Guard the prisoner 55%
Twilight Sparkle was better now. She would stay better, so long as she didn’t try to use her magic accidentally in the next few days.
Unfortunately, that meant she couldn’t possibly look like a skilled unicorn to the prisoner, since the simplest trick of a space-faring unicorn was making their own gravity. But the captured pony had held her mysteries long enough.
“You both did excellent work,” she said, as the lift came to a stop on crew level. “I couldn’t have asked for a better crew. But.” She raised one wing, cutting them both off. She could see it on their faces, Spike’s concern and Applejack’s sense of justice. Or revenge.
“Naval intelligence is clear on this. The best way to get answers is for me to go alone.” She carefully reached into her jumpsuit, removing the radio and switching it on. “There. You can both listen, but you can’ go in. Go back to doing what you’re doing, and… we’ll catch up when I’m done with her.”
“We’re gonna freeze her, right?” Spike asked. “We’re not going to…” He looked nervously towards Applejack.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Twilight said. “But yes, that’s my plan. When we’ve learned everything we can, we’ll freeze her. Maybe. We can talk about it.” Right now the only two pods she knew worked were hers and Applejack's—she didn’t particularly feel inclined to give up her own spot to a criminal. Maybe Rarity would’ve, but she wasn’t as generous.
“It’s only fer your sake I’d wanna come, cap. You ain’t all together. If she tries something…”
“I have a gun,” Twilight said. “I have more combat training than either of you. It will be fine.” She walked out of the lift, crossing towards the new brig slowly enough for the lift to vanish engineward behind her. Twilight took one last glance at her reflection in the mirror. Formal coat, gold trim, sun on her shoulder—the uniform had survived storage better than Twilight herself.
The cap would hide her bandaged horn, even if the jacket couldn’t do the same for her grieves.
Unfortunately, the crew quarters had never been designed to be used for a brig, which meant there was no way to have this conversation without opening the door. There was a tiny window, but nothing near what they would’ve needed to keep an eye on their guest. She wasn’t afraid to set traps before. She could do it again.
So far as Twilight knew Applejack’s repairs on the prospector hadn’t encountered anything dangerous so far, but they hadn’t actually been inside yet.
“I need you to back away from the door,” Twilight called, loud enough that she was sure her voice would penetrate steel. "I’m armed, but I don’t think there’s any need for violence. We can both be civilized ponies, can’t we?”
“Of course, Captain Twilight, I would love nothing more than to follow your directions.” She heard motion in the room and saw her distant form by the back wall. No sign of a trap, though the walls had been ripped open. But how much of that was Spike’s doing, and how much was the prisoner trying to escape?
“You’re to stay by that wall during our conversation,” Twilight called through the door. If you move, I’ll try to lock you in. If I can’t, I’ll have to shoot. Nothing is more important to me than the safety of my crew.”
“I understand,” the voice answered. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Captain. I can be a cooperative prisoner.”
The door opened. Twilight was momentarily taken aback by the pony’s strange appearance. She was a pegasus, but she was so tall. Those legs looked unnaturally thin, her wings too long.
She knew the look. A spacer child, who hadn’t spent nearly enough time under gravity spell or centrifuge. But did this one grow up on a separatist asteroid colony, or on the Equinox?
There were no traps she could see, no sign that anything in the room had been moved. Twilight sat down in the doorway, keeping her earth-pony pistol close at hoof if she needed it. “You already know my name,” she began. “I’m told your name is Cozy Glow, is that correct?”
She nodded.
“Why are you on my ship, Cozy Glow?”
“Same reason you are,” the pegasus rose to her hooves, stretching out her wings casually. “But I think I understand it better than you. Not to say I’m smarter than you—obviously, I couldn’t be, you’re the most brilliant pony in Equestria. But I have better information.”
“We’re here to contact the ones who sent the Signal,” Twilight said, annoyed. “You expect me to believe that some kind of… Signaler superfan… stole a piece of our starship and set traps all over… because that would help with our mission?”
“Well…” From her expression, it almost seemed like she did. “It’s not help how you think. The Listeners didn’t just hear the Signal, we translated it."
What?
"We’re both here to help Equestria, but the Listeners understand what Equestria will have to do to survive, and… you’re doing your best to make sure we don’t. But being accidental won’t help if invaders show up in our star system and kill everypony.”
Twilight’s blood chilled in her veins. I really hope you’re wrong. We already made contact. There was no reason to share that information, though. No reason to believe a word this pony was saying. For all Twilight knew, this “Listener” organization was some kind of Xenophobic cult, or… maybe didn’t exist at all.
But there was one way to be sure. “We already know what the message was,” Twilight snapped, puffing out her chest a little. “It wasn’t words, it was a signal of intelligence. A call for new friends. It’s a series of patterns and math problems.”
Cozy Glow shook her head. “That’s only what’s on the surface. Bring me to a computer, and I can show you.”
1. Give her a terminal. If Equestria is really in danger, we need to know what we’ve done. All other risks are secondary.
2. Don’t. It’s obviously some kind of ruse to get access to our systems. She’s saying whatever she thinks she has to say to get us to do what she wants. For all we know she has some failsafe in place in case she got captured, and she’ll just use it. Call her bluff, press her to learn why she’s really here.
3. Bring a written copy of the signal. The danger might be real, but Cozy Glow is dangerous too. The signal’s mathematics are so advanced that even Ph.D. level scholars can’t fully understand its total complexity, but that shouldn’t be required. She only has to show the translation, not invent it herself.
4. Applejack suggests rigging an expedition terminal with data from the signal and nothing else. We don’t have very many portable terminals and they’re impossible to replace, but risking one seems like the best compromise. That way she won’t have any argument that she lacks the computational power to give her evidence, but won’t be able to affect the Equinox either.
Well, I haven't seen the last season, but I don't think she can do much with a portable terminal and it's not like damaging it would do her any good, so fourth option is my vote.
The first isn’t an option and the second is playing is overly safe.
The only real choices in my opinion is there and four. With three all you’re losing is a sheet of paper, and four has a greater chance of success but has a bit more of a cost attached to it.
Cozy’s a Belter? ...I can see that. “Remember the Cant!”
Capitalize.
Missing quotation mark at the start.
9291612
Ditto!
After that though they need to treat that terminal as hazardous material. As unlikely as it is, she could plant a virus for all we know.
Edit: Ooh, the votes are changing before my eyes; first time I'm early enough to see that. Also, looks like everyone is cautious enough not to pick #1.
Edit Edit: Who on Earth picked #1?
9291659
Right, fixed! Thanks.
9291671
My pleasure.
#3 so much. Handing her the paper is basically a zero-knowledge proof to establish a basis for trust. It allows her to use her knowledge to prove that she has hidden knowledge: she can still withhold the full message as leverage, but she can do a spot translation or show the broad basis for their technique to demonstrate she's not lying out her ass.
The reason to choose 4 over 3 is if you expect her to immediately pull out a backup plan to take over the ship, and want to bait her into revealing what she hid in the systems. But the opportunity cost of #4 is guaranteed damage, which I think is a bad tradeoff.
#1 makes no sense without establishing trust. Her story sounds plausible but there's literally no harm to verifying it first: I mean, it's not like anyone is coming into this with the expectation of trust after their previous encounters, so #3 is where the foundation starts. #2, meanwhile, is just weaksauce when there's information to be gained from the other choices.
Applejack assumes that Cozy hasn't compromised the expedition terminals in some fashion...
There's something about this character that makes me want Twilight to just shoot her immediately.
She reminds me of a mortal and very fallible CelestAI.
9291612
Cozy appears to be xenophobic in canon, or at least willing to adopt anti-nonpony rhetoric when convenient. The Listeners being an xenophobic cult makes sense.
Additionally, she's had an unknown amount of unsupervised time aboard the Equinox during which she could have potentially done anything to give her an advantage. Giving her any hardware is a bad idea, especially something that is impossible to replace, and the sooner she's frozen, the better.
I suspect it's likely she would have memorized their "translation", whether a real translation or a lie, and so you don't need to bring her anything to get that info. But if you do feel the need, a hardcopy is sufficient and puts the ship and crew in no further danger.
Going to echo 9291710. No sense in risking any more resources than necessary.
Also interesting to note that the choice to guard Cozy didn't seem to actually do anything... which makes me wonder what she'd have gotten up to if we'd opted for something else.
No terminal, no written copy, no nothing. This is Cozy Glow we're talking about, folks! There's no such thing as too safe with her.
Number 2 is my vote.
Give her a printout and let her show she has a clue. If the computers confirm her translation, then maybe trust her on the basics.
But giving her a terminal is stupid bordering suicidal. ANY access to your core net will allow her an opportunity to... I couldn't guess. It will not end well. I guarantee that.
Give her a printout. I don't trust her with a computer. Surprised Applejack would let her near one.
The strawpoll site has been hacked by a pop up against android phone users.
Well that last vote was close, but we are clearly all agreed not to give Cozy access to the main terminal. A port makes sense though. My biggest suspicious question is, if they found this translation in time for them to plan infiltrating the launch, why exactly didn't they bring this forward? Are we really to believe that it was hushed up because no one including Celestia wanted to consider the possibility of danger?
Also Im guessing Cozy is older than a filly here because of more than just one year being unfrozen on the Equinox. I wonder why she came UNfrozen even a year early?
Hmm a TERMINAL means something connected to a main computer so that is a no-no.
An isolated stand alone laptop, with ALL interfaces apart from keyboard, mouse and screen glued shut/removed may be plausible.
I say option four. If it is not connected to the shipboard mainframe in any way, I say that would be the best option of those presented.
9292324
That's my mistake, not Twilight's. I just figured the concept of a "laptop" or other portable just wouldn't exist, and wasn't sure what language to use instead. It's meant to suggest an entirely isolated system.
Im split between three and four, but if I really had to chose I'd go with four.
I doubt she's cooperative, but she's at least talkative, and that's the next best thing. Let's play her game... for now. #3 gives her no opportunity to do any cyber-attack. But we don't need to verify her computer skills when she good the message so well Twilight could only find a partial copy.
9291785 Two things: First, on a technicality, this is alternate universe Cozy Glow. Second, giving her just enough rope to hang herself is exactly what the crew needs. Why wait for her to make the first move? That's playing right into her strengths.
this is a interesting way to do a story and it is working out really good.
9293180 It's also alternate Twilight and alternate Spike and such, but they've all acted very similar to their canon selves. There's no reason to assume Cozy's the one exception who's radically different compared to how she is in the show.
Not let her make the first move? I'm in the party of not letting her make any move, period. Throw away the key and all that.
Absolutely not. Vote 2.
She is fully aware of what she is doing - refusing to answer questions and demanding resources.
Remember.
Sneaked onto the ship.
Deliberate sabotage and ransacking of ship supplies.
Deliberate setup of a trap that was INTENDED TO KILL the first pony to investigate.
When discovered, escaped and fled in the prospector, further endangering the crew and the mission.
When captured, refused to answer direct questions and has cited an “unknown threat” directly in contradiction with our own findings.
Further damaged her own cell without explanation - certainly has created a weapon like a shank and demanded Twilight come down so Cosy can hold her hostage.
Cosy’s entire strategy has been to cause as much harm as she can and evade our forces. The only thing she should be given is a swift kick out into space.
We should not let ourselves be prejudiced with story based on their characters. I think i can hear the author cackling from here on how much people are ready to shove her out from the airlock after so much talk about "mercy being the pony thing to do".
Anyway, give terminal but i am not sure she needs the motion of her legs, or even her full cognitive abilities to redo something she has done before. Make sure she is secure in various ways, she is dangerous viper, even before the reveal of the name.
Yes, a gun you are used to operate with magic. And magic-based combat training.
While you have no magic.
She can, but will she?
I voted for option 3 "Give her a printout instead".
It's basically the same as giving her an terminal, but without causing any more damage as we already have.
And should we really need it, we can still use option 4 later.
9294343
I agree.
At this point the less damage WE cause to ourselves the better. There are bigger problems to worry about.