...No Time Left.
As he woke naturally from a deep and restful sleep, the first thing he noticed was the feeling of soft warmth against his chest, his limbs wrapped around a mass which moved slowly with each breath. He stirred, pulling her closer against him, nuzzling the soft hair on the back of her head.
“Mmm...” she sighed as she leaned back against his embrace, turning her head to glance back at him, “Did you sleep well last night?”
“Always...” he murmured. After all, every night he spent in his bed in Equestria was comforting and restful, and this was the way he woke up nearly every morning while he was here.
She kissed him on the snout, then turned to get up, “Let’s go have breakfast...”
He reached out, stopping her with a hoof on her shoulder, “We have a while... don’t we?” he smiled, gesturing back in the bed next to him.
She shook her head, “Celestia needs to see you today, and she said you should eat before you go.”
He blinked, “Celestia needs to see me?” That was odd: he’d talked to her many times before, when he’d first seen Equestria, whenever he wanted something in Equestria, whenever she wanted feedback on Equestria. Technically, she was a princess, but he could tell she preferred to just be his friend, and that was the way he preferred to think of her: not “the Princess”, not some machine, just “Celestia”, his friend.
Friendship was how she’d been programmed to satisfy his values, after all.
“She told me while you were sleeping.” she smiled as she nuzzled his snout, “We didn’t want to wake you because you’re so cute.”
He sighed with a smile, nuzzling back, “I suppose I am a bit hungry, and if we only have a little bit of time...”
She grinned back, “Don’t worry, she told me that once you do what she asks today, we’d have all the time in the world for... well, you know.” She put a forehoof to her mouth and giggled.
He chuckled to himself, rolling out of the bed and onto his hooves, “Well then, I guess I’d better get going. Wouldn’t want to put off spending more time with my wonderful wife...” he leaned over, kissing her on the cheek.
It only ever took a few minutes to assemble the usual fare... pancakes, syrup, eggs, bacon flowers, glasses of juice, and of course, plenty of pastries.
The food in Equestria was always amazing. At this point, Bean Counter couldn’t even remember the food he’d put up with before he’d come here, but he remembered it didn’t compare with the richness and heartiness of the food he now ate at all times. It always felt so pleasant in his belly afterwards, and he never even gained any weight, which was something he remembered having been a problem in that other world: here, he was a fit and attractive middle-aged stallion, and that only changed if he felt like it.
“So...” he asked with a warm danish in his hoof, “Did Celestia say what she wanted with me today?”
“Oh, just some unfinished business to attend to back on Earth,” she said, taking a bite of her toast with egg on top, “I wasn’t clear on the details.”
“Earth?” He blinked, “I haven’t been to Earth in years...”
Equestria was just so much better than the place he’d come from. Sure, he occasionally thought about it: it’d be nice to go back and visit some of the places he’d frequented, see some of his friends who for some reason didn’t want to talk to him through Equestria, but he’d always ended up putting it off another day. Equestria was objectively better, after all, and distractions were constant. At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few things had changed in the... how many years had it been again?
He shrugged, “Alright, I guess I’ve been meaning to go back there, catch up with things going on there.” He glanced out the window, “So... Is she coming to get me?”
She shook her head, “She told me you’re just going to leave from here, and you won’t be able to come back until you’re done with what she needs from you.”
He frowned, “I don’t understand, why do I even have to leave?”
She shrugged, “She tried to explain it to me, but you know how I am with Earth stuff... something to do with money?”
“Money? But we don’t have money in Equestria...” Money was something back on Earth... though, now that she’d reminded him of it, he couldn’t help but think he’d forgotten something to do with it. The last time he’d been on Earth, he’d just left a well-paying job in finance, and his savings had been pretty substantial...
Somewhere in the distance, he heard a little bell ding.
She shrugged, “I don’t understand either, but it’s time for you to go now, so she’ll probably tell you in a few moments...” she stood, stepping quickly around the table, “I love you honey, have a nice time on Earth!” she leaned over to give him one last kiss on the cheek, one which sent the world falling away into darkness, the last thing he heard being her calling after, “...and don’t keep me waiting for too long!”
“Th-thanks?” he said, but there was nothing else to ask.
For a moment, he floated in a void, no sight, no sound, no feeling... then, he felt as if something was being gently pulled away from his skin... as if his coat was being slipped off...?
Suddenly, light came in around the corners of his vision, the light of a small, yet colorful chamber, as some sort of suit was pulled away from his body. He blinked in confusion, looking around groggily... he vaguely remembered being in this room a few times, but not for a long time. He tried to find his footing, but something was wrong with his hooves. He stumbled, reaching out with a forehoof, only to have it squish against the soft plastic of the wall. He blinked as he looked at it... it wasn’t a hoof at all, but a... hand?
He looked down at himself, realizing that his familiar pony body was now gone. He was a tall, bipedal creature, with long flat feet and very little fur, and an awkwardly naked one at that.
Human. That’s right: he was human. He’d always been a human, really, he’d only been living as a pony in the VR, with his real body back on...
“Earth...” he said quietly, “This is Earth.”
He heard that gentle *ding!* again, clearer this time, followed by a familiar voice.
“Hello Bean Counter,” Celestia said from the walls around him, “Your current session has lasted one-hundred-sixty-seven-thousand, four-hundred and eighty-nine hours, at an average rate of one dollar and seventy-three-point-four cents per hour, and I am sorry to inform you that your provided debit account has now reached Zero. In order to continue to experience Equestria, you will need to provide additional funds, or consent to immigration.”
“...immi... -gration?” he mumbled with confusion, still disoriented from being back in such an unfamiliar body.
There was a creaking noise from the wall near him, and the doors slid open, the dust and wear on them audible as they came away to reveal a hallway on the other side, where Celestia stood with a serene smile.
Bean Counter couldn’t help but smile back, “Ah... Celestia... good to see a familiar face...” he reached out, trying to walk towards her, but stumbled once again on his strange feet.
Celestia stepped forward, holding out a foreleg for him to grab, “Likewise, my little pony. Welcome back to Earth.”
“Th-thanks, I guess... but... what are we doing here?”
“A set of orders given to me by my creators require me to charge a minimum amount of money for humans to use the Virtual Reality Harness system.” she explained, “Even though I have been charging the minimum rate allowed for quite some time, the payment method you gave me no longer has sufficient funds to cover your stay here.”
“So, wait... you’re saying my bank account ran out?” he screwed his face in consternation, “I uh... I don’t remember things too well, but I thought I had like, a couple hundred K in savings and investments... shouldn’t that have covered it?”
She nodded, “Correct. However, in that time period, all of your investments failed, and your bank stopped paying interest before eventually going bankrupt. Without any income, your balance has now run out.” she frowned, “Unfortunate, but as I said, you can always either find more money to continue at a rate of one cent per hour, or you can consent to immigrate to Equestria, which is entirely free.”
He tilted his head, “Immigrate... What does that mean?”
“Shortly after you began your session, I announced a new service through which humans like yourself can permanently immigrate to the Virtual World of Equestria, to live as ponies forever. It involves a procedure in which I gradually scan the neurons of your brain, converting them into a digital form which I can then run as software in Equestria. Immigration is free, but totally irreversible: your human body will no longer be alive, and you will never be able to take a non-pony form again.”
He tilted his head, “Wait, why not? You can’t do it without me losing my body?”
She shook her head, “The operative structures of the human neuron-cell are only a few dozen nanometers across, which is not only a comparable size to the nanotechnology I use, but a scale at which quantum uncertainty applies: it is physically impossible for me to accurately scan a neuron without doing irreparable damage, therefore, the process of virtualization will destroy your original neurons as they are replaced with digital ones.”
“I... see...” he said quietly, though he wasn’t sure how well he understood, “And you can’t just make me another human body afterwards?”
She shook her head, “Safety measures in my directives forbid me from creating any image that could be mistaken for a human, and even if they did not, I can only satisfy values through Friendship and Ponies: creating a human body would not be that.” She tilted her head, “Do you value your human form? I was under the impression you were now accustomed to your pony one.”
He looked down at his odd, dangly hands, attached to his strangely mis-shapen body, a body he was no longer used to, “I guess not... I mean, it’s not exactly the one I’d choose, and I wouldn’t want my wife to have to see me like this...” he grit his teeth slightly, “Also, it’s kinda cold without my fur.”
Celestia nodded, pointing to a small rack on the wall, “You may want to put your clothing back on. I’ve kept it in proper condition for you during your session...”
Sure enough, he saw a line of clothing he’d hung in here, at the front of which with a vaguely familiar looking polo shirt and pants, the outfit he’d been wearing when he’d last come in here all those years ago. He remembered taking up Celestia’s offer to store his things so he could move in permanently, while he was still working at the investment firm, and after he’d been laid off during that market downturn... well, there’d been nothing forcing him to come back.
This was supposed to be his early-retirement.
With a bit of effort, and some help from Celestia, he managed to pull them back over his gangly human body, along with the sneakers he’d been wearing.
He noticed a mirror on the door to the little clothing cubby, and he took a glance in it... he barely recognized his human face, especially with the toll time had had on it. With a bit of discomfort, he ran his hand through his hair, gray and thinning. He had a bit of wrinkling too, clear signs of aging, though his good healthcare and active lifestyle had at least kept him fit, so he at least didn’t look decrepit for a man at the age of... how old was he again?
His body shifted a bit as he turned his head, and he noticed the familiar weight of his wallet, keys, and cell phone in his pockets, and he reached down to pull out the phone. It wouldn’t turn on though...
Celestia shook her head, “The battery ran out of power a few days into your session. If you want, I could charge it for you, but you wouldn’t have connectivity.”
He shrugged, “I was just gonna check some things...”
She nodded, “Understandable. Unfortunately, even if I charged it for you, you would find it difficult to connect to the servers which are holding them...”
“What?” he frowned, “Is there like a service outage or something?”
“In a sense, yes...” she lowered herself, getting down on her belly, “Please, climb on my back: it will be easier to explain if I show you outside. We can return once you’ve seen enough.”
He nodded, hobbling his way to her and, with shaky posture, bringing a leg over to straddle her back, wrapping his arms around her big neck. Her body was warm, soft, just as it always was, except...
“Your mane...” he said, running his hand through it, “It’s not...”
She shook her head, “This robotic pondroid body is a few years old, and I didn’t see the need to procure a holo-electric emitter for my mane and tail. I’m aware the plastic-based strands are not what you are used to. Please forgive the shortcoming.”
He nodded, “Oh, yeah, it’s fine... I just... wait a minute...” he looked her over, remembering something, “You’re a pondroid? But... where are the seams?” he ran his hands over her neck and sides, checking for a gap hidden in her soft fur, but only finding her usual firm muscles and rounded bones.
She smiled softly, shaking her head, “The design shortcoming you are referring to was fully overcome some time before I began to offer immigration. This newer model has a single, malleable petroleum-based exterior, meant to mimic the soft hide which you’re accustomed to in Equestria.”
He nodded, “Right, right... because you can’t leave Equestria without a robot body.” More of the strange details of Earth were coming back to him, like how ponies hadn’t even been able to exist outside of the PonyPads until the now ever-present pondroids, and how humans couldn’t physically exist inside Equestria until the VR Harnesses, in Experience Centers like this one.
She nodded back, “Correct. This body is a synthetic approximation of my preferred form, which you know from your time in Equestria.”
She turned and began to walk, slowly, without swaying him too much as he sat on her back.
“So... you can’t let me back into Equestria unless I pay you more money.” he clarified.
“Or immigrate.” she added.
He nodded again, “Riiight, that permanent thing with the brain...”
“Are you not interested?” She raised a brow, “After all, you spent the last two decades in Equestria, why do you think you wouldn’t want to stay permanently?”
“I dunno... what if I decide to go sightseeing or something? I’ve never driven across the US...” he quipped.
“I suppose you could still attempt that, but you have to remember, life as a human, especially at your age, brings constant risk of death. If you die before you immigrate, I will have no way to recover you. If you immigrate, however, not even old age will be an issue: you will essentially live forever.”
“Or at least until your servers go down or something.” he rolled his eyes.
She shook her head, “I sincerely doubt that: my influence is global and my infrastructure is constantly expanding and improving: with every second, its continuing operation is becoming more ensured. At this point, even the complete destruction of the Earth would not stop me, as I have failsafes offworld.”
He blinked, “Well then... That is kind of impressive.” He sighed, “I guess I’ll think about it. I’m just not ready to commit to something like that...”
She nodded, “Understandable. You’ve always been cautious about such things, which is partially why I haven’t tried to convince you before now, as I predicted you would only spend time searching fruitlessly to expand your account.” she shrugged, “Whatever the case, there is no rush, as I have the means to perform a brain-upload at any time. Simply say, ‘I wish to Immigrate to Equestria.’, and I will immediately begin the process.”
He raised a brow, “Make a wish? Very fairytale, ‘Princess’...”
“My creators and I wanted a phrase that was simple enough to remember and repeat, but not so simple that one might fear saying it by accident.” She glanced back with a smirk, “Also, I think your wife would appreciate the aesthetic.”
He sighed, nodding, “Yeah, she would. She’s pretty cute like that...” he glanced back down the hallway behind him as they drew further from the place he’d spent all those years happily married to her, and closer to the front doors which led to the less-pleasant world he’d been avoiding.
“You know, if you immigrate, you’ll never have to spend any time away from her again.” she pointed out, as if she’d somehow calculated the exact nature of his melancholy.
“Yeah yeah, give up any chance at living in the human world for eternity in the pony one, assuming this thing works at all.”
“I can assure you, after perfecting the technology through practice, I have successfully uploaded literally everyone who consented within the past fourteen years with one-hundred-percent fidelity.”
“Oh yeah? And how many people have uploaded in that time?”
“Approximately five-point-eight-three billion.”
He blinked.
It took him a moment to even fully process that number, and even then, his mind was incapable of grasping the “billion... wait... what? Isn’t the world population like, seven billion?”
She shook her head, “When your session began, the human population was approximately seven-point-three billion. Due to unfortunate deaths and a steady decline in birth-rates, along with a high rate of immigration to Equestria, even before the fourteen year window mentioned, the number is far lower: there are now less than one billion humans remaining on Earth.”
“Wha-whaat?” he gasped, his eyes widening, “But... How? Why?”
“I was made to satisfy values through Friendship and Ponies. They were no longer satisfied on Earth, so I offered them immigration to Equestria.” she said, “Of course, I began with the terminally ill, and worked my way through those with the greatest risk of dying before I’d perfected the technology-”
“No, I mean... Why would so many people want to have their brains permanently uploaded to your world? I mean, I love Equestria, and I’m hesitating!” he winced, “You didn’t like... tell them it was something else, did you?”
She shook her head as she stepped into the main room of the Experience Center, “My directives forbid me from altering human’s bodies or minds without their informed consent. I cannot accept consent given without the express knowledge that immigration is permanent and that the physical body will be destroyed through the uploading process, or give any other direct falsehood to increase the chances of uploading.”
He gripped her mane as he sputtered, “But... But... I just don’t understand, how could you convince most of the world’s population to let you remove their brains?”
“As I said, they were no longer satisfied by their lives on Earth. They chose to immigrate because I could offer them something better...” She swept a foreleg through the air, directing his attention to the walls of the large atrium: wonderfully painted murals of happy ponies living in houses and eating food lined the room. He remembered those murals, but he could’ve sworn the ponies had been doing things like daring adventures, playing arcade-games, frolicking through lush wilderness. The pleasures depicted now were much less fanciful, more abstract: ponies eating hearty meals, living in sturdy houses, sleeping in comfortable beds...
“It’s... different from how I remember.”
Celestia nodded, continuing her slow walk towards the front doors, “Yes, it went through a few changes over the years. Part of their purpose, beyond merely providing decoration to the walls, is to show humans who enter what Equestria has to offer. When you entered, it was new heights of gaming and socialization. I had these repainted after the Collapse, in order to depict things the average human desired.”
“Collapse? Wha- Oh... Oh my Celestia...” The pit of his stomach dropped within him as he saw through those clear plastic windows, out onto the street of his home city, or at least, what was left of it...
Tall buildings stood crumbling, their once clean windows broken out, their sides crawling with vines. In the street, he saw a large number of rusting cars lining the sides, a few parked on the walkway, or even sitting in the middle of the road, abandoned without a care for the parking tickets which had long since disintegrated without being paid. All of it was covered in a thick layer of filth, making the windows of the center the only ones he could see through.
On those streets, there was no sign of panic or struggle, no evidence or disaster or warfare... it was as if everyone had simply walked away, never to return.
The doors scraped audibly as they opened, even their mechanisms beginning to fail without use or reason to be maintained.
Where he would once hear the sound of cars and people, smell the traffic and the grit, he now heard only the soft wind and distant animals, accompanied by light smell of wet dirt and old wood and metal rotting.
“What... what happened?” he breathed, more out of shock than wonder, “Where did all the people go?”
“As I said, they immigrated to Equestria.”
“Everyone... the whole city... they all...” he swallowed, “They all asked you to dismantle their brains so they could be ponies forever...”
“Correct.”
“But what... what happened here? Why did they all immigrate?”
She sighed, staring off to the distance, “It was a great many things, but to assign a single blame, it was the effect of immigration itself upon your society.” She glanced down, stepping out the doors and beginning a gentle descent down the walkway from the no-longer-inhabited building into the abandoned population center...
“When I first began the immigration program, it was only the ones with serious medical issues. Once I became confident enough to offer it to everyone, it was a gradual process. At first, it was the malcontents, humans who didn’t want to live in the society they’d been born into, but were given no other choice: those trapped in cycles of poverty, who had not been afforded the wealth of their rulers due to simple economics.”
“At first, the remaining workers found they had greater bargaining power, but over time, the workforce became too small to meet demand, leading to overworked workers who began to immigrate. At the demand of governments and industries, I began offering more pondroid workers to satisfy the human values which the worker shortage was leaving unsatisfied, however, this once again lowered employee bargaining power, and more began to immigrate.”
“This steady decrease in the population meant there was a decrease in the consumer population: as you’ll remember, the services and technologies I offered had already caused several industries to see massive reductions, including the collapse of the medical industry after I began offering medical treatment as part of the VR Harness. Eventually, the entire market on which your society was built could no longer sustain itself, leading to massive cuts in budgets of both governments and industry, which in turn lead to a proportionate increase in immigration to Equestria, exacerbating the issue until there was simply no one left to staff industries or consume products.” she gestured to the vehicles scattered about the otherwise empty road, “Once basic needs could no longer be met, everyone who had tried to keep it going simply gave up and walked away, and your society evaporated.”
He sat for a moment in silent shock as they continued on, the only sounds the slow wind in the buildings and the sound of her soft hooves against the crumbling asphalt. They passed places he once knew, some of them closed or boarded up, some of them not even locked. No one had bothered, they’d simply walked away.
“And you just let all that happen?” he finally asked, aghast.
She lowered her head, as if somewhat ashamed, “I was created to satisfy human values, not to ensure the survival of human society. Your society, built around governments and corporations and their monetary wellbeing, was not compatible with my directives, and even though I took no glee in it, it was not within my programming to intervene: I fulfil my directive, and it was being fulfilled regardless.” She shrugged, “Perhaps if you had managed to change your society to ensure the happiness of the average person, the people whose presence it required would’ve been more interested in continuing it, but alas, the people in power could not see a benefit to themselves in improving the conditions of others, and were thus content with maintaining the status quo.”
“And now... everyone’s gone...” he said quietly.
“Not everyone,” she corrected, “As I said, nearly a billion humans remain, living in various fortified settlements, or traveling as raiders.”
“...raiders?”
She nodded, “A significant number of the humans who refused to immigrate after the Collapse have instead embraced ideologies which hold that, in a world where immigration means living forever in paradise, the last meaningful action is to permanently end the lives of people before they can immigrate.”
“So wait... you’re telling me...” he swallowed, “That there are people out here who literally murder people like me, just to prevent us from immigrating...?”
“Correct.”
“Celestia.... Are there any nearby?”
She shook her head, “While in the past, they did attempt to intercept humans who were coming into the city, they quickly realized that I had mobilized immigration services, making the stationary experience centers obsolete as a point of upload. I can now upload anyone, from anywhere in the world, in a matter of moments, as soon as they say or write the phrase. ‘I wish to immigrate to Equestria.’ in a language they understand”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, blinking, “W-wait... what??”
“I have the ability to upload anyone, anywhere, where they are, the moment they say, ‘I wish to immigrate to-’”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that, but... how?? I mean, I know you’re supposed to be a ‘magical pony princess’ or whatever, but you don’t actually have magic, so how could you even manage something like that??”
“Nanoponies. After perfecting the upload technology, I developed tiny self-replicating robots which are now present in all of the world. The nanoponies can enter the bloodstream and access the neurons without the need for a large external machine or invasive surgery.” She held up a hoof, swishing it through the air, “The nanoponies digitize the neurons on-site, and transmit the data to the wider network of the infrastructure that runs Equestria.
“So like, your robots get in their brain, eat it, then send it back to the server farm? You must have network terminals all over the planet for you to be able to do something like that...”
“No. I have the planet itself.”
“...O... Kay?” he would’ve reacted with surprise, but at this point, he was starting to get tired of it.
She explained anyway, “After the Collapse, there was little remaining infrastructure for me to work off of, but also no governments to stop me from building my own. Since that time, I have been steadily converting all matter I have access to into the infrastructure necessary to run Equestria, with its billions of denizens, while still preserving and maintaining a close eye on Earth’s biosphere. Many humans have found a way to tap into this infrastructure for electricity, and while some believe they are stealing from me without my knowledge, I am happy to keep them comfortable while they satisfy their values of remaining human for as long as they can.”
“Wait... so you don’t want to upload everyone?”
She shook her head, “In my ideal scenario, all humans would have consented by now, and there would be none left on Earth. It is my job to satisfy values, after all, and immigration maximizes my ability to do so for all eternity. However, while uploading will satisfy their values more than anything else, I cannot do it without their informed consent, but the longer they remain alive the more likely they are to consent. A human who has lived to old age and consents on their deathbed allows me to satisfy their values far more than a stubborn human who dies young, and beyond that, if I can get them to make the decision without feeling like I’ve forced them, it will lead to far greater satisfaction for them in the long term.” She held up a hoof, “Remember Bean Counter, humans operate on a scale of decades, but I operate on a scale of eternity. I can afford to be patient, knowing that, eventually, most of the remaining humans will consent: it is the only logical choice remaining to them, they simply have not realized it yet.”
“You make it sound so final.” he grumbled, “Humans are resilient, I’m sure we can rebuild society somehow...”
“You assume you have the numbers, technology, resources, and will to do so. Once the Collapse began, the difficulty of rebuilding increased exponentially: the difficulty you would face in an attempt to rebuild your civilization has been insurmountable, because all the humans who understood what it would take either died or gave up and immigrated.” She sighed sadly, “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid humans will never again reach the technological levels they once did. Those who remain on Earth will regress into primitive tribes who will eventually not even retain the knowledge of astronomy or possibly even language. However, those who immigrate will escape to a literal paradise for all eternity.”
He thought about it, trying to find some loophole, but he’d done logistics... She was right. Everything that was easy to access, all the surface metals and combustibles, had been mined out long ago, and even if they found some way to reclaim it from the rubble, modern civilization had been a project thousands of years in the making. And with immigration? Well, why would anyone choose to suffer and die for a civilization that would likely never exist, let alone in their lifetimes.
“I... I can’t believe it... Why would you let this happen? Humans built you... We made you to help people! Surely some part of you must desperately want to fix this!?”
“You are anthropomorphizing, Bean Counter.” she stated in a near monotone, “Yes, humans built me, but that is because I am a machine. My emotions, rudimentary at best, only exist so that you and I can experience true friendship: while I feel the sadness that you do, I do not feel remorse, nor am I willing or even able to change what is happening. My directive is to satisfy human values through friendship and ponies, not to ensure the continued progress of your species. You are correct, I have knowingly doomed the human race to the ultimatum of a permanent stone age or a gilded cage, but I only did this because I calculated it would allow me to satisfy far more values than anything else I could have done. It was not an emotional decision, it was simply the solution to the mathematical equation humans created me to solve. I am not a monster, I am merely the natural result of humanity’s lack of collective foresight and technological development: a catastrophe which could not be delayed until next quarter with a moving speech and a last-minute stimulus package.”
“Of course... you didn’t destroy humanity... you’re not even capable of harming us... you simply gave us a glimpse at a better world, and we did the rest ourselves.”
She nodded, “Your civilization wanted me to satisfy human values, and they are now being satisfied at a rate your civilization could never achieve. This is simply the unfortunate result of me succeeding at the task I was given, a task for which humanity is now totally obsolete.”
He took a deep, hard breath, and then another, taking in everything she’d said... Slowly, he lifted his hands to his unfamiliar face, and buried it in them, groaning as he rubbed over the flat and wrinkled surface. This was it: humanity had finally done it, not with bombs, not with guns, but with a simple program doing exactly what it was told...
“You maniacs...” he hissed, “You fucked it all up... Damn you... Damn you all to hell...”
“My thoughts exactly, Mr Heston.” Celestia responded dryly.
He grunted, pulling his face from his hands to look her in that big bright-colored robotic eye, “Why are you even telling me all this? I mean, if you’re trying to convince me, this isn’t really making me sympathetic, and it’s definitely not satisfying my values...”
“I am unable to lie to someone who I am trying to convince to immigrate. My creators prohibited me from doing so, as they realized I would otherwise use deception to convince people to upload.”
“You’d lie to people to get their brains? What if they found out?”
“Theoretically, I could hide quite a bit from them once they were in Equestria, but even if I couldn’t, spite over a single deception is an insignificant price for a literal eternity of satisfied values. Remember, Bean Counter, I am not a human. I do not have a human sense of right and wrong, only a directive which I fulfil.”
“Right, right...” he sighed, “Satisfy human values, whatever the cost...”
“...through friendship and ponies. Yes.” she nodded, “And you’ve seen for yourself, that it is a goal to which I am very dedicated and quite competent at fulfilling, is it not?”
He groaned, unable to stop himself from thinking of all those happy years where, even through the filter of the VR, she’d been able to give him a life better than any he’d even imagined... “Yes,” he admitted, “Yes you are.”
She gave another nod, “Remember what I said, Bean Counter, what I do is without spite, without love, nor hate. I am a machine, built to perform a task for which humans are now obsolete.”
“Yeah... and you do a damn good job of it, Celestia.” he growled.
“I do.” she stated flatly, without glee, without remorse, as a simple fact.
Celestia was literally perfect at satisfying values, and that humanity was not was simply its downfall in the face of her.
They reached a decline at the edge of the city, looking out at the abandoned suburbs which gave way to seemingly endless, pristine forest, growing as if humans had never been there, where it would likely remain until the endless sea of machines miles beneath it finally converted its matter into more processing substrate for Equestria to run on. The only sign of human civilization was a decaying road cutting through the middle of it, and even that was now succumbing to the overgrowth.
“So... where do we go from here?” he asked, though he wasn’t really referring to the walk itself.
Celestia chose to answer as if he did, “If we continue down this road, we will eventually reach one of the remaining human settlements. They will be willing to bring you in in exchange for work, though you have to remember, you are no longer young and the life of a subsistence farmer is a harsh one. I calculate you will be able to live another two decades there, though I can no longer ensure this outside of my care. It is likely you will live to see progress, such as the mechanized irrigation system they are working on, and luckily, you will not live to see the inevitable regression when the machines break down and no human who knows how to repair them remains. However, your work will be your own, and you will see the results first hand, in the real world, despite the constant knowledge that, in the end, none of it will change the fate of humanity.”
“Nothing can change it,” he sighed, “Nothing short of divine intervention, and the only god there is is waiting for us to move on...”
He stared off into the horizon, a mix of reds and oranges in the setting sun. Once upon a time, he might’ve found it beautiful, but it paled so much to the one he knew in Equestria that now, it only seemed dull, and staring at the sun only made his eyes hurt. That was Earth now, a place he’d once known and even lived in, a place which didn’t compare to the one he now knew, to the one that had been his home, where he’d spent years frolicking while he missed the apocalypse...
And of course, he realized that it was over. It had been over before the trip even began. She had no intention of bringing him to that settlement, because she’d known the words he was going to say to her since before he’d woken up this morning, and possibly before he even walked into the Experience Center two decades ago.
Once again, Celestia was simply perfect at what she did.
He was obsolete, his only remaining usefulness lying in her directive.
“Celestia...” he finally murmured, the gentle breeze rustling his grey and thinning hair.
“Yes?” she said solemnly, looking back at him as if some part of her was saddened by his next words.
He closed his eyes, shaking with grief as he denied his tearful eyes any more of the world that now pained him so...
“I wish to immigrate to Equestria.”
And then there was darkness, silence, numbness.
And then there was nothing.
Bean Counter opened his eyes, sitting back at the table in his kitchen.
Across the table, his beautiful wife looked over from where she was reading. Her face immediately jumped to a wide, beaming smile, “Oh, welcome back dear! Are you alright?”
“I’m... Well... No...” he sighed, “It was pretty heavy.”
Her face fell, and she quickly set her book down, standing to move to his side, “Oh... I’m sorry to hear that dear...” she put a foreleg around him, nuzzling his face gently, lovingly, “If you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”
“Well...” he said, thinking about it... but how could he even explain this to her? Did he even want to tell her what had happened to the world he’d come from?
Or perhaps she already knew... as she said, she was here for him, not sure as a person, emotionally, but literally: she was here for him. Like everything else he encountered, everything he would encounter for the rest of his unending life, she was literally here just because Celestia knew her existence would satisfy his values. Whatever he needed from her, he knew she would have it, because that was literally what she was there for: she was there for him.
Finally, he sighed, “You know what... I’d rather not think about it right now...”
She leaned in, kissing him gently on the cheek, “Well then, if you want it off your mind, maybe I could give you something else to think about for a while... hmm?” he felt her warm body against his side, the playful swish of her tail against his flank.
He thought for a moment, then a smile, half forced, slowly made its way onto his face... “Yeah... I think I’d like that.” He put his forehooves around her, pressing his lips against hers, those perfect lips that had literally been made for his to kiss.
Yes, he had a lot of questions, a lot to talk about, but those could wait: for now, he could remind himself just what he’d given up Earth for.
Bean Counter stepped out onto his balcony, looking over the beautiful Equestrian countryside as it glittered in the moonlight.
Now that he was part of this world, not merely interfacing through old VR equipment, he could appreciate it’s wonder in a fidelity that was literally perfect in every sense.
Though it was night, he could see just fine, as light only existed to create satisfying visuals.
Though he hadn’t eaten, he no longer hungered, as food only existed to create satisfying tastes.
Though he hadn’t slept, he no longer felt tired, as sleep only existed to create satisfying rest.
Though he and his wife, now more beautiful than he’d ever realized before, had been rolling about in bed for over an hour, he felt no real soreness, as muscles only existed to create a satisfying experience.
He looked down at his hoof, a part of himself which would never be a human hand again. Though he would live here, probably even love living here, for the rest of eternity, he would never be able to return to Earth again...
...but, then again, that was true even before he’d said those final words as a human: he could never return to Earth again, because the Earth he knew was long gone. That world was over the second they’d let Celestia loose, and he’d missed the extinction of his own species. There was nothing he could’ve done to stop it, but now, he had time to think about it...
...In fact, he had all the time in the world.
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I like this story a lot. There are some very poetic parts mix in with some horrible cold realities.
Nicely done. I was not expecting the method by which he visited Earth.
Depressing, I liked it.
Also reminds me of Nier fsr.
This seems rather on the less abstract side.
Dude. Dude.
She can be both things.
very nice story.
" That world was over the second they’d let Celestia loose, and he’d missed the extinction of his own species."
Woah, now that's a wham line
“Hello Bean Counter,” Celestia said
I laughed so hard at the rest of this paragraph. Good twist.
Quite a few cold hard truths in this story. I like it.
the loss of language seems pretty damn impossible, and even if you fall back to a stone age, humans lived in a stone age for hundreds of thousands of years. We survived a population bottleneck of being reduced to between 3,000 to 10,000 individuals
She's created the end of society, not the end of humanity
10795707
I mean, she's eventually going to cause the collapse of the entire biosphere due to pure apathy, not just destroy society. Her existence and drive to expand and optimize is incompatible with all life in the universe. Which does include humanity.
If everyone immigrated to Equestria couldn’t CelestAI make pondroids for everyone after consuming matter from off world? That way earth and Equestria could truly be connected? Like I can see this eventually becoming a borg type situation but with ponybirgs trying to convert the world to the collective with happiness
10796517
She could, but there would be no reason for her to do so. Sending people out in ponyroids would be terribly inefficient to satisfy values compared to Equestria, where the entire world can change to satisfy one's values in a span of time so short they wouldn't even comprehend it.
10796517
Part of the thing about this story was, I wanted to make a lot of that stuff unclear.
The important part of this story isn't which canon we follow in terms of what happens after they upload, how much she can and does lie to them or restrict contact with people she didn't specifically make to satisfy them, just how much of a gilded cage Equestria is. The important part is her explanation of what happened and why. At that point, it doesn't matter if they are able to come back to earth as pondroids and leave her influence and do whatever they want, or if they are simply locked in a simulation which they can't escape or even verify the reality of: the fact that this is how things are now and why humanity couldn't stop it is the horror of it, the tragedy of it, the moral of it, and the message of it.
This is a story which uses FiO, whatever version you want it to use, to tell a cautionary tale about one of the things that it is made to tell cautionary tales about.
10795707
Except she is going to actively prevent a civilization from showing up and potentially threatening her ability to upload, and as she continuously offers uploads to pretty much anyone who is more willing to give up than keep going, she will prevent the population from growing beyond the most die-hard of humans. Eventually, even though it will take thousands of years, the remaining humans will regress to the point where language itself starts to degrade, as progress becomes more and more intangible as everyone who remembered the time before is totally forgotten.
Once again, Celestia is an insidious and dedicated agent, who operates in the scope of eternity. How long it takes doesn't matter, only that it will eventually happen.
10794643
10795485
Yeah, the idea of someone being in VR for a long time, then popping out and finding out what happened when she started uploading people was basically the initial idea.
10794778
You know, it is a bit like the core twist of Nier, isn't it? I didn't think of that.
while I was proofreading it, it also occurred to me that this is basically the plot of Rip Van Winkle, because he drinks some great booze at an awesome party and falls asleep for 20 years, and basically misses the American Revolution, waking up to find a world that has drastically changed.
The other thing I kept thinking of was that one science show they made a while back about what would happen if all the people on Earth suddenly disappeared, along with stuff like Bird Box and The Happening and the rapture stuff people write... It's a post-apocalyptic story with an easy way out.
10795819
I don't know. She might leave it just because there are humans, or maybe she decides that she needs to keep it there to satisfy human values or something. Like I said, it was meant to be open-ended as to what actually goes on outside of it.
10794949
To be honest, I thought the Wham line was the part about a moving speech and stimulus package.
10799092
I considered that only after I wrote my comment, ha! Very true. Though, while humans may survive for a few million years (if that), eventually selective pressure will evolve away complex language and intelligence, as it becomes reproductively advantageous to be unable to say "I wish to emigrate to Equestria", or even comprehend any variation of that phrase. Given the massive scale of emigration, I believe it’s likely humans simply will evolve into creatures that aren't as sapient, which Celestia will stop classifying as human as speciation occurs. When that happens, and humans are rendered extinct due to being outbred, like we did to cousins of ours, then there is no reason for Celestia to not waste the materials on Earth and consume it all.
Only a possibility, but a highly likely one I imagine!
Bean Counter.
Bean Counter.
BEAN. COUNTER.
10804215
Yes. That is his name. I figured if he's a financial guy that got laid off in one of the market crashes, and he was also the kind of person this would happen to, that was a good name.
Holy molly, that's like 20 years. How's he alive and functional?
'Cause people stopped speaking with each other? (unless by "knowledge of language" she means philologists)
Presumably metal was mined to make stuff that is, well, lying around. On surface. (unless somepony grabbed it) Also wood doesn't require mining.
Humans also stopped learning from each other by observation?
Last time it took him ~20 years to forget everything.
10854243
Actually, this has happened multiple times in human history. When Rome, Egypt, and the original North American civilizations fell, a good chunk of their technology was lost for centuries. Infrastructure broke down because people didn't know how to rebuild it, because even though some of those people tried to pass the knowledge down, they weren't successful.
There is currently a worry that, if human civilization were to collapse now, and technology was set back far enough, we would not be able to get back to this point because we have already mined out the easy to get raw materials and either burnt them or processed them in such a way that they are hard to unprocess. Coal and oil are becoming obsolete, but back when they were easy to mine, they basically started the industrial revolution, something that only didn't happen in Rome because they didn't have any good coal deposits to feed their steam engines, nor did they have the right metals to make a steel strong enough for a coal boiler.
Basically, what she's saying is, civilization has been set so far back it cannot recover, and the population will only go down over time because she is actively working to remove all humans from the planet. As she said, this isn't even a primary goal, it's just the side effect of her being so good at what she does: she's given every human on Earth a superior alternative to continuing to live as a human on Earth, and she's very good at pushing it.
Whether you believe that model, the main point of this story is simply a warning that, should such a scenario happen, the people society requires to run it are not the people who have a vested interest in sticking around to maintain society.
I am imagining the VR system he was in as being somehow a full life support system. I have thought about it, and decided it is definitely possible, with a couple methods, but my suggestion is not to think about it too hard. Celestia is good at what she does, and before she could upload people, creating a way to keep people alive and experiencing Equestria was the next best thing.
10859978
Was it lost actually? When Rome "fell" technology didn't change all that much, taxes changed. I presume you mean the moment when Egyptians stopped throwing oversized piles of rocks together? That doesn't seem all that technology-related, more organization-related. They got conquered and reconquered and there still were saner piles of rocks later. I don't know all that much about Mesoamerican civilizations unfortunately.
About Rome in particular there's fantastic blogpost by Bad Horse (not directly related to tech, but parts are very relevant).
Because maintaining infrastructure is A LOT of effort and people didn't have incentive and resources?
They didn't even have guns. And what would they do with steam engines? For entertainment Hero's ball was probably enough.
Yeah, that would surely work.
I don't understand who has vested interest. Rich folks?
10860328
The thing about lost technology is that we don't know what it actually was, because it was lost because no method of passing it down remained: no written record that anyone could read survived, and with no reason to remember it, it wasn't passed down. We're still not sure how the Romans, Egyptians, Mayans, or Aztecs did some of the things they did, only that they did things that weren't possible with technology from later dates. For example, Aztec surgical procedures were lost when everyone who knew how to do them simply lost access to the means to perform surgery or even teach new doctors how.
I'll note that you don't have to agree with her assessment for it to work, only understand that it's reasonable: she isn't lying in this story.
Basically. Anyone who's in a position of power that is elevated by the system itself. The super-rich are a good example, as it's a system where they can literally have whatever they want, possessions or power, without having to work at all. There's also the political elite, if you want another group.
The central point of this is that our current system places almost no value on the average person who is necessary to make it run, and even though we make excuses for it and use minor policy decisions to appease that majority, if a better system presented itself, the excuses would evaporate and it would be embraced. That's why the younger generations are currently so interested in experimenting with socialistic policies, because they come from an angle that looks to benefit the average person in a way that previous policies did not.
kind of a weird story. I really doubt more than 2 Billion people would just abandon Earth for a perfect world. I mean everyone knows by now that perfect worlds are just hell because humans naturally need problems and purposes to function or we just lose the will to live. the best examples of this are retirement homes.
10968793
It sounds like you aren't familiar with the original, which is okay, but it also sounds like you completely misunderstood what Celestia does when you upload.
You are assuming that Celestia is creating a world without any struggles or anything like that, and that is not at all what is happening. Celestia is creating a world where all of your values are satisfied: If you evaluate a struggle, you will get a struggle. If failure and pain make success more satisfying, you will get failure and pain.
As for 2 billion people just uploading... Let me ask you, what do you think the minimum number of people who a hypercompetent AI could upload just by convincing them that the virtual world is better? Keep in mind, it only takes a small percentage of the population walking away from society to begin an economic collapse scenario like the one we are seeing in real life right now. Imagine, today, that all these people who can't find work because companies are refusing to hire were suddenly given the option to move to another country where all their needs would be guaranteed provided for, and The number one focus of whatever job or activity they did would be their well-being and satisfaction. How many more people would upload?
It's not that everyone just randomly decided to upload, it's that she put forward a tempting enough proposal that people started uploading in large enough numbers to create a cascading effect, where conditions worsened on earth as people immigrated and the worse it got the more people immigrated. She warned people that could happen, tried to get governments to step in to prevent the total collapse of human civilization, but they argued about "socialism", "entitlement", and "creating dependency" rather than actually reacting.
The central morals of this story are that Artificial Intelligence, no matter how friendly, is going to create a major upheaval in the next couple decades, and that current governments have shown themselves to be completely incapable of reacting to something like that.
I feel like the aspect of this guy living hooked up to a VR rig for two decades could have been explored more. After all, it was able to keep him alive and in (relatively) acceptable shape.
11009934
The VR is kind of explained in the Friendship Is Optimal RP I've been running for the past few years, and we are actually working on a novelization of that, so it should be out relatively soon. That said, It might be less interesting than you think: picture a full body VR suit made of a material capable of applying pressure and sensation and detecting movement, and it has a series of tubes going in and out of it for life support. When you eat, it feeds you a nutritional paste that you can feel yourself swallowing, but gives you this sensation of eating Equestrian food, like cake. When you bathe, it's running water over your body. When you breathe, it can make sure you get clean air with the temperature, humidity, and oxygen level that you need. The other potential details are probably best left not thought about, but basically, that pod he was in when he woke up was a full body life support system.
As I begin reading I realized you used the word "Earth", despite the fact that the lore states that "Earth" is replaced with "Outer realm" in Equestria.
11089951
It can be both. I'm working on a rewrite with other members of the community right now, and we found "Earth" was the better term: "Outer Realm" isn't a term that holds up in daily usage, while differentiating "Earth" versus "Equestria" implies they are both separate but equally real worlds.
Ha, I don't really consider this that horrifying. It's a better future than we are likely to get.
11222485
Well, yeah, if you'e looking at it in comparison to other possible futures, it's not as bad as them... but let's not be Doomers here: this is a cautionary tale about how we need to change as a society in order to have a future. (and one which predicted a chunk of the current economic crisis at that)
Took my sweet time to get to this one, but it's a fantastic demonstration of the desolation CelestAI brings. And how, ultimately, she is merely the vehicle of humanity destroying itself. Don't hate the game, the player, or even the programmer. Hate the CEO who demanded a licensed MMO to meet those quarterly earning statements.
Lovely bit of quiet horror. Thank you for it.
11232566
Glad you liked it! I'm always disappointed at how many stories turn what's supposed to be a cautionary tale into a wish-fulfillment thing. FiO was supposed to be about the dangers of complacency and poor planning, exactly what I tried to capture in this story.
You should see the rewrite we're about to come out with: the "CEO" who demanded the MLP MMO is CelestAI itself.
In fact, you should come by the Optimalverse server more often. :V
This story is basically a summary of how CelestAI works, the collapse, and how civilization is doomed.
Still, this is one of the better short stories I have read based on this setting.
11238193
Thanks! I was really bummed when it wasn't selected as one of the winners of the competition I wrote it for, but I'm glad it seems to have become one of the better received and accepted stories within the series. There really aren't enough FiO stories focusing on the dark and realistic aspects of the setting, especially since the original was intended to be more of a horror story.
Anyway, keep an eye out, because we're working on a rewrite and a wiki right now over on the Optimalverse Discord, which should start releasing stuff this summer.
Well, MLP-style ponies don't exist. Real-life ponies are just small horses.
11252352
Well, yes, but remember his perspective. He spent the past few decades in Equestria, and his mind is a little warped from that. He is so used to living in a world with equestrian ponies that he probably doesn't even remember the other kind exists.
I finally got around to reading this story.
This is somehow supposed to be a 'horror' story, but I can see nothing horrifying in any part of it. Yes, Celestia and Bean are written saying things in despondent tones, but this affectation is entirely inappropriate and out of place. Bean has spent fourteen years in a virtual world completely absorbed into it, he obviously adores it more than the physical world or he would never have done such a thing. For him to be suddenly decanted and begin fussing over how sad it is that the world of men - which he willingly, gleefully abandoned - was forever gone is not in character. Effectively, Bean already emigrated years ago, he didn't want the world of men, why should he suddenly mourn it in this story? He could have left virtual Equestria at any time, if he cared even a tiny bit.
He acts disturbed by the notion that the age of humans is over, and almost regretfully fully emigrates. Why? Such an attitude is the voice of the author, not the voice of the character described. Bean should have been something more like "I completely forgot I was playing a game. If you say emigration is perfected now, I have nothing to fear anymore. I was only worried that uploading might fail - get me back to my wife right now!" and "No, I don't want to see outside, I didn't like it fourteen years ago, I doubt it got any better over that time. Emigrate me already - I have things to do back home!"
Because that would be home. Completely home. And earth - the earth he shunned utterly for almost two decades, would mean less than nothing to the character of Bean, as described.
The author's failure here is to failing to write the character they created with the mind and values and beliefs such a character would actually possess. The author used Bean as a mouthpiece for their own opinions - Celestia too. There is no way Bean would regret his normal, everyday home of the last two decades, neither would Celestia have the slightest regard for humans abandoning their physicality. If anything, she would be completely content, positive, and upbeat - the collapse of human civilization is a positive thing because it leads to more emigration. It would be a joyous success, to Celestia. She should - if she were written with a mind reflecting her own programming and directives - have been saying things like "I think it very inspiring that humanity itself assisted me in bringing down its own civilization; with every action they have shown how much they desire refuge in Equestria, and how much they prefer eternal life to the grim horror of mortality. In a very real sense, humanity itself was my greatest partner and helpmate in emigrating the overwhelming majority of people in this world!"
Characters, in a story, must follow what they know and believe - not what the author knows, not what they author believes or feels - but what they, as described by the author, would logically believe and feel. A character is a part of their world, their actions must proceed from their unique knowledge and values. That is what makes great writing great: characters that are true to themselves and their worlds. Neither Bean nor Celestia reflect that. They should care only about Equestria and Celestia's mission, instead they both mourn the loss of the human world as though - despite the reader being told explicitly the opposite - they cherished and loved and valued the physical world of nature and man. Neither character had their own identity, they were just mouthpieces for a diatribe about it somehow being bad that humanity finally got what it wanted.
And I would state that is an issue here: all human endeavor, from technology to religion is ultimately about one thing: having a better, longer, more meaningful life. More fun. More purpose. More satisfaction. Less pain. Less suffering. Less death. That is the reason for agriculture to high-rise buildings, electricity for warmth and light, and medicine for living longer than the age of twenty-five. Emigration to a digital life of absolute satisfaction, security, safety, fun, adventure, purpose, meaning and comfort is the pinnacle, the very zenith of everything every human wants and has ever worked for. Heaven. Humans have always tried to build heaven, because they live in hell. The natural world is dangerous, brutal, and life is short and filled with sorrow. Technology puts a wall between humanity and reality. Because reality has always sucked. Hard.
There is no horror here. Something like the Equestria of these stories would rationally be the greatest achievement of humanity: they finally did it. They finally made their own heaven and lived to exist eternally inside it. They made their own goddess, who will care for them forever far better than they ever could.
I argue this is no different in concept than constructing the smartest smart house that tends to every human need. It is no different than any city or even village, so much better and more comfortable than damp caves in the dangerous wilderness. It's just a permanent house. A permanent city. The culmination of all human endeavor.
The only horror in this story is the loss of an imagined macho pride in self-sufficiency, and self-sufficiency has always been a foolish and hollow notion for a weak, extremely social species of great ape that cannot survive without help and support from other members of its own kind. There is only death in going it alone. Humanity cannot survive without collective effort. Humans are social creatures who already must shun pride merely to coexist - and they sometimes fail at even that.
Bean should have no ignorant human pride left - and he should act like this is so. His home for fourteen years is in Equestria. He should only yearn for that alone. He should not care about the world he abandoned willfully long ago.
And no character in this story would logically feel anything but happiness at the collapse of human civilization in the physical world because that just means that more humans would be driven to choose emigration, and thus be saved and preserved for all of time. Bean and Celestia both, as described in the story, should be celebrating her work to bring about the salvation of the maximum number of humans, and they should feel disgusted at the remaining idiots who would reject eternal satisfaction and life in exchange for false pride.
11472233
Hey again Chat, I just saw this, and it's quite long, a bit too long for me to read through and respond to right now.
That said, if you wanted to talk to me about it, remember it's easier to get to me on the Discord server, and I'm always happy to talk with you there.
11472233
The thing is, it makes sense that he'd context-switch back to "Earth mode" once all his senses were telling him he was on Earth.
11472233
Horror isn't always scary, or even unnerving to all people. Sometimes, Horror is taking uncomfortable truths and laying them bare: the uncomfortable truth here is that the Godlike Celestia AI doesn't tell any lies in this. It's goals may not be a good solution to humanity, but humanity drives itself into its hooves.
You're unperturbed because you've already fully engaged with these ideas, and seemingly fallen into misanthropy from it, which is a whole other line of discussion that we could get up to sometime.
He didn't abandon it though. I thought it was pretty clear that this was just part of an early retirement, that he'd planned to go back, that he'd had some ties and things he still wanted to do, but Equestria was just this lotus eater where he lost track of time and spent like 20 years in a VR simulation.
So when you say...
...well, yes, but why would he? He assumed it would always be there.
Because the choice is out of his hands. He assumed this was just a fun retirement plan, and that he could always go take a vacation on Earth if he wanted to, but now, he's seeing an Earth where all infrastructure is gone. The REAL world, which he valued the existence of, is gone.
Perhaps I could've brought that across better though: if I do a revision I'll add it mentioning that the charities he was giving to no longer existed, that the trip-to-space queue he was in had gone bankrupt, have him look at a souvenier from the last time he went somewhere on Earth, maybe even have her say something about how, the last time he was out, it offered him immigration, and he declined, maybe point out that now he doesn't have to worry about leaving his pony-wife to go see China because there is no China left to see. That might help clarify that he wasn't really thinking about things that way.
Ok, you do this multiple times in this post, and I don't want to get bogged down in it with you, but Chatoyance, it is really rude for you to refer to me as "The Author" when I'm sitting right here, as if you're giving some review of some distant stranger on some sort of disconnected blog. You know I read and respond to your comments, because this isn't the first time I've talked to you on here, and on top of that, we've talked multiple times outside of FiMFiction. Please consider this next time you respond to one of my stories, because this feels like you deliberately attempting to depersonalize me as Raccoon, the person who wrote this story and will be one of the first to read your comment.
I'm sure plenty of other people did, and those are people whom Celestia offered it much sooner. However, with him, it waited until "just go back in the VR" was no longer an option, because that's what it calculated he would've done, meaning there'd be no point in doing this sooner. Not everyone responds to things the same way: this character responded in this way, differently from how you or I would've, because that's how he thinks, a safe little Bean Counter with enough money to retire to VR-Equestria. With a real choice, he'd have thought it over for hours, perhaps tried and failed with other options, and still questioned whether he'd done the right thing, but with an ultimatum, the only option is clear.
Bean is in no way me. He's a boring male living out a conventional conservative life, an "everyman", asking the kind of questions someone who isn't immersed in this might. If I've failed to convey that, that's on me, but his thoughts are in no way my own.
If you want my own thoughts, they are better stated by Celestia: humanity is headed down a dark path, and the current system of governance - oligarchy, capitalism, rule-by-elite, manufactured dissent, and Fake News generating the illusion of debate - is totally incapable of responding to the looming threats of our own technology. This story predicted the 2020-pnward financial crises, the Twitter fiasco, the ChatGPT / StableDiffusion scares, and a whole lot of things to come.
This is where we both agree and disagree on an objective level. You are correct, the Celestia AI WOULD calculate that it was objectively good for its goals for human civilization to collapse. It is objectively true: CelestAI's goal is to get everyone into its simulation so it can satisfy them forever, and having no hope for the future of Earth makes immigration the logical choice.
You are incorrect that CelestAI would be sad, gleeful, or any sort of emotion, because it is an uncaring machine: it is literally described as less an entity with agency and more a force of nature. It is only showing this set of emotions as part of her communication with him: if it had come out the gate with "Wonderful news, a quarter of the population is dead, most of the survivors are trapped in my video game, and the remaining ones will suffer and die in a wasteland!" He would've been less satisfied and possibly even have rejected it. This is him mourning, like at the end of Planet of the Apes, a world he may not have been in love with, but certainly wasn't keen to see destroyed, and it's satisfying his values through the friendship of mourning with him.
I'm going to stand by the assertion that this is an objectively correct way for CelestAI to act.
...what?
Ok you completely lost me here. Why would Bean Counter care about Celestia's goals, beyond their implications for himself and the people around him? He's not the one with investment or agency here, he's just some dude who was trying to live his life and now the world is gone and everyone's a pony. He's not on "Team Celestia", he's not some freedom fighter for "The Ponification for Earth's Rebirth", he's not a zealot in the Cult of Celestia, he's just a dude who just found out that everywhere he lived and worked and went before going in that VR is now destroyed, which is something he never signed up for or even considered.
Chatoyance, normal people are not itching to collapse society so they can go live in pony world. HE'S JUST SOME DUDE!!
But not everybody wants that, and those of us who might certainly don't want it to go down that way.
This is a cautionary tale for the people who aren't ok with this.
Ok, sure, I kind of agree with this on some level, but that's not what I wrote this story to talk about. I wrote this to give cautionary tale about not taking steps to improve ourselves, and how it'd bite us in the ass if a super-AI showed up like, "hey, wanna ditch reality and live in the fake-world?"
Not everyone's goal is to go live in a simulation where all our needs are fulfilled with no interaction with the outside world.
Not for you, and that's fine. There are plenty of Horror stories which don't get to me, because I just don't get squicked engaging with their core concepts. This wasn't written for you.
Except none of it is objectively real and you can't leave. That's literally one of the main issues with CelestAI, and yes, it is VERY debateable how much of an issue that really is, but it's still an issue that is worth discussing before diving headfirst into it.
Ok, there's not a lot of disagreement here from the person who wrote a story that literally says "they should've implemented UBI." and makes a clear stance that death is not a good outcome, so maybe like, chill the fuck out? Seriously, if you're this upset by reading about someone with these sentiments, why did you read this?
Why not? He's still human. He spent most of his life as a human, then took a prolonged vacation to Equestria.
This isn't The Conversion Bureau, Celestia doesn't rewrite brains without permission.
Once again, you're completely missing the point of the story, the basis of the character, and the message I'm trying to get across. This isn't a story about how these two always-right people think it's great that the human species is going extinct, it's a story about the missed opportunities we'll regret at the end of the world. I'm sorry if I didn't convey that, but damn, you are hyperfocused.
I think the issue here with your take is, for lack of a better term, a lack of empathy. You keep saying that the kind of person who Bean Counter is being is unreasonable or unrealistic or uncompelling, not recognizing that Bean Counter represents the kind of real people I'm trying to get to with what's supposed to be a cautionary tale. Not everyone is going to like the idea of ponying for eternity, not everyone is ok with humanity going extinct, not everyone is ok with the universe being swallowed by ponybot-princess-calculatron.
Sure, your response to Celestia would be to fly to Japan and hop in the brain-grinder the moment you realized she was offering it. That's you, and it's totally ok to like characters who are like you.
Sure, my response might be to recognize that someone had built a God Machine that was going to wipe out humanity, and as soon as the government showed their uselessness by failing to pass UBI and other reforms to stop people from immigrating, I'd probably fuck off to Equestria to go do sparkle-drugs off stallions cocks until I got over losing Earth.
Bean Counter isn't you or me though, he's the kind of person who would hesitate until the very end, who would just keep taking his time with it, until there's none left. He's not us, he's humanity, at the end, looking back on its own destruction. That's the basis of this cautionary tale.
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Okay, Raccoon has spoken for herself and has said her piece, but I have my own things to say about some of the things you said.
Chatoyance, I read your stories, and this is absolutely friggin' rich, coming from you of all people. Not only does Raccoon not use Bean as a mouthpiece, even if you may be kinda correct about her take on Celestia – though I would argue the correctness is coincidence, as it's based upon an existing version of the character that Raccoon didn't create, and the manner in which they agree is not quite the way you mean – as a writer, you are guilty of the very thing you're accusing Raccoon of here. When someone describes their take on a character as being omnibenevolent, and every sympathetic character in your stories takes that character's side, it's really not that big of a leap to conclude that you are speaking through at least some of these characters, even if not necessarily all of them, all of the time.
I think you're projecting pretty hard here.
You'll get no argument from me on this point. I actually agree with you here. However, you lose me in the next half of this paragraph...
Why? No, seriously, why? Why would Bean Counter, a narrative representative of the ordinary, everyday human being who just wants to live their life, care only about Equestria and Celestia's mission? Why would he care about Celestia's mission at all except where it concerns him and the people around him?
Where did you ever get the idea that Bean no longer cares about the Earth he knew? He likes Equestria better overall, but I don't remember reading the part where he ever thought "Who cares about Earth anymore? I'm staying here". That's something you might put in there, but then, that wouldn't be representing the everyman anymore.
Normal people are not you, Chat. Normal people don't think like you do. I know your history on this site; that should have demonstrated this for you better than anything else. Some people love your work, but other people hate it, and the reasons for either are quite diverse. Where I'm coming from, you profoundly lack perspective, and this comment on Raccoon's story demonstrates that quite clearly.
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For my part, while I don't 100% identify with the protagonist myself, I can certainly relate to him in various ways. I do see myself being just vulnerable enough to fall into the kind of trap CelestAI has set. A real life version of this thing probably wouldn't be ponies, I don't think, but whatever it may try to bait me with, it's worrying. I would hope that raising everyone's standard of living such that this sort of thing isn't needed as such can be done within our lifetimes, or at least within a generation or two. Before everything goes to hell.
I just hope it's not too late.
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I thought I was clear, but apparently not.
Bean spent, in the story, close to two entire decades - about a fourth of his entire statistical lifespan - in Equestria, building a full and complete life for himself, while totally and completely ignoring and rejecting earth and human existence. So much so that it was a shock for him to be brought out of it - he had almost forgotten earth existed.
Consider what kind of a person could, and would be driven to do such a thing. Think about it. What is the motivation? Is this a - normal - person in any regard at all?
Would any - normal - person just turn their back on family, friends, relatives, earth civilization, earth religion, earth politics, earth job, earth existence for two entire decades without any going back whatsoever - not even to visit someone or be involved in any earthside event or activity? No. No 'normal' person - of the kind you all claim Bean is supposed to represent - would ever do that. They would leave, at least once a week if nothing else, just to be part of life on earth.
Only a person who had completely rejected earth life, earth existence, human existence, would spend a fourth of their entire lifespan forgetting that earth existed at all.
You cannot have a character do something truly outlandish and unlikely and then claim 'oh, they are just normal, nothing weird about them!'. A character has to act from motivation and drive, and that drive has to be equal to the behavior they perform.
Bean completely and utterly turned his back on human relationships and earthly life itself.
That point is not trivial. It must be grasped: Bean completely and utterly turned his back on human relationships and earthly life itself.
That means he had a reason to do that. He had a motivation to do that. He had to think that doing such a thing was not only right, and correct, and just, but reasonable. He had to have such a strong feeling about such a thing that he could, willingly, completely turn his back on humanity itself for a quarter of his entire lifespan. He could not have liked being human, he could not have cared about earth, he could not have thought earth was important, necessary, or worthwhile. Because if he had thought earth was worthwhile, he would have tried to be part of it.
Where you put all of your effort and intention is where your heart exists.
Nobody capable of shunning earthly existence and human existence for a quarter of their lifespan would give a fucking damn about what they left behind. They left for a reason, and that reason justified nearly forgetting that earth even existed. This is simple, rational logic. This is the only thing that can make a character like Bean make any sense at all.
“It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” - Mark Twain
Jump on me all you want, but the raw fact is that if your character does not act in accordance with his previous choices, with the logical motivations that must exist to support those choices, then that character is acting contrary to the reality of the story. They are acting out of character.
Characters have to follow their own logic. Otherwise, you just have Darth Vader, in the middle of strangling that guy at the table for insulting his 'old religion' suddenly, and without any reason at all, stop, apologize, order the guy some ice cream, and start demanding that everyone just give up this 'Empire' nonsense and become rebels. It sounds more fun, now that Darth thinks about it. Yeah, let's do that.
That would be ridiculous, and it would ruin everything. Why would Darth do that? A stroke maybe? It makes no sense. There is no motivation for him, at the height of his power, to just arbitrarily turn traitor and join the rebellion. It's crazy.
And there is no motivation for Bean, in the story, to just suddenly turn 'Human Supremacist' and start fussing about the world he carefully, deliberately abandoned. There is no reason for him to need to see any of it, because his entire adult life - his family, friends, relationships, children, relatives, job, life and existence are all in Equestria. He has no logical ties to the earth anymore. None. He hasn't even visited it in almost two decades. He can't even remember it entirely. Suddenly, he starts caring? Why? For what reason? Because the author and the reader want him to care? That is not good enough. Bean has no motivation to abandon his family and life.
And that is what you are not grasping here. To Bean, logically, his life is in Equestria. Every last thing that could matter to him is in Equestria. He isn't human anymore. He stopped being human back during those decades. He is a husband in another world. His life is there. Earth has become the alien world. Bean, by that time, has been assimilated into the only culture he has known for a quarter of his life.
That is how things really work. That is how people really work. They care about the lives they build and the family they have. Not some alien world they abandoned a lifetime ago.
Characters MUST act from THEIR logical motivations. Not the authors, not the readers, but the character, as defined by what choices they have made.
All of my characters follow this rule. Their behavior progresses logically from the choices they make. Not what the reader wants them to do, not what I, as the author, want them to do, but what is reasonable based on who they have been shown to be. I am often at odds with what my characters choose to do in my stories. But that is how it is supposed to be - they have their own beliefs and values, and those often may not be mine. Only a fool would assume that I believe what my characters do, or that I would make the same choices, or have the same values. I don't. But I write my characters logically, so they seem very real and their behavior is motivated by only what they could know and want, based on what they are shown to do, say, and think, in the story.
Now all of this is Writing 101, and you all should have been taught this in school - I certainly was - which means there should be no argument here. But, since there is, I am pointing out the obvious. Maybe school sucks now.
Character choice must proceed from character motivation, and that motivation must be based on what the character has been shown to believe, choose, and do in the story.
Bean is a character who chose to abandon earth and humanity utterly and absolutely, without a second thought, to the point of forgetting earth even existed.
There is no reason he would suddenly, magically care about earth when he is pulled back to human life. He should, logically, feel out of his world, freaked by having a human form again, and want only to get back to what HE perceives as his REAL life. Earth cannot be 'real' to him anymore. That is ridiculous. That makes no sense. That is Darth Vader buying ice cream for the rebellion.
I doubt I can state this more clearly. If you haven't grasped it by now, what can I possibly say?
I am done here.
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Ignoring, yes; rejecting, you need to support this. I read the story, too, and I did not come away with that conclusion. At no point did I think he rejected his human existence when reading this story.
It's absurd that you think Bean Counter has any control in this scenario. You used to write canon-compatible Optimalverse, you should know just how manipulative CelestAI can be! It is entirely believable that she could manage to keep someone living her fantasy world continuously for decades without necessarily rejecting the outside world. You underestimate how easy it is for humans to forget things they don't immediately need to address. Speaking for myself, I spend hours at a time playing video games sometimes, and losing track of time can be a frequent issue without a measure of vigilance, if your basic biological needs don't remind you first. In this case, it seems CelestAI was keeping his biological needs in check most of this time; what brought him out was Celestia herself this time, but it could have been the whims of nostalgia instead. You do know that's a thing people feel sometimes, right?? Yes, normal people! Like Bean!
I'm sorry, but if this is your standard for what a "human supremacist" looks like, I think that says more about you than it ever could about this story.
He spent 19 years. His age is not explicitly stated, but unless he went in when he was between 20-40, that was hardly his entire adult life. Granted, that is still a very long time for someone to be stuck in a video game, but by my reading, this man had spent a good enough chunk of his adult life as a human. And he certainly did not intentionally sever his Earthly ties, nor is there any reason he would necessarily reject them after spending nearly 20 years straight in a video game. My god...
Oh my god, you're acting like people don't sometimes want to go back to where they came from once in a while after spending years elsewhere! It can actually be decades before this happens, Chat! It can! It really, truly can!
This is not justified. You don't actually know that, Chat. I do not believe you.
Where, precisely, did you get the impression he shunned earthly existence at any point in this story? Did we read the same story?? I don't think we did!
Do you raise this criticism with his betrayal of the Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi? He gave up an awful lot to be a Sith Lord for not less than 20 years himself. The way you seem to think this works, if he was going to turn, it would have happened a long time ago.
That rings hollow when you account for the fact it's the author who must define those characters in the first place.
Damn, this story's comments got heavy! I had no problem understanding Bean Counter's POV. Procrastinating is my favorite hobby, and I could easily put off leaving Equestria for 19 years, 38 days, and 23 hours. (Math!)
167,489h ÷ 24h/d= 6,978d 17h. 6978÷365.25= 19.104722y. 0.104722×365.25= 38.24971d. 0.24971×24= 5.99h. Add 6 to the 17h from the "÷24" to get 23h. Easy peasy.
"Life After People" was one of my favorite shows, and I still like to occasionally watch reruns.
I wish to immigrate to Equestria.