4 - Grimoire
Living with an invisible countdown timer looming over her shoulders didn’t exactly give Radiant the luxury of time to mess around with her life. So instead of wasting her time chasing colts and worrying about what her special talent was supposed to be, she spent the majority of her fillyhood studying.
Not just anything though; Equestria had just landed a mare on the moon, and the field of astrology was starting to flourish as a result, so that was the field she delved into. Being able to discover without having to leave the comforts of home appealed to her, and the best part of that particular decision was that she was good at it. Good enough that Startrotter offered her a position after her internship, with no strings attached whatsoever.
The rest of her life was a blur until the moment that she volunteered to be crammed inside of that pod, so for somepony who had been living on a carefully planned schedule for the better part of her life, being suddenly faced with nothing to do was like having to bear with an insatiable itch at the back of her mind.
Or to put it more simply, Radiant was bored. She had tried spending the first few weeks on Earth keeping herself busy by getting used to her new body and the needs that came along with it.
That didn’t keep her occupied for too long. It might have been a byproduct of whatever magic the humans used, but getting used to the concept of hands took considerably less time than she had expected. There wasn’t any magical “aha!” moment like when somepony got their cutie mark -the pieces of the puzzle just clicked together in her brain one day, and she was feeding herself like a normal pony. No, person.
The use of her legs took longer, but even balancing turned out to be less daunting than she had expected. Both legs on the ground, stand up, and let your body do the work. All that remained was making sure she got enough exercise so that her new leg muscles got used to the load.
And now, she was rotting away in this room doing nothing else. For all the differences between Earth and Equestria she had seen so far, the architects on both worlds seemed to have shared the goal of designing hospital wards to be as inoffensive as possible.
If anything, it would seem that the humans on Earth took to even greater pains than the designers back home. The adult wards might have been bland, but the humans had somehow managed to take things one step further and make the room look more spartan than anything she had ever seen.
To call her room lacking in decor was an understatement. There were no cheery recovery posters or artwork found in the wards back home plastered over the muted yellow walls. In fact, the only thing that could pass for decor in her room was the Astronomical Research Agency’s logo painted on the wall.
The picture her hosts chose to represent themselves seemed comically oversized, with its bold streaks of white and blue making the wall seem meek in comparison. It wasn’t until Radiant lamented about the lack of things to do that they finally got some unlucky person to haul in the few pieces of tired looking furniture that now populated her room.
So maybe she had exaggerated her situation by a little. She wasn’t exactly left to rot in this room by herself, since a few days after she finally managed to eat without the help of a nurse, Radiant was formally introduced to the liaison team.
Radiant wasn’t exactly surprised when she found Moriah to be part of that team. It was a welcome change of pace from having pads and needles stuck in her every single day, even if the majority of her “work” consisted of reading random pages of books from the Trailblazer’s library, and explaining how Equish worked. It was dull work, but they let her keep the books to read.
She needed a distraction. Burying herself in her work wasn’t an option, not with how her meaty hands tore apart the paper pad the liaison team had provided to shreds whenever she tried to get a fresh sheet.
It had come in a little bag that included an enchanted quill that looked nothing like anything Radiant had used before. The instrument itself was an unassuming yellow rod, made of the same plastic material that was nearly everywhere in her room. Pushing the button on the back of it to summon the nib made a rather satisfying click sound, and it somehow never ran out of ink despite the pages upon pages of illegible squiggles that Radiant had churned out so far.
Never having to fumble for the ink pot would have made her work way easier, were it not for the fact that all she could do was draw pathetic looking circles no matter how hard she tried. Radiant would have recorded her notes into audio diaries instead, but as advanced as human magic was, nopony seemed to know what a recording crystal was since everybody that she had asked was either completely clueless about what magic was, or asked if she had read about someone named Harry Potter.
She didn’t know who that was, but he must have been a very powerful mage from the sounds of it.
Her usual session with Moriah was scheduled for after lunch today - they were usually private affairs for her to get whatever issues off her chest, so Radiant was surprised to see that she was accompanied by another human this time. A male, if the scraggly beard on his face was an accurate indicator. She sat up straighter, letting her legs dangle from the edge of the bed as she tried to put a name to his face before giving up altogether.
Interesting. Radiant frowned, pulling up the sleeves of her cotton shirt into something more presentable as she examined the guest. Being out of that stupid, itchy hospital gown had certainly made her feel better, even if her clothes grabbed at all the wrong spots on her body. “Good aftern-”
“Yes, hello, Radiant Dawn. Moriah already told me who you are." The human gestured, fiddling with the frameless glasses on his face. "I’m Crawford. Well, technically, that’s Mr Jonathan Crawford to you, but you can call me by whatever you like. Even dude, since I know this whole human thing is still relatively new to you.” He said, not giving her a chance to butt in.
“I’m not really here on behalf of anything official, but Moriah here told me the other day that you were looking for a way to take down notes for your work, yes?” He asked, holding up a and shaking a white box in the air like a parent presenting their foal with a birthday gift.
She nodded slowly, giving the box a cursory glance. It was plain, save for a wall of squiggles and symbols that were printed on the sides. "And I assume that whatever is in the box is supposed to help me with that?"
The human licked his lips, eagerly nudging the bedside table over with a foot. “Of course! Even if you didn't need it, I think it’s time we introduced you to this!” Crawford plonked the box onto the flimsy surface, making the table rattle angrily in response. “This baby here will solve all your problems, even those that you never knew you had. Never will you run out of paper when taking notes again, or miss out on another episode of the latest brain rot that normal people indulge in.”
Radiant blinked. Nothing Crawford said made any sense, and even stranger was Moriah taking a backseat in how things went today. Her closest confidant was slouched in one of the roller chairs, a bemused look on her face. Radiant turned her attention back to Crawford as he slid the top out of the way, revealing a glossy black object nested in the confines within.
“And here it is. Only the best on the market right now, with a few extras that ASTRA had installed just for you. Why don’t you give it a try?” The human suggested, offering the thing to Radiant.
Radiant looked at the object clasped between his finger and thumb with skepticism - declining it would have probably been seen as rude, and it felt impossibly smooth and heavy in her grip.
“Soo… what is this thing?” She frowned, staring into the featureless, unnatural blackness, suddenly very aware of her heart beating against her chest. “Some kind of magical relic?”
Crawford scrunched at the suggestion. “What? No!” The human groaned, burying his face into his hands. “It’s a Dataslate! Not some magic thing!”
He exhaled dramatically, pushing his frameless spectacles higher up his nose with a finger. “Think of it as a computer. You have those right? Only smaller and sturdier. You need to power it up first though.” He taped a finger at the knurled button on the edges.
Radiant raised an eyebrow. “A computer? Really?” She pressed down on the protrusion, sending it home with a soft click.
Nothing. There was no flash of arcane light, or the eldritch howling of some spirit.
“Is that it?” Radiant cocked her head in the same way the humans did whenever they were confused by something. Not that she was actually disappointed. Radiant knew how a computer looked like - Startrotter had a comparatively compact array for number crunching, and even that required its own dedicated room. There was no way on Equestria that they could have crammed a computer of all things into something that could sit in her hands.
Ding!
Radiant almost dropped it as the tablet squirmed angrily in her hands, disbelief giving way to confusion as the inky darkness of the thing melted away into a brilliant white. It faded away, replaced by a single, spinning circle. She stared numbly at the device, not believing for a second at what she was seeing in her hands. “A-A screen? How’d you get it to fit into… this?!”
It simply wasn’t possible. Televisions back home were the size of bookcases, here she was, looking at one encased in an impossibly thin device sitting in her hands.
“Science, my dear!” Crawford beamed. “Think of it as a gift from the Astronomical Research Branch. It took Rosetta forever to translate the GUI from English to Equish. I suspect she was putting it off to get back at me for messing with her precious processors the other day, but she’s pretty confident that there shouldn’t be any errors with her handiwork.“
The circle had vanished, replaced by pictures with captions that made no sense to Radiant even though they were in Equish. Spells, Files, System and Inter-net? What’s an Inter-net? She flipped the tablet to the back, expecting to be greeted with the familiar glow of runes. Instead, there was nothing but smooth, unbroken glass.
“Wait. It says here that there's spells?” Radiant Dawn blinked. “This thing can cast spells?”
“Well, that’s one way to put it. They’re technically applications, but I’m sure Moriah would be more than happy to explain to you the technicalities during your private girl hours later.” Crawford shrugged, flicking his eyes to Moriah. “Point is, we’ve managed to upload the entire library you had on your ship into the reader, so you won’t have to lug an entire bookshelf around with you. And if that bores you, there’s also the global book depository. Rosetta should be able to translate most of the text on the fly, so you won’t have to worry about them being written in alien. Any questions?”
Radiant blinked. The entire Trailblazer archives? First, transformation magic, and now this? What else can they do? Whatever they were able to do was centuries ahead of anything that ponykind could even hope to achieve, and they didn’t even bat an eye at the power they had.
She had to know how it worked. “Just what kind of magic is this, exactly?”
“Miss Radiant, what you’re seeing is not magic!” Crawford laughed, bending over as if what she said was one big joke.
“It’s nothing but science and logic! Frankly, I’m surprised that your world hasn’t discovered semiconductors yet. I couldn’t believe what Rosetta sent me when I first read it, but it seems like the AI was serious after all! I guess it’s a miracle that your people even managed to get that ship thing working in the first place, with magic no less.”
“What do you mean with magic no less? The Trailblazer was the result of years of research!” Radiant frowned, folding her arms across her chest. She didn’t know why she did that, but the gesture felt right.
“Crawford, please. Rosetta had specifically crafted that document just for you. ” Moriah groaned, straightening up from her spot against the mural. “Is it that hard to believe that Radiant’s world works differently from ours? Did you even read what they could do with that magic of theirs? Here’s one: organic computing. Maybe you should actually start reading and stop blabbering all the time.”
“Well, in that case, you better start giving her a crash course on how our world works, because the last thing you’d want is her running back here screaming about dark magic or whatever when you finally decide to stop keeping her locked away from the real world.” Crawford snorted. "I mean, I don't think she's going to be all 'Moriah, I don't wanna go' like the last one anytime soon."
"Shut your mouth! The only reason I allowed you to come is because that you wanted to give her the, and I quote, ‘proper introduction to technology’, and nothing else!" The temperature in the room seemed to turn chilly as her friend stormed over to Crawford, towering over the human male. "When Radiant should know about that, is up to me, and me alone. Do you understand?!" Moriah growled.
Seeing her friend this angry made Radiant's heart drop in her chest. She gulped, inching herself further away from the duo.
“Psh. So what if my tongue slipped? But I, Jonathan Crawford, am but humble and willing to repent, so I shall take it upon myself to stick to the schedule.” Crawford bowed, shrugging off the woman's glare. He turned to Radiant, practically beaming as he took over the now vacant roller chair.
“So, Miss Radiant, how about I show you that audio recorder you’ve been requesting for so long, before I formally introduce you to how our world works?”
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Are the name “Moriah” and a mention of recording crystals references to The Last Pony on Earth, or just coincidences?
10238314
Honestly? They're coincidences. Most of Equestrian tech in this universe will be crystal based, so there's a bunch of different crystals from light crystals to magic batteries, etc.
Love this story! Glad to see another chapter up.
Crawfords a prat. Makes a big dealo out of the tech behind a data slate? Compared to the peak of coding to logic efficincy in the 70s to 80s, later stuff just gets ever more bloated and sluggish as more extras are shoved on that the processing can handle.
Otherwise the Pi would have a real time AI on it by now, and games would be TV quality and have perfect real motion. Instead of lets jerk 8K.
I mean, refuse to bring a simple $5 cell phone for audio recording? Vinyl record, crystal pickup.. motion into electricity.. Crystal Earpiece, electricity to sound. SAW delay line, Electric signal to phonon propagation on a complex folded pathway then back to electric. ELF piezo antenna.
Crawford is barely in the 70s.
"Like the last one?" That sounds a bit ominous...
The only other person on the ship was the changeling, whom they said didn't make it, right? So... Either they're lying about the changeling's survival, they've had OTHER alien visitors who responded negatively... Or we're in some post-singularity type setting and they downloaded Radiant's personality into a human body... And this isn't the first attempt to make a good impression.
Honestly, none of those three really seem to fit the feel of things though...
Well things look like thier going to get interesting now. Xd
New chapter! Wo ho! The last update felt so long ago.
Very happy with this new chapter. I have to say Crawford does seem full of it, I wouldn't trust him with that attitude. Alas I also know some awesome people who, you could say, have that querk. So I will reserve absolute judgement until his character is completely revealed.
Look forward to seeing what's next Split Flow.
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My money is on a different civilization... But we're also forgetting that Equestria may have sent other, faster craft as well. They could have run into them as well.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Are semi-conductors the gadgets that make it possible to shrink technology?
10239028
Very simple version: semi-conductors are what make modern electronics work.
If you are not familiar with the term it is a really cool thing to learn about. Have fun!
https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/diode.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor
Crawford may have no bedside manners, but I'm now more worried about Moriah. When she lost her cool there she displayed some rather worrying control tendencies over our little pony.
Heh, now it gets intriguing : )
I'm kind of struggling to believe humanity's team to interact with a representative for an entirely new species would be so unprofessional. Yes there are idiots everywhere, but we wouldn't be letting them liaise with an alien representative. My SOD's straining.
I like an outsider's perspective on human tech.
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Well, remember what Moira said a few chapters back:
She's trying to hold back painful information here, but piecing together the pieces, this sounds like the voice of experience. What I believe happened is that they extracted her crewmember, who then died because their cells degenerated too fast for them to save, so they took no chances with Radiant and dumped her into the biofab as soon as they could. Moira just doesn't want to tell Radiant that her crewmember died in a rather gruesome fashion because of them, because she finally got Radiant thinking in a positive direction again, and saying "oh by the way, we accidentally killed your crewmember. Sorry about that, really didn't mean to" risks undoing all the progress Radiant has made.
10240541
Turns out, when you get a total pleb of a writer trying to imagine what happens, it's not very convincing. :V
Also, what's a SOD?
10239028
From what I know, yes. Otherwise, we'd be stuck with vacuum tubes computers the size of bookcases.
10239273
Explains it way better than what I can.
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Thanks guys!
10242573
Suspension of Disbelief, most likely.
Chapter one has been read and I'm hooked. I love this start and your take on it all.
Well, I'm read up to chapter 4 and... SERIOUSLY? You can't end a chapter like that!
Granted,I do all the time, but c'mon!
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10242664
Yep, Suspension Of Disbelief. Kind of funny how a reader can accept magic talking ponies having a space program, but humans making unreasonable decisions is too much, but them's the breaks.
Well I was enjoying this a lot. Is it dead???