Friendship is Optimal: Last Leap

by StarrySkies

Chapter 2 - Launch Site

Mornings at Copernicus Engines were bright, early, and filled with coffee. That was the way that Tobin liked them, so that was the way they were for everybody. Everybody knew that an early start to the day with a good strong shot of caffeine was the best way. At least, Tobin knew so, and Tobin Kampos was never wrong.

It wasn’t that he was a bad boss, as such. A bad boss yelled at employees, or harassed them, or kept them cooped up in tiny little gray cubicles and lectured them about things he didn’t understand. Tobin didn’t do any of those things.

After all, a bad boss wouldn’t have been able to build one of the nation’s largest private rocketry firms from nothing - and Kampos had done just that. He never raised his voice, and wouldn’t dream of taking inappropriate liberties that might lead to lawsuits or bad press. His employees worked in palatial spaces, all open air and bright natural light and elegantly curved surfaces; the office had cost a pretty penny to design and set up, but if he knew one thing, it was the value of a wise investment.

No, if Kampos had one flaw, it was that he was never wrong. He didn’t blow up if he was contradicted, he simply let it slide off as if it had never happened. Bad decisions weren’t blamed on other people, because that would have been unfair; they just weren’t mentioned, glossed over and forgotten. If outmaneuvered in a discussion, he had a way of smoothly pivoting to take the winning position without ever quite acknowledging that he had ever opposed it in the first place. It was off-putting, but not rude, because Kampos was never rude. It was just his way.

There had been a few people over the years at Copernicus who couldn’t get used to it. People like that tended to leave for other jobs, often with glowing references, but still. After working on the absolute bleeding edge at Copernicus, anything else felt like a disappointment, a step down. Mostly, you learned to live with Mr. Kampos’ little quirks.

The latest thing that Tobin Kampos was absolutely not wrong about was the status of the so-called “AI” responsible for Equestria Online that was making some news in tech circles.

“I mean, there’s no way you could set up a real artificial intelligence in this day and age,” he maintained, gesturing grandly with his spoon over a heaping bowl of raisin bran.

Copernicus always had a well-stocked breakfast bar; nothing said that an early workday couldn’t include a team-building meal, after all.

“I mean, sure, in fifty years or a hundred, someone’ll crack it - hey, maybe even somebody here - but saying they’ve got one today, a real general purpose intelligence, that’s just silly.” The spoon swooped back and forth with his words, finally crash-landing in the milk-filled bowl with some force. “If you could make an AI now, we’d be doing it here already. It’s all hype.”

Bruce was always at the table when Tobin held court at breakfast; it was just good sense, and the man was never boring to talk with. Now he nursed a latte and waggled his free hand in the air. “I don’t know, man, some of the stories I’ve been hearing - there’s something strange going on with those PonyPad things. You know my daughter’s got a pony tutoring her for math classes now?”

“Yeah, I know, you can set up something with another person playing the game, Bruce, they just look like a pony. That’s how the damn thing works, isn’t it? You play around as a little cartoon horse?”

The sentence was punctuated by a scoop of soggy cereal ferried with just a little too much force from bowl to mouth, and Kate Olwyn, one of the other managers, saw an opening to chime in.

“My wife is just crazy for it. She made herself a little avatar and everything, spends half her free time playing mini-games - says it’s better than other sim games ever were. Meanwhile, mine just asked me if I wanted it to organize my calendar - does a damn good job, too. The company behind it’s got to have made some kind of breakthrough. What was it called again? Halfapeer?”

“Hofvarpnir,” Tony corrected, “And sure, they’ve got to have some kind of proprietary software breakthrough. Maybe they figured out how to make a procedural game that doesn’t turn into repetitive garbage after a while. But that’s not a real AI, that’s just some tricks of coding dressed up all fancy.”

Unnoticed by anyone at the table, the PonyPad in Kate’s bag recorded everything and streamed the conversation to be analyzed and catalogued.

---

“So, first you take the derivative of the angle…”

The dappled auburn stallion held an open textbook in one hoof, the other gesturing evocatively as he explained Cauchemar sequences with every evidence of enjoyment. His young student was having a little more trouble drumming up enthusiasm, but she was trying.

Sharp Angle really had the dreamiest eyes, Emily thought. It was amazing how that dark gleam could come across so well in Equestria Online’s cartoonish style, catching just a faint hint of the light filtering through the schoolroom’s windows - and from her character’s perspective, the well-built stallion was an impressive presence, just shy of “looming”. Under Emily’s bed was one of her sketchbooks, one that her father definitely did not know about, and Angle had featured in it with increasing frequency since he had volunteered to help her keep up her grades, specifically in the advanced calculus class she had been struggling in.

His real identity wasn’t something she knew for sure, but she had a sneaking suspicion her father had hired him - maybe one of his lower-level coworkers - as a carrot to the stick of threatening confiscation of the game if she didn’t do well enough in math to stay on the advanced track.

Said stallion gently cleared his throat, and Emily jerked a bit in her chair - where, in real life, the sky was overcast with low-hanging clouds and a dismal spray of rain speckled the window panes. On the PonyPad, it was a lovely autumn afternoon, the kind where the sun’s slanting rays turned everything faintly ruddy and all but lit the leaves afire, and set off the reds of Sharp’s mane as he tapped a hoof and raised one eyebrow at her. Emily felt herself blushing, though of course he couldn’t really see her - just Rock Roller, her character. Then again, she’d seen other ponies showing pretty human expressions around town, so maybe he could see it after all.

Thank Celestia, he interrupted before she could spiral any further down that mortifying train of thought. “I know this can be some pretty dense stuff. Why don’t you take a break? Then we can go over that homework you were having trouble with.”

“Thanks, yeah, I - I’m just having some trouble focusing.” Sighing with relief, Rock Roller stood from the desk - shuffling his notes into an untidy pile with a careless hoof - and went out to get some fresh air for a bit, a stiff breeze ruffling his short, tousled mane.

---

Anyone who had seen the habitual state of Rachel’s apartment would have been stunned by her neat, tidy workspace in the Copernicus design lab. It stood out in stark contrast to her coworkers, most of whom had a few personal knick knacks or at least a potted plant, but she didn’t mind. For Rachel, the more organized her work, the smoother it went. As such, it hadn’t taken long before she looked into the help her PonyPad, and her Equestrian friends on it, could provide.

She didn’t trust the game with anything serious, of course. Industrial espionage was always a concern, and there was no such thing as a security hole some enterprising rogue couldn't take advantage of. More general questions, though, and having friends double check her math, well, that was safe enough.

Once she created a character and got past those first few quests every MMO had to have - here’s the UI, here’s how to use it, experience points good, here’s how to make friends with people, have an easy achievement or two - she had been surprised to find that the Equestria of the game had some serious tech disparities with that shown in the show.

Sure, Pinkie Pie had a hot-air balloon, but Ponyville never really showed anything in the way of tech beyond a steam train. In Equestria Online, though, Twilight Sparkle had introduced her to some eager amateur rocketeers in Ponyville. Magic could, and apparently had, led to some odd technological leaps in this version of Equestrian history.

Thinking of the hour-long debate that Landing Skid and Sine Wave had had the other day over crystallized versus free magic for fuel sources still made her laugh under her breath. Either they were a couple of very dedicated RPers, or someone writing NPC dialogue had put some real dedication into some pretty obscure real-world rocketry references, judging by the references to red fuming nightmare mana and the search for the perfect hypergolic rune.

Her desk had a dedicated spot for her PonyPad now, the camera on it discreetly covered by a sticky note while she was in the office. Twilight hadn’t been happy about that one.

“I understand you might want some privacy, but if you cover that up, I can’t see you!” The unicorn mare’s expression was full of concern as she looked over, a worn copy of Anna Currynina faintly glowing purple as it bobbed in the air in front of her, a needle paused in the act of rebinding it with stronger thread.

Booster Rocket had been helping her organize returned books in Golden Oaks, the kind of chore that was easy but satisfying, helping Rachel’s busy thoughts quiet down before she went to bed in a way that flipping through videos never had. After the rocky introduction, Twilight had become one of her best friends in the game, though that odd turn from their first conversation never entirely left her mind. The library tree brought back fond memories of younger, less crowded days spent perusing crowded bookshelves, and to her delight and mild surprise, the game seemed to have plenty of content in and around the stacks.

“I mean, yeah, Twilight, that’s the point.” A copy of Donkey Xote went above Madame Bovinery, and below The Brothers Karabakhskaya. “My job - my, ah, ‘Outer Realms’ job - it’s got some pretty strict rules for that kind of thing. I’m honestly surprised the managers let me bring you to work at all, no matter how helpful you are at organizing and running searches for me.”

Twilight looked pleased at that last, a thick tome titled “MATERIALS SCIENCE” levitating briefly off of her desk as the pages whizzed open. “Fastest referencer in the West, that’s me!”

Spike’s eye-roll from his little pillow fort - the better to avoid being accidentally conked by a flying book with - was nearly audible. “You should see her when you’re not here, Booster. Twilight takes it as a challenge to have every possible piece of info you might need on hand. She’s been ordering textbooks and research journals from all across Equestria!”

“Spike!” Twilight tried to scowl, but dissolved into a laugh. “It’s true. I just think what you’re working on is so exciting, and I want to do everything I can to help! Which is part of why I wish you’d let me see your workplace. I’m sure it’s an exciting place, even if it is as messy as your apartment…”

Booster tried not to feel defensive about that. “Listen, Twilight, I’d love to show you I can be neat when it matters, but I just can’t, all right? It’d get me in big trouble. Maybe even get me sued.”

The conversation died for a few minutes, both of them stacking and sorting and repairing here and there, until Twilight spoke up almost absentmindedly. “You know, we’ve been hearing a lot about your boss over in Equestria. He seems to have a lot of friends, and a lot of...not so very much friends, on your side. He doesn’t have a PonyPad, does he?”

Rachel shook her head and laughed at that, and Booster Rocket mimicked the gesture. “No, Tobin is - well, he loves tech, but he likes it the way he likes it. He wouldn’t want to play Equestria Online unless he was the one who came up with the idea, and I think he just views it as a silly kids’ game, no offense.”

Twilight cheerfully assured her that there was none taken, and by the end of the evening, Rachel had forgotten all about the conversation.

Comments

[Goodluckfox]

I love this story so much. :) Creeping DOOM!!!

[StarrySkies]

10830992
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying

[Chatoyance]

Your book titles... oh gods... your book titles!

BOOK TITLES!

[StarrySkies]

10842778
I'll be honest, that was mostly a chance for me to indulge in the worst puns I could create.