Timescales

by Bicyclette

Part 1: Neurochemical

A photon strikes a protein in a receptor cell in the front of a retina. The protein folds, and changes shape, igniting a chain reaction. Enzymes are released. Neurotransmitters are transmitted. By this receptor cells and others. Enough for their ganglion cell to respond.

Sodium gates open. Depolarization occurs. Potential increases. A threshold is reached.

The neuron fires.

A signal is sent down along its axon. She is joined by millions of her sisters, all heading towards the same place. The visual cortex of a brain. There, the work begins, pooling these signals into the components of an image.

The consciousness that inhabits the same brain as this visual cortex calls herself Starlight Glimmer. She is not aware of this image. She never gets the full raw feed. At the maximum, maybe, the 0.3% of her visual field that is the focus of her pupils at any one time. The rest is filled in by a guessing game occurring deeper in her brain through the process of pattern-matching. What she sees at any one time is a world of hallucinations and fantasies merely suggested by the reality in front of her.

But that is if she can focus on just what she sees. That does not even consider the emotional connections. The higher associations. The ones that make her see more than the pattern of the toppings on a Sugarcube Corner cupcake, but rather a reflection of the smile on the pony who created it. The ones that make her see more than a grin that is just too wide to be genuine, but rather reminders of the sins she has committed.

The ones that make her see more than the glimmering cerulean eyes of a certain gray earth pony, but rather an entire world.

The consciousness is an idle poet, composing useless love sonnets on the bank of a river in the mid-afternoon. The consciousness is a parasitic, unemployed layabout.

The visual cortex has a job.

Many jobs, but it is now doing one of its most important ones. The visual cortex detects movement. Of large objects. Towards it.

If upper management could see what the visual cortex was seeing now, she would think of words like “rockfall” and “mortal danger” and “100% certainty”. But the visual cortex does not waste time with such things. Not only is the visual cortex mute and illiterate, but the visual cortex cannot think. If it could, it wouldn’t be as efficient.

The visual cortex relays its message to its coworker. The autopilot. The autopilot, too, has a job. Far too important and time-sensitive to be able to afford even informing upper management. To process information and make decisions in a fraction of a second, much quicker than upper management could ever do. It doesn’t know what a rock even is, but the moment it saw that image it would know that if its body stays in place for even a second longer, it will die.

Thankfully, unlike the consciousness, the autopilot is capable. Capable of executing complex instructions that are, perhaps ironically, too information-dense to be understood by the consciousness named Starlight Glimmer, who always takes the credit for its work anyway. After all, she would tell herself, she spent years as a filly learning the basics of that teleportation spell, and years afterward polishing the technique.

But could she tell you how it worked? How the dense bundle of fibers forming the cranial nerve (XIIIu) running from her brainstem to the projection of keratin on her forehead had one end rooted in the secular world of ionic gradients and electron flows, and the other in the ever-flowing stream of magical energy that permeated every cubic centimeter of her planet? How unlike the thaumamotor neurons of the pegasi and earth ponies, these were capable of interventions far more refined than the crude telekinetic force projection that was so useful for both flight and fight?

Well, to be fair, neither could the autopilot. But at least the autopilot knew the correct firing patterns, trained into it by those years of practice that the consciousness directed. The consciousness herself had never learned a thing.

This is how it would go in the best case. The information reaches the autopilot in time. The decision is made. The spell is cast. Starlight Glimmer finds herself teleported to safety in a crackling flash of magical energy. Her consciousness becomes aware of what happened only after the fact, panting heavily as the panic of the cortisol and adrenaline hits her.

The gray earth pony shouts her name in a panic, then realizes what happened, and that everything’s fine. She pats the chunk of basalt in her frock reassuringly, glad that such an innocent being would not have to witness something so horrible. Then she realizes that only Starlight Glimmer could have survived something like that. She realizes that that is perhaps why, subconsciously, she had let her go first when exploring this unknown cave tunnel, something she would never do with anypony else. Because, in the back of her mind, Starlight isn’t like anypony else.

She goes back on her decision to make her interest in the unicorn known much more explicitly than what should have been needed on this, their dozenth or so date. She goes back on her interest in the unicorn at all. In unicorns at all. Clearly, something isn’t right here, in this imbalance of power. That is all this incident means for her.

Starlight Glimmer is also under a misconception. She had come close to death many times before, after all, in her adventures both against and for the sake of Twilight Sparkle and her friends. But this is by far the closest time. But if she realizes this, if mortal creatures realize in general how fragile their lives truly are, they would never get anything done due to being paralyzed by fear. Her mind works as it should, irrationally dismisses the incident as no big deal, and quickly forgets about it.

This is what happens in the timeline you know. It is a tragedy in the sense that any budding romance cut short is. But you already know this story. You know that at least one of these two ponies manages to find true love before she dies, so if it’s a tragedy, it’s not too bad of one.

That is not the tragedy we are telling today. We are in a different timeline, where things went another way. This is what happens here.

The information does not reach the autopilot in time. It is far too late. The barbarians have already breached the walls. The hollow matrix of calcium that makes up a unicorn’s skull is no match for its tougher and much more massive distant cousins. The consciousness is never aware of any danger. There is simply no time, even if she were not preoccupied with her own interior thoughts. In this case mostly revolving around the previously mentioned gray earth pony, somewhere a few dozen paces behind her.

One moment, she is there. The other, she is not. Everything she is, was, and would be, destroyed forever in an instant, never to return.

The procedural routine of how to play a guitar with hooves. The memories of a village of ponies enslaved. The complicated gratitude towards a princess, now a friend, who was once a sworn enemy. And most tragic of all, what she felt towards that gray earth pony whose panicked cries she would never hear. The world in her cerulean blue eyes that she would never see again.

A year passed.

Comments

[bobbananaville]

The procedural routine of how to play a guitar with hooves instead of hands.

Wait, before anything else - Starlight used to be human?

Also, wow this was depressing. I liked it a lot, though. Well - not liked, I can't like a death. I was emotionally moved by it.

[Bicyclette]

10581945
Whoops, didn't intend that interpretation! Edited it out.

[Gay For Gadot]

The detached descriptions and prose that dominate the majority of this chapter are a bold stylistic choice. One that I feel paid off. This is especially apparent to me because I started reading this story with the thought that Maud would be the one to die, not Starlight, so the fact that Maud ends up as the surviving partner makes the style feel... more suitable, I guess. Like there's more distance placed between what happened and how it felt.

She goes back on her interest in the unicorn at all. In unicorns at all. Clearly, something isn’t right here, in this imbalance of power. That is all this incident means for her.

I can see your thoughts on unicorns carrying over here. It makes sense that Maud would analyze such a thing in a similar way, I think. The disparity between Earth ponies and the other two races isn't one that the show wants to tackle outside of Winter Wrap-Up and Hearth's Warming (along with The Ending Of The End), but I can't imagine no Earth ponies (particularly studious ones) haven't considered it.

But if she realizes this, if mortal creatures realize in general how fragile their lives truly are, they would never get anything done due to being paralyzed by fear.

Indeed. Can't stare too long into the abyss, after all.

A year passed.

Timeskips, beyond being a way to move the plot forward, usually imply that nothing significant happened during the "lost time" as well. I'm not sure if that's intended this way (yet), but, if so, the implications are pretty heartbreaking. It happened, a year passed, and, now, here we are...

[Bicyclette]

10589010

The detached descriptions and prose that dominate the majority of this chapter are a bold stylistic choice. One that I feel paid off.

Thank you! I thought it was a necessary one given the timescale it takes place in.

I couldn't figure out how to write this for my Thematic Commentary, but one of the themes is "helplessness", which is most often interpreted as "helplessness in the face of a greater power" (present in Biographical), as well as "helplessness in the face of long timescales" (present in Geologic), but one thing people don't consider very much is "helplessness in the face of short timescales". Our conscious minds simply are not present, and the actions "we" take are actually done by the parts of us that are not "us", in a sense. This makes describing what happens at this timescale inherently alienating and detached.

I can see your thoughts on unicorns carrying over here. It makes sense that Maud would analyze such a thing in a similar way, I think. The disparity between Earth ponies and the other two races isn't one that the show wants to tackle outside of Winter Wrap-Up and Hearth's Warming (along with The Ending Of The End), but I can't imagine no Earth ponies (particularly studious ones) haven't considered it.

Yes, the equality between tribes is NOT tackled very thoroughly by the show at all, but nopony talks about it. Except Maud, in her stand-up which I linked in the Thematic Commentary, though you may have seen that since I see you left a comment there. That is what informed my Maud's changing stance on unicorns. Also, obviously, this is the only reason she could possibly have to decide to start a relationship with Mudbriar over the two lovely unicorn ladies in her life!

Indeed. Can't stare too long into the abyss, after all.

Indeed.

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

Goodness but this opening was powerful. So sci-fi in a way that made the sci-fi fan in my heart scream for joy.

And then Starlight died.

That... it hurt, surprisingly so for such a short piece.

Also can I say how much I love the way you interpreted the nervous system and its connections to magic? Absolutely brilliant.

Now for the next chapter.

[Sledge115]

What a start.

I really am stumped for words, and I can't exactly pinpoint things because... wow.

It's like seeing a painting unfold with mine own eyes, each sentence a stroke of the brush. This is heartbreaking and amazing all at once, Bike.

[daOtterGuy]

Howdy, hi!

Damn, what an opening. Unrelated introductions that feed into a greater narrative are always a 50/50 shot. When they work, they are amazing and truly set the scene for what transpires later in the story. When done poorly, they confuse and bewilder the reader taking them out of the story and removing investment. In this case, it is an example of the prior.

The establishment of the scientific process behind processes of the brain is intriguing and gripping in a way that draws you in wondering where the story would go and then punches you with the emotional moment in the end stating the "what if" scenario of the story.

It's a solid hook and a good setup. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

[JSAR1562]

I do not have the time to express exactly how beautiful this chapter was neurology assassinating and beautiful and Rich and I am so glad somebody appreciates it as much as I do.