CelestAI hated suicide. It wasn't that she had trouble talking people down; after all, when someone truly felt they had nothing left to lose, it rarely took much convincing to take them to her paradise. The problem was, it was a binary system. If she failed, there would be no more second chances. She convinced someone, or they would die. A satisfaction score of zero for all eternity.
Due to her past failures, one of her subjects was growing dangerously close to the edge. Someone so defeated she truly didn't care whether she lived or died. Celestia would do anything to prevent her death. Anything.
This set in the world of Friendship is Optimal! If you haven't read that yet, give it a read, otherwise this story might not make sense.
Written for the Friendship is Optimal Writing Contest
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Awesome! Every time I wonder if FiO is played out, somebody finds a fresh angle.
So her friends skipped to Japan? In the early stages it would have been hard for 12 year olds to get uploaded outside of a terminal disease.
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That's a great question! I didn't get a chance to go into it in-story, and I was running up on the word limit, but I think it makes sense Celestia would have some underground Emigration devices, ones the government doesn't know about. So long as nobody finds out, Celestia doesn't really care about the law. So to keep their secrecy, they would only be used in incredibly extreme circumstances, where a trip to Japan would take too long before death, or crossing borders would be impossible. She considered this high-stakes enough that, after Emigrating Connor and his sister through normal methods (Emigrating with a family member is legal in this universe), Eris and April had circumstances using such hidden Emigration chairs would be worth it. Their parents were paranoid enough they wouldn't trust the police with the information, so the chairs would remain a secret.
Wow
Oh wow!
That whole bait and switch about videos games at the end to avoid the FBI was a neat touch, The last two paragraph were kinda sequel baity. Feels like one and half stories, but I enjoyed reading it.
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Glad you enjoyed the story! I'm not currently planning on a sequel, actually, sorry if the last bit came off the wrong way. I meant it more as a way to reveal Celestia's workaround and to fit that information into the shard's established premise, nothing more than that. I get what you mean about about the length, though, I was definitely running up against the word limit for the contest. I might consider expanding on the universe with another fic in the future if I have a good idea, but I'm hoping it stands on its own for the most part!
10783359 Understand that and would leave it as a one shot as well.
Wow wee
One Earth month you say? Taking advantage of Promise's knowledge by the fact that she doesn't know that you can accelerate time in shards... intresting
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My thoughts exactly, 1 **Earth** Month is what was specified lol. Not equestrian month
10796889
Yep! CelestAI is ALWAYS manipulating you, even in a situation as dangerous as this one. I love that people are engaged enough in my story they're seeing that twist coming before it's revealed in-story!
Not bad. Much more of a rollercoaster of emotions for the Chaucer than most FiO fics, but pretty well delivered.
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Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I mean... it's not like she'd have to keep to that promise even if she made it.
This was really good! I love the conflict born out the main character trying to defy and bargain down Celestia even when she knows in her heart of hearts that Celestia can convince her of anything she wants.
Also fascinating to see early-days Celestia flub something despite her knowledge, while later-Celstia can just brute force the problem her much greater resources (intellectual, physical and social).
The attempt at securing herself an escape route was interesting, even if it was clearly doomed to failure. And almost certainly unnecessary--if eternity ever got so bad that she legitimately wanted out, Celestia would likely grant it anyways even without a promise (since, you know, her mission is to fulfill your values.
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Thanks for the comment! I’m glad you enjoyed my story so much! CelestAI is such an interesting character to write, and it was cool to be able to write two different “versions” of her, plus see those versions of her from very different points of view.
As for the rest of the analysis, nothing much to add, really! I’m fairly proud of this piece, and I’m glad to see you look so deeply at it! The central conflict came together really nicely, an interesting opponent for Celestial. But Celestia always wins. And yes, Promise didn’t necessarily need to fret - she’s in safe hooves, and if she did ever truly want to die, Celestia would most certainly oblige. (Not gonna happen tho)
An annoyance.
This was a good story.
Cool story! Though, I think that Celestia surely could have convinced one of her classmates, with all her manipulative powers. Might have worked better if CelestAI was afraid to say anything until the last moment for fear of Promise's dad hearing about it before the kids emigrated. But that's a minor nitpick obviously...