Chapter 71
Make him a new Pone body. 69%
Twilight had taken many risks during her naval career, and she knew that allowing Iron Horse to return to the crew of the Prospector might just be the most dangerous yet. But no matter how dangerous it seemed, she just couldn’t send him away. If traveling out here makes us abandon what makes us ponies, then it isn’t worth it. We have to be true to who we are.
She said nothing to Apple Bloom, not for the next day while Node and Iron Horse worked together in Node’s not-so-secret lab. Then twilight called her. “Engineer Apple Bloom,” she said, trying not to sound any different. “I need you back at base for a report. Can you be here in the next two hours?”
The pony didn’t take too long to respond—she didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t require any rest so far as they knew. Twilight’s reports of her activity so far included little besides work and nervous wandering. “Of course, captain. I don’t have a definitive answer for you yet, but—”
Twilight knew that voice from her several encounters with Apple Bloom much earlier in life. She hadn’t picked it out before, but now—now she’d talked to Iron Horse. Apple Bloom was lying. “But you’ve learned things, right?”
“Mah sis’s new leg ain’t gonna be ready until the others get back tomorrow. I ain’t sure I can face her until she’s standin’ again.”
“You won’t have to,” Twilight promised. “I won’t even mention this visit to her. Meet me at… Workshop N, on the south side of camp. You know the building?”
About an hour later, she was there. Her saddlebags overflowed with scribbled notes, scan printouts, and mathematical predictions. Apple Bloom offered the satchel to her, then explained.
Does Apple Bloom understand the device? Critical yes.
“Ah got the computer to talk to me quick enough… that’s what she is, by the way. A computer. Not a bomb, not a poison, nothin’ like that. There’s a… I guess you’d call it a magical core, right in the center, integrated with the whole thing. It calls itself the Lifepod Prototype. Maximum occupancy, three hundred million. Standard energy utilization—roughly three hundred watts.”
Twilight stopped dead. Her anticipation of the surprise waiting inside the building faded into the background just a little, and her eyebrows went up. “What… does that mean?”
“I can go inside it!” Apple Bloom said, positively bouncing now, shuffling through the sketches. “There’s a… an entire world in there, bigger than Equestria. Empty cities already built, trees overflowing with fruit… everything.”
It called to me, Twilight remembered. She had felt the gravity, trying to pull her down. It tried to pull me inside. That must be what it did. "How do you fit… three hundred million ponies in a space the size of a hoofball?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Got me on that one, Captain. I know there’s magic than can compress space. Best I figure, someone spent energy the likes ‘a which we never imagined packing it all in real close. The tiny bit it uses now is just to keep the external sensor and everythin’ working.”
“When I got near it, it tried to bring me inside. I want you to shut that off. If we can do that, we could bring it aboard and take it with us. I’m sure there are Equestrian engineers who would love to learn more about it.”
“Sure. I can control the whole thing no problem, I can do that. I could bring it back tonight if you wanted.”
Twilight nodded. “Very good, engineer. But before you go, there’s something I want you to see. Gather up your notes, you can scan them into the computer when you bring the object back with you. After this.” She walked up to the door, then gently held it open.
Inside there were two ponies, made of plastic and jointed metal. Unlike Node, Iron Horse had wanted to make the changes to appear like a male earth pony, even if functionally the design was the same. He’d used body paint to give the plastic a gray finish that Twilight took to be similar to the way he’d looked in life.
Apple Bloom stopped in the doorway, staring in in shock. “Commander Apple Bloom,” he said, smiling weakly from beside Node. “Good to see you again.”
Roll on Iron Horse’s loyalty postponed.
In that moment, Twilight felt any doubt over the safety of this plan fade into distant memory. Apple Bloom dropped her pack, rushed across the lab, and one mechanical pony embraced another.
Of course, they’re really in there. You can’t fake friendship.
Twilight left them to their privacy. Iron Horse could work with his former commander—that would probably make things easier on her own crew. She had one more visit before the day’s business was done.
Twilight stepped into the medical bay just before sundown, shutting the airlock door behind her and finding Fluttershy at her desk. “Hey. How are our patients?” And no sooner did she step inside, then the rush of voices returned to the forefront of her mind. She kept meaning to prepare a counterspell for that, but… so far, her counterspell was isolation.
Sunset has healed 3 points of aggravated damage, meaning her health pool is now 4 points of lethal damage. Removing a single point from here on will allow her to return to consciousness, although she is still dependent on life-support.
Applejack has also healed 3 points of lethal damage. This means she is now fully prepared for the implanted leg.
“Sleeping,” Fluttershy whispered, rising swiftly to her hooves. She hurried over to Sunset, gesturing. “This one is, uh… we could wake her now, if you wanted. Whatever’s left in there is coming together. She’ll still be… fully immobilized for at least a week more. But I could wake her up.”
“Or…” Twilight prompted.
“Or you could give her long enough to heal,” Fluttershy said. “And not wake her up until after we give her the prosthetic legs.”
“Not to mention…” Twilight kept her voice so low that even a fake-sleeping Applejack wouldn’t be able to hear. “What happened to Apple Bloom… we still have those samples. If we used them on her… it might repair the damage.” She looked down, at a body covered with scars, with several tubes running directly into her torso, keeping her alive. She was already partially mechanical.
Fluttershy shook her head, but she didn’t argue. The message was clear—she hated that option, but it was still Twilight’s choice.
1. Do the unkind thing, wake Sunset now.
2. Do the kind thing, wake her after the prosthetics are installed.
3. Do the ethically dubious thing, mechanically convert her now.
(Certainty 235)
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I say lets not turn sunset into a cyberpony before waking her, there's no telling what waking up like that could do to her mind
As much as I think turning everyone here into robots as soon as equinibly possible is the best course of action, that'd probably result in a mutiny. I vote, wait for Sunset to wake up normally. Though I am very concerned how high Sunset's 'HUNGER' score is going to be without turning her mechanical.
Also I like that secret option. Crawl inside the virtual reality uploader machine, huh? No, we're not cowering away from this. We stay outside and we do what needs to be done.
What about waiting for the implants, waking her up as a full mobile although somewhat cybered pony, and then giving her the choice? You know, the truly kind, honest and generous option.
Option 2 do the kind thing. I have a feeling fluttershy will over ride the other two options
I say we let Sunset decide for herself if she wants to be cybernetic. Really not something you should force on someone. (I just got a mental image of Deus Ex Sunset wearing sunglasses muttering "I never asked for this" in a mirror.)
For now, sleep!
Lifepod can wait. Did AppleBloom say that she could get it to "eject" people back out?
Let me see if I understand this correctly. A small sphere, that is light enough to hold, and consumes 300 watts on our side, is a gateway to a pocket world, has enough gravity to be noticeable at 2-3 feet, and if you get close enough, that gravity (we think) pulls you through and then "shrinks/gateways" you through to the other side? ... And AB says it is not a one-way thing, but she can control the computer to go both ways, and can do this from either side?
I say we wait and let Bacon hair decide if she wants to be robotizied before doing that to her.
Funnily enough, "three hundred whats" was my reaction to those statistics. Especially since it appears to be a pocket dimension arcology... assuming it's not actually VR.
You cheeky little...
Waiting until Sunset isn't just a lump of flesh seems advisable. That mare will not deal well with being helpless, assuming there's anything left to mind. And I'd much rather find out we hooked up prosthetics to a vegetable than subject her to that kind of horror. And the less said about what might happen to a pony who's never waking up after you feed them to nanites, the better.
why are we waking her up at all. On a sub conscience level she should either be allowed to remain in a comma until she has healed to at least 1 point of lethal damage. Or she should be infected. SHE! IS! GOING! TO. HAVE. BRAIN DAMAGE. Waking her is a terrible idea. We should install the prosthetics yes. Then we should litter her bed with lead or platinum to ensure high quality conversion. of course flutters thinks this is a terrible idea. All the robo ponies are fucking brain scan clones. Their dead end of story. BUT We have already rolled hsunsets health status. Even a successful will still mean loss of functionality. do you people want a disabled sunset? I don't. without a critical yes on recovery she will be disabled permenantly. PERMENANTLY. I don't know how the roles are measured math matically but I'm willing to bet its like 50 percent on the shiminator or death so this preferable to like 80 percent chance of being a vegetable. If she fails or critfails she is braindead. If she succeed she probably has permenant memory loss of all basic functions and your gonna fucking robot her anyway. So no I don't think it's humane to make sunset be conscious before we infect her.
Me: Happy Yes.
Then let's simply roll with it; for now. Heh.
I voted to wait.
We should not losing anything by doing so.
9528235
She probably be lonely and scared and traumatize. These are things that can be treated if not cured. You know what isn't curable? brain damage. We all ready rolled on most of her health status. please go read the rolls on sunsets health. Please. In a comma she isn't using her upper brain functions it isn't rem sleep. The break down for brain damage role will be four options : critical fail, fail, success, critical success. I believe that a successful role will still require a recovery period and if the DM is impartial itll be a fucking long recovery period, but even still thats a best case 50% braindead. and after recovery she still shouldn't remember anything or infact be useful for a while longer.
After reading the pole. I change my vote to put sunset in the brainpod. That's actually a great idea. Like really a great idea. In the brainpod she may even avoid the worst of her phsicological injuries
So what will we call Sunset once the prosthetics are done? Darth Shimmer? Sunset Vader?
9528268
This. The other two options are not exclusive choices. We can start with the legs, then work out from there what to do.
Progress is being made. There is no good reason to take a horribly maimed pony and jerk her out of recovery. The 'pod is a viable option if Sunset cracks up on awakening, but given the maximum amount of time to recover, the odds are at least good to make it to the next step without life-destroying trauma.
Ethically, I'd say that both prosthetics and going full cyborg should be Sunset's choice, it's her body and all.
But on the other hand, waking up mutilated and helpless might not be too good either. It's all around bad on her part.
For the love of everything, wait until Sunset has her implants. She's going to panic as it is, at least let her panic with functional limbs.
Huh. So, a virtual world, or a very compressed physical world? My first thought was the virtual world in Message, but this reads more physical.
That seems pretty genuine.
"Consciousness", I wonder if that implies no severe brain damage, or if I'm just reading too much into it.
2, no contest.
9528268
And thus my tie has been severed.
Looks like the decision has effectively been made already... even if every single person votes for the second highest option up until the "certainty limit" is reached, it still wouldn't win.
I'm going to go with choice #4 (it's in the straw poll) . Waking Shimmy now will probably lock in any brain damage. Given the vagaries of rolling dice waking her up to a body full of prosthetics or totally mechanical would possibly deliver a mental shock she can't handle well in a weakened state. If she was awake and understood enough to agree to the procedure it would be a different matter, at least she'd know what was happening and could prepare. Waking her up in the pod is likely the least violent option there is. The only question is can she get out of the pod if she wants to, or is she doomed to spend the rest of her life/eternity as a pony Max Headroom?
Why did a Glen Campbell song jump into my head when I read the choices? Option Two.
(If you can't think of the song, it's 'Try A Little Kindness'.)
So I'm old-fashioned. Deal with it. I have to.
9528872
I think your first guess shouldn't be written off. All we know is Apple Bloom's reported personal experience, and I'm not convinced she wouldn't be fooled by the Matrix if the concept didn't already exist in her mind.
Considering her current condition.
Sunset isn't going anywhere without those implants. And her life is still in a precarious state. We still know so little about how badly Sunset's mind has been harmed, exactly the conditions for a successful nano-conversion or if Sunset mind is in a stable enough state to use the life pod.
In this time I'm voting to give her a rest and get her body in a condition to survive outside of a life support machine.
9528901
That's actually a good point. I would have voted four if I knew more about the device then the little bit we've been given. It's still unknown if it's a physical tiny world or a mental one. If it only takes minds then you're right, if it's a literal tiny world then she'd still wake up mutilated.
I am really hoping those space coordinates from the device with Sunset weren't pointing to a high tech cryo pod defreezer that would have brought her out healthy.
So it IS an Ark!
But, how to use the two tools together? If everyone is preserved in the Ark there's no reason to be able to read minds...
1 is a straight up dick move, and so is 3.
Let’s, you know, allow Sunset to keep her sanity. Option 2.
9528485
There is absolutely no proof of this.
Option 2. 3 is a dick move and 1 is unwise at best.
9528580
Let's hope she leans more towards early Clone Wars and less late Clone Wars. The last thing we need is Sunset Vader murdering the entire crew before dueling Twilight.
9529939
I won't reply again if you don't; otherwise, we can go until we both get suspended/banned. Or I get bored, because honestly you seem the type to keep yelling at an empty lobby. I'll be watching for the downvote.
Wow. I honestly didn't expect your behavior here; I thought too highly of your initial comment.
I saw you downvote the other guy and thought it was for the atrocious spelling and grammar. Apparently not; it was for daring to think differently than you!
1) The idiom fitted perfectly in time.
Creating a monster while trying to fight a monster. Why are you so opposed to such a tragedy? It's a great storytelling element.
[This block of text has been trimmed for space. Also because it's not like you'd care for it.]
2) "mechanical neurons": "This ... makes no sense. It is word salad." "Word salad is not proof of anything."
3) That "summary" was intended to be funny. I apologize your anger management issues forbade you from detecting the black-humor.
"Like - and I'm sorry, but I'm pissed - holy shit." - "You can buy [mechanical neurons]... But [brain-scan] is crossing the line?!"
Cryogenics is a legitimate business in the real world. Science-Fiction does not equal Science-Fantasy.
Unlike the HUNGER: which is where readers tend to suspend disbelief for...gasp, entertainment purposes. Same generally goes for FTL.
You getting pissed is your own fault. You were not sorry; you dilute the meaning of the word sorry.
4&5) Normally I would clarify what I mean; however, seeing as your goal here is to attack everyone who disagrees with you and downvote them like a troglodyte...
Answering questions with questions is the lowest form of bullshit-artistry.
6&7) Your incomprehension is not my problem. I would clarify, but not for you, as you clearly don't care to hear.
I'm not going to waste my time to repeat an entire philosophy lecture which would clarify 'continuity' and 'entity.'
Not for you at least; I wouldn't want to piss you off any more than you are by disagreeing.
No, I'm not going to allow you to use PMs to hide your attitude. There really is no call for your pissy response.
-------- PM included for context ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nevermind that 'the oldies are the goodies' is a garbage idiom. I do. For starters, it'd be counterproductive to make a "Turn us into robots so we don't get killed by the HUNGER" goo that also kills you.
It is absolutely, completely, not at all the same. If the cyber-goop was scanning their entire brains, then destroying the brain all at once, thenmaking a mechanical brain, you'd have a point. But that's clearly not what's happening.
It's just replacing the neurons one at a time with 'mechanical neurons'. If they still communicate with the old ones, there's no loss. It's no different than you hitting your head, losing some brain cells, and regrowing them.
No.
I don't even get why this is always brought up! Every time in ANY Sci-Fi there's ANY mention of uploading or whatever, there's always this peanut gallery going 'lol they're dead and it's just copies, I know about the boat so I'm smart'.
Like - and I'm sorry, but I'm pissed - holy shit. You can buy FTL travel or close to it. You can buy cryogenics. You can buy eldritch space HUNGER. But uploading crosses the line?!
Why would it?
Why would it?
This sentence makes no sense. It is word salad.
Word salad is not proof of anything.
Actually - no. Please don't respond. I'm pissed and don't want to hear anything you have to say. I guarantee I've heard it all and refuted it all a thousand times before.
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Original response included for completeness. Original post deleted to save space.
It should be up to Sunset to decide weather to go cyborg (with about half her body as artifical) or go full robot.
Let her sleep until she is ready for the robot parts and when she is capable of making the decision for herself give her the option of infection. Just because it worked for AB does not mean it is the best decision for Sunset.
Reminds me of the "Miniature Galaxy" relic from Stellaris