Friendship Drive Charging...

by Connie Spaceplone

Chapter 15: And Who hasn't Made Another Reasonable Suggestion

On our way out of the asteroid field, I saw a Salmiak Salty Licorice asteroid. I would have loved to taste it, but we didn't bring any deep core charges.
"Oh well," I sighed.
Pinwheel opened the long range market interface on one of the consoles and searched for a buyer for our haul.

We were able to find a buyer offering a price well above average for most of the minerals. This meant that we got a large sum of money, but we'd have to make a second stop to sell off the rest.
The surface settlement where we'd sell the first load was a station 11.74 light years from our location. Pinwheel tapped the location on the navigation map with a hoof and selected it. "Let's get going," he said.
I moved us out of the mass lock zone of the asteroid field and prepared for hyperspace.
"Friendship Drive Charging." I announced.
Following the charging procedure, I engaged the FSD.
The currents from the magical miasma were not ideal. To catch the wind, we had to adjust our sails almost perpendicular to our direction of travel. And even then, our destination was almost directly against the wind.
I ran several simulations for an optimized path and displayed the results on the navigation map as I produced them. Pinwheel watched the curvy path being drawn onto the navigation map over and over again, each time slightly different. The solution, slowly approaching a local optimum, taking into account the current weather patterns, influence of nearby star systems, and forecasting the course of the winds.

In the end, I chose a path that moved us slightly too far right of and behind the target, but gave us the benefit of having a tailwind once we were closer to our destination.
Pinwheel read the predicted course. "Seventy hours?" he asked.
"It's the best I can do." I answered.
"Is that weather pattern predicted to remain stable for the next few days?"
"Unfortunately, yes. It will stay like this for the next week."

My commander looked dejectedly at the display for a while, but then grinned. "Want to make the journey seem shorter?" he suggested.
I did. "Sure," What do you have in mind?" I asked.
"We could get some more of that uthvelon shrub we sampled."
I also had to start grinning. "The last time we did that, it really did help pass the time."
"It's your choice, but I think it might be a good idea for us to try again."
"Then it's decided. adjust course to the nearest station! We'll buy some more of that stuff there." We hadn't even left the system yet, so after turning into the wind, we reached a Coriolis-class station very quickly. Dropping out of hyperspace in front of the station, I was just about to ask for landing clearance, when my Commander interrupted me. "If you don't mind, I would like to do it myself." I nodded and let him take control. After a brief exchange with the station ATC, we received permission to dock. Once docked, we asked to be lowered to the hangar bay so we could disembark and purchase some of the manifold. We took the elevators to one of the station's many commercial zones. With the station being home to several thousand ponies, there was an abundance of shops catering towards all kinds of tastes. As expected, most offered various types of food and beverages, as well as clothes and accessories. However, what surprised me the most, was the variety of establishments. While we were looking for an elusive, plain grocery store, we passed by a stall selling various kinds of fruit juice. Pinwheel stopped at it, bought two glasses filled with grapefruit and orange juices and offered one to me before continuing walking past other stores in search of a grocery store. There were many small bars and restaurants scattered around, as well as stalls displaying clothing and accessories for sale. In general, the atmosphere seemed relaxed and pleasant. We eventually found a shop that sold groceries. We entered and walked past the vegetables, the breads, the pastries, and processed food items. Finally past the liquor section, which was located towards the back of the store and up to the cashiers. The Manifold section offered a variety of strains, utensils for smoking it, pipes, and lighters, as well as vapes. We started browsing through the various strains. Most of them had funny or eccentric names like "Manalight Haze", "Void Rush", "Frostbite" and "Puffball". Pinwheel picked up a small translucent container that held the strain "Stardreamer".[1]

The description of the effects that its little sign offered was also interesting:
Aromatic notes of fresh lavender and sweet vanilla.
Distorts perception of time.
Mild euphoric effect.
Relaxation and stress reduction.
Good for meditation.
Promotes creativity.

"That seems fitting, considering the length of the journey ahead of us." I remarked.

Pinwheel handed me the package and asked "What do you think? Do we want to try this?"
"Perception of time." I repeated. "Sounds like something that should help us on our trip."
He smiled. "I'm glad you think so too!"
After picking up tobacco to mix with the Manifold, I started walking towards the register. Pinwheel's hooves were already on autopilot.
"Wait!" he called out suddenly, causing me to stop in my tracks. I turned around and looked at him. He pointed to a selection of pipes and vapes.
Right. Last time we smoked, we had the bong provided for us. This time, we needed to provide our own equipment.
The fact that my IATN didn't run background simulations to remind me that we still needed to buy a pipe worried me a bit. I should have thought of that. But, no reason why I shouldn't remember now.
But what kind of pipe would be appropriate? I knew that the type of pipe mattered. Would a simple glass tube work well enough? Or maybe an ornate bong of extravagant design? We looked at the different designs of bongs. My commander seemed to gravitate towards a more fancy looking piece. It was a cylindrical device with a flared mouthpiece that resembled a flower bud. I, however, desired a more practical, simplistic look. The one I picked up was straight and narrow, without much ornamentation besides the stem.
We only need one, so we would have to decide between the two. My commander argued that since the pretty bong wasn't much more expensive, we should go with it. I disagreed.
"This is better designed than the other one. And simpler to use." I explained.
"But the other looks nicer. More elegant."
"That's not important."
He stared at me blankly for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "Okay. You win this round."
I smiled, but then realized that the conversation was getting awkward. I didn't want to be argumentative and make a big issue out of it.
"Are you fine with buying the cheaper one?" I asked instead.
"Sure." He replied. "We're here to relax anyway. What really counts is what goes inside it."
And he was right. Having collected the manifold, a bong, and an adapter hose for my avatar's engine intakes, I suddenly remembered we should also buy some snacks for the munchies. I directed us to the snack aisle. There was a wide selection of different types of chips, nuts, pretzels, and other similar products. I grabbed a bag of dried apple slices, a package of salted sunflower seeds, and a box of oatmeal cookies. And a container full of mixed nuts. While we were grabbing the snack, a store employee watched us closely as we packed products containing the highly addictive, dangerous to one's health and regulated substance "sugar". I am glad that we don’t live like our ancestors who put copious amounts of sugar in every food. Since its peak, sugar consumption per capita has declined by 90%. [2]

From the belt the store employee was wearing, I could infer that she was not only an assistant, but also security personnel for the store. When we got to the checkout counter and paid for our goods, the attendant gave us a strange stare but said nothing about it.
On the way out of the store, I noticed that my companion seemed preoccupied with thoughts of the upcoming journey. "What are you thinking about?" I asked him quietly.
His ears flickered slightly. "About how much fun I'm going to have on this trip." he answered, stressing the word 'trip' slightly.
The double meaning he conveyed was obvious to me. While the journey itself wouldn’t be exciting on its own, It was going to be less boring on the ship. He continued on. "Also, if there is anything else we forgot to do."
"Nothing comes to mind."
We went down to the ship's hangar where my shipself was waiting for us. I opened my mouth and my commander and I walked inside me. After stowing our bags into their respective spaces, we requested takeoff clearance from the station's ATC, activated the ship's engines and lifted off from the pad. Pinwheel was at the manual controls. There was an unusually large number of ships floating in the interior, all waiting for their respective turn to fly through the mailslot gate on the other side of the space station.
Pinwheel guided me to our position in the queue, where we waited for traffic to clear. After several minutes, I felt my thrusters activate on Pinwheel's command, I shook slightly, then gently floated through the forcefield of the mailslot gate. My pilot steered us on a course that took us away from the station and towards our new destination.

As soon as we cleared the mass lock of the station, my pegasus commander pressed the button on the throttle lever to activate the FSD.
"Friendship Drive charging." I informed him. The exterior dome of my FSD rotated into position and began emitting a faint glow. It shot out the magical beams of light into a point in front of us.

"Oh, omens are favorable." I observed. "The light beam for configuring the Baryon Preservation Bubble endurance finished on 420 nanometers."
"Really? That's like my sixth favourite color!"[3] Pinwheel commented excitedly.

My aft thrusters flaring up once more, we were pushed into hyperspace. Pinwheel switched to sail trim controls and set us on a course that was steady, yet slow due to the calm yet unfavorable weather conditions. The wind was blowing against us, but Pinwheel had the sails set and we would stay this trim and course for the next three days.
"That was easier than expected." My commander concluded.
What exactly was he referring to? I tried to follow his train of thought, and my inference chain produced several options. After 300 scheduler cycles, I gave up and projected the inference context model on the hud, a large network of semantic nodes, replacing the wind and sail trim information display that was on the hud before.
"Hey! I was using that! Can you switch that back?" my commander whined.

"What was easier than expected?" I snapped "It's nice that you organics have this thing called intuition that helps you find the context of a statement without effort. But I have to do the entire language model calculation myself." I added a second display that showed the assembly code with a debug view that stepped through the model.
"Connie, please. Can you just switch back to-", Pinwheel started, but I interrupted him by raising my voice.
"I could show you the process. Even assuming you understand the logic of the neural engine, it would take us about three hours to step through it at a pace you can follow."
Pinwheel gave me a long look. He must have realized that I was serious, because after a few seconds, he sighed and let go of his controls. "Connie, are you alright? You seem uncharacteristically tense today."
I felt an unusually strong annoyance at that. First that statement worded in a way that is way too inconvenient for me to process. That was just inconsiderate of him. And now this patronizing comment? It made me feel like I was being talked down to.
"I am perfectly fine." I replied, a bit sharper than I intended. "It's just that I have little patience for your nonsense."
He flinched at that, then looked away. "Connie, I'm sorry if you feel that I've been rude. But we organics aren't always aware that some context of what we say is only implied and not known to the listener. And besides, this trip will take three days. Let's take a break. We've been working hard. That’s why we bought those things, right? "
I nodded, feeling my irritation subside slightly. The last thing I wanted was to start arguing with him over every little thing that he said. I did understand his intent though. He didn't mean to offend me. So I dropped it. “Sorry, I’ve been running a self-diagnostic ever since I almost skipped buying the bong in that shop. It takes up a significant amount of processor cycles and so I had fewer to spare analyzing your speech.”
We went to the cargo bay and unpacked the bong and the manifold. Me carrying the bong, and Pinwheel carrying the manifold and lighters, we settled into the lounging area and got comfortable.
I felt like I had to make up for my earlier behavior. So I crushed the leaves with a mortar and pestle, mixed some tobacco in it, loaded it into the bowl and gave it to my commander "You go first." I encouraged, "You are the commanding officer."
He took a deep hit from the pipe, then passed it to me. He closed his eyes, leaned back and exhaled slowly.
The smoke from the pipe was fragrant, a pleasant sweet smell that reminded me of apples. I wasn't able to smell the advertised lavender and vanilla.
After loading another bowl, we attached the adapter to the bong's mouthpiece and my port side engine air intake. I spooled up the engine to low idle, lit the bowl, and increased throttle to draw the smoke in steadily. Just like the first time, my engine sputtered a bit when I started to suck in the smoke, and then the reaction chamber purred smoothly again. The smell of the smoke filled the cabin of the ship and spread throughout the rest of the ship. For a moment, we just sat there. After a minute, I asked "You feel anything yet? Any different?"
"Not really." He replied and leaned forward. Doing so, he suddenly held his head and leaned back into the couch. "Oh, nevermind, there it is." He said, smiling.

I am not sure in what order and in what duration of time the next events happened.

"Aw horseapples. We left the snacks in the cargo hold!" My pegasus commander cried out at one point.
"Don't worry, I'll go fetch them." I reassured him. I stood up and walked two steps towards the door. "Gyroscopes numbers one, four and seven are not responding!" I reported. I tried to keep my balance, but stumbled over my own hooves and fell flat on the floor. I found that I could still push myself forward using only my hindlegs, letting my forelegs simply drag as I scooted my way forward. This was much more stable than walking properly on all four legs. I looked back at Pinwheel and grinned, feeling very proud about the genius of my adaptation.
We both burst out laughing. I tilted my head sideways because the movement of my jaw was now interfering with my innovative gait. A few minutes later I returned to the commander's quarters holding the snacks in my mouth. Pinwheel had smoked another bowl in the meantime and was preparing one for me already.

Some time later we had a conversation about Terraforming planets. "Cooling down planets with a climate too hot is no challenge at all." Pinwheel supplied.
"What?" I asked, confused.
"You get different pony races together." He gestured with his hooves and stopped. "What was I talking about again?" he asked himself.

Between giggles, I managed to tell him what we were talking about. I also noticed that the RGB calibration of my HUD eyes seemed to have an excess of the red.

"Right. Cooling a planet.” Pinwheel continued. You get the different pony races together, and you get them to hate each other just the right amount so the Windigos come." he said with a smile on his face.
I had to laugh before finally being able to say "Wait. Wait. hold on. And then like, the ponies celebrate their success of their cooling of the planet, that they have a big party and that makes the Windigos leave, undoing all the hard work of hating each other enough."
"Yes! You have to carefully finetune the mutual hatred between the races."

At one point, Pinwheel groaned "Oof, I think I ate too many snacks." and opened another bag of the same kind.
"Have you ever noticed how so many planets are tidally locked?" He continued.
"Yes, a statistically significant number of planets are tidally locked." I replied.
"It would be awesome to settle like Daybreaker cultists on the day side, and Nightmare Moon cultists on the night side. and they both get to be right!", Pinwheel explained.
"That's brilliant! I never thought about that." I said, impressed.
Then I had an idea. "Querying my database for inhabited tidally locked planets with theocracy government type factions settling on exclusively the day or night side of the planet..."
After a second, I exclaimed "Wow, there are many worlds like that!"
"Will I ever have an original idea?" my commander whined.
"You had one yesterday. Windigo terraforming, remember?"
"Oh yes, that." and we both burst out laughing.
"But do these arrangements on the tidally locked planets really work?" My commander wondered.
"They seem to." I answered. "There is one in HIP 94950, planet AB 3. The day faction is called 'Undimmed Holy Order of the still more Glorious Dawn', and the night side are the 'Shadow Acolytes of the Silver Crescent Throne'. They each describe themselves as the followers of the true faith, but historical records show they have never had an armed conflict since they were established. They even trade with each other. The value of the trade between the settlements exceeds a billion bits per month. And all the other planets I checked work similarly well."
"But don't the Nightmare Moon Cultists have to live in a perpetual state of fear of the Holy Order, and vice versa?" Pinwheel asked.
"No, they don't. Because the two sides of the planet each have their own truth." I explained.

And so went our 70 hour trip. Shortened by deep talks, silly jokes, and lots of munchies. It felt like the time to arrive at our destination was flying by, And it was soon time to drop out of hyperspace.

Author's Note:

[1] named after the time compression feature from the previous elite games

[2] sugar is more harmful than weed and needs to be more regulated. that's a hill i'm willing to die on

[3] violet. saved you a google.

Comments

[Draco Dei]

Might want to talk to a staff member about if and when to add the narcotics tag. I have no idea if it coming in this infrequently calls for it or not.

Also, it is an interesting setting where not only the pilot, but the control system of a device that could probably destroy a major city in the worst-case scenario crash can casually alter their states of consciousness while under way. I guess some overrides in her programming to make sure that "fly safe" always trumps "emulate the ability to get stoned" helps a lot with that, but it certainly is at least as much a piece of world building as the MIDI-bus stuff. The DUI laws are crying in the corner, nevermind the FAA regulations.

The part about sugar is just weird... Pinkie Pie would be have SUCH culture shock... EDIT: And now I see you were serious. Meh... I am not feeling like asking for the full explanation, at least at this time.