Take the chance to get them out intact. 48%
“I don’t understand why I shouldn’t just let them decide,” Spike said, meeting Node’s eyes with a flat stare. “Why would I bet the one to make this decision?”
“Because some of them don’t want to leave,” Node said. “I am one of those. But I am as unreal as you are, so I do not have the luxury of an excuse.” She tugged towards Spike, forcing him to listen. “Just imagine for a second what your farmer would say. The perfect excuse for her to stay in virtual space while we devise a solution. We never will, by the way. The ancients—we were way smarter than you are. Maybe a thousand years ahead. By the time you get advanced enough to understand how the Contingency works, you and all your other friends will have long died without the help you needed. Or that would happen, if there was any civilization left to be advancing. But you and I both know that might not be the case. The Hunger will just swallow the living, leaving those hiding down here to wonder forever when you might be coming for them. Never.”
Spike looked away. Twilight had always told him that command meant being the one to make difficult choices. He had spent much of this mission free from that, though he was often forced to live with the decisions she made. Now, after he was dead, he was the one making choices for his friends. “I don’t think it would be right to pick and choose what we bring,” he finally said. “We’re getting them out completely, alive. Do it.”
“I’ll try,” Node said. “But you pulled the trigger, not me. No memories are worth this risk.” She turned away, reaching up to the panel. “I’ve got a program ready. Let’s see how this goes.” She pressed one key with her thin fingers—and the world went black.
Spike had made it quite clear that she would see the results of his attempt right away, and now she saw for herself that he’d been telling the truth. One by one, Twilight saw her friends begin to stir, the monitors suddenly beeping like crazy.
Fluttershy ran in from the side of the room, her coat damp and a towel wrapped around her mane. “How is he… done… so fast?”
Spike’s voice answered a second later, echoing from the speakers over her shoulder. “Time is different in there. But it took less than I would’ve thought. A week. I don’t know how easily it was to get them out.”
Node was the first to rise, climbing up from her chair and shaking out her plastic body. She lurched forward a few steps, hooves ringing hollow with empty plastic sounds. “Goodbye body.”
“Don’t complain to me,” Spike snapped from overhead. “You have one.”
“True.”
Apple Bloom was up another moment later, with a little more dignity. “Well that was interesting.” Her eyes regarded the room, before settling on Twilight. “Captain? Where are we?”
“On the Equinox,” Twilight said. “I’d rather not explain. Wait for the others.” On some level, Twilight already knew it would be simple to wake up the ponies who were already somewhat electronic themselves. Their ‘bodies’ were ready for this kind of control. Organics were far less so, however.
One by one, they rose. Applejack’s artificial leg twitched, then she sat up, scratching at the sensor on the back of her neck. “Is this thing really necessary?”
The other soon followed, going through the same string of predictable disorientation, wondering what had happened, and how they’d come to be aboard the Equinox. It was hard to miss the lack of gravity, and the straps holding them down. Twilight dismissed questions about what had happened for the moment, searching for any sign of mental damage. Minds were a delicate thing, and they weren’t exactly made to be transferred into a metal ball and back.
Is Applejack intact? Yes. Is Rarity intact? Yes. Is Rainbow Dash intact? Yes. Is Pinkie Pie intact? Yes.
Curiously, she could see no sign of damage from any of them. She asked a few casual questions to each of her friends, confirming their mental acuity without ever formally asking them to prove they’d made it through. Once she was sure of that, Twilight teleported the Contingency back into cargo, where nopony would accidentally slip back again. She didn’t send it away or destroy it, however. In a way, it had saved them from being killed by robots, maybe it would save them from something else down the line.
“You’re all confined to sick back for observation for the next day,” Fluttershy declared. “Don’t think about arguing with me. Spike will be on my side, won’t he?”
“Yes,” Spike answered, sounding flat. “So long as you explain what happened, so I don’t have to.”
“The captain will,” Fluttershy said, facing her. “That’s her job.”
Was it?
Twilight did it anyway. She started at the beginning, when she’d discovered their limp bodies on the surface of Proximus B, under the pressure of their stowaway finally breaking all the stops to take final control and destroy the Equinox. She described Spike’s heroic death, and Cozy Glow’s near victory by means of her final explosives.
Right about the time she’d finished explaining Sunset Shimmer, the pony herself walked into sickbay. Well, what was left of her did. Sunset Shimmer might still be alive by some definitions, but she hardly looked it. With all her legs replaced, and her torso stitched and sliced, ‘morbid’ was about the only word Twilight could think to apply to her.
She didn’t seem embarrassed about how she looked, or to even care that everypony stared. She marched straight up to Twilight, then spoke in a low voice.
New Scene: Altered
“I’m getting energy signatures from Proximus C. Something out there is waking up, captain. Are we going to get out there and meet it, or let it leave us behind?”
1. The crew’s awake, set a course. That should give us a few months in transit, with enough food for a year if we need it. We can fix the rest of what Cozy did on the way.
2. Salvage camp first, then set a course. We can’t leave those weapons behind, not after what we’ve seen.
3. Ignore the signal, the ring is where the real information is hiding. I can’t trust you, Sunset. I don’t care about your signal.
(Certainty 200 required)
Definitely voting to salvage the camp, or at least most of it. It would frankly be stupid not to bring weaponry for self-defense.
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Unless, of course, that leads to whatever is out there getting away because they dilly-dallied. The entire reason Rommell dominated the North African campaign was because the opposing generals, until Patton, would fall back after a battle to restock and catch their breath.
Oh hey, the author lisend and gave a good reson why not. exalent.
HUGE sigh of relife.
Salvage the camp. The supplies we have now don't leave much of a margin for error, and even if we leave now it's still going to be a couple months long trip. Way too long to hope Murphy won't show up...
A lucky break, who'd guess?
But yeah, no going after problems without weaponry, even with nuRainbow to no sell on a while new bullshitting level.
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Considering the Equinox has no weps at the moment. We gotta fix that.
Also epic bullet dodge on that RNG there
HOLY CRAP WE GOT OUT 100% UNSCATHED! Talk about some really dang good rolls! :D Still wonder if it wouldn't have been better for Pinkie Pie if they'd let her lose her memories of a year of desperate loneliness, but she may have some happy ones in there from when she found Applejack at the end. I fear for our poor pink girl's sanity; she needs a boost.
I think we'll regret having wasted the time to salvage the camp, letting whatever it is wake up and get established, however I also think that we can't afford to just throw away resources.
Especially a more or less fully functional camp... Dash would at the very least throw a fit about leaving that much weaponry behind and unsecured.
Well, thank RNGesus for those lucky rolls. We need some weaponry on the ship before anything else, but we also need to get the heck out of dodge. Salvage camp as quick as possible and ship off.
Get ALL THE GUNS. See how HUNGRY the eldritch horror is after a couple’a lead sandwiches
Well. That went a lot better than expected. For the good memories, anyway. Not sure about AJ and Pinkie...
In any case, they could probably repair the weapon systems en route, but redundancy is never a bad thing... as long as nothing pounces while they're packing up the camp.
This was lucky. I wouldn't have taken the chance, but I'm glad it worked out. As for this vote, salvage the camp. There's useful supplies there that can be recovered. Like weapons. The ring isn't going anywhere
HO. LEE. CRAP.
I like that NOW all the comments are about how lucky things were and maybe not all the memories were good. *shrug* maybe those people all voted how I did, but it's sort of funny to see.
Anyway, I gotta go with break down camp first. It can't possibly take that long to gather and we could probably really use that stuff in some form or another during our months long voyage.
It's pretty tempting to tell Sunset nobody cares about Proximus C honestly. The whole time I've felt like that was a red herring personally. But no need to start a fight over it I guess. It's not like the ring is necessarily safer or more useful. Though if we have to come BACK here after going to Proximus C that's just wasting a lot of time. I guess that's another reason to take camp with us, really.
Set a course, and while we're flying, GET BACON HORSE TO FINALLY SPILL THE BEANS!
"Why would I bet" should be "Why would I be"
"She tugged towards Spike" - tugged what? No context.
"I don't know how easily" should be "easy", and maybe also "didn't".
"The other soon followed" should be "others"
"confined to sick back" should be "sick bay".
"explaining Sunset Shimmer, the pony herself" is missing a critical comma before "Sunset" that changes the meaning - Twilight was not explaining about Sunset!
More proofreading! :)
Hell yeah, never tell me the odds.
2, on intra-stellar travel timescale waiting a day or two to pack up the camp is very unlikely to make a difference.
Voted salvage.
Signals disappear, but in space it would take a massive object to obscure one completely and distance only distorts location directly.
The ring isn't going anywhere.
Never turn down supplies in exchange for minor time gains.
I am going to wager a Twilight Dorkle against that statement
Lets bring weaponry, it would be stupid to leave it lying there. And as they say, better to have and not need than need and not have
*blows a kiss to the void* for applebot, thanks for keeping our crew in tact
A week to salvage and then months of travel. Why wouldn't you do that? There's nothing we know that would be so time critical that a week of margin against multiple months will actually affect.
Besides, we need confirmation outside of Sunset of this signal, and perhaps decoding if applicable. Surely Spike could easily corroborate what she's mumbling about.
Yes! (With exclamation mark.)
We got really lucky with this roll.
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That reasoning would have more merit if Option A wasn't measuring time in months. Sure, you could argue technically they might get there in 6 months and 4 hours when they needed to get there in 6 months and 1 hour, but I think you would agree that's not a good enough probability to leave important supplies behind over.
Well they got out with no problems. Lucky.
I'm not really sure what choice is the best. But at the very least ignoring that one ship in system sounds like a bad idea. That vision that Twilight had sounds like a colony ship that was made out of Celestia's sun. Did the ponies pick up their entire solar system and ran?
But if Sunset Shimmer's ship is a plague ship of the hunger, then their going to want those guns and supplies. Shouldn't take too long to gather all the good stuff and catch up with her ship. They could even try to send out a message on the way to try to get it to slow down.
We're not letting all of that hard work be for nothing. Salvage the camp (and all of it's loot) then get underway.
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I was thinking the same exact thing. Holy crap, the dice gods showed compassion just this once.