Check out the laboratories. 44%
“We’ll head down first, the laboratories do sound like someplace interesting to check out,” Fluttershy decided, looking for a way down, finding it in an elevator further up.
“Alright, Sugarcube, you’re the boss here,” Applejack sighed, following the pegasus as she lead them into the elevator and rode down into the dark depths below. The elevator moved at ludicrous speed, moving all the way down to the bottom in less than a minute before opening back up again. The hallways ahead stretched on and on while branching off to the left and right, clinical lights sitting in the ceiling which brightly lit up the clinical white walls.
“It's… so clean,” Rarity said in awe as not even the smallest bit of dust had accumulated anywhere.
“There are probably systems maintaining this place, not like it would've lasted this long if there weren't,” Fluttershy guessed, checking the chambers to see if there was anything interesting in them. The first set of rooms they checked were empty, not even a single loose item on the desks. Though that started to change the deeper they headed, eventually they found a massive chamber at the end of the massive hallway filled with equipment.
“Whoa, these ponies were not messin' around…” Applejack said in awe as the center of the room was taken up by a huge humming machine that was surrounded by sections of workspaces.
“They sure weren't,” Rarity agreed, staring up as the central machine reached high up into the ceiling above.
“Oohh, this doesn't look good!” Pinkie called out, having somehow already reached the other end of the machine.
“Sweet Luna, that's a lot of damage,” Rarity gasped as she reached the side Pinkie was on. A good portion of the machine chunk of the machine had blown outwards and debris was scattered over the floor.
“Let’s hope that ain’t important,” Applejack whistled. Pinkie, meanwhile, already moved on to the next piece of equipment that caught her eyes. “Ah’ll go make sure she doesn’t hurt herself,” the farm pony called out as she chased after the pink ball of renewed energy.
“Oh dear, let’s hope she doesn’t hurt herself,” Rarity sighed as she prodded the main machine.
“It’s Pinkie, I’d be more worried about AJ,” Fluttershy said, shaking her head as she looked around to see if there was a terminal attached to the machine somewhere.
“What made you think I was talking about Pinkie in the first pla- AAH!” Rarity jumped back as a large holographic appeared out of nowhere, error messages flashing all over it.
“Huh, that’s useful...” Fluttershy started reading all the status updates that had appeared on the machine.
Array System Status:
> Spacetime veil: Inoperable
- Critical system failure, contact Manufactorum for replacement parts…
- Damage report filed to main AI core… Error no AI detected in the system
> Planetary shield: Active
-Current power draw: 346 GW/h
- Estimated fuel reserves: 6430 Planetary Cycles
“...I’ll be damned. This must be one of the things those heretics were trying to get to.” Fluttershy gasped as she closed the hologram and stepped back.
“Shy, Rares! Pinkie found something Ah think y’all want to see,” Applejack called out from the direction Pinkie had shot off. Rarity and Fluttershy glanced at each other before heading over to their other two friends. When they arrived they found a large row of transparent tanks, Pinkie and Applejack standing near the end of the row.
“Oh my…” Fluttershy's eyes widened as she noticed the contents of the tanks. Pony embryos floated in them, locked in fluid and stasis fields. Shy walked past and read the readouts on the tanks.
Subject #24
Status: deceased
Fluttershy shivered as she walked along the tubes, the embryos increasingly getting larger as they got later into development, Rarity sticking close behind.
Subject #41
Status: deceased
Reason: Rapid neutral decay. See notes.
“This is totally not creepy at all,” Rarity muttered as she read the notes as well. By this point the creatures started to resemble real ponies and Fluttershy noticed something remarkable about them.
“Rarity, these are alicorns...”
Subject #52
Status: deceased
Reason: Neural imprint rejection. See notes.
“That just makes it creepier...”
The two arrived at the three tubes Applejack and Pinkie were looking at, two of them empty...
Subject #55 ‘Celestia’
Status: Released
Neural imprint pattern: Protection. See notes for details.
Subject #57 ‘Luna’
Status: Released
Neural imprint pattern: Exploration. See notes for details.
Both Fluttershy’s and Rarity’s jaws dropped open as they read the terminals. “No way...” Fluttershy whispered, though the next tube was the real shock. A fully grown pink alicorn peacefully floated in the tank, unmoving as the stasis field still held strong.
Subject #58 ‘Cadance’
Status: Alive
Neural imprint pattern: Empathy. See notes for details.
Additional Neural imprint: ER̮̰̖̘̗̪R̳͕͈̪̦̯͎O͓̥͖Ṟ̳̜̱̼̩̝!̭̞ C̰o̴̼̩̹͔r̠̱͔r̹̮͓̰͔͠u̱̬̻͜p͔t̛̫͈̠e̲d̨̹̮̭̹ ̹̬͎͍̣̣̘̀d̖̜̯̳a͈̭͡t͔̥̟̺a̪̤̲̺̳̳
“She looks so lonely in there...” Pinkie said saddened leaning on the glass and pressing her nose against the glass. “Can we maybe get her out?” Pinkie gave the others the biggest puppy eyes while Fluttershy browsed the tube’s menus.
“Ah’m not sure... We don’t know anything ‘bout this here alicorn...”
“I’m not sure either, Pinkie, I agree with Applejack here...”
Pinkie, Rarity, and Applejack all looked over to Fluttershy for her opinion as the pegasus hadn’t said anything yet and just stared at the alicorn.
These pods have some internal backups for moving them, we could just take her and ask the others for advice… or prepare to shoot her in case she goes haywire...
1. Release her.
2. Find a way to detach the pod and take it.
3. Leave her for now.
They discovered the system stealth mechanism hiding Equestria from the Reapers? Would be nice if it could be reconfigured not onloy to mess with their sensors, but mess with everything attached to the sensors, in a, Chaotic fashion? Eventually.
Only problem with this Cadence is. Is she the Cadence they are looking for, or given Directive 4, there is no Cadence, only Chrysalis?
Hmm. Yes, Tricky.
I dislike escort duty of VIPs who like to wander off by themselves, so although its a nice pod, its still something that has to be protected. Savme if the pod is left behind and the local Heretics cant be gurenteed cleaned out totally before they break in and trash the place or settle in.
Well, when teh base is under attack, hit the big red unmarked button, and hope it opens the armory and not the self destruct.
I vote Option 1 Release her, and hope her recovery isnt prolonged or the Error isnt the sort that makes you wish you were having a Geth out instead.
I'm reading this on my phone but uh...I...I have qu-questions. ...yes, it's about the alicorns in the tubes.
Well, this is... I wanna say "new", but the idea that Celestia and Luna are artificial life forms has been floating around for a while now. To think that the ancient ponies had the level of tech to grow them from scratch...
I'm glad that you are taking these creative liberties. It's something we don't see nearly enough of in mlp fanfiction.
0ption 1 release her
I wonder if this means that the alicorns are some sort of bio-androids like Cell from DBZ. Whatever the case, if Celestia and Luna don't know the truth of their origins, this is gonna rock their worlds.
Option 2, we really don't need a possible rogue alicorn and that corrupted data seems like something that should be looked at first.
I want to see what Cadance would be like in this fic, but this seems a bad time to add an unknown to the mix what with geth right behind.
Don't open the pod!!
As for the other two options, leaving her here for the Geth Heretics to find sounds like a very bad idea, but I also don't like the idea of transporting a pod big enough to hold Cadence (an Alicorn a good few inches larger than the average pony) through heretic guarded passageways.
At times like these, I fall back on my faithful method, "What would Fluttershy do?"
... She'd open the pod. Well, caution to the wind.
Option 1 you don't really want to push a dead weight stasis device everywhere. You can just shoot her if she turns out hostile. You would have to shoot her anyway as a denial to the enemy protocol dictates.
This change to Cadance history has a lot of interesting implications, both of them about Twilight.
The first one is that without her in her life, Twilight is even more of a social mess that in canon, considering that Cadance was such an important part of her foalhood.
The second one is that in this world Ascension doesn't exists at all, so Princess Twilight is outright impossible (or at least we don't have a previous example of it happening).
About the choices themselves, I am not worried about any possible danger coming from Cadance. Not only because of canon knowledge about her, but also because I believe in Pinkie Pie.
So, what I would choose would be what is better for Cadance herself. I think the best would be to have her wake up with the other princesses around, to help her adapt, but that might now be possible with the Geth attempting to go in.
Option 2 is a no go, way too dangerous for Cadance, so option 1 it is. Let her be free.
This story just keeps getting better and better!
10390006
Ascension as shown in the show might not be impossible. If it happened, it would be the first spontaneous event of Ascension. Considering how Luna and Celestia are passing notes at the end of the Crystal Empire story, it's fairly clear that they both wanted to have another alicorn around. If they were trying to come up with a reproducible natural method and Twilight was the guinea pig, her success would have interesting implications for ponykind. Rather than being the only one of the "new" alicorns, she might simply be the first of the "new generation" of alicorn ponies...
Also, it's telling that the system can't evaluate a mental imprint based on "sex now, sex later, and more sex after dinner."
Edit: As for why Celestia and Luna might be wanting to come up with a way to trigger Ascension in natural ponies, aside from a desire to not be the only ones of their kind, I refer you to the Twilight/Tirek fight. Imagine a whole city of alicorns with that kind of firepower. Suddenly it makes sense if you assume part of the ancients' goal was to devise an anti-Reaper weapon that just happens to look like a winged unicorn.
Another point that occurs to me...
If alicorn DNA is required on some level to trigger Ascension, Celestia has been around for at least a thousand years, and Luna was also around before she became Nightmare Moon. I doubt they were celibate. It's possible by now that a significant percentage of Equestria is related to either, or both of them. This would also have interesting implications for both Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, considering how very similar they are to Celestia and Luna.
Would be nice if the notes mentioned were available to get a better idea as to wht exactly went on with this Cadance.
10390264
The issue is that we have just seen that Alicorns require some serious groundwork to be created, and even Celestia and Luna parents, probably the last ponies to understand this level of technology, were just able to make 2,5 successes.
Normal ponies do not have that potential, or Alicorns would have been much simpler to make. It is true that there could be a lot of descendants of the sisters running around, but then the expected result would be something like Flurry Heart, not completely normal ponies with a secret unlock-able super soldier switch.
In this story, Celestia and Luna have no reason to be looking for new Alicorns, remember that they are mostly blind about the true reason of their creation, and anyway without Cadance as an example they wouldn't even have a reason to think that they could make a normal pony into an Alicorn.
The simple truth is that pony-kind has lost way too much knowledge about their technology for the Alicorn project to be restarted by the time the Reapers arrive. At most they can hope to understand how to use what they have left.
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What if there's some kind of emergency protocol? If the Elements are tied into this tech, then what if when Twilight "Ascends" her regular body is destroyed and her mind is downloaded into an Alicorn body? If Celestia and Luna can use the Elements, then there's a strong argument to be made that there's some kind of tie between the Elements and the Alicorn project. If Fluttershy and the group explored a bit deeper into the lab, would they find Alicorn body duplicates of each of the Bearers?
There's also no telling what kind of subliminal mental programming Luna and Celestia have. They might be subconsciously searching for new material for the Alicorn project.
I wonder how this affects Sunset Shimmer? Does she even exist in this AU? Did Celestia take on students before Twilight? If so, then what happened to them? If not, then why only Twilight?
Option 1: Lugging around the whole pod is impossible and if they leave there might be no time to come back. Worse, the Heretics might capture Cadence and I shudder to think what they might do with her and all she represents.
Yeah, let's just let three out the four ponies there continue to go around completely defenseless. It's not like one of them could have just been killed in the last chapter
I swear I had nothing to do with this.
2 makes sence. The corruption is very conserning...
10389683
Genetic produced leaders for ponykind... The natural step after archiving A.I.'s.
10389675
Somebody had to stay behind and maintain everything... My best guess the failed inprint is a A.I. trying to save itself...
10389692
Unless the have seed banks like in Warhammer40k supersildier are born from genetic banks.
10389710
Yep, would explain there pretty mutch infinit health towards the teeth of time...
10389733
Makes sence, best guess i can make is the A.I. of the station got damaged over time and try to save itself in a organic body. Someone must keep pony kind alive...
10389776
Than again she might have all this pony tech in her head. Like a luving manual waiting to be used...
10389856
What could possible go wrong?
Harbinger 2.0
Or best outcome, A.I. in Cadance head just like Fidelis is in Shining Armors head.
10389911
Good point, guess we see how it turn out...
10390006
Unless Accention is a 'Soma copy' in a upgrades Alicorn body.
10390006
Freedom and the consequences...
10390158
Otherwise something would go wrong...
10390264
Sex is always the answer unless it isn't. Can't sex up a Geth
Only problem is they better chose the right Candidate or we end up with Starlight Glimmer, Nay Say or Sombras...
10390281
Very good point... Clean out the Tanks and we start the new line of Alicorns
10390375
Celestia & Luna had one imprint... Perhaps Cadance had more mental capacity?
10390880
Exacly AJ already looks like swiss cheese...
10390509
I rather hope for a 'Soma solution' let's make Pony A.I. copys of the Mane Six
10390443
Guess with the Geth on Equis the hiding is only so effective... To War - TO WAR - TOO WAAAR!
1. We Element of Harmony laser her in case of complications.