8. Solitaire Confinement
*** Mission Log: Sol 5137 ***
*** AOS – BSN ***
*** Message Received (Source: Starlight): Is that alright? Comfortable enough? ***
If Opportunity had the ability, it would have rolled its eyes at the unicorn, who was fussing with the large cushion the rover currently sat on. The electrical motors whirred, but with one wheel missing and the others damaged from the accident, not to mention the wear and tear nearly fifteen years on the dusty Martian surface had inflicted, Opportunity wasn’t going anywhere.
“Stop it,” Starlight chided the rover. “You need to take it easy until we’ve got all the replacement parts ready.”
Trixie, who had been watching her friend anxiously hover around the rover, actually did roll her eyes at that. “Starlight,” she complained. “The Great and Powerful Trixie made time in her busy schedule to come to Ponyville and hang out with her best friend. Not to watch you obsess over a busted hunk of metal.”
“I’m sorry, Trixie, it’s just … I feel responsible for what happened,” Starlight replied, her ears flattening against the sides of her head. “Thanks for agreeing to watch him for me. I appreciate it.”
“Yes, despite being blown off repeatedly for dinner, the Great and Magnanimous Trixie is happy to watch your pet robot for the afternoon,” Trixie harrumphed.
“He’s not a pet, Trixie,” Starlight stated firmly while getting together several technical documents strewn about the workshop and stuffing them in her saddlebag with her magic. “Just make sure he stays where he is. Until we’ve figured everything out, we don’t want him to put any more stress on his wheels.” She turned back to the rover and looked at him nervously. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything else?”
*** Status – nominal ***
There was probably some exasperation in the simple line of text the rover had displayed on the screen for the umpteenth time that day in response to Starlight’s fussing.
“Okay, then,” Starlight replied dubiously, heading towards the door. Then she stopped, and looked at Trixie, repeating the very same question: “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything else?”
“Trixie thinks she can watch a hunk of metal for an afternoon,” she replied acidly. “I don’t know what to do with it, but I’ll figure it out. Now, off you go.”
Starlight pondered that for a while. “Talk to him. He loves to listen. And you can always give him a rock to study … No, wait, don’t do that! His arm is damaged too, he probably shouldn’t use it until we can fix it. And don’t … You know what, maybe I shouldn’t go.”
“Starlight!” Trixie cut her off unceremoniously. “You’ve been holed up in here for days. The reason I agreed to this in the first place was so that perhaps you wouldn’t forget what the sun looks like! Now go, go outside and get some fresh air already!”
The unicorn looked uncertainly back at the rover, and once again the line on the monitor appeared to carry along a silent groan.
*** Status – nominal ***
As much as Opportunity appreciated all that Starlight had done for it, her constant attention since the accident had been as much an annoyance as a comfort.
“Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she replied as Trixie began to physically nudge her through the door.
Opportunity raised its instrument arm to wave goodbye, and silence filled the workshop except for the muttering of a certain blue magician. “Honestly, you’d think this box of bolts was the most important thing in her life nowadays.” She went over to the rover and swatted its side with a hoof. “You shouldn’t do that to her.”
Opportunity focused Trixie with its cameras.
*** Starlight – friend ***
*** Starlight – no fault ***
*** Opportunity say – many times ***
“Yeah, well,” Trixie acknowledged, sitting down next to Opportunity. “She does that. Wallows in her guilt, I mean. Even if she’s got nothing to be sorry for.”
Silence hovered over them. Trixie glanced around in search of a distraction. After thoroughly inspecting every corner of the room, she picked up a discarded piece of parchment and amused herself by turning it into a teacup and back several times.
Opportunity watched the display with curiosity. The magician raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “You like that? Want to see some more? Very well, hunk of metal, you will be Trixie’s adoring audience for this performance. Behold!”
Trixie grabbed a few more pieces of trash, turned them into teacups and began juggling them in the air with her magic. She giggled as the rover tried to keep up with the display by swiveling its cameras this way and that.
*** mineral composition – changing ***
*** process not recognized ***
Trixie read the message. “It’s magic, silly. It’s really a minor trick in any magician’s arsenal,” Trixie said expansively, despite not having picked up transmutation until well into adulthood.
*** magic – explain ***
Trixie considered that for a moment, wondering if she should just give the magic kindergarten definition. Her own attitude towards her craft had changed somewhat over the last couple of years. “Well, to me it’s just what I do. It’s my calling. My destiny! My way to make a mark on the world and spread the name of the Great and Powerful Trixie!!!” She reared up on her hind legs and sent some small fireworks, which had been cleverly hidden in some pockets of her cape, into the air.
*** magic – fun ***
“Yes, exactly!” Trixie shouted, pointing at the rover. “Magic should be fun! Ponies like Twilight Sparkle and even Starlight take it way too seriously sometimes. But it’s also there to amaze and entertain!” She grinned and sat back down. “So, what do you do for fun all day?”
*** experiment – fun ***
Trixie sighed. “And here I thought we were getting along. Now you sound like Twilight Sparkle.”
Opportunity sent a command via the BSN to the laptop to bring up a program it had found during its extended time of immobility. A new window opened, displaying several stacks of playing cards against a green background.
The magician watched with interest as the cards began moving around at the rover’s unspoken command. “What’s this? A card trick?”
The rover considered that for a moment.
*** experiment – make cards dance – fun ***
“When did you have time to find this?”
*** night – ponies sleep – Opportunity awake ***
*** Opportunity look – experiment – try new things ***
“Don’t you need sleep, too?”
*** used to – warm here – no extra heating required – keep running instead ***
*** power status – solar groovy ***
Trixie continued to watch as the last card was placed in the top row, and then the screen lit up with the entire deck spraying across the screen. Opportunity looked at her.
*** Trixie – try ***
“Alright,” Trixie said. Noting the score on the screen, she smirked. “Hah! I can beat that. Watch a professional do it.” She moved the mouse, attempting to place a card after starting a new game, only for it to snap back to where it was. “Eh, how do you play this?”
*** watch ***
Trixie grimaced as the console from Opportunity’s speech parser automatically popped into the foreground and blocked out the view of the game. “Hm, we’re gonna have to do something about that.”
“I’m back,” Starlight announced as she opened the door to the workshop.
“Quiet!” Trixie hissed. “You are breaking Trixie’s concentration.”
Starlight blinked, taking the time to actually see the scene before her. The first thing she noticed was that Opportunity was wearing a purple bowtie around its mast. She shrugged this one off as one of Trixie’s impulses, but then she noticed Trixie staring in concentration at a laptop while Oppy was focused on different one. “Trixie, where did you get that computer?”
“Trixie borrowed it from Twilight Sparkle,” the magician announced, not looking up and clicking the mouse a few times with her magic.
“And by ‘borrow’ you mean …”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “I broke into her lab and took it.”
“Trixie!!”
“I’ll give it back. But I needed a second one to teach the Bolt Bucket here a lesson!”
“Done,” a mechanical sounding, male voice suddenly said out of nowhere.
Trixie looked over at Opportunity’s screen which showed the cards cascading across the victory screen. “Ugh!” She threw up her hooves. “Okay, best out of 35! Ready, set, go!”
All the replacement parts Starlight had been holding in her magic came crashing to the ground as she stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at Opportunity. “Did you just … ?”
Oppy’s PanCam turned towards Starlight, and, upon recognizing her, the voice said haltingly: “Hello, Starlight. Would you like to play a game?”
Starlight continued to stare.
“Starlight?” The rover turned to Trixie. “Starlight broken?”
The blue unicorn looked up from her game, noticing her friend’s blank stare. “Oh, don’t worry. She’ll come around.” She gave Starlight a self-satisfied smirk that all but said: ‘Ask me how I did it!’
“How?” Starlight managed to get out.
“A magician never reveals her secrets!” Her grin grew even wider as she left it there for a few seconds. Building suspense, building suspense, now! “But she will make an exception for her wonderful assistant and best friend. Ta-da!” Trixie said, pointing at the purple bowtie and then taking a grandiose bow. “It’s a prop my dad invented for his shows in Las Pegasus. It lets you change and amplify your voice. Works great for ventriloquist acts, too. I hooked it up to your computer network … thingy.”
“Trixie, show Starlight our trick,” Opportunity suggested.
“Oh, yes!” Trixie clapped her hooves excitedly and flicked a switch on the bowtie with her magic. “You’re gonna love this this! We came up with it when we were taking a break from the game.” Clearing her throat and taking on a serious expression, she said: “Oppy-chan, engage moe mode!”
The rover turned to look at Starlight, and what appeared to be the voice of a cute, young filly said: “Konichiwa! Watashi wa Opportunity desu.”
“Eh? Isn’t that great?” Trixie asked, switching the bowtie back to normal and grinning broadly.
“You … you hooked it up to … and you taught him … Neighponese … ” Hoof met face.
“Huh,” Trixie mumbled, “I would have expected a little more gratitude.”
“Thank you, Trixie,” Opportunity said simply.
“You’re very welcome,” Trixie replied, beaming at the rover.
Starlight felt like her brain was churning along even worse than Oppy’s wheels as she tried to take that all in. “You …” She took a deep breath, trying to get her thoughts in order. “Trixie, it took weeks, TWO Twilight Sparkles and two magic-obsessed formerly villainous unicorns to come up with this system. And you just … intuited a major improvement for it over the course of an afternoon! And it seems to be even more accurate than the text output. Do you even understand how the Binary Sparkle Network works?”
Trixie huffed. “Well, first of all, Trixie is a magic-obsessed formerly villainous unicorn too, thank you very much! So she’s rather insulted that you didn’t bring her in to consult sooner. Secondly, what’s there to understand? The antenna thingy sends and receives magic waves. So Trixie thought, instead of running everything through the nerd box, why not just send the translation spell matrix out to the network itself and let the magic do the heavy lifting? From there, the enchantment on the bowtie can pick it up and just do what it was designed to do in the first place. I really get the feeling that the two purple brainiacs were trying to reinvent the wheel here.”
“Done,” Opportunity announced, and Trixie’s head snapped around to see the victory screen going off once again.
“Hey, no fair! That’s cheating!” Trixie sat back down at her own laptop and restarted her game. “Do-Over! Also, Trixie demands a rematch as soon as your arm is better. Let’s see how quick you are when you can’t just think the commands at the game.”
“Trixie just slow,” Opportunity replied calmly.
“Why, you! I bet you rigged the game with your ones and zeroes,” she shot back, though there was clearly no malice in her voice.
“Only zero Opportunity see is Trixie number of wins.”
As she watched two of her best friends bicker back and forth good-naturedly as if they’d known each other for a lifetime rather than just an afternoon, something rose in Starlight’s throat. First she snorted once, twice, then she began to giggle, and before long she’d flopped onto the floor in a full belly laugh, three days of worrying and guilt lifting from her shoulders in an instant.
Opportunity and Trixie watched Starlight. Opportunity couldn’t, but Trixie smiled for both of them. She held out her hoof, and the rover’s instrument arm bumped against it.
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Hah, people always underestimate Trixie. No one self-teaches that kind of magical skill without some real talent.
WARNING SIRENS BLARE
Quick! We must teach Opportunity Tic-Tac-Toe before it's too late.
I'm really enjoying this story but there is one thing that's bugging me. Was Opportunity always alive in this story, or did something about Equestria change it?
I wonder if opportunity will ever get to contact earth again
Oh Trixie, there you go again with your Trixie-ing...
Thanks for letting me see it ahead of time
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Hm, both good questions. I suppose you'll have to keep reading in order to find out.
Ok, you got me, I screamed when Oppy asked if she wanted to play a game.
If he starts singing Daisy...
This one was glorious!
He's gone anime.
There is only one outcome.
JoJo.
OPPY NO!!!
Trixie, no matter how hard you try, you will NEVER be able to come back from that
9524108
I screamed too, brother thought I was crazy
Now, if only that 'c' was a capital...
To be honest, though, I like that.
Oh Celestia... save us all.
Also, in Japanese characters that would be:
こんにちわ！ 私はオポチュニティです。
Wow...
You got her good, Op.
After what I've read, I have to say I have no resistance to calling Opportunity sapient.
More please.
ok, first of all, BURN!!!!!!
second of all, am i the only one who made the connection from the chapter title to the ancient game of slapping cards on top of each other. no more than five replies please.
When did Curiosity get here?
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OHH NOO
"The only winning move is not to play," Trixie piped up from the side in a loud stage whisper.
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To be fair, Ro, it's usually because she displays a total lack of common sense that hurts the image of her intellect.
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That is one of the greatest dangers of self-taught expertise, an over-inflated impression of one's capabilities brought on by lack of discipline.
Forget solitaire, how about a nice game of Tirek Loses?
ARG, I saw the name of the experiment in self organising intelligent computing that I used as a base for an English project decades ago the other day. Someone took 4 RAF bomb computers back in 1946, just after WW2, and cross connected them with a magnet so it could wander around. then added a simple function that if a solution wasnt found in a given time, the values were flushed and a different random starter set used. Reached a dynamic settled state eventually every time.
The Homeostat?
Using a magical device like that on Oppy is similar to using a Raspberry Pi as a Floppy Disk emulator instead of a full system emulator on an 8 bit home computer. The Pi is as powerful as a home PC from the late 90s, but careful release of standard code cripples it to near unusability.
Everyone is more alive when ponies are involved!
Srly though, brony mode off, while the communication was expected and really great, I find Opportunity to be a little too suddenly... I don't know, alive? conscious of his (its?) environnement? I lack the vocabulary to describe it. Of course, communicating with Trixie improve this, so the end is understandable, but the beginning feels a little out of nowhere. Personnal opinion of course, love the story btw
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I consider it a response to magic, there are plenty of sapient creature in Equestria that are basically magic, so I'm thinking that upon arrival opportunity gained self awareness and rudimentary personality.
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How about a nice game of chess?
...
...
...
why would you do this
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I mean, their pets and basic local critters seem to have sapience. I consider that due to ambient magic. Why wouldn't Oppy? This is a story about Opportunity in a magical world of magical animals, not a story of a robot in our boring ass universe.
Got to say. Seeing how cute and precious Starlight is now, I sometimes really want to give Sunburst a smack. Just on principle, with how he sorta robbed the world of this for so long.
Speaking of moe appearently the internet explorer manga made a short comic of opt as an anime girl....and I like to see that here oppy in a cute android body what could go wrong ?
I am loving this so much! I also love that you did the lesson from the Rarity/Applejack spa episode better than the episode did using Starlight and Trixie, about how sometimes a different perspective will see the obvious solution you miss not because you're being oblivious but because they think differently from you.
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I understand that, I just feel we miss a step in the progression of this sapience between the beginning of this chapter and the previous one. I'm not saying it's bad writting (I wouldn't dare!), but I can't help but feeling something is... off. It buzzed me, but I'll shrugg it off and continue to read anyway.
Ooooooh, someone tell Celestia to turn down the burn.
I am literally laughing out loud right now, partially because that line made me think of Saw.
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Wait ... that’s a thing?
.
.
.
Oh Celestia, that’s a thing. How is that a thing?! AND WHY IS IT SO GOOD???
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Oh friend, that's been developing for awhile now. It was just more subtle before. Little quirks developing into a personality. It's learning faster the more developed it becomes.
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I guess I didn't see how fast he "learned" (do we learn to be sapient 🤔) until now. Nevermind that, it buzzed me, but now my settings are updated, ready for more adventurous bot!
when I first started to read this, I was looking forwards to political conversation between humanity and equestrians as they both create new technologies to break the dimensional gap between them aka "humans meet ponies 6 final electric bugaloo revelations"
but I prefer what I got.
thank you <3
PS: Oppy is adorable as all hell
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It's been there from the beginning though its been very subtle I barely noticed it myself.
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Actually yes as babies we barely have any self awareness, it's why we humans never remember our time as babies and barely remember being toddlers.
9524700 Link please?
Also:
Cost of building, launching, landing and operating the rovers for 90 sol primary mission: US$820 million.
Five mission extensions up to 2009: US$124 million.
15 years of scientific data on Mars: Priceless.
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A disturbing question: will Opportunity have to evolve through his own villainous stage before finally reaching 12th Level Intellect?
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Oh boy, Oppy's going to summon a Stand and go Rampant.
Okay several conclusions in this chap now:
1-Trixie is now best pony of this fic.
2-I need an chapter dedicated to Trixie rubing this in Twiligths face.
3-He's gonne anime...Celestia preserve us...
4-Also wanna gotta se the first blank flank to get an programing or robotics cutie mark...
5-This fic was the most pleasant surprise of 2019
It’s the best thing ever
That was utterly adorable.
Trixie is turning opportunity Japanese. I really think so...
Trixie-san wa sugoi!
Thats great.
Love this.
Weeb robot. The horror, the horror!
Tic tac toe, perhaps? Chess? Global Thermonuclear War?
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Risk?