Progress
Progress
“So, Sunset Shimmer isn’t coming to the coronation?” Starlight asked, looking over the guest list laid across the cutie map.
Running down one of three checklists floating in front of her, Twilight shook her head. “She’s really sorry she has to miss it, but her back-to-school orientation is the week after. She’s got enough on her plate without fitting in time to visit me.”
“That’s a shame.” Starlight sighed. “I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.”
“You could pop over and pay a visit any time,” Twilight said. “Just write and ask her if it’s okay. The journal is up in the library.”
Starlight nodded. “That reminds me, will you be taking the journal with you when you move to Canterlot?”
Twilight paused and considered the question. “I suppose so. I would like to keep in touch with Sunset as much as any of you. I’ll likely be taking the mirror, too.”
“Which leads to my next question.” Starlight hopped off the throne and approached Twilight. “Do you think you could create another pair of magic journals?”
“I probably could. Why?”
“For me and Sunset,” Starlight replied. “I mean, if you’re going to take the journal with you, I’d need some way to keep in touch with her across dimensions.”
Twilight gently lowered her checklists. “That seems fair, but what if we just added a third journal?”
“Third journal?”
Twilight nodded. Her horn lit up and drew a magic crest in the air, lines tracing out from it to two journals “The spell matrix is pretty simple, it should be easy to just expand it to encompass messages passed between three journals instead of two.” As she spoke, a third journal appeared in her image and lines from the magic crest weaved out to entwine it.
Starlight tilted her head. “Yeah, but then if I wrote something in my copy, you’d both see it. What if Sunset and I want to talk about stuff without you seeing?”
Twilight eyed her suspiciously. “Like what?”
“Anything!” Starlight said defensively. “I mean, even if you don’t care if I found out, you wouldn’t want me sitting in on every conversation you had with your other friends, right?”
Twilight’s expression softened. “Fair enough.” She peered at the spell matrix in the air and rubbed her chin. “What about this?” Beams of magic from her horn drew runic symbols on the three journals. “We tie each journal to a specific rune, then when we write a message in our journal, if we want it to only go to one other person – or, pony – we sign it with the rune for their journal.”
“That could work…” Starlight slowly smiled. “But, what if we made the spell tie each journal to a specific name instead of a rune?”
“That should be fine.” Twilight nodded. “And it’ll be a lot easier to remember.”
Starlight looked at the spell matrix, walked around it while keeping her eyes on it. “How many extra journals do you think this spell could support?”
Twilight tilted her head and thought. “It doesn’t require a lot of magic. I’d wager at least a dozen could be interconnected like this.”
“And if the spell got more complex than that, we could always just anchor it to a spell crystal or some other continuous source of magic to maintain it, right?” Starlight grinned.
“I don’t see why not.” Twilight looked at her student curiously. “Why, what did you have in mind?”
“Exactly what you just said.” Starlight quickly stepped up to Twilight. “What if we all had our own journal? You, me, your other friends, Celestia and Luna? What if we could all communicate with each other at any time using a magic journal?”
Twilight’s eyes lit up. She gasped and shared in Starlight’s wide smile. “That’s a brilliant idea! We could keep in touch any time, no matter how far apart we grew!” She hugged Starlight tight. “You’re amazing, Starlight.”
Starlight laughed softly. “I try.”
Twilight looked up at the spell matrix again. “Although…” She pulled a chalkboard over from the side and quickly began scribbling down calculations with a piece of chalk.
“What now?” Starlight asked.
“By my rough calculations, a spell crystal the size of a pony could probably support a matrix of a hundred journals without any trouble. But even without a spell crystal, just three or four journals would be no problem.” Twilight looked back at Starlight. “Why keep this to ourselves, when we could make journals for everypony?”
Starlight’s jaw slowly dropped. “I’d never even thought of that!” She cupped her hooves to her mouth. “I could keep in touch with all my teachers any time! If I had a problem I could just write them and ask them a question instead of needing them to come in! Each teacher could have a master journal she wrote in that gave each student a copy of her lesson plan! Or the students could write their tests in a journal and all their answers went to the master journal, the teachers could mark them and the students would immediately see their grades!”
“Not just the school!” Twilight said excitedly. “Pinkie and Maud could talk to their parents any time! So could Rainbow Dash and her parents, and Applejack and her entire family.” She gasped loudly. “The Apples! What if they could get orders for their products from further away? What if each business had a journal and you could write to them to place an order?”
“You could write Mrs. Cake to ask for a cake, then drop by an hour later and it would be ready! Or you could write all the way to Appleloosa to order some cherries and have them delivered!”
Twilight skipped in place. “Starlight, this type of magic could revolutionize Equestria! Imagine instant communication with anypony anywhere in the world!”
“We could do business faster and easier, be closer with our friends and family, be better informed about events in other cities and towns!”
Twilight nodded firmly. “Starlight, head down to Quills and Sofas, buy every blank journal and notepad they have. I’m going to get Sunburst.”
“Roger!” Starlight ran out of the room.
Twilight inhaled deeply and looked up at the spell matrix. “I’d liked to have hoped my reign could be a new era for Equestria. But I never imagined anything like this…”
“Done!” Sunburst smiled proudly and turned over the journal in front of him, a blank page with a horizontal line across the front. “Each journal can now be designated with a three-digit alphanumeric code that anypony can write on the first page when they receive it.”
Twilight gave a small frown. “I like it, but what if two ponies happen to choose the same code?”
“If we give each town its own central spell crystal to anchor the journals, that shouldn’t be a problem, a three-digit code like this would have almost fifty thousand possible combinations, and if two ponies did choose the same one, the spell matrix would reject it.” Sunburst gestured to a chalkboard showing a map of Equestria with various cities and towns marked. “There’s a much higher likelihood of conflicts across the national level, if you want to implement a network across Equestria. For that, I was thinking we preface each town or city with a specific three-digit code. When sending messages within your own town, just use your friend’s code, but for someone living further away, you’d also have to include their city code.”
Twilight nodded. “I like it. There may be problems if somepony moves to another town and wants to change their book’s main spell crystal and they have the same code as somepony already living there. Once we have everything in place and are ready to launch the system, we can start setting up spell crystal centers in each town and instruct their workers on how to change that sort of thing. Oh, reminds me.” She turned her head. “Starlight, how are things going?”
On another side of the room by a floating blue crystal the size of a chair, Starlight circled around examining the crystal. “Its almost been an hour and there’s no sign of spell matrix breakdown or crystal fracturing.”
“How many journals are connected to it?”
“One hundred and fifty.” Starlight looked Twilight’s way. “I’m fairly certain we could go for double that and still have no problems.”
“Great news, but hold off on the increase. Let’s leave it for a day and expand the network tomorrow once we’re sure everything is holding.”
“You got it.” Starlight looked at a stack of notebooks and floated two over to her. “I’m going to send a few messages back and forth and see how things react, but it should be just fine.”
As Twilight turned back to Sunburst, the door to the throne room was flung open. Wearing a pair of gloves and an apron, Spike jerked his claw behind him. “Twilight, I just went to sweep the front stairs, and there’s an angry mob that wants to talk to you.”
Twilight jerked. “An angry mob?”
“Yup. They’ve got signs and everything.”
Twilight frowned. “Starlight, Sunburst, you two stay here, I’ll go see what’s happening.” She followed Spike to the doors of the castle and pushed them open.
There was indeed an angry mob outside, a crowd of dozens of ponies shouting and yelling. Signs depicting various slogans and pictures of journals and notebooks on fire waved in the air.
“Everypony!” Twilight called, holding her hooves up. The crowd slowly grew quiet. Her mouth open, Twilight looked among them. “What is going on here?”
A grey pegasus with a blonde mane stepped to the front of the crowd and pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Why do you hate the post office!?”
Twilight recoiled. “W-what? I don’t hate the post office!”
“Then why are you putting me out of work!” The pegasus stamped the ground. “If anypony can get letters instantly, what point is there to mail delivery?”
“Er, well, not every piece of mail will be delivered by journal, we’ll still need direct mailing!”
“But you’ll need a lot of less of it,” another pony said. “The post office will get less business and that means less need for it, and they’ll get less funding and have to fire employees!”
Twilight swallowed heavily. “That is a possibility, yes. But everything will be better and more convenient! If you write a letter to somepony, they can read it instantly instead of waiting for it to be delivered!”
“And it’s horrible!” A stallion called. “My daughter Lilac Dew only ever came to visit me and my wife once a month, but now she says to get one of these journals she’s been hearing about and she doesn’t have to come see us! You took my daughter from me!”
“I did not!” Twilight protested. “Now you can talk to her anytime, anywhere!”
“Assuming she answers, she used to have a room just down the hall and would ignore me at her door!”
Another stallion raised their hoof. “I heard businesses will be able to take and fill orders using these journals. Is that true?”
Relieved at the voice of optimism, Twilight beamed at the speaker. “Yes, very true. If somepony in the Crystal Empire or Manehattan wanted to order something from Sweet Apple Acres, they could write a message to the Apples here and arrange to have it delivered. You see, this means more and new opportunities for businesses!”
“Well that’s great for the Apples!” the pony wailed. “What if I can’t afford a journal to keep up with them? I’ll be run out of business!”
“No need to worry, the journals will be given out free!”
“Free?” A mare scoffed. “Then where is the money going to come from to make all these journals?”
“Uh, well…” Twilight smiled awkwardly. “I may need to talk to Princess Celestia about government backing for this project.”
“I knew it!” Some stallion’s voice came from the back. “This was all a scam to raise taxes!”
“I didn’t say anything about raising taxes!” Twilight protested. “Look, you’re all focusing on the negative impacts, but they’ll be a lot of positive impacts, too! New business opportunities, easier communication with loved ones, faster response times to emergencies, more access to information. All of your lives will be better!”
“And how are you going to pay for it without raising taxes?”
“We’ll find the funding from other sources!”
“Like what, schools and hospitals?”
“Of course not!” Twilight lifted her eyebrows and shrugged. “Actually, if they’ll be doing less business, we could divert some bits away from the postal service.”
The entire crowd groaned and booed. Twilight slapped her face. “But once all these journals are out there and the infrastructure to support them in place, there’ll be plenty of new job openings! We’ll need ponies to monitor the spell crystals in each city, to oversee distribution of the journals, to make new ones, and more.”
The grey pegasus began to lower her sign. “Can I get a job doing that?”
“You specifically, no, that kind of magic work is something only a unicorn could do.”
The crowd’s boos grew even louder. “Race wars!” Somepony screamed.
Twilight slumped. “I don’t think I’m handling this very well.”
“So, let me get this straight.” Sunset gestured a hand cross the table. “You tried to invent a magical email-slash-telephone-slash-internet system for Equestria.”
On the other side of the booth, the straw of her milkshake angled into her mouth as she let her head rest on her hand and her elbow on the table, Twilight mumbled an “mm-hm” without letting go of her straw.
“And everypony got upset that you were gonna flip their entire system of national communications upside down.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And then you shut down the project, and to reassure everypony you were giving it up, publically burned all the journals except for a few you put aside for your friends and you.”
“Mm-hm.”
“And now you’re here moping at Sugarcube Café and slurping down a chocolate shake.”
Twilight let the straw out of her mouth. “I am not moping. I am engaged in melancholy contemplation of my mistakes.”
“In this world we call that moping.”
Twilight’s response was to reach to her milkshake and pull the straw back to her mouth.
Sunset held up her hands. “Hey, you tried, and it didn’t work out. But maybe you just need to try introducing this stuff on a small scale. I’m sure the royal guards in Canterlot would appreciate a system to make them more useful.”
“I’d appreciate them just being useful,” Twilight grumbled. “I really thought I would be improving lives, Sunset! You know what it’s like back in Equestria, what if you could do all the stuff in that world that you can do with your phone in this world?”
Sunset looked at her phone on the table and shrugged. “Given what you told me about publishing the friendship journal, maybe Equestria isn’t ready for social media yet.”
“I guess.” Twilight sighed. She reached into her bag and held a journal out. “By the way, here. This journal can send messages to me, Starlight, Princess Celestia, or any of my other friends. Just preface the message with their name.”
“Awesome.” Sunset took the journal and looked at the rainbow-striped star on the cover. “This is kinda cool.” She chuckled. “Now if you could just figure out a spell to send messages from one of the journals to the messenger app on my phone, and we could cut out the middleman.”
Twilight glanced down at the cell phone in front of Sunset. Her eyes widened and she sat up, her mouth open.
“What if—”
“No.” Sunset covered her phone with her hand. “Go back to moping into your milkshake.”
Twilight did as she was told.
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That mare needs a PR consultant.
I honestly found myself more frustrated by this story than anything. I don't like it when the angry mob wins against the poor, misunderstood scientist trying to improve their dull, unappreciative lives.
... I may have a few issues of my own.
9891322
It's okay, once Twilight takes the throne she can push through her societal reforms on her own. What are they gonna do, protest? I hear there's plenty of room on the moon.
Twilight really needs to slow down the changes, give ponies time to adjust.
Society! Want something new and creative smothered out of existence with mediocrity and stagnation? Just use Society! In a matter of days the latest and greatest in innovation will be the unholy symbol of the devil, racism, and whatever country yours hates the most!
Just visit you local community center and look for the group screaming the most insults.
*WARNING: Society has been found to be prone to backfiring, forgetting and ignoring the existence of facts, and general being an absolute jerk about the whole thing.*
It did always bug me how we had two established forms of instant communication, yet neither of them were utilized. They easily made a new journal in Mirror Magic, and I’m pretty sure Spike messaged/received a message from someone other than Celestia in the two parter. Sunset’s probably right though, giving non-main character ponies a form of instant communication would probably end in disaster, though it’d probably be nice for the student six to be able to communicate with their families... Huh, I wonder if Changelings can do that communicatons portal thing from the season 6 finale.
9891326
Or if she learned from Celestia, she could petrify them and display their aware forms as a trophy in her garden.
Too much change is never good for anyone, and this story clearly showcases this, but on a hilarious scale. While I do feel bad that Twilight's intentions ended up failing, she tried her very best to make Equestria a better place. She gained some wisdom through this experience which she can apply for future considerations. Sunset is right though. Change is something which needs to be done on a smaller scale by introducing it bits at a time.
When was there an Eric Cartman pony? XD
Overall, this was hilarious! It's always both weird, yet fitting how the people of Ponyville so often devolve into mob-mentality, but then again; they are equines.
I also loved how you depicted a development in the relation between Twilight, Starlight and Sunburst since the one time I remember clearest over that is Starlight and Sunburst having all the fun while Starlight was just bored of of her mind (not counting the trivia episode). The three really came off as three people/ponies who know each other with a working rapport with their interactions over the journal system.
I guess Ponyville isn't willing to embrace change...
this was great
as always 99% of twilights problems could be solved if she had just talked with sunset who could have told twilight no
Ehhhhh.
Okay…
1 - Poor Twilight. This is the problem with being a great thinker and innovator.
2 - Ponies are herd animals. This makes too much sense.
3 - Sunset, do you really want the internet in Equestria? Its already pretty much ruined one world. Don't mess up another.
4 - Its okay to mope Twi. Sometimes, it's what you need.
5 - Drakey, that was perfectly demented. Thank you. I needed the laugh.
How soon before the Princesses start sitting in ink and sending pics to eachother?
i.ytimg.com/vi/cG8350EMQRc/hqdefault.jpg
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/a-very-important-cultural-history-of-people-photocopying-their-butts
While their complaints were somewhat valid, she could have offered this public communication system to only Ponyville, as a test. Particpation optional, find a way to make them non-functional outside ponyville to prevent a unfair out-of-ponyville bussiness advantage.
The mail wouldn't be under threat if its only good for inter-communication in a town so small everyone already talks to eachother, daily, and are within a hours walk.
They'll be able to figure out advantages through discovery, and as long as you are upfront about basic utility, people will gleefully begin exploring and exploiting.
Wait for bussinesses and individuals, maybe even other goverments of other towns and cities to ask for access, and thats the que to roll it out further...
After at least a 2 year test period, maybe less.
Nice.
Wasn't sure if we were talking magic emails, and then magic phones (Equestrian area codes, brilliant), and then Sunset helpfully confirmed it was all of the above.
What a charming way of showing the fear of change
As someone who worked in a third party package drop off location, screw the post office. When we had shirts ordered with the company logo on them they lost the box, and then blamed the person who shipped them for not paying extra for tracking. Also they have a stranglehold on sending anything to Guam for some reason.
Wow, this really highlights weird Equestria Girls really is. The stakes are lower in the human world by at least one order of magnitude.
Yeah. I can see where something like this made with genuinely good intentions could still not go over well at first. Still, glad to see Twi still had enough heart to try AND was using it as a learning experience. All in all, rather good job on the exchanges, characterizations, humor and general wrap-up (and at least Twi still has the copies meant for her friends, so it wasn't a TOTAL loss).
Literally idiotic reaction.
All of this problems could be answered if you give them a little thought, and to others, they just selfish idiots who should be ignored.
9892500
Alphanumeric, not numeric. So 36 options per digit (0-9, A-Z).
36^3 is 46,656.
Bad Sunset, let Twiggles make equestria BURN!!!
Poor Twilight. She tried.
I'm honestly not surprised, instant messaging has never been very successful in Equestria. Ponies are entirely too social, they need that face-to-face interaction.
I feel like I can’t read this until I watch the season finale
9892864
It's okay, I wrote it to be ambiguous about when in S9 it takes place after the premiere. If you've seen the premiere, there's no spoilers here
9892874
Gotcha. This is great cause I can’t find the finale but I don’t want to find something that spoils it all.
Poor Twilight. It's such a powerful idea with so much potential! It's a shame the townsponies don't see it that way...
9892615
Oh! I missed that part. Right you are!
Why would the postal service have to downsize? If ponies can now easily order stuff from far away for delivery, someone has to deliver them. There may be fewer letters to deliver, but other documents still need delivered, and since there’s going to be an uptick in shipping, the gap will make itself up. Once again, market economics save the day.
Tie your reins down, Captain Equestria! This is a job for Captain Capitalism!
Sunset has clearly seen this plot thread many times.
Starlight: "You know, stuff. Like, which stallion has the biggest brain. That's important to know, and so we can check in both worlds simultaneously."
Sunset Shimmer: *shivers*
As long as they don't have torches and pitchforks...
Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.
I would have liked to see it played out.
As a professional network engineer, this made my day. You did a really good job 'magifying' a POTS system.
oh twilight, one ought only to see the damage inflicted by the rail riots, the ones held over the invention of railroads, not the riot rails, the rollercoaster park in Las Pegasus, you'd know that ponies are technophobes.
9893431
Because they can't think long-term and focus too much on the downsides.
Then again, letters are likely the bread and butter of the mail system in Equestria. And there's no telling if orders and parcels will become enough of a staple.
9892934
I could PM you a link if you'd like.
This is why Equestria can't have nice things.
9891322
Part of the problem might be your inclination for SCIENCE! over science. Not that I'm saying any of your scientists would bow down to the opinion of the unwashed masses (or the washed and groomed elite for that matter), but I'm pretty sure at least a few of the scientists you've written would be offended if no angry mob showed up to their
high school science fairgreat reveal at all.It's traditional, and the whole reason they minored in Political Science in the first place.
9896773
Fair point.
"But... but I had a twelve-point counterargument prepared and everything!"
Sunset patted her on the back, not sure what else she could do. "Twilight, I don't think that would've actually helped against an angry mob."
9896835
"I also designed this strike-breaker weapon at some point that would have... dispensed streamers and cupcakes... complete with paper plates and little forks. I have got to stop taking calls from Pinkie after 2 AM."
9891322
I dont know, given my dislike of social media these days, the angry mob has a point
9896931
This idea isn't social media yet, though. This is email. Or rather, considering the best they had so far was the postal system, this is the innovative equivalent of the telephone.
Might have been better off to start with the military, then with military suppliers, then between suppliers/industries, etc. Let businessponies who want to communicate with other businessponies fund it and bear the brunt of the mob's dissatisfaction.
Alternatively, make it part of the post office. Have fixed-in-place journals in each post office which can communicate to each other. Have them operated by the post office as a magical telegraph system. More jobs needed at each end as short-range telegram delivery ponies become in demand. Eventually, expand the system to include major national institutions - national banks, universities, emergency services, government departments. Eventually 'give in to demand' and allow media outlets to have their own in-house journals to get the latest scoops and other news information as fast as possible. Then start allowing major private-sector businesses and industries to exploit a carefully-planned and expensive loophole that effectively gives them access to their own journals as a prestige thing - the point being to make it seem like the Crown isn't pushing the new system on the populace; the populace (or at least the economy) is demanding access to it and is determined to get their hooves on it by hook or crook. Start rolling them out to schools (just the one per school).
Eventually, "capitulate" and relax the restrictions enough that mid-level businesses and extremely self-important (and rich) individual ponies can finagle one, even if they have to politic and fight for it. You know ponies similar to original-recipe Diamond Tiara would absolutely have to have one to show that they can.
And of course, the more connections there are, the more valuable the network becomes. The Post Office is now the Post Office and Telecommunications Authority. More and more fixed endpoints are added each day. Even some of the smaller villages have a community journal point. Most city and town businesses do. The upper middle class has them installed at home. Equestria bypasses the need for switchboard operators and proceeds directly to government and large business call centers. "Phone books" are distributed and everypony knows what they are and how to use them.
Next stage: every government, commercial, and residential business has them. The magical equivalent of PABX systems start to appear in organizations, so ponies can contact a single name and have their call directed. Somepony comes up with IVR-equivalents - write to a business address and you get a neat menu of options as a response. The network is upgraded to allow images - now you can contact a restaurant and get both the option to communicate directly with a pony and the restaurant's menu in front of you. Someone invents phone spam and telemarketing. Answering machines are kind of built-in to the journals, making subscriber services popular.
Eventually it's "just normal" - everypony knows how to use the journal systems and does it daily for all kinds of things.
Only now do you introduce mobile journals - and possibly have the Telecommunications Authority look into upgrading the system to handle real-time data, like voice...
While a boon for technological advancement, the ability to instantly communicate with anyone through text regardless of distance or timezone actually caused widespread depression in our world. Face-to-face communication is extremely important. A friendship is very difficult to sustain on faceless, voiceless text messages alone.
I was thinking of leveraging the technology they already had to develop a system of interconnected teleportation apparatuses to allow ponies to visit each other at any time without the commitment of a long commute, but that itself might atrophy the meaning of such visits precisely due to the lack of a commute. Or maybe it wouldn't, because you're still committing time to your friend.
Food for thought.
When the wisdom of the innocent is mistaken as foolishness.
9896947
Every flood begins with a drop of water
Considering the internet started out as a military project...
Alicorn Research Projects Agency Network. ARPANet. History always repeats...
Hmm... one thing that could maybe have used a mention is that Equestria very probably has telegraphs. (Not that the writers remember mostly, but then the situations it would come up in are limited.) So instant long-distance communication would be less of a shock than the shift in pricing model.
9896608
Sure man. Thanks.
Cap. (Group / Organization)
____________
This was an adorable story
.
While it is never specifically addressed, Equestria does have a surprising degree of technology. Including but not limited to radios, earphones, electric lightning, metal ferry ships, roller coasters, whatever the technology is for the cloudsdale cloud factory and more.
Also all the issues raised in this fic are issues that our world is having to deal with in one way or another.
I think Twilight gave up too easily and did not properly allow the system to grow. There is always reticence to new ideas and concepts, but these get ironed out as familiarity sets in, and Ponies do take on new technologies.
This could be revisited in the future if only Twilight could work on creating a magical computer analog, instead of a limited paper one.
Great idea Twilight, terrible PR management.
9899330
There's NON electric lightning?