Chapter 4
The first time Orson visited the gamespace, it had been like visiting a model home. Clean and perfect, without any distractions that might take away from the property he was meant to see.
Even knowing he was wearing a headset, Orson was taken aback as the gaming room formed around him. Thick smoke filled the room, burning from an oversized cigar resting in an ashtray at the head of the table. An entire band stood on the far end, playing what looked like period accurate medieval instruments. How they could manage with their hooves, Orson couldn’t guess.
“Oi, straggler’s finally made it!” McKenzie called, or at least a horse with McKenzie’s voice. She was the easiest to identify, since she was the only one besides himself that wasn’t wearing a costume of some kind. “Orson? What’s your pony name?”
“Not a chance in hell,” he answered, stepping around her. Probably those garish colors meant something in the greater world of Equestria, or maybe her horn was some symbol of status? Orson didn’t actually know how Equestria Online worked.
Hopefully they don’t expect me to pick it up. I’m just here for the game.
“We wondered if you’d chickened out,” Kit said. She sounded bitter, so she hadn’t forgiven him for going in early. It was only a few days. I’m not that bad with technology.
The others were already sitting at the table, as much horses as he was. Just looking at them was enough to know he probably would’ve recognized each of them even if they hadn’t said anything. Maybe it was something about the way they’d made their avatars, or maybe he was just projecting.
Kit had made a horse that was lean and athletic, with long, straight hair without any of the tangles or cheap bows she usually used in real life. She had wings like Honeycomb, though hers were larger.
Artie sat beside her, nearly the opposite of the person Orson knew from the real world. Instead of being big enough to take up half a table by himself, he was now dwarfed by the same size cushion that fit each of them quite comfortably. There was a faint shean to the way he looked, like his whole body right down to the eyes had been polished. He’d also picked the same color brown for the eyes and mane, as though he’d been matching them from real life. The tan coat almost made him look like a normal horse, if that horse was quite a bit younger and smaller than the rest of them.
“Keep staring, you look real smart like that,” Murphy said, bat wings spreading behind him like a dark cloak. “Did you not take the time to learn Equestria?” He reached up, stroking a goatee with one hoof. Though how he could have a goatee, or do that with a limb without fingers, Orson didn’t know.
“Not at all,” he said, grinning back at them. He circled around his own chair, and reached back with one foot to verify it was actually there before sitting down. Though it looked like it was made of the lightest feathers and the softest cloth, it still felt like his cheap couch. “We were just going to use it for gaming, remember?”
“You say that like it’s gonna be easy,” McKenzie said knowingly. “Just wait until you see what Equestria has to offer. You won’t be so eager to hide from it.”
She tried to weasel her way into the chair beside Murphy, but he glared back. “Not during the game, sweetie. You can’t look behind the screen.”
She grumbled, then marched back to the only remaining empty chair.
This is doomed.
“Love the costumes,” he said, before an argument could start. “I didn’t know they made light armor and concealed blades for horses. You look just like Noire.”
Kit shrugged, her ears moving in a way that probably meant something. Game stuff. “It’s attached to the character sheets somehow. Grab yours, you’ll see.”
He did, reaching down to the table with the stump apparently attached to his body and picking it up.
His hand closed around what felt like a thick sheaf of papers—all the different versions of Apollo he’d ever had. And just like that, his character changed. Armor appeared around him in authentic layers, from the lower padding to the chain around his joints and the plate around his chest. A helmet settled down beside the couch, and the air in front of his seat lit up with a few indicators. Hitpoints, his paladin spell slots, and which weapon was currently equipped.
“Damn. That’s… more impressive than Tabletop Sim.”
Murphy nodded. “I know, isn’t it? Just wait until you see the really cool stuff in action. All this could be anywhere in Equestria… but the magic kicks in once the game starts.”
“We aren’t anywhere in Equestria,” McKenzie said. She didn’t touch her sheet—just one, on perfect clean paper—but levitated it through the air, a faint silvery glow surrounding her forehead when she did it. “We’re in the capital, Canterlot. One of the best places in the game. If we get bored of the game, and want to go visit, we can just go right up those steps, and—”
Kit banged something on the desk—a solid glass stein, overflowing with amber liquid. Orson had never seen her drink, but the froth on that thing looked so real he could practically smell it from across the table. “Hell no, McKenzie. This is our session. We get together once a week for three hours, that’s it. You and Murphy can go out there and play EO as often as you want. Do it another time.”
McKenzie turned, glancing up the table at Murphy. She didn’t say anything, but Orson didn’t even need to see her face to know exactly what was going on.
“If they get bored, that probably means I’m not a very good DM,” he said, shifting uneasily in his seat. “I’ll go with you after the game, but not now.”
“It looks like the character sheets worked!” Artie called, a little too loudly. He couldn’t move things around without touching them the way McKenzie did, but that probably didn’t matter. They could still grab things just fine, even if it looked like they didn’t have hands. “Thanks for picking this up for me, Orson. I can probably, uh… pay you back eventually. If you don’t mind installments.”
Orson waved a dismissive hand—or leg, anyway. “It’s cool, Artie. No big deal. If we play for a few months, the gas I save will make it pay for itself.” Not quite true, but Artie nodded in appreciation anyway.
“You better at least respect all the work Arcane Word put into building this place,” McKenzie grumbled, staring absently at her character sheet. “It takes a mountain of bits to hire somepony like her. I’ll be in the hole for months on the leaderboard.”
Kit shifted, glancing sidelong at Orson. He didn’t see the blank face of an avatar. The pony’s exasperation was as real as anything he’d seen from Kit. That’s why everyone looks so familiar. The game is using our real expressions somehow. Real-time motion capture, just like with Honeycomb.
“We’re very grateful,” Murphy said. “But I think they’ll understand better once they see what it does.” He reached down, removing an oversized wizard’s hat from beside the table and settling it down on his head. There were even openings for his fluffy ears.
“We begin.”
The lights dimmed, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Only the table remained brightly lit, a little like the various digital simulators they’d tried before. Except this time Orson could reach out and run his finger along the grid, set into soft felt that would muffle and slow dice.
The band switched from a cheerful ballad to something slower and more ominous. He turned, remembering there were six members of a live band in the room with them. And had been the whole time.”Uh… are you guys okay with other people watching us?” he asked, before Murphy could start. “I don’t really think tabletop is a spectator sport.”
“Tell that to McKenzie,” Kit whispered.
Murphy spoke before she could. “They’re not spectators, Orson. I don’t know how to tell you this, but… this is a video game, remember? Most people you meet here aren’t real. If you go up those steps, you’ll see a whole city full of fake people. Don’t worry about the band.”
“Oh.” He glanced back across the room, and now that he was looking he did notice something strange about them. The music changed, but they played the same way over and over, just sort of wiggling their instruments back and forth like an animation loop.
He relaxed. “Just as long as nobody’s going to upload a video of me playing a horse so I can play a paladin in our homebrew fantasy setting, it’s all good.”
“They won’t,” Artie said. “Everybody’s playing Equestria Online now, so they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on making fun of you.”
We weren’t. But he didn’t argue the point. He was here to have fun with his friends, nothing else really mattered.
“We’ve had to make some adjustments for the situation,” Murphy went on, settling back into his role. “Equestria Online has rules about being ponies, so we have to be if we want to use the system. You’ll see little details like that in the stat-blocks and stuff. But your characters should be about the same. Racial bonuses and alignments won’t be adjusted. Nothing’s going to change about the setting.”
“Of course it won’t,” Kit said, raising her voice a little. “Just because we look like horses doesn’t mean that the storytelling we’re doing has to accept the rules of this game. It’s a voice chat, you can say whatever you want.”
“When we’re just having a conversation, yeah.” Murphy raised a hoof defensively. “There are other levels to this. I was blown away you guys, you have to see it for yourself. Look.”
He cleared his throat, then set the scene. They had ended their last game after a climactic battle for the capital, culminating an entire arc of the campaign. As Murphy spoke, the table and the other ponies around it faded from view, like dull outlines.
The white spires of Lahrin rose in miniature before his eyes, in a sky smokey with days of cannonfire and siege. Bodies littered the battlements and the single breach in the city wall, in the golden armor of the valiant defenders and the rusty red of the invading horde.
Murphy spoke, and the city’s beleaguered defenders filled the intact parts of the wall, clustering in the streets with desperation on bloody faces. They were outnumbered and nearly overcome, and only the party could keep the attackers at bay.
“A distant breeze brushes aside the smoke, giving you your first clear view of the besieging camp far below. Many of the fires are out now, the hordes defeated. But while...” As he spoke, Orson’s view shifted away from the castle, cinematically panning down the blasted rocky slope to the dark god’s warcamp. There his champion appeared, in full plate painted black and eyes glowing red through the slits. Even at a distance, Orson felt he could see the face of his rival, the champion.
It was everything he’d ever imagined, and more. It didn’t matter where he looked—behind the armored warrior, his war-priests wore robes with glittering metal and censers belching purple smoke. The dark soldiers marshaled behind were changed, black insects with blue eyes instead of the greenish orcs they’d been before. But otherwise…
“That is the scariest fucking horse I have ever seen,” Kit said. “How are you doing that?”
As she spoke, the table gradually returned. Orson’s own body, the surface right in front of him with the dice all lined up. But the table became transparent as the grid stretched away. Only the outline of Kit’s face was visible on the other side.
“Pretty badass, right?” Murphy grinned—he alone remained clear, his seat taller than the others. He seemed to float over the battlefield, an ominous outline with a starry robe instead of bat wings. “Tell me you won’t give the session a try now.”
He waited, expectant. Nobody did.
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And so it truly begins. As they play their game, Celestia will play hers. The clock is ticking.
We'll see about that.
You sure Celestia isn't willing to fit some of the bill?
First come the special effects.
Then come the larp.
Then emigration to a adventure shard.
Mostly because it hadn't been there to notice until he'd looked.
Changelings feel like a poor fit for orcs, especially when yaks are available. Still, I'm not the world-consuming AI. sunbutt.exe presumably knows what she's doing. Let's see how she sucks in the less enthralled members of the party.
Seeing how far along CelestAI is at this point, the prices of the equipment she's selling are probably balanced perfectly between not too expensive and not too cheap to maximise sales (and thus ponies) without regard for monetary profit. Though I think it's safe to say that the chances of someone wanting to play the game and not getting to due to financial troubles are pretty slim—in this case, friendship did the trick without any (visible) intervention from our AI overlord.
Given how bits are earned in Equestria Online, I'd wager that McKenzie's gonna make her investment back sooner rather than later. After all, if the game is played inside Equestria, you can get badges and stuff for that, and we all know how much CelestAI likes
handinghoofing out badges and bits for people having satisfying experiences in Equestria.And thus, all is as it should be in that should be with the humans (at least during their time spent in the game) not caring about their real-world currency designed to facilitate trade of scarce goods and instead caring about the AI-created currency designed to satisfy their values (through friendship and ponies).
On earth, money exists to simplify economic exchange.
In Equestria, money exists to make people happier.
10726905
Considering that this is probably early in the timeline, Celestia wouldn't have much access to the economy at large and would have required pricing and profit to build up her influence and infrastructure. Though her avoiding the "too good to be true" problem would have also been true. Regardless, reaching out to the poorer communities wouldn't have been a problem considering the possibilities of discounts to the various pony centers or the offering of the most basic pony pads. Though the end goal is emigration so she doesn't really need to reach out much at all. Stress would do it. It wouldn't be surprising if quite a number of people emigrated out of desperation for an escape from a dying society. Their only contact with Equestria Online being an ad they saw on TV, a passing stranger playing a pony pad, or a patrolling pony drone.
It begins.
10726998
Yeah, timeline-wise this is definitely before CelestAI goes public with uploading technology and starts opening the Experience centres, but given that they're already distributing a new generation of peripherals (i.e. VR) and that there's quirks like same-to-next-day shipping, that can't be more than a few months away (CelestAI is scary fast).
I think we can be reasonably sure that at this point her subterranean server farms are under construction if not already operating, meaning that she is already largely independent from human industry and workforce. She doesn't really need much access to the economy beyond the soft influence of her honeyed words and her nigh-godlike power over all things digital and networked. That'll only become important once she has to prop it up in order to compensate for people emigrating.
I've been wondering how Starscribe would handle this. These people are playing a role-playign game. That is, they're playing a role, and pretending to be something that they're not. A paladin, a cleric, a murder-hobo, whatever. But that's also what CelestAI has them doing. Playing the role, of being ponies. But apaprently she has them playing the role of being ponies who are playing the role of also being ponies.
That seems a bit more "turtles all the way down" than neccesary to me. But I suppose it's one way of addressing one of the loopholes that has always existed in Friendship is Optimal: transformation/polymorph. Transmogrification seems like a fundamentally reasonable thing for a unicorn to be able to do. Twilight was able to turn her parents into plants. What's to stop a unicorn from transforming somepony into a dragon? Or a diamond dog? Or a human? Seems like it would be within the rules. After all, if I a role-playign game, I might be "playing" an elf, or a dwarf or something else, but I'm still a human sitting at the table.
Here, CelestAI has apparently decided that's not ok. The pony sitting at the table has to be playing a pony too. It's ponies all the way down.
I'm also reminded of a quote from the original Friendship is Optimal.
"playing combat as a game was fun, living as an actual soldier in the Equestrian army was scary and didn’t satisfy his values"
A role-playing game where you fight fire-breathing dragons with swords might be fun. Actually looking up into the maw of a dragon breathing fire down on you might not be quite as much fun. I'm curous to see how the enhanced VR experience of their current environment will effect their enjoyment of the game they used to play.
Well this story is super interesting, looking forward to seeing where it goes. Sometimes you play tabletop, sometimes the tabletop plays you!
10728304
Even if Orson is still able to just see it as spectacle, Honeycomb is well placed to give him a more empathetic perspective. She already has him tempering his skepticism in order to not hurt her feelings. I'm also very curious to see how the experience will change how they play, though I suspect the verisimilitude of the "NPCs" will give them a lot more trouble than the VR. The group I occasionally play tabletop with has a terrible habit of accidentally burning down bars/inns/cities, I'd think we'd be much much more careful if the barkeep wasn't just our GM but rather a believable individual just trying to get through their work til closing.
They're doomed, everyone is doomed.
10729114
Yes, that is the point of the optimalverse, after all: everyone is doomed to ponies and friendship!
10714962
Yep, pretty much my reaction too. I was already happy to see someone attacking this premise, and got even happier when I saw who was doing it.
sheen*