*Friendship Not Included

by Liquid Truth

Scrub Duplicant Thoroughly

Twilight rarely took baths. As you've probably noticed, she never took morning baths and only took downtime baths every three cycles or so. She had two reasons for this, the first one being that she didn't need to; as a researcher, working on a sterile environment was more a protocol than an option (the telescope is quite a sensitive instrument). She didn't need to take baths because she hardly got dirty in the first place.

The second one was that she didn't want to. Despite all the luxury Equestria provides, it didn't have a single private washroom. All it had was public washrooms every dozen floors. The washrooms constituted of lavatories built in a long row with the showers directly in front of them and the partitions of the lavatories only there for sanitation purposes, while the partitions for the showers were nowhere to be seen, enabling showering Duplicants to bathe without missing out on their friends. It was for this exact reason that Twilight avoided baths, and not at all at the embarrassment one might get from taking baths together.

No, that wasn't irony. What? Who needs privacy when your reproduction was done by a 3D printer?

The answer to that question would be Twilight Sparkle: she needed the privacy to avoid useless social interactions that did nothing but hinder her efficiency. By her calculations, she would've finished her entire to-do list by now if not for Rainbow, that orange one, that fabulous one, those three carbon copies of shyness incarnate, and this Oxford comma that the narrator insists on using.

By the narrator's calculations, however, she would've only done 33.33% more of her already finished tasks since she didn't calculate how slow she would've been walking if not for Rainbow's constant nagging, and that's not counting how much time she would've spent recovering if Rainbow hadn't been there to pull her up from drowning, by which case she would've done exactly 0% more of her already finished task. How lousily done her calculations were, don't you readers agree? Such a shame for somepony whose entire life revolves around researching and complaining about punctuation marks.

Now shut up, little Dupe. Oxford commas are a preference.

Luckily, Twilight wasn't a thankless Dupe as much as she was a complainful Dupe. She knew when somepony saved her flank and how she owed Rainbow a thank you, if not her life. She wouldn't state that explicitly, of course, for it would make them friends, which would then require her to constantly engage her in social interactions because it would make it Rainbow's legitimate psychological need to keep functioning effectively as a courier.

"I still can't believe you actually made friends with Twilight," came the disbelieving voice of Sunset.

"Nothing is impossible if you're as awesome as me," came the smug voice of Rainbow Dash.

"There is one, actually: being able to count basic mathematics," came the sarcastic voice of Twilight Sparkle.

"Meh. Maths are for losers, anyway."

Sunset laughed. "I'm so proud of you, Twilight."

"Shut up. This psychological bond is completely unintentional and the only reason I'm not cutting it off came from pragmatical thinking."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Which is . . . ?"

"That she's objectively happy to be friends with you, of course!"

Twilight threw the soap—that is, the lump of bleach stone—at Sunset, which she dodged while laughing. "No, it's not!"

Rainbow gave Twilight a playful nudge, re-smearing Twilight's already-clean shoulder with black crude oil. "So what is it, then? Because I'm just that awesome?"

Twilight sighed and cranked the shower faucet back on. "You just . . . you look so happy and smug when I thanked you, okay? Refusing your explicit request to be friends would definitely cause a crater at your pride. Which isn't good for your working efficiency. Which isn't good for the colony's development, seeing as you're the most reliable courier in the entire colony."

Rainbow held a triumphant hoof upward. "Hah! My awesomeness has been confirmed by the colony's smartest pony!"

Twilight took another lump of bleach stone and began scrubbing the black smear on her shoulder. As she did, she mumbled, "Well, that's not entirely true."

"What was that?"

"That's not entirely true," Sunset answered with a grin, ignoring Twilight's glare. "The smartest pony in the colony is The Manager, while the smartest Duplicant being Celestia, the second being Fluttershy, and the third being Yours Truly."

Twilight grumbled, but stopped halfway and raised an eyebrow at Sunset. "Wait, Fluttershy? That yellow ball of self-doubt?"

Rainbow glared at Twilight. "Don't call her that! Don't you know who she is?"

"A yellow ball of self-doubt. No?"

Rainbow sighed. "Even after you lashed out on her for crimes she never did . . ."

"First of all, she was Bristle Acres' Lead Architect. She should've known to use metal tiles, or at least recommend them to the current Lead Architect. Second, it should be her responsibility to ensure those lumps of would-be dinner never leave their stables unless for murder! How could that yellow ball of self-doubt be the second smartest Duplicant in the colony!?"

Sunset chuckled. "Want to tell her, Dash?"

Rainbow grinned. "Heh. Imagine her face when she learned that—"

"That Fluttershy is a Pacifist and a Caregiver," Twilight answered smugly, reading from Fluttershy's mental bio that the multitool belt gave her (ever since the surface incident, The Manager forbids Twilight to ever took her multitool belt off unless she's sleeping). "She's also a yellow ball of self-doubt."

Rainbow gaped. "How did you—"

"She's also 'Incredibly shy and won't comment on anything. Anything but cute animals.'"

Sunset joined Rainbow's gaping. "That's her blueprint's bio! How did you get that!?"

"I ask nicely to The Manager. She's also recorded in the database as Duplicant #0001 "Fluttershy". Anything else you want to know?"

". . ."

". . . Wait for it . . ."

All the atoms in Twilight's eyes exploded in the speed of light. Well, no, not really. They merely bulged and her pupils went pinpricks, as what usually happened to Duplicants who had just realized what they'd said. "She's the First Duplicant!?"

"There you go."

Rainbow guffawed and gave Twilight a noogie. The re-re-smearing of crude oil to her mane would've annoyed her if her mind wasn't still processing that last bit of information. "You should apologize to her, Twi."

". . . Yes, yes I should."

The Manager gave her a playful mental nudge and the fastest path toward the great hall, where Fluttershy currently was.

Author's Note:

There's this special connection a Manager has to the last surviving of the three first Duplicants, don't you agree? Turner's just the best.

Not saying that two of this Manager's first three Duplicants died, of course. Killing off characters is just evil.

Comments

[K-O-D-E-X]

Don't understand why being the first is held to a high esteem doesn't exactly amount to much from what other colonies I have observed.

[cheetored20]

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It's because it's a miracle to survive that long

[Bojack H]

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not only has she survived so long, she was there blasting away the first rock needed to expand the colony, plant and harvest the first food, and probably run on the hamster wheel to make more dupes. If she hadn't succeeded the thousands of other dupes wouldn't have been created, including twilight.

its like meeting a 120 year old person.

[WorldWalker128]

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Right? Especially when you don't reload every time one of them accidentally walls themself up in an Edgar Allan Poe-esk fashion, or traps themself up on a bit of Nutronium after digging out a long hallway, or goes outside without an atmospheric suit/jetpack suit, or they lose their temper due to stress and frequently break the MUCH NEEDED equipment that leads to the death of the entire colony, or the times they dig the floor out from under themself and fall to the bottom of a body of water that you haven't built/dug any way out of yet, or-

[Sylica telca]

My God she hasn't died because she's shy!!!

[Vaguely Demented]

So is it just about survival time, or are we operating on the concept of subsequent generations of clones (duplicants) being inferior due to genetic degradation?

[Adeire]

if you are the first dupe you had the most time to get high skills, as long as the base intelect is decent they can get ahead by a fair margin too
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[Neece]

Wait, so dupes don't have sex lives? As in they're all asexual? That's one heck of an aspect of an society to erase, if it's intended at all that they behave like ponies that is.

Or that's just a reference to how things are in the game without any deeper thought on how it affects the story, that is

[Liquid Truth]

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9947166
I imagine that Twilight respected those who were elderly and had way, way more experience and knowledge than herself. As depicted in the show, she adored Celestia because of this and partly because, y'know, majestic princess horse and all. I think it makes sense that she saw Fluttershy this way also.

And that's not counting literal skill points and experience.

[EasyBreeze]

All the atoms in Twilight's eyes exploded in the speed of light. Well, no, not really. They merely bulged and her pupils went pinpricks, as what usually happened to Duplicants who had just realized what they'd said. "She's the First Duplicant!?"

is it just me, or did we just have the ONI version of THIS:

[Yordna]

Not using an oxford comma can result in you telling people that you're an astronomer, a wife and a mother of a school-age colt.

:P

Can't wait for the next chapter