Chapter 132
Begin the Journey 75%
“And you’ll be the last pony who has to go through this. We’re suspending all mining operations and preparing to leave.” Twilight didn’t want to watch an alien virus devour someone’s body and replace it with artificial substitutes. But some part of this was her fault—she owed Sunset staying until she’d been completely overcome. Twilight couldn’t give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, or get anywhere close enough to risk exposure. She could still see the betrayal in Sunset’s eyes right up until they went dark.
“You took her magic away,” Fluttershy said from behind her, as quiet as she’d once been long ago. When the world still made sense, and they hadn’t all been ripped out of their worlds of comfort. “We don’t force treatments, princess. Patents can make informed consent about the treatments they receive.”
“Civilian patents can,” Twilight said, backing slowly from the room. Before her, the strange entity spun its thin cocoon of harvested metal, devouring deck plates and nearby machine like fast-motion corrosion. A repair team was about to be very unhappy with her. “Sunset Shimmer is a commissioned officer of the Equestrian Navy.” She shut the door gently. There wasn’t any chance Sunset could still hear, right? Best be sure, just in case. “I know how much she cares about her magic—we both studied under Celestia, for the same reasons. But Equestria doesn’t have the luxury of letting its most skilled ponies choose to fade away like that.”
She rested one wing on Fluttershy’s shoulder, forcing her to meet her eyes despite her discomfort. “Shy, there aren’t any more colleges. When the specialists serving on this station die, they’re gone forever. Even if we have every book printed on Equestria in our database—Equestrian magical history is already full of evidence that writing things down isn’t enough. Without living specialists, you don’t even have enough ponies to realize that there was something forgotten. The spell ends up buried in an old ruin somewhere, and the ones who need it don’t have it.
“That was a tragedy when the world was under our control. But where we’re going now, the Canterlot can’t survive if our knowledge is lost. Sunset can’t cast spells anymore—she can still teach them. She can still inspect and maintain our thaumic infrastructure.”
Fluttershy nodded weakly. “Does that mean you’ll do that to all of us, eventually? All your friends, all the experts there are… that’s what Node wanted. Make us into robots like her. I don’t know if there’s room for a soul in the machine, Twilight. Why do you think the magic is gone?”
Twilight opened her mouth to argue. Of course, she hadn’t planned to force her friends to convert—as much as she wanted to be able to keep them forever, the idea was repulsive to her. But will I think differently forty or fifty years from now, when the first one is as sick as Sunset was?
“Answer me this,” she said instead. “Suppose that you knew that Canterlot would fall and everyone living here would die, unless you converted. Would you do it?”
“Of course,” Fluttershy said. “I… I think I’d probably die in the process, but better me than everypony else. I was already willing to die for other ponies, that’s why I came out here with you. Discord told me, before I left… that if I got on that ship with you, I’d never see Equestria again.”
“He knew?” Twilight asked, so loud that a pair of orderlies pushing a cart stopped to stare. Twilight winced, lowering her voice to more reasonable levels. “What did Discord know about all this?” Did you know something all this time and not share it?
Fluttershy shrugged weakly. “He didn’t tell me everything. He just wanted to convince me to stay. Was I supposed to tell you that the god of chaos knew our expedition was doomed from the start?”
No, but that sure does explain some things about your attitude. “I guess now,” she said. “Morale is everything. You two were good friends, he wouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry he… isn’t aboard.”
She didn’t understand the nature of Discord’s sacrifice, any more than she understood how Celestia could destroy their star. The energy involved was difficult to even comprehend.
“I think the… Hunger… was killing him, even back then. Maybe the chaos he made was the way he kept entertained. Like listening to music on your deathbed.” Fluttershy looked away, ears flattening. “Did you mean it? Will there not be any more deathbeds? Are we really leaving?”
“Yes,” Twilight answered. “Well… it’s probably being optimistic that there won’t be any more. I’m going to order the regroup and departure as soon as possible. I know we have a few ships about two weeks out. We aren’t leaving them behind.”
“And it will probably take some time to get far enough away to escape,” Fluttershy finished for her. “There will probably be more.”
Twilight prepared to defend herself—did Fluttershy expect her to bend the laws of time itself while she was at it? But no, the doctor only looked more depressed. “I want you to try to persuade every pony who ends up in Sunset’s position to take the treatment. Either you do it, or I’ll assign Apple Bloom to be here full time. I think you’ll both hate that.”
“She’d be so bored,” Fluttershy responded, grinning weakly. Then she caught herself, and the weight of sadness returned.
“I won’t force everypony who’s sick. But I expect you to try and convince them. Whatever you said to make sure nopony took the treatment before—don’t do that.”
Twilight left her there, returning to the difficult work of orchestrating their retreat. They’d been planning for it eventually, so it wasn’t like she had to start from scratch. She checked the positions of every mining vessel, then sent out her ultimatums. Get back, or risk getting left behind. She wouldn’t do it, but they had to think she would.
Meanwhile, she joined Rarity and Applejack on the machinist crew attaching their new corpse-station to the Canterlot. It had to be close enough that they could share a single reflector, but not so far that it caused uneven acceleration and tore their combined station apart.
Sher received only a curt note about Sunset’s recovery, and an impersonal transfer request to the new station. Twilight signed off, and didn’t force Sunset to see her. In some ways, that was a relief. IT meant she didn’t have to see the consequences.
Another week passed, and the cargo hold of the Canterlot was packed full of everything they’d harvested. Dead ships, semi-refined ore, salvage from melted stations. But will it be enough?
“Node and I have been running the numbers on our deployment,” Spike said, a day before they were scheduled to begin. “Rarity had some input too. We thought you should look.”
“At what?” Twilight asked, walking over to the pair of screens mounted to her wall. More Signaler designs Apparently they were quicker to make and used much less power than the tube-driven models they replaced.
“Activating the highway,” Spike said. “We’ve already made several remote bodies for me—I’ll be on the station in case something goes wrong. Even with light-lag, it should be enough to prevent the Canterlot’s destruction.”
“We’ve already talked about that,” Twilight said, raising an eyebrow. “What’s left to decide? We activate the highway, its gravity-manipulator pilots us into position, and we get blasted by a laser bright enough to turns us to vapor. Right?”
“Right,” Spike said. “That’s why we wanted a few options, actually. Because we control the station, we can decide how much of its output we want to use. Node thinks our settings will propagate to relay stations around the Canterlot, all the way to our destination.”
“Our destination which… might be five light years away, or five thousand?”
“Yeah,” Spike’s voice said. “Glad it’s not my choice.”
1. Use the highway at full power (greatest chance of failure for the ship, greatest acceleration strain, fastest voyage)
2. Use the highway at low power (much reduced chance of failure and low acceleration strain, at the cost of a much slower trip)
3. Alter the highway with magic, cutting the journey down even further without risk to the Canterlot—except that the Highway might just explode)
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What else will the Princess of Magic do? Option Three.
I'd be fine with any option... but option 3 sounds like the Twilight option to me.
Option 1 is probably the "default" option. Get the hell out of dodge at as fast as is "safe"
Option 2 is risky because if they don't go fast enough everypony is going to risk dying before they reach safe space. But if they rip themselves apart then it doesn't matter anyways, does it?
Option 3 is the magic option and where I'd feel most comfortable as a pony. As a converted pony though, I'd find that option unappealing and think of it as civilization being unwilling to adapt and change. It might lead to societal stress later on.
Okay, Shy? At this point, you are not helping. Your medical contributions are appreciated. Guilting Twilight about every decision she makes less so.
She has a correlation, but not proof of causation. All the times she's had her magic drained, did she lose her soul with it? (Assuming she had similar adventures to the Fluttershy we're most familiar with.) Thaumosynthesis could be an exotic but ultimately explicable and organic process.
As for how to handle the Highway... this is tricky. Playing it safe gives that much more time for something to go wrong in transit, flooring it could tear the station apart, and magically altering precursor tech when the precursor engineer has no idea how magic works and vice versa seems like a recipe for disaster.
I'm going to vote for the slow approach. At least then the problems will arise at a rate that allows the characters to react to them... though it won't matter if those problems are supply shortages. Still arguably better than losing everything to one Critical No (or Yes, depending on how Starscribe phrases the question.)
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Slow approach can cost more lives in the long run though ponies are already dying from the hunger catching up, getting on the bridge won't help if they don't get out of the danger zone quickly enough.
Well these are certainly not great options for us.
The way I see it:
1) Fast trip) Pros: We get a faster trip, we will get further from the hunger and less ponies should die.
Cons: Could tear the Canterlot apart.
2) Slow trip) pros: Less chance of the canterlot falling apart. Cons: Slower escape from the hunger, more ponies will die.
3) Alter the Highway Magically) pros: Potentially the fastest option of escape, Less ponies will die maybe more than option 1, no risk to the Canterlot. Cons: Its a risk depending on how the Highway reacts to being altered with magic, if reacts negatively could destroy the highway (Risk to the ships? Not sure) If the highway fails means slowest escape and many many more will die...
I'm going to sit on this choice for a little and think.
And Fluttershy didn't deny it. Twilight knows what's going on. Both of them have valid points - I agree with Fluttershy that it's likely the new metal ponies aren't the original ponies, but they can't KNOW, and to convince them out of something that might save them or at least give their loved ones something of them after they are gone isn't right either.
Fluttershy seems much better in this chapter. More willing to accept that Twilight has no options that will make everything perfect. And her insight about Discord explains why she's been so dang MOROSE this entire time. I know Fluttershy in the show isn't always a bastion of good cheer, but this Fluttershy always seemed to dour, and realizing that she's been expecting to die this whole time while still doing her best to keep others alive a little longer def explains some of it.
As for the boat, I say go whole hog and do Option 3! It'll be interesting, that's for sure. (And while I know there are chances of catastrophic failure, we've gotten some REALLY INTERESTING plot twists out of Starscribe trying their hardest to circumvent truly catastrophic results to keep the story going, so I have faith SOMETHING will work out.)
Magic it. And remember to ask Sunset for help with it - it'll hurt like fuck, but we NEED her expertise.
While on the Sunset business, do make sure to research ways to give those mechanic ponies their Magic back. You're the princess of it Twiggles, it's your duty.
I went with option 3 because the hunger is here so it might be safer to burn the bridges behind them. Nobody else who should go will be going after them.
Hehe, explosions or death! Great choices!
3) ♫ Kerbal Space Program theme intensifies ♫
Now is not the time to pussyhoof around. This station may well not survive the longest option. Ponies are magic. Magic is friendship. Friendship will see us to the fleet.
Option 3. The Hunger is right behind us, we need to get to the fleet as fast as possible
Uhh....going to go with the slow option. We've had some good rolls, but we've also had Spike rolls. I don't know what would happen if the highway explodes.
Number 3 also has the potential benefit of setting up the ship jumping in from the conflagration trope. Meeting the fleet with a bang.
Expressly go against her wishes and then don’t even talk to her for a week.
Classy, Twilight, classy.
Kinda hoping Sunset spends the rest of her existence undermining Twilight’s authority. I don’t see her shrugging it off and just playing nice. I expect cool rage and ineffective suicide attempts.
As for the end, the Magic option, obviously.
E very one seems to ha e forgotten this is rpg rules. We deserve to fail a roll at this point let's not fail the instant death roll may? Option 1 because if the ship starts breaking maybe twi can spider man would it together with friendship and magic as opposed to blowing immediately and losing.
Option 1 seems the best - the Hunger is already here, they need to get out. While the ship might tear itself apart, dying is probably a much better alternative to falling to the Hunger. Option three might only destroy the highway and leave everyone on the ship vulnerable.
I'm not sure what I think about the "Sunset is part of the navy so we don't need consent for this" idea, but at at Twilight still has a line. No civilian conversions.
Maybe? I dunno.
Assuming that we are safe once on the highway, let's take it carefully. Let's go slow.
Lol. I'm throwing all the chips on the table, and rolling the dice for number 3.
We gonna go out in a blaze of rainbow lazers
The final option, for the win
Why are people voting for potentially destroying the highway? Wasn't highway the thing also beaming energy to the fleet, meaning that destroying it puts everyone on a tight energy budget?
After thinking about it I chose option 3.
Reasons being while it has a potential catastrophic failure event the success event will get us a quick escape from the hunger saving more ponies and holding the canterlot together which was the main concern from the start when it came to the highway plan. The other options are also going to have a bad chance of failure as well if we go fast we could lose the Canterlot and everyone onboard and if we go slow we could loose too many ponies and may not even escape from the hunger, so it's not great but #3 is our best chance of survival... and as the saying goes Theres no reward without Risk.
Also: Ponies rely on magic heavily, what's just a little more reliance on magic?
(Though we should make sure to research technology to allow those who have been mechanized to be able to use magic so we dont run into any long term issues with turning the sick and dying into robotic ponies which we seem to be doing /or trying to do/ quite often.)
Not sure here; probably gonna say option 3. Note, though, that it means tinkering with technology that none of the people involved have ever personally used! "Oh sure, I'll modify that prop airplane to use the new "jet" I invented. Have I ever flown an airplane of any kind? Well no, but the theory is sound..."
Magic is the advantage that ponies have over the Signallers. Make use of it!
I'd pick option 2.
There are risks for every choice, and sometimes safety is better than fast or experimental. The slower trip will mean many others will die from the hunger before escaping it's influence, but the alternatives risk the station and the highway. No station means death, no highway means a slow death, so I pick option 2.