Twilight Sparkle circled her workbench, occasionally leaning in close to prod at a gear or fiddle with the wires leading to a thaumic crystal. Her creation remained dutifully still, perched on a pedestal that would act as its home and repair station.
It was about the size of Owlicious, and based on a similar avian body-plan. A probe meant to travel through a Worldgate would certainly encounter rough terrain, and couldn’t rely on something as feeble as wheels or a single rotor like Tank’s flight-harness. These wings were covered with a mix of borrowed pony feathers, which meant that they were a scattered mix of colors that friends had donated. Unlike animals, pegasus ponies were powerfully resistant to wind and harsh weather, and that magic was concentrated in their feathers.
Those multicolored wings were wide and single jointed like an ordinary pegasus, though she’d reinforced them with sturdy metal wire. The central body glittered in her laboratory spotlight; a molded metal shell lined with gold tracings to outline the spells she’d cast. The Crystal Empire continued to pour outrageous sums into her research, without any sign of restricting her. Cadence expected daily updates on her progress, but those messages were shorter and shorter now.
The little probe didn’t have eyes, but “saw” through a single blue crystal that protruded from both sides of its cylindrical body. It didn’t have feet either, but a single claw was attached near the bottom, with sharp pincers poised to accomplish the single task she required of it. A a sample of living plant tissue, and Twilight could confirm they’d found the right destination.
“What do you think?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. “An impressive little design, isn’t it?” More impressive that she’d come up with it so quickly. Her alma mater had engineers who could’ve created something like this in a few months. Twilight had assembled the entire thing in a few sleepless days.
“It looks… a little weird.” Spike’s voice didn’t come from behind her, but the other side of the table. Apparently, he’d moved without her realizing it. She’d been so focused on what she was building that Twilight hadn’t even seen. “Are you sure that thing can fly?”
“That’s one of the things we’ll test,” Twilight said. “We need to thoroughly examine its capabilities, then make sure our documentation is exact. The Crystal Empire’s engineers will have to build a dozen just like him, maybe more.”
She levitated a thick stack of blueprints onto the table, spreading them in front of her assistant. “I was working from a central plan, but I’m not sure it’s detailed enough for another pony to use it. That might take me as long as building it.”
“I don’t understand why… you bothered,” Spike said. “If that weird bird is so good, won’t one be enough? We can fix anything that goes wrong between trips, right? I assume it teleports back here just like the bird, uh…” He winced. Fluttershy still wasn’t speaking to them after that. Twilight would have to find the right way to apologize—once these designs got to the Crystal Empire.
Nopony wanted to hurt animals, but we have a princess to save. Can’t she understand that risks come with the territory? That bird was a little hero.
“When we were working with a living creature, a reprogrammable Worldgate would let us test… one configuration a week,” she said. “Assuming our tests returned safe results on the other side. Farcasting spells across a Worldgate takes me hours, and that’s just to measure one thing. A team of unicorns doing the same job would probably take days for each one. Ultimately… I can’t do nothing but conduct this search for the rest of my life, Spike. I’m still a princess who needs to help run Equestria. Dangers haven’t stopped coming just because we lost my niece.”
“So, you think they’ll break the… what are we even calling this?”
“A probe,” Twilight said. She spread one wing defensively, catching his smile. “I know I stole the word; you don’t have to tell me. Lots of new ideas come from thaumic fiction before they’re made in reality. And yes, I think they’ll break it. But that’s what they’re for. If we know we’re only sending machines, then it doesn’t matter if we break some. We can do less testing of each new world we scan. Visit a few each week, instead of just one.”
Spike reached out, poking at the wing with one claw. “Isn’t it kinda creepy you made it from real fathers like that? You could’ve used, like…”
“They’d still be real feathers,” Twilight interrupted. “If we used bird feathers, Fluttershy would just be more upset, and the probe wouldn’t be able to fly through a storm.” She tossed him a clipboard off the table. Spike caught it, producing a quill from somewhere. “I want you taking notes. We can’t send these designs to be mass-produced if it doesn’t even work.”
She waited until Spike was ready, then tapped one hoof on the platform, bridging the metal contacts in her spell.
The probe’s single eye began to glow, a breathing cycle of brighter and darker as it surveyed the room around it. The motors on its wings whirred slightly as it flapped once, a movement test more than any actual attempt at locomotion. “Deploy,” Twilight said, as clearly as she could. Sure, the probe wasn’t an animal that might learn and obey more complex instructions, but it didn’t really need to be.
The probe took off, its wings moving through the complex range required for flight. She watched to see if Spike was properly impressed—did he have any idea how hard it was to translate the flapping motion of a wing into hovering in place like this? Apparently not, though at least he’d started scribbling.
The probe chimed cheerfully; its signal of a command obeyed. One of the few it knew. “Life,” Twilight said. “Locate.”
The little probe hovered there for a moment, then flew straight into the nearby window. It smacked loudly, bouncing backward against the ground. Twilight winced as it struck, making about the same sound as a music-box kicked down the stairs. It stopped moving after that.
Maybe the wings were too much.
Well twilight needs sleep
While Discord can't just snap the fingers and find Flurry, maybe he have a better idea for world gates that could help things survive
10205134
i dont think discord would miss the chance to mess with the other side of the mirror or use it as an escape after he was beat once if he was capible of using it so maby he being tecnicly a being made of magic cant use portals and gates the same as others so while he might have a few ideas on how to refine it with his own view of the world he proberbly wouldent be able to make one by snapping after all would you stay in equestrai if you were seen as a monster and had nothing tying you there?
10205140
Meh, it's for the greater good, if the chances of finding Flurry increase at the cost of some jokes and pranks from Discord it's all good
so magical golems with limited sentience are out of the question or does the probe count for one?
on an somewhat unrelated note, what would a nightmare version of cadance be called?
10205177
Chrysalis.
Ah, you're going to need a smarter brain. As impressive a display that was, you won't be able to keep feeding it commands past the portal and dead reckoning can only go so far...
Keep going! ;)
you all most got it Twilight keep working at it.
As long as Twilight doesn't build self replicating probes... this should work out fine!
10205254
paperclips?
Oof. Yeah, may want to work a bit more on obstruction detection before mass producing the one-eyed, one-clawed, flying golden life extractor. Still, progress continues apace... though hopefully Twilight makes up with Fluttershy sooner rather than later. Honestly, she seems about two more prototype iterations away from her friends staging an intervention.
10205177
I've always liked "Decadence," though that usually goes down a different direction than this particular Cadence is headed.
10205263
Indeed. Or Grey Goo, which is probably more familiar to many.
really need to work with sunset, the human like technology they got would be a massive help with her probe
10205187
asking cause from a previous chapter it seems like the humans were questioning keeping flurry heart around since she's at least turned two humans into equines with me hoping she turns mom and dad. If Cadance and co finally get there and learn that they abandoned flurry heart then good chance Cadance is going to go nightmare in her enraged mood. I mean they did perform tests on her filly that no one really should bring up if they meet her since its going to happen eventually.
10205263
cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Clippy.jpg.jpg
It looks like your talking about me. Would you like some help with that?
( ) Yes
( ) Yes!
( ) YES!
10205177
Sentient.
Sapient.
Just in case you didn't know.
Oh dear. Twilight, who exactly have you been using for materials?
Well, progress takes time. Every small step is a step towards fixing all this.
The needs of the people outweigh the needs of Flurry Heart. Twilight will have to delegate matters to other ponies eventually. Cadance won't like it but this also applies to her too. She'll have to focus on running the Crystal Empire as time passes on. Or abdicate.
10205131
I'm guessing Cadance makes that rather hard.
Oh, Celestia. Twilight invented Bubo...
Fluttershy...GROW UP. Jeeze Twilight didn't plan on the bird to die and note she immediate went to an alternative way to scout. the simple fact is that Flurry is more important THEN A DAMN BIRD!
Normally this is where I would make some comment about spelling, but I can barely spell this word myself and in any case it's a ridiculous name, so never mind.
Seriously, they couldn't have made it harder to get right if they tried.
Eh, a few hiccups are to be expected. Nobody gets anything right on the first try unless out of sheer luck.
10205254
In hindsight, basing a probe on the common parasprite wasn't Twilight's best idea.
10205187
I always thought Heartbreaker was what an evil Cadence might be like.
Back to the drawing board for Twilight, I guess.
Father=/=Feather. The omission of one letter makes an entirely different word.
That's the point, Spike. All new inventions looked strange until they became norm.
You could try for an arcane focused gem that energizes the feathers into either holding a cloud underneath itself to move around, or ask Pinkie for help on making a suitable helicopter design for the drone.
10205177
Tainted Love?
Keep at it, Twilight, drone technology is useful in numerous and varied ways. Search and rescue of lost children only scratches the surface.
And so Twilight invents thaumic robotics.
I would absolutely love to see an artists interpretation of Twilight's probe.
I really don’t understand how people constantly get this wrong. I even checked, it’s not the wiki’s fault.
It’s Owlowiscious. Not Owlicious. I don’t understand how you can miss a complete syllable of his name.
Also I don’t mean to be rude with this comment it just annoys me that people get it wrong.
10205617
It’s actually a really easy and simple name.
Owl ow is cious
Is this a StarCraft reference or something? When I think of the description it kinda could be a probe? Maybe? Otherwise I can’t really think of a reason for pointing out that it’s from fiction because what else would it be called other then a probe
10206974
The name is derived from a name that has many vastly different spellings and we never see it actually spelled out. For an example, the name it's based on can be spelled both Alouicious and Aloysius (among like 10 other possible spellings). Going by this logic, if we assume the name is a pun on 'Owl' and spelled as a pun, we'd expect the proper spelling to be either Owlouicious or Owloysius (or one of the other ways , none of which are the way you put forth). But then again, it's a name that is never canonically spelled, so it could be spelled as awfully as Owlishus and we'd never know. The wiki is updated by fans who also can never know the proper canon spelling, and I'm pretty sure it's been spelled multiple different ways in various outsourced media.
10206987
The reason it explicitly says fiction is to make sure that the reader is clear that probes (ie, un
mannedponied devices that are used to explore and collect data in an unfamiliar environment) are something that is purely in the realm of science (or magical) fiction, and not something that is technology that Equestria normally has access to.10207999
Except we can assume that it's not going to be something historical and scientific, given the fact that it's a kid's show. It's likely going to be similar to other names "Xiscious" like Twilightliscious or Rainbowliscious. I've seen Aloysius a couple times on FIMFic and never understood it for that exact reason. A: it looks and sounds nothing like the name when I run it through my brain, sounds more like "alloy see us" but what do I know about pronouncing it, and B: we have tonnes of examples of similar "Xiscious" names, so I don't know why people would assume anything different.
But regardless of all that, the mistake here is that the name is missing a complete syllable. I can understand "Owloysius" or w/e you suggested because it has all the syllables even if some are different than what they should be imo. But "Owliscious" is missing the "ow", a complete syllable. You can't say "we don't know if that syllable exists or not" because you literally here "owl ow is" in the show, not "owl is"
Why would it need to be made clear that it's from fiction? For that matter, "probe" is not a word that comes from fiction. To "probe" something is to test it, either physically by touching with hands or instruments, or to investigate something. Similarly a "probe" is a medical instrument, not at all science fiction.
The reason robots or w/e other things they may be in science fiction are called "probes" is because of that definition. To investigate and test something. Other small robots were called probes because it's a derivative of the definition that science fiction gave the word. A small robot used for scouting or otherwise.
I'm not saying it's wrong for Twilight to call it a probe or anything like that, I'm asking why was it specifically pointed out that the word "Probe" was a reference to some sort of science fiction. There's no reason for it to be pointed out like that unless it's a reference, because otherwise that's like me saying to someone else that what I'm typing on is called a computer and them saying it's from a science fiction that happens to have computers in it.
There has to be a reason behind why it was pointed out, and I'm asking if that reason is a reference to StarCraft in particular.
If the whole paragraph is a red herring and it's not a reference or anything, then I'd argue that it's not something that should be said, for the reasons above. It's weird for it to be pointed out like that, unless there's a reason to point it out.
10208682
A probe (noun) is an unmanned machine/spacecraft/whathaveyou designed to record data. It serves as a succinct bit is clarity and worldbuilding -- in this version of Equestria, probes (ie, unmanned/ponied machines/spacecraft) are fiction. Knowing this serves two purposes. First, it grounds us in a more 'tame' version of equestria, and gives us an idea of what kind of technology she has to work with. Second, it makes it clear that this story, at least for now, is not a part of one of the other continuities that Starscribe has written.
As for the other thing, Owliscious isn't missing a syllable. People pronounce words differently depending on where they live, and owl is a word that depending on pronunciation can have either one or two syllables. It can be pronounced as both /aʊl/ and /ˈaʊ.wl̩/ (or in more English-looking representation, owl or ow-wl). Which means that 'Owliscious' and 'Owlowiscious' can have the same number of syllables. Or they could be different. The first can have 3 or 4, the second can have 4 or 5.
Are there meant to be two a’s here?
I like that
10207999
The wiki cites its sources for spellings of names. It's not just "made up" by fans.
Lol, this reminds me of this one time when a bird got into our classroom and knocked itself out when it flew into a window.
Sooo... she made a reverse cyborg? A robot with organic parts?
Hmm. Need to work on its vision, I see
Remarks and corrections:
> A a sample of living plant tissue
Double "a" at the start there.
???
Agreed Spike
Shouldn't it smack to Twilight or Spike's faces instead? Or maybe Twilight already programmed it to find life other than both of them?
???
Agreed Spike
Shouldn't it smack to Twilight or Spike's faces instead? Or maybe Twilight already programmed it to find life other than both of them?
10205254
Why do i hear repilcator music?