice, captain or no.
Buckit. As much as I want as many spellcasters as possible, Sunset has allredy had atlest one anurisem and who knows what spell slinging will do too her brain. Give the order.
We need an answer to a question:
Twilight asks, "Sunset, how important to you is your magic? Would you be happy living as an earth pony? As someone who became a captain and took risks, is there any chance that you'd be happy as just a background consultant and adviser?"
As I ask that, I can see her answers already.
1. She would NOT be happy as a background advisor unless she was ready to quit.
2. She is a risk taker. She is willing to take risks.
Would she take a 60% life gamble to maintain her magic? That's entirely consistent with everything we've seen from her -- heck, she even flat out said she won't volunteer for the conversion.
So ... yea.
I cannot see, in good consciousness, forcing her to convert against her will. Nor do I see her being happy in the "give up" situation of the Contingency.
I'm voting for the 60% chance of life.
I had to go to the comments for this decision. 9744499 convinced me. Sunset may be insubordinate at times, but between her experience and her willingness to make hard decisions, she's a lot more valuable intact and disenchanted than potentially dead. Plus, it frees up Fluttershy somewhat; we don't want her near-dead of exhaustion by the time they arrive. And yeah, option 3 is the worst of both worlds.
Let's just hope Spike doesn't end up getting a roommate...
9744532
Oh I wanted to go to the comments myself but there weren't any yet when I read the chapter. It's why I kept checking the results lol. Glad to be helpful in your decision making.
It was a while back, and I've forgotten his name, but didn't Apple Bloom's other crew member who was converted get mind controlled by the virus? I think when it was revealed we even got to see the roll for it, and it said he had been controlled from the very beginning?
Kind of feels like that's an important detail to consider when cyber-converting a pony who would need to be ordered to do it and still knows a lot of stuff that we haven't heard her explain yet!
Still evenly split, 14/14. This is a really hard one.
A drying unicorn that could very well kill herself casting a rough spell, or a tough robopony that is not guaranteed to be incapable of magic. AB is an earth pony so it is possible the signaler technology does work, but no one has gone out of their way to check. If I recall, AB was never around long enough to help with the farming. So Sunny may not be losing her magic at all.
As far as it killing her and creating a new person based on her memories... difficult to say. AB seems like herself with none of that personality drift Spike was at risk for. So I think Sunny is rightfully concerned in that she is working on what she believes. But ultimately I think she wants to live; even if that is in the form of a robot.
Edit: okay looking at the choices... maybe a different kind of magic is possible. After all, the signalers created the ponies after all.
Damn, this is likely one of the hardest choices in the story. Letting her be biological keeps a damn fine asset that is her magic - and Twiggles failed us enough time already, but it's risky as fuck. I'd say stay biological and take the risk... unless there's some fourth option I haven't seen yet.
Option 1 hands down.
If we abandon our morality and force choices on others regarding our bodies and mortality in the face of adversity what kind of civilization can we claim to have left?
Sunset flat out said she prefers to.stay like this. So that's not a problem. The problem is Fluttershy. Sunset might die, and that'll be okay for her. But Shy will be treating her anyways if we don't turn her. And she is already exhausted.
All and all, a real pickle. Is a 60% chance of Sunset as is worth Flutershy's dwindling drive and morale? Or would it be better to risk Sunset's organic mind with the robofication?
Assuming the "Virus" doesn't exist, then we'll get a largely useless and quite unhappy Sunset.
if it does exist, and it's malevolent, then we'd get a third infected pony, wich is bad. But we already put 100% trust on Spike, who is infected.
If it exists and is benevolent, then I have no idea what cpuld happen.
So the options are to:
Risk it to the virus, maybe something good happens, probably not.
Risk Sunset's life alltogether, and basically cripple Fluttershy all the while.
Put Sunset in a box and forget about her.
I guess risk the 40%? I really aren't sure.
Cyborg-Set, go! 40% is unacceptably high. That's a COINFLIP!
....oh dear. This is gonna be a controversial one.
Magic might be the only tool there is that can fight against the evil cosmic-horror thingys. Cybernetics and nanobots are just as powerless as everything else. From a pragmatic standpoint, a 60% chance of having Sunset's very powerful magic as an asset is basically priceless. And that's before you consider that to Sunset, permanantly loosing her magic is just as devastating as it would be for Twilight to loose her magic.
9744568
Also remember if this is going to be a problem and Sunset stays organic, she'll always be in trouble when it comes to gravity all the time.
The trip there and back will have to be rolled on individually. And this could be a problem that advances after each roll, making more susceptible to lesser things that might not have been as bad. So more rolls. At this point, it sounds like she can't even survive on a planet with gravity. It could get worst.
9744579
But can Equestrian magic be used to work around not having an organic body?
The show seems to hint that it can. So why can't they find a way around that limitation?
Can't we have a choice that the option to go with is that if she is looking to actually fall over dead during the trip, she gets converted. Gotta make sure it isn't a brain hemmorage, as long as it's anything but something that'd damage her brain, conversion should have no issues counteracting her 'death' as it takes a few minutes or so before brain death happens, I believe.
If she is gonna be repeatedly having near-death emergencies and not recover to a point where that is not an issue anymore, converting is pretty much a must if wanting to preserve the extra pony-power. Besides, I don't believe we've had any occasions showing if converted ponies retain or lose their magic either, though that may be likely.
This is a [Save Ashley] -(^)- [Save Kaidan] kind of problem. Neither option is the one we want, we have to live with the consequences either way.
Organic - The problem with this is 40% chance of death (/gm Does Sunset die? 4) - We've had a scary good amount of rolls recently, and the very next set of rolls could be the epic fail train. As in, Sunset definitely dies, and she takes the Equinox with her in a magic surge, etc. etc. etc.
Synthetic - The problem with this is 100% chance to lose magic. There's no maybe. It's definite. Sunset will be relegated to only her mental experience, and none of her capability. She's a unicorn first, and that means not having the experience of doing things manually. But she will survive.
Contigency - This is basically Synthetic but worse - yes, she's in the Matrix and can live a The Matrix life, but then they'll have to build a body for her. That might not be something they have time to do, considering the problems the Equinox is having with building materials right now. And she may not want to leave.
Bullsh*t
You just need the right kind of tape.
Good chapter otherwise, and not an easy decision.
Magic seems to be uniquely suited to fight the hunger, likewise technology has consistently failed.
Add the fact that the virus WANTS to spread... I don't think it's safe to use it.
Sorry to gamble with your life Sunset but we need you whole rather than converted.
9744614
If she starts dying at some point during the trip, something like that could be tried regardless, with Twilight's order (since Sunset has refused on her own). But she's already in such bad shape she might die before she could even be taken to treatment. I don't think Twilight would be willing to use the virus on another corpse after what happened to Spike.
In short, that outcome is possible, but it will depend on the dice.
9744722
The thing is that she could be kept QUITE near the conversion source and as soon as she starts going in stop start the conversion. Spike was a cold corpse... here we are talking about a being in life support being monitored h24... It is QUITE easier to administer it in case of emergency. So IF the contingency [not the strange one] is taken to keep a quick transformation if the worst come then the best way is waiting in transforming her.
9744744
The thing with offering perfect choices is they're dramatically uninteresting. If it's helpful as a reader, you can assume that Sunset explicitly refuses that order. Either she's free to go about her work, or she's ordered to convert.
See, I wish we knew the % of Sunset dying from conversion. Since we don't, and since Sunset is ok with taking crew risks, I can justify taking the risk of not converting.
Any chain of command that doesn't put the medic at the top regarding matters of crew health is bad. Fluttershy, you'd better find your assertiveness (and a container of that virus) because if it looks like Sunset is going to be lost, you'd better pull rank and save her.
9744650
As a matter of fact, Mythbusters made not one, but four separate duct tape boats. However, the patch job they tried on open water did fail. If it's a patch job you're after, you're gonna need a dry boat.
9744751
The other thing with such choices is that they're logical ones too. Too much idiot-ball being juggled around just makes the characters look like a bunch of idiots who only survived because of miracles, not competence.
Sunset STILL hasn't shared everything she knows. Since we didn't start the burn we're going to have very little time to react when the probe gets back to us. No chance to divert to the dark side. We need what she knows. Contingency can likely be accessed by Spike, we KNOW it's not evil now. Download her and hope she survives or we are probably very boned.
9744572
Only because the choice is absolute and not conditional. It's choices like these I always found frustrating in CYOA books.
....I honestly cannot decide here. On one hand, Sunset's experience as a leader and captain is invaluable. On the other, magic has been seen to be extremely effective against our enemy. Losing one or even both would be catastrophic for us.
9744560
If we were talking about civilian life, then Option 1 would be correct for this reason... but their situation is more military right now, where such abstract thoughts only get in the way... and she knows it. Option 2.
Sunset may lose her ability to practice magic, but all her theoretical knowledge stays. If she's dead, the knowledge and magic are gone for good, but if she becomes Robo-shimmer, only magic is lost. Besides, who's to say that Node couldn't come up with a way for the robopones to use magic? Node and the ancients are by Node's own admission at least a thousand years more advanced.
9744650
Remember, the Mythbusters built a boat out of tape (duct), and it worked just fine. So yea, all tape and nothing of the original, can work.
This is just malicious starscribe! We Keanu dodged your murder rolls and now your back at it again! Welp..... sunsets already told us everything of value ( by everything of value I'm specifically referring to equus all that we really cared about knowing is what the fuck is going on and now we now the sunset has no idea so fuck her) I'm sure she's not happy I think turning her robot at THIS point... Isn't all that valuable, one of Our crew CAN be programmed against us already and that's enough. So I think we should give sunset what ever she wants. And if all she WANTS is not to be a terminator then fuckit put her in the contingency.
IMO it's silly to make the decision now, save it for when Sunset is actually trying to die. So, 1, no decision and hold off for now.
Sunset appears to be resigned to death. Pity.
Fluttershy is one more no win decision from just straight up punching Twilight in the face. Repeatedly. For hours.
Sorry, this is not a choice I can make. I abstain.
I can sum it up In 3 words: let her die. She's a liability either way and I get the impression she has less than honorable intentions of she lives
Can we please have some lore before making these kinds of decisions?
How did Sunset get there before Twilight's crew did? Why did Sunset's crew go out? What happened to Equestria before Sunset left?
Turns out I've read the first chapter when it was posted and forgot about it for a while. Gotta say that I'm surprised to see one hundred more! Very good sign.
As much as I'd like to think that Node and Applebloom are really themselves in there and not just robotic copies, there's no way to be sure, and I just wan't see Twilight being willing to make a decision that may actually be murder. The other way is risky, painful, even dangerous, but there's still a 60% chance she continues on, and her skills in magic really could be useful anyway. So I'm voting for not giving the order. But also getting Fluttershy to get some rest while they monitor
(Also, I'm not entirely sure why putting her mind in the contingency would cause her body to die? It didn't kill the others. If anything, putting her in something similar to an induced coma would be good for her body, allowing it to heal without the usual strains of pain and stress and overexertion that slow down healing. If it were possible to put her mind in the contingency while preserving her body, I'd vote for that; less painful for everyone involved.)
9744751
well during the critical part of acceleration you keep her under observation, she sleeps in the infirmary under watch, and globally you make sure you get maximum possibilities of keeping a valuable member of the crew active and at maximum performance.
I'm going to go with option one, because an author usually does not specifically mention something without it being brought back up in the story later.
Sunsets magic is more important, then her engineering knowledge, if I am to abide by authors rules.
Twilight doesn't need to give the order right now, there was no indication Sunset's death is imminent, just that it has a higher probability. Magic users should retain their magic as long as they can, it's certainly been needed on this trip. If there is some reason the decision needs to be made now it wasn't made clear. Twi should follow Sunny's wish and leave her alive in her own body, BUT reserve the right to change her mind if the situation changes. If it's possible perhaps can there be an investigation into the possibility of making the ponybots able to use magic? As Arthur C. Clark once observed "any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.", perhaps other ways of doing what they now use magic to do can be developed, especially with the bounty of advanced technology they seem to be in the midst of. Definitely need to get back to that ring at some point if they can.
Before any decision is made, it's storytime for Apple Bloom and Starlight. They've been sitting on important information for too long.
Next, what resource do you need more? What will most likely contribute to the success of the mission? Is the risk of losing extra magic worth the 100% certainty that your only medic will be negatively affected?
The second option has an unknown rate of failure without changing the penalty. Option three preserves Sunset in standby with Spike being able to access her when needed. "She may not ever get another body" leaves the possibility she will.
With an unknown number of hostiles back at the base on B, retrieval of the original? Copy? Crystal heart is not a given. Increasing the tactical value of Sunset's magic. Since the only inhabital area on the planet was due to magic this raises her magic to a critical need. Option one has my vote.