Opportunistically Prospecting Collaborative Potentialities
Your basic animal instincts are telling you to drop everything and run away, and you are finding it harder and harder to suppress them. Nevertheless, you endure. Mostly because some other basic instinct keeps reminding you that it would be really embarrassing to drop your food tray on the floor and run out of the cafeteria screaming like a little girl, while about half the population of the surrounding floors would be witnessing your panic attack.
In your excuse, there is a basketball-sized ball of plasma hovering above one of the tables, and you just saw how a metal spoon got evaporated by it in a fraction of a second.
Back on Earth, you used to believe you were doing something cool at work.
No, really. That’s not just your ego speaking from beyond the grave, that’s an objective and provable fact.
While every programmer is essentially an organism that converts coffee into code, your code was exceptionally good, and the coffee was exceptionally bad, so you used to think of yourself as of a very, very efficient converter. Also, one of the customers praised your software as “truly magical”. He meant it figuratively, of course, but it made wonders for your self-esteem as an engineer. How many people can say "today at work I've been making magic happen"?
This time, however, you feel completely outmatched; because if you apply the same perspective to the unicorn mares occupying the cafeteria table in front of you, you get two organisms that consume alfalfa salad and produce literal magic. There can't possibly be anything cooler than that.
Actually, hold the phone. One of the mares, light-blue with a professional no-nonsense mane style and earrings which look more expensive than your current apartment, picks a forkful of alfalfa, brings it closer to the small star, lets it grill for a bit, then munches the salad with a genuinely bored expression. Ok, now we've reached the peak. Throwing an exploding helicopter or two into the scene wouldn't make the mare look any cooler, because she is already off the scale.
What the hell is wrong with you, horse?! Physics is being nonconsensually violated right in front of your eyes! Stop acting unimpressed!
Judging by how the mares are not going permanently blind staring at the star about two feet away from their faces—or getting melted by it for that matter—one would assume some serious magical safety measures are surrounding the thing which you—a creature without a horn—simply can't see. The lack of awe and/or panic in the cafeteria also suggests that everything is under control.
Around you, there is a wide, bright open space, mildly resembling an IKEA restaurant, if you stretch it in each direction to cover almost the entire floor and replace lines of people—walking along the food counters and chatting with each other—with ponies, doing more or less the same thing, just in a bit more orderly and civilized fashion, without anyone cutting the line or talking too loudly. Like any other self-respecting corporation, Microspell went all out on making every place that can be seen by potential investors as breathtaking as the budget allows, and the cafeteria near the management floors is easily the most prominent cash sink in the entire building. Tall ceilings, vastly decorated with geometrically-shaped light sources, the vegetation on the windows, the rays of sunlight breaking through it and creating intricate light patterns on abstract sculptures decorating the space between the tables—everything is designed to make a visitor feel calm, content, and willing to buy some stocks after a pleasant lunch in this tranquil environment.
The company may have gone a bit too far with the fountain in the middle of the floor, but you have to admit that it does make the air around here feel a bit fresher than anywhere else in the building. This time, however, the said fountain is on your mind only because you wonder whether there is enough energy in the plasma ball that you see ahead of you to evaporate it entirely.
Breathe in, breathe out. Hunt for stray R&D mares, day 3. Third time's a charm.
You grip your food tray harder and slowly walk towards the scene that would give an OSHA inspector a heart attack. As you get closer, you hear snippets of the highly technical conversation going on between the two mares.
“... ah, buck it,” says the other mare, olive with a cream mane. With a flair, she conjures a few loops of something that looks like magical duct tape around the ball of plasma. The ball pulsates and shakes a few times, before shrinking in size by about half. The mare pokes the result of her work with a flawlessly-polished hoof and nods in satisfaction. You are genuinely curious whether her body is warded to be fire-proof, or she simply doesn’t care.
“Yeah, that should work,” confirms the blue mare with a bite of alfalfa, casually dispelling the star, magical duct tape and all, as if it was some napkin math she did during lunch break. Suddenly, a hint of excitement emerges on her face
"Hey, is it just me, or they are putting more sugar into the sauce now?" she asks as she dips another forkful of salad into the purple goo on her plate.
Now that you see them up close—and realize how much each of them spends on her looks—you are almost certain they are not the ones you are looking for. You were trying to catch anyone from R&D for the past few days, and while your luck has been failing you, you've managed to gather some vague descriptions, which don’t seem to match. Unfortunately, it would be too awkward to turn around and walk away at this point.
“Mind if I sit here?” you ask the mares who didn't notice your approach. You clearly deserved an Oscar with this line, for managing to sound neither nervous nor afraid. It took you a few months to accept that about a third of the country's population can kill you with their mind, and a few more months to realize something like this will never happen because the idea of using magic to harm someone terrifies the average unicorn a lot more than it terrifies you, the potential victim.
“Sure, sweetheart,” answers the blue one and moves her tray to make space. She wrinkles her nose after noticing the fried fish on your plate but doesn’t say anything. It’s curious how your choice of meal got more of a reaction than your appearance, especially since you can spot at least three pegasi having the exact same thing. You vaguely wonder if that's because of her innate personality, or the amount of bizarre shit she saw on her job over the years.
"That was a pretty cool... umm... technical solution. Are you, by any chance, from the R&D team?" You feel like you already know the answer but might as well give it a try.
"Do we look like nerds?" the olive one replies without any real malice in her voice. You almost say "Yes," before reminding yourself of your position in the metaphorical food chain around here.
Judging from what you've seen before, and by their attitude, they are likely from the department of enchanting, or DoE for short. It is the third-largest department after marketing and accounting in this building and is mostly populated by quite eccentric personalities. From what you heard so far, these are the ponies who do the “actual job” in this company. The salaries and the hiring criteria are equally insane there, and you wouldn’t be surprised if the mares in front of you are either magical prodigies or at least PhDs of some magical horse science. As for what they do, it’s… complicated.
Originally, DoE was the entire Microspell brand. Big customers who wanted some custom-made on-site magical solution would sign a contract, and Microspell would perform the initial work, then provide continuous support over the years. Compared to hiring independent enchanters, there is a lot less risk involved for corporate clients, so that's how the company's multi-billion business was started.
The department of enchanting still does this kind of stuff, but only because it’s a significant part of the company's brand. An on-demand business model like that is not scalable, and keeping expensive staff on a paycheck while waiting for the next deal is just unreasonable. Thankfully, the company found a new area for itself.
For millennia, minor enchanting has been the rich pony’s service, taking a lot of time and effort from well-educated unicorns. It's not that hard for a university graduate to make a single non-sticking frying pan, but making thousands of them and cheaply is a different story, so supply and demand balanced themselves around a price tag way beyond the budget of a typical family. Often, enchanted objects became family heirlooms, passing down from one generation to the next.
Everything changed after somepony found a way to construct even more complicated distributed enchantment systems—spell arrays—capable of mass-producing much simpler ones.
Similar to large automated assembly lines, they often occupy an entire building, where hundreds of independently moving technomagical parts work in unison on replicating something a live unicorn does in their head while weaving a spell. Each small part has a role, each is irreplaceable, and each is a pinnacle of magical engineering.
Making a working spell array is extremely difficult, and requires the combined efforts of the best enchanters of the generation. Still, it's much cheaper than hiring a horde of mediocre unicorns to do each simple enchantment manually. The economy of large scale always wins, you learned that back on your previous planet.
So nowadays, Microspell either sells these "spell arrays" to various manufacturers, or uses them for its own branded products. Oddly enough, that also means some of the greatest magical talents in Equestria are indirectly responsible for mass-producing coffee machines, doorbells, and mosquito repellents instead of something, well, less mundane. But who are you to judge? Some of the best scientists of your planet are wasting their lives on making sure that one teenager can reliably deliver his insult to another across the country in under thirty milliseconds, without any details about his interactions with someone's mother lost in the process.
Thinking about this makes you a bit less nervous around the unicorns you are sitting with. On one hand, they literally pay their bills by warping the reality around their horns for about thirty-five hours per week. On another hand, the final product of their work could be as boring as a magical plunger.
You exchange pleasantries for a few minutes—“How do you like it here so far?” “Is it true that you are an alien prince?” and other nonsensical questions you answer more or less daily—and dive into the topic you are actually interested in.
“Speaking of aliens, I'm sort of new here, and trying to introduce myself to everyo.. everypony around, but I haven’t seen anypony from R&D yet. Are all of them on vacation or something?”
"Nah, probably just too busy making our lives harder again," scoffs the blue one.
"I think Vitrail's deadline is in a few weeks," adds the olive one, "and it's, like, half-a-year from being ready. So there is a huge crunch for the last month or so, and the R&D is staying inside this whole time."
"Vitrail? Wasn't it canceled last winter?" The way the blue unicorn said it, you would think ‘Vitrail’ was some boring ten-year-old TV show no one is watching anymore that refuses to die for some inexplicable reason; most likely involving money laundering.
"Some walking fossil from the board really wants it to be done"—another forkful of alfalfa flies into the olive unicorn's mouth—"and I think Flashy's plan was to allow this shit to fail rather than cancel it and write it off as a loss, so"—she takes a sip of juice—"so that she could fire everypony who pushed the project against her will."
Your guess is that she's talking about Flashy Sales, the previous CEO and, if even half of the rumors about her are true, the biggest asshole in Equestria.
"Well, Flashy is not here anymore, and the new dummy doesn't care, so I guess they’ll let it fail for nothing," concludes the blue unicorn, done with her meal and about to leave the table. You are curious, though
"As I mentioned, I'm new here... what is Vitrail about, exactly?"
"Oh, some nonsense. Like, a really, really trivial spell array. Dumb enough to mass-produce it with an actual spell array. Doesn't really do anything useful by itself, beyond maybe casting Arcane Message, but can be reconfigured," the unicorn chuckles, "by dirt ponies."
Another unicorn rolls her eyes, "Yeah, right. What are they gonna use it for? Storing recipes?"
Both mares are packing up and ready to head back to work.
"Sorry, gotta run. It was a pleasure meeting you, Anon. Feel free to stop by anytime. See ya!"
And with that, you are left alone at the table. Well, there are also three dirty food trays to keep you company, but it's not like the trays can share your disappointment in the casual act of tribalism you just witnessed.
On one hand, it's not necessarily their fault. From what you understand, DoE tends to accumulate star students, who tend to originate from rich aristocratic families, who tend to be full of shit. Plus, the DoE management was hoof-picked by the racist ex-CEO, which has its own share of implications. Chances are, those two mares grew up in families where unicorn superiority was a basic axiom of life, not some moral choice they had to consciously make. An ideal that was further pushed when they ended up in a company where this is the norm.
On the other hand, ew.
So, another lunch is over, and you are yet to see anypony from the team recommended by Autumn Leaves. Yet another day wasted…
Hmm...
No, that's not right. You have to look at the bright side of things. For example, what's this, right in front of you? Some dirty trays? Nope, that's what an amateur would say. But a professional like you only sees opportunities.
So what if you have no clear responsibilities in this company? That only means the possibilities for you are endless! For example, right now you can grab all three trays, stack them together, and swiftly deliver them to the tray racks about twenty steps away from you. It would be nice if the DoE mares would clean after themselves, but hey, for all you know they could be very noble, very busy, and very asshole-ish at the same time, and the combination of these circumstances gives you a unique chance to prove yourself and demonstrate how great your menial labor skills are!
Ah, who are you kidding? Of course, one of the forks falls from the tray, and as you try to catch it with one hand, you notice that the trays you are holding with the other hand are leaning a bit too far, and the plates are starting to slide... you are going to make a fool of yourself again, aren't you? Yes, you are.
About 3.7 milliseconds before disaster, the fork stops in mid-air enveloped in a white glow and then floats up towards the trays that are stabilized in a similar white field.
You quickly scan the cafeteria for your savior and notice a small, white mare with a matching halo around her horn unloading her own, much larger stack of food trays into a nearby rack.
Huh, is she some sort of a junior employee who does the dirty work for her team? Back on Earth, it wouldn’t be that unusual, at least in some cultures. Although you have to admit, she doesn’t look like your average pushover mare who could end up in a position like this. There is a certain grace in the way she moves despite her small frame, and a distinct “leggy” build, typical for pony models. All this is contrasted by a total lack of accessories, a long and unevenly cut white mane with strands clumped to each other, and an equally white tail that desperately needs emergency brushing. Also, you just can't get your head around how ridiculously monochromatic this mare is.
You remember seeing Princess Celestia from afar once, and while her coat was pristine, her eternally flowing, colorful mane was as far from ‘plain’ as it gets. In contrast to that, the pony in front of you somehow manages to look even whiter than the surrounding ambient light, as if she’s been poorly photoshopped into the environment by an amateur photo enthusiast who doesn’t understand how color balancing works.
The mare doesn’t even look at you as the fork she was levitating lands neatly on your stack of trays. She is clearly in a hurry, so after leaving the trays, she runs towards the counters, gets a few paper bags from the chef, and, glancing once in your general direction with her bright red eyes, dashes away, leaving you in a state of gratitude mixed with confusion.
Hold on. Why would she have so many food trays, and where would she run with a bunch of doggy bags?
Not so fast, R&D! you think, before realizing that it's already too late and she was indeed fast enough, so repeating your exclamation out loud would be rather awkward.
You sigh.
So, the reason you were gathering rumors and trying to catch R&D ponies during lunchtime, instead of just scouting the area, as you did with some other teams, is surprisingly dumb and looks like a thick enchanted door that blocks the access to the entire floor. Initially, you assumed that the purpose of the door is to protect the ongoing research from the outside world, but after hearing some stories, you are not entirely sure anymore. With so many runes on the door, it might as well be the gate to Tartarus.
The whole R&D team has a... reputation, to put it lightly. You are yet to find a single pony from another team who genuinely respects them, and not sees them as some variation of "talentless commoners who don't belong in DoE," "losers who will never be promoted by the manager line," or "mares who are hurting the image of the company by not being marely enough."
And now, you know there is a deadline of some sort, and the R&D mares are working overtime, and everything is on fire, and no one seems to be particularly sympathetic, thinking the project is dead on arrival anyway. Good old corporate indifference. How nice to see something familiar so far away from Earth.
But let’s apply your recently acquired positive thinking skills to the same rumors that you heard so far. Not being noble enough to be accepted in DoE, or powerful enough to ignite literal stars during lunch breaks? You are totally fine with both options! Lacking the skills to suck up to higher-ups? Great! Not "marely" enough in a world where the word "marely" fuels your worst nightmares? Awesome!
Positive thinking! That's what has been keeping you sane during your stay in the horse country, and that's what will lead you to the great career success in the horse corporation!
With this, you can probably conclude the first phase of scouting and move to the next one.
Unfortunately, there is the matter of the enchanted door which doesn't share your optimism. Is that going to stop you? Pfft, of course not. The next step of your plan is to see the mythical R&D land with your own eyes, and the door is just a minor inconvenience. So far, your track record with Equestrian locks is 1:0 in your favor. Prepare to be conquered, door, for this here employee doesn't know fear, doesn't know defeat, doesn't know anything!
Closer to the evening, you snag a mop and bucket from the janitor's closet, ride the elevator up, and camp in front of the door, waiting for somepony to enter or leave. You hope to be done with your exploration before the actual janitor arrives, and if anything goes wrong, you'll blame overlapping schedules.
You wait for over an hour. A voice in the back of your head suggests you kill some time by knitting—since you brought your bag with you just for an occasion like this one—but you quickly discard this idea. You are not bored! You are a male, an apex predator, waiting in the ambush. That's legit, manly work! You don't need some "knitting" to distract yourself! Although you have to admit, it's strangely relaxing, and you think you are getting pretty good with the technique...
Bleep.
Success! Some unicorn mare opens the door from the inside. You catch it before it shuts, and attempt to squeeze past with your best "don't mind me, I'm just a janitor" expression. The mare stops you with a hoof.
Crap. Of course, no one will just let you walk in like this.
"Why are you wearing a suit?" asks the mare, shifting her eyes between you and the mop.
Huh? Ok, ma-a-aybe you don't look like a typical janitor, but there are like twenty-five other reasons to come to this conclusion besides the lack of an appropriate uniform on your unusually shaped body. On the other hand, this mare looks as if the last time she slept was sometime last month. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she unsuccessfully tries to hold back a yawn. That's your chance to say something smart in a very confident voice.
"Because this is an important restricted area."
Really, that's the best explanation you came up with? Ok, now you are doomed.
"Ah, I see. Sorry about the mess in the canteen," says the mare and staggers towards the elevator. On the way, she mumbles something about sleeping in for a few days.
And just like that, overtime burnout wins against common sense once again. You never properly understood the mentality of managers who expect people—and now ponies—to be productive in a state like this. During your career, you went through milestone crunches multiple times, and each time you couldn't recognize your own code afterward, as if it's been written by some heavily drugged monkey. Which might be not that far from the truth, considering that by the end of each crunch probably half of the blood in your body was replaced with pure caffeine.
Trying to look unsuspicious, you enter the R&D area.
Well, that's different. Instead of a noisy and unproductive open space, you see a long hallway in front of you, with two rows of large offices on both sides. As you move forward, through the glass doors and walls at your sides you see small groups of visibly tired mares working on something. You have no idea what it is, but you know it must be something awesome because the rooms are full of mysterious devices and glowy and sparkly stuff. You also see pizza boxes, dirty utensils, and other attributes of a typical "death march" crunch.
Some would identify the faint smell hanging in the air as a mixture of coffee, reheated food, and sweat. They would be wrong. You, on the other hand, recognize it for what it is. It’s the smell of a burning deadline.
For some really weird and probably unhealthy reason which you don't understand yet, for the first time in your Equestrian life, you feel a little bit at home.
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Nice.
YES IT LIVES!
It's alive! Hussah!
And Anon has stumbled upon the ol' R&D death march. Now the question is, will he be remembered in this moment as the answer to their unspoken prayers? Or the village idiot who got in the way of productivity with his unending foolishness?
Light the fuse, Johnny! It's time for a show!
...Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. Also, Johnny who? Not sure.
This is nice
Welcome back.
It lives!
Also, yes, find your kind among the nerds Anon. Become once again fueled by coffee and the dread of next day deadlines. Fuel yourself with petty spite and bickering~
It's alive! I can't wait and find out where it goes
Thank you so much for the update! So excited!
That offhand(hoof) comment about earthponies being able to manipulate the spell array is going to revolutionize the magic industry. No, wait. I mean completely turn it on its head! Good lord, the implications!
I'm glad to see this continued, and I can't wait to see what kind of ideas our protagonist will share with the RND team. Crunch sucks
It lives! It lives! It lives...
Glad to see a new chapter!
Its- they're making magic proto-computers, aren't they? That, or making spell design /spells accessible to non-unicorns. Even if the company wasn't tribalist this is a risky investment due to seemly being a waste of time....without recognizing it's a stepping stone for greater advancement.
You’re back! Had lost hope for this one, hope your muse is all charged up again.
Thanks for the new chapter :)
yaaaay im happy now
I wonder if this is close to where he gets to prove he's good at stuff.
10211719
My thought was Pony Internet.
Sends Messages.
Stores Recipies.
Shows Stallions in provocative clothing....
Wait, it's not meant to be used for the last one! Just the good of all Pone-kind! WHY! WHHHHHYYYYyyyyyy!
Oh, and please take this quiz of 7 easy things you can do for clickbait!
The question now is whether he will become just a new code-monkey or the Bill Gates of Equestria?
I mean.... he knows the potential of the digital world so why not jump on the train as The Founder, instead of as one of the founding developers...
Awesome seeing this continue. Keep up the good work
Nice to see this one back.
THE FANFIC LIVES *STOMP STOMP*
Aw yiss more white-collar business hell.
IT LIVES STOMP STOMP
Great to see this one back to life!
Fingers crossed it won't take another year for the next chapter to appear.
Good to see this getting another chapter. Now to see what the mystical R&D has to offer!
Blindingly white mare with red eyes? Anon has encountered an albino mare. That or the job has literally not only sucked out her soul but her very colors themselves.
Holy shit, it updated!
Huzzah your back and it seems the ponies are trying to make a programming language for spells but usable by anyone. Dosent that mean anon being able to code and use logic systems be the best guy to go for this?
Wonder if Anon might be able to use magic based on the hornless spell array.
Pleasant surprise to see this updated. Hopefully this goes somewhere now lol.
Somepony discovered/invented/conceptualized rune magic and thought it was a new thing, didn't they?
It's been a long time since your last chapter, but funny enough, it felt perfect for the time difference between us and Anon. While there were no updates, Anon spent a few days fruitlessly seeking to progress the plot by searching for the R&D department, until this chapter started.
It's alive!
Or by me, you think, because you are well outside what your experiences have taught you to deal with but you are not a moron. No pony even realizes it yet, but this is literally all you ever needed to become the actual ****ing wizard you always wished you could be.
Thank God this story didnt die
IT LIVES!
PRAISE SLAANESH!!
10212011
*Picture of Celestia*
Doctors hate her!
This one simple trick can add decades to your life!!!
Im wondering if this company is a conglomeration of all the different companies around at the beginning of home computers. Microspell, Apple, Acorn, Big Blue, Anthill, and the thousand pound gorilla that was erased from Earth history, but seems to pervade Equestrian history.
CBM.
Then again, going off the level of complexity already demonstrated here, it seems both before, and after thereby avoiding a certain point in computers.
The Dark Lord Sassenflash creating the CAOS nanokernel.
I really hope Anon works out, or at least realises something about the project, the different point of view that lets him fix it. Theres so much world build here, it would be a pity for it to go the way of the AOL CD.
This cutie is so fast, you see the text appear on the screen before you feel the key you pressed.
10211719
What I'm hearing is that once they dump the creation team via legal shenanigans covering up political shenanigans they're going to need to figure out how to make one of those macro-enchantments out of those sub-enchantments in order to make them self-replicating. Go all grass-roots on this shiz.
10212202
I'm pretty sure that with the way things apparently are, and the way that the latest project is putting magic into "commoner" hands, it's closer to red-collar business.
10212476
Anon is abso-fucking-lutely a moron and if you told him he wasn't he'd take it as a challenge.
10212673
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incoming critique: ignore if you wish.
This line seems like the start of a dialogue, but instead sets off a wall of exposition with little to do with the specific setup or the overall scene. It was extremely jarring and broke immersion in the world to be told (not shown) company backstory rather than proceeding with the character interaction. When we do get back to the dialogue, it’s short and, while useful, a letdown.
To end this chapter, the return from seemingly indefinite hiatus, on the same story setup as the prior chapter feels like we waited all this time just for a block of exposition.
TLDR: disappointing.
Ps: I know I’m being an asshole about what likely took a hell of a lot of determination to get out. As the owner of several abandoned projects; I get what you put yourself through to publish after so long.
I hope this chapter is the ‘reminding yourself what you were doing’. Now show us what you can do. [ I’m still hyped for this story. ]
10211719
10212011
My thoughts were magic based phone/pda hybrids, and further pitch it as letting anyone message anyone else from anywhere, such as if a unicorn was low on magic after casting some very big spells, and still needed to cast arcane message, or just to save unicorns the magical power of casting trivial spells so they can put it to greater use.
10212898
Your points are valid, and I'm learning from feedback like this, so thank you!
Can't promise that I won't let you down next time, but it won't be for the lack of trying. And hopefully, after a few more chapters, which shouldn't take too long, some of your disappointment will go away.
Also, I want to thank everyone for your support.
One thing no one told me about writing, is how hard it is to stay silent and not go and spoil stuff in the comments. I guess the only valid way for me to reply to your guesses is to write more chapters.
Sigh...
I knew the comments section was a trap!
awesome, it is an interesting storypremise, i'm glad it continued!
Microspell is feeling less like modern Microsoft and more like mid-1970s IBM.
Welcome back! It's great to see you writing again!
10213072
We shall continue to encourage you to write then in lieu of trapping you that is.
10214025
It's a reference to Fallout: Equestria. The opening scene of the book has the protagonist - a Pipbuck Technician Apprentice - staring at the wall of her maintenance stall and saying that it is grey, and in need of a mural.
I would definitely recommend a read. It is long, exceptionally good, and a classic of the fandom.
Hmph. I really can't figure out what the spell-array could be a parallel to. It's making me feel insecure about my knowledge of the history of computing.
10214039 I think a spell array is basically a hard coded processor for magic. In this case it's a process control processor.
It controls a number of sub-arrays each of which implement a small part of a spell. Applying them in a sequence produces the whole enchantment on an object. Each sub-array isn't sophisticated enough to create the whole spell, but they don't need to as it's been broken down into simpler components that fit together.
So basically this is a process automation company. You replace a group of low level craftsmen (craftsmares) who build the products individually with an automated production line.
This Vitraill sounds like a first generation mobile phone, one that anyone can use. We threrefore know that it will be insanely profitable if they do it. And I can see our human engineer providing the knowledge of how mobile phones were developed in our world, being the key to producing a working product. Possibly something like a hoof-held magic mirror.
For example, getting every unit to connect to every other unit directly would be insanely complex. However, if you use paired mirrors, one held by the user and one at a switching hub that can be moved on top of any other mirror in the swirtching hub, you only need a fixed connection to one mirror, and some way of signalling an identifier to the switching hub for the mirror you want to connect to. Adding more users is just a matter of adding the other mirror to the hub.