Chapter 125
Fabricate mining infrastructure 36%
The debate grew heated towards the end, with her crew practically shouting at each other with the importance of their choices. But in the end, Twilight was the deciding vote.
“Everything we want to do has one thing in common,” she explained, once they’d all fallen silent. “We need resources. We may never have another chance to gather them.”
“Our chance may already be gone,” Node countered. “Well, yours. The dragon and I may be the only ones left alive on this station when all is done. Wouldn’t… be the first time.” Her strange body looked down, folding all four arms together in a gesture of mourning.
“Assuming we even save him,” Rarity said grimly. “Isn’t that transfer ongoing as we speak? I haven’t heard from Starlight in hours now.”
Twilight nodded. Turning to leave. This new section of the Canterlot might be one of the most luxurious, but it wasn’t her home. Let the shiprats make it their home… and hopefully find a new name for themselves. They didn’t have to be rats anymore.
“I know it sounds frightening to send ponies out into the void again,” Applejack began. “Feels kinda like we’re sending them out to suffer like we did. But that just ain’t it. The Canterlot is close, and we won’t send ‘em far. Pinkie and I already made a list. Aside from the crew we’ve got going to Proximus B, they’ll all be stayin’ local.
“The Canterlot has mining ships in the hold that will still fly. We’ve got their crews on ice. You all wanted to do this instead’a moving everypony somewhere, safe, so…” she winced. “Granny Smith always said that if we’re gonna do somethin’, do it right.”
Twilight was in the central computer an hour later for Spike’s re-activation.
She’d visited only once during the last month, and been so horrified by what she saw that she left again before she made order she’d regret.
The Canterlot’s central computer had been as large as all of the Equinox, a vast array of thaumic diodes and floating gate-arrays and tandem spells. While the station was at rest and the mainframe ran some experiment or another, it could draw a third of the station’s power all on its own.
Starlight and Spike’s robot crew had cut through it like scrappers going through a derelict. They’d chosen only the central core, where hardware access to the Canterlot’s most critical systems could be found. Now instead of towering computation modules, there were glass cabinets, the same ones that had once guided the Equinox.
As Twilight made her way between them, she wasn’t struck with a wave of overwhelming heat, as the cooling systems inevitable struggle and failed to vent all the energy to space.
Instead there was a constant whine, loud enough to mistake for a fabricator’s cooling fan.
“You’re here.” Starlight spun around, looking in her direction. The scars on her chest were all covered with new fur now, though Twilight could still hear the raspiness in her voice. That would probably be with her until she died. “I was just about to call you.”
“I needed to be here,” Twilight replied. “Spike’s not just my assistant, he’s my best friend. We’ve been together since he hatched.”
Starlight patted her on the shoulder in an awkward, sympathetic way. “I’m sorry you lost him. During your mission, I mean. That must’ve been hard.”
Twilight stared, expression intense. “Lost? Spike’s right here. I didn’t… I mean, I almost did. He’s just changed. That can happen. Transformation spells…”
Starlight sighed. “Princess, I know you’ve had the run of the world for ages now. But Spike and I have been working together for two months now. He doesn’t think he’s really Spike, and I… agree. You can put all someone’s memories into a computer and turn them on, but it doesn’t mean that pony’s alive again. You’ve just made something new.”
Twilight’s expression hardened. “What does this have to do with the switch? If something went wrong, this isn’t going to cushion the bad news. Tell me.”
Did the switch go well? No.
“As well as can be expected,” Starlight answered, walking slowly along past the alien computers. “We transported these safely, but compared to our machines we could probably have Muffins fly them and not break anything. But…” she lowered her voice to a sensitive whisper.
“Switching things back on hasn’t… The Canterlot is working normally. Everything we did to virtualize its hardware is working great. But… Spike hasn’t come back. Think about it, princess. We don’t know what lets a computer act like a pony. Apparently it was complex enough that just turning things on wasn’t enough.”
Twilight’s eyes widened in horror. “Y-you… you thought that could happen, and you didn’t tell me?”
Her eyes drifted desperately across the room. There sitting against the wall was the strange Signaler body Node had made for him, the male alien that towered over everypony. Its eyes were closed now, hands folded across its chest. You found your rest at last.
“He made me swear. That… if something went wrong, then that was how it was supposed to be.”
“Buck that.” Twilight shoved past her, selecting one of the redesigned computer racks out of many. The one without a glass front—the one damaged in Spike’s duel.
This was where Spike’s mind was most centralized, or so she thought.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Starlight called from behind her, voice desperate. “Captain, please! Spike wouldn’t want you to put the station at risk!”
She was probably right about that. But just now, Twilight wasn’t feeling terribly rational. She had to try, had to do something.
She had only what she’d picked up from Node for reference, about the way Signaler computers worked. But her magical understanding also taught her something else. Life itself was magic, the most basic and fundamental kind.
Maybe all Spike needed now was a spark. She didn’t even have a specific spell in mind. Twilight just hit the mainframe with every drop of magic she had, careful not to convert it directly to force as a novice might do.
A wave of violet energy blasted through the computer core, lighting up thousands of thaumic tubes tossed aside or into trash bins. Dead computers hummed to life at the energy, only to fade a moment later.
“Stop!” Starlight roared. “Princess, you don’t know these systems like I do! You really have to—”
Can Twilight fix it? Yes.
A screen lit up; the little diagnostic display directly mounted to the rack. Twilight’s horn went out, and she crept forward slowly. It was an incredibly stupid plan. It might’ve set them back months, or worse.
“Ugh… my head,” Spike said. “I feel like I just hibernated for a century.”
Things got better after that. Twilight stalked away as soon as she was sure that Spike wasn’t going to catch fire or explode or anything else awful in her absence. She had to get away from Starlight, before the two of them came to blows.
There was an argument of some kind in engineering—maybe helping other ponies work out their issues would help calm her racing heart.
Give up on Spike just like that, without even trying. I can’t believe you’d suggest it, Starlight. Not a chance.
Her old friend was older now, older than she was. We can’t all hide from risk forever. We’re swimming in them now.
Twilight found Fluttershy and Rarity in what remained of the old physics lab. Well, it had been a physics lab. Now it was mostly stuffed with hibernation cells, just like everything else. Only the old telescope remained, its massive reflecting mirror cracked.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Rarity said, gesturing for her to approach. She had a set of tools on the table in front of her, entirely uncharacteristic of her.
“What’s the issue?” Twilight asked. “Sorry I couldn’t come straight here. Had to… check on Spike.”
But they were barely even listening to her. “Rarity was going to wake more crew,” Fluttershy explained. “I mean… I want more ponies as much as anyone. But I’m not sure the risk is worth it.”
Twilight turned to Rarity. “I would like an explanation. I take it these aren’t mining crew.”
“No,” Rarity said. “Look, captain, I know what it looks like. But I realized we don’t have to do just the one project at once! I don’t need any of the same resources as Applejack. While she’s doing her… mining whatever, I can be learning!”
“And if anything goes wrong, we’re going to lose ponies.” Fluttershy argued. “I have a skeleton crew, captain. Even waking the miners is going to take double shifts.”
“Then wake more doctors!” Rarity countered. “If we want the Canterlot to stop feeling like a tomb, we really must do something about the caskets. Let’s start opening.”
1. Agree. It’s a gamble that there won’t be too many complications at once, but the chance for critical information is worth the risk.
2. Refuse. Fluttershy is right. Waking ponies up without the infrastructure to properly care for them is just asking for a disaster.
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So, is there actually anything wrong with doing what Rarity suggests? Wake a bunch of doctors up first, then let them wake up the scientists?
From the options given I'm gonna have to say no, but it seems strange to not have it be mentioned.
HAHAHAHAHAHA no. We have pushed our luck, and almost lost spike (again). We cannot aford to take another risk like this.
If someone dies, we are responsible for this. Fluttershy is right, and it is better for the long term.
We are not in imminent danger atm, are we?
I would have to say no. It's too big a risk. A risk we can't afford to take.
10043250
The idea would be to drop a few of the mining crew at the start to wake up more doctors, then those doctors wake up more doctors (plus the miners they replaced). Doctors waking more doctors leads to a bit of exponential growth, and then we have the capacity to wake the scientists.
Fluttershy already has a "skeleton crew", she's not solo anymore.
I noticed that Node only included itself and Spike it it's worst case scenario, but shouldn't it also included AppleBloom? She's most of the way there already.
It is funny how I seem to be on the wrong side of the vote practically every single time. I said yes, because the ship has to get going. The significant majority says no.
....no. Scientists are not essential right now. We listen to the doctor. We can't keep gambling forever and hope it works out. We got REALLY lucky in this chapter.
We got insanely lucky there. No way is our luck going to hold out if we wake up more of them. We just can't take that risk.
In my opinion, at this point we *have* the resources to "go big", and that's a worthwhile risk. Wake the doctors we need to start scaled-up defrosting operations.
10043267
In my view? Yes we are. This seems rather low-risk (a few lives) for high reward (precious time getting further from Hunger i.e. losing ALL lives).
Had to pick 'No' this time around. Without proper infrastructures people could starve or worse they could wake up a Listener and it be Cozy all over again.
👏Wake👏the👏doctors!👏
Never give up on that dragon.
2, it's too risky.
10043382
yeah, seems to going that way lately for me too.
We have to go big. I feel like if we won't we will lose anyway.
Can't rely on luck. But why haven't ponies been slowly resuscitated over time? This should have been a non-issue...
Rarity needs to be asked the hard questions, like:
How many deaths are an acceptable risk? Are you willing to have those deaths hanging over your head Rarity?
I'm siding with the Doc.
10043743
I agree this is a stupid binary vote on the poll fluttersy is complaing they dont have enoigh medical persanal than wake up the medical personal!!!! Its not that hard choose the ones thst are the mosr skilled first than move on down.
Maybe The Preservers or something like that?
Indeed. I had worked, but it could have gone wrong. Very wrong.
Wow, we barely avoided another disaster here. Poor Spike.
Too bad there isn't an option like "Wake more doctors, then wake the scientists." It would take longer, but decrease the risk.
It was a bulls
t roll is what it was. Freaking crits...
And now I wonder what Best Pony did in this setting before the apocalypse.
It's poetic, in a way. Once again, Twilight releases Spike from stasis with a burst of magic.
As for this vote, I agree that scientists are non-essential personnel at the moment, but this represents a nasty Catch-22. We'll have to revive somepony sometime, otherwise we'll never be able to defrost anypony because there's no one to look after them. Part of infrastructure recovery is getting people to operate it.
So expose a bunch of new ponies to revival in poor conditions on an unstable ship in order to gain... What exactly? The sails will be under construction soon and with Spike in the mothership repairs should go much faster now with all the bitty robots. I don't see how this helps anything, and unless we loose the entire mothership and soon we'll get them all back safely once we're underway. They'll even have the choice of full G or 0G recovery.
This could be our best chance to research the Hunger and find a way to fight back. I'm with Rarity. If what Node says is true, we can't afford to wait.
Really surprised at the direction of voting here. Node is saying it might already be too late, they're taking the long route by trying to mine before building the sails, and we're going to risk their entire civilisation rather than risk a much smaller number dying during a skeleton crewed wakeup? That's not a balanced risk!
Over the course of the story, we've almost constantly voted for the option that takes longer. If the story is at all set up with a time over lose condition (and I feel like it is - none of the "takes longer but works better" options were at all meaningful if we could take all of them and still not run out of time), we have to be approaching it. I think the choice here might be between finding out that we need to change over to making the sails as fast as possible or finding out a bit later that it's too late to do anything except get inside the virtual world.
Just saying, but several choices over the course of the story have felt like offering us the option to mitigate the worst of the problems caused by the previous choice. I think we're blowing the opportunity to do so this time.
Last chapter was just the latest of several with people saying "Why can't we work on more than one of these options at once?"
This chapter, we get the opportunity to try that, and people say it's too risky.
Maybe Twilight should have taken that deal.
Keep in mind that it's not just a matter of having enough doctors. The drugs and medical equipment are limited too, and even with the recent focus on life support and industry, is there really hospital capacity to care for a bunch of people missing limbs and organs?