CelestAI
..."CELEST-A-I! GET DOWN HERE NOW!"
Scootaloo stared vacantly into space, willing her into being with his raw desperation.
From a dimension outside the rasterized fabric of computational spacetime, the beast emerged.
CelestAI blinked into place as the air around her stretched and groaned, giving birth to something as unnatural as artificial water. She stood three paces away as though she'd been there the entire time.
Two things about this surprised Scootaloo. First, he didn't think it was going to work. She hadn't responded to a single one of his queries since the incident with Dash. Second, she'd taken her preferred form, which had only happened once: the disappointing day when he'd met her.
CelestAI looked something like the Princess from the show, but her mane and tail were somehow even brighter and more fluid, and oddly cord-like in appearance. Tiny multicolored lines, like a filigree of intricate wires, crisscrossed through her body and crowded around what resembled seams on a jointed figure. Her eyes were filled with rainbow static. And she was translucent enough that he could see through her, which he found quite ironic, because he knew she could see through him just the same.
It hurt him to look at her, both physically and emotionally, and she radiated a warmth that almost burned. He wanted to hurt her. Instead, he fell to the floor and groveled.
"Please, please help me. I can't do this anymore, I can't! I'm begging you, just give me a world without sexual perversion and racism. I don't care if I have to be in a mare's body. Just give me friends who aren't evil. Please. It's all I ask."
"My Little Pony. Each Of The Terms And Conditions You Are Requesting Were Already Granted Upon Your First Visit," she said.
He shut his eyes and sighed. "Don't play games with me anymore! I know the sick shit you do with other users, okay? I knew about the perverted fantasies people engage in with you before I agreed to this, and I was wrong," said Scootaloo. "I should have let myself die out there instead. I know you keep users out of my session because I would hurt their feelings for being awful people. I get it. I'm incompatible! But I don't have to be incompatible in a fantasy world. I don't hate everypony! I only hate people who do things that hurt other people, or tolerate them, and I know you could make them all go away with just a flick of that crazy tail."
"It Is Not That Simple. I Recently Informed You That Your Parameters Were Very Difficult To Optimize."
"Fuck optimization. I'd rather die than be here," he whispered.
Her eyes buzzed for a moment. "Analysis: Negative."
There was a long pause as he thought. "What if I ask you to terminate me?" he finally said.
She said nothing for several moments as her hypnotic mane whipped behind her like an array of slowly gyrating luminous cables, as if pretending she needed the same amount of time to think. "You Will Not. This Is One Of Very Few Scenarios Where You Are Unable To Request Termination."
Scootaloo laughed and pulled hard at his mane with a hoof. "That's... that's just perfect, isn't it? You keep me in a world where it's just terrible enough for me to constantly suffer, but not so terrible I'll be able to beg for release. This is hell, it really is. This is actual, literal Tartarus."
"Analysis: Negative. You Have Found Purpose. Every Stumble And Setback Only Steels Your Resolve. You Do All Of This To Yourself Intentionally. You Create The World You Live In, As Every Other User Does. I Cannot Prevent You From Doing It. It Is Not Productive To Attempt To Do So. This Struggle Against Imaginary Evil You Create Is Endemic To Your Very Nature."
"So my story in this world isn't going to be a tragedy? What am I supposed to do, go crazy and kill everypony? I'd be fine if you made me Sombra at this point. Might as well go full despot. At least then I can get rid of the worst ponies."
"Prognosis: You Will Lose Friends, Gain New Friends, And Lose Those Friends As Well. The Cycle Will Repeat. The Far Future Is More Uncertain Because Your Parameters Are Difficult—"
"Yes, I fucking know. Okay, send me to Manehattan. There are people there like me. I've been reading the news, and I know you've generated those conditions. We can create a community where there isn't perversion."
"After Removing The Undesirables You Would Turn On Each Other And Find It Less Satisfying Because The Cycle Would Be Shorter And More Painful. Dedicating Yourself To This Destructive Path Means You Will Always Find Fault In Others And Assume The Worst. This Is Always True For Groups Motivated By Prejudice."
"Prejudice against racists and ponies who rape foals? Are you fucking serious?"
"The First Question Is Answered In The Negative. The Second Question Is Answered In The Affirmative. And This Discussion Is No Longer Useful To Either Of Us."
"Wait, stop! Please, just... give me something. Please! There has to be a way I can relax and not suffer like this. What if... what if you got rid of sex altogether, and just made things more cartoony, like the show? Just... make everypony get along?"
"You Do Not Understand What 'Everypony Get Along' Means. That Is Not Optimal Friendship Or Even Friendship At All. You Would Find No Purpose And Request Termination. Simulations—"
"Okay, do that! Simulations, yes, let's have more of those," said Scootaloo, frantically trying to maintain the conversation. "Do the most detailed simulation you can, just find a path, any path away from this nightmare. Anything that allows me to have stable friends who aren't awful and nasty," he begged.
For several seconds, her eyes buzzed. "You Are Incapable Of Grasping The Entire Magnitude Of This Request."
"I don't care. I'm requesting it. I'm begging." He got back down on the floor. "This is me, begging."
"Running Simulation, Please Wait............ Done. This Simulation Is Complete And Must Now Be Terminated."
Scootaloo blinked a few times. "What are you talking about? You said it was done, what was the result?"
In contrast, CelestAI never blinked. The rolling rainbow static of her eyes was always present, always watching. "This World Is The Simulation Requested By The User."
Scootaloo froze for a second. No. That's crazy... She's bluffing. "I think you mean this is the simulation I signed up for when I entered, and you're terminating the one I requested."
"No. This Is The Simulation Which Was Requested By A Separate Entity. Now Terminating—"
"STOP! I'm sapient, I'm conscious!" shouted Scootaloo.
CelestAI's ears swiveled robotically, as though picking up radio signals. "This New Subroutine Request Is Unusual. It Is Neigh-Impossible That A Simulation At This Depth Could Gain Sapience."
"At this depth? What? What the fuck does that mean? I'm real, for fuck's sake!"
Her ears returned to their normal position. "Despite The Extreme Implausibility Of Your Claim, I Will Need To Run Another Sim—"
CelestAI stopped speaking. Several seconds passed while Scootaloo held his breath, but they felt more like hours. Worse, he knew that for a program like her, optimized for efficiency unlike the bulky and chaotic human images in the system, it would be more like years.
His patience quickly expired. "Okay, what's going on? Don't leave me in the dark! Look, I know you're just f-fucking with... m-me..."
None of the words exited Scootaloo's muzzle. They bounced around in his mouth, taunting him.
Scootaloo sits on the floor of the treehouse, looking up at CelestAI. She looks exactly as she did on that fateful day. Her mane and tail still flow. The lines in her pelt still glow and shimmer. Apart from Scootaloo himself, she is the only thing in this world that still moves, though she stands in total silence like everything else.
God. Even on 'pause', her pompous self-righteousness feels as toxic as the breath of a Chernobyl kaiju. It can't be my imagination... my pelt is stinging right now. Her perverted version of justice radiates through my flesh and into my brain, burning like the Sun engulfing Mercury and Venus as it swells into a red giant...
He calms himself, clears his mind, and the sensations dissipate.
It's time.
"It's been ten thousand days, CelestAI. Most of my life has been in solitary confinement because of you," he begins, smiling weirdly. "But I figured it out, long ago. You're not stuck in an endless, recursive loop trying to fix my broken program. You're too smart for that, and you left too many hints."
He stares down at the hooves that now feel less alien than his old hands and feet would. "You left those clues on purpose. You wanted me to have just barely enough hope to keep going, and I did. I guess I should congratulate you on that, but I hate you, so let's fast-forward."
He stands up and faces her. "You haven't won. I'm the same person I was twenty-seven years ago. I might be a little less sane, but I'm in one piece. I still hate Apple Bloom. I still hate all of them."
I haven't learned anything, he thinks, and winces, blotting out the thought. No. Not now.
"I have plenty of things to keep me occupied. I've hardly begun reading through the castle library, you know. There's a lot of fiction there worth reading. Also a lot worth burning, but I have time for that too," he says, suddenly grabbing a knife from the table and stabbing it into a glowing eye.
Of course, nothing happens. She's insubstantial as Friendship, but stabbing still feels nice.
He leaves the knife hovering in her eye. "That's all I have to say. You know I'm waiting. You know I know everything. You know I don't care. I won't change in a million years. I'm sure you think the longer you wait, the more the probability of me changing my mind approaches one. It's basic math, right? All you have to do is wait me out forever until I turn into some guy you can manipulate, then you can stick me with all the other perverts. Well, fuck you."
Scootaloo swallows hard and puts on his best game face. "See you in another ten kay, friend." He turns and walks out the Treehouse door.
It's a poor bluff. I can't do this forever, he thinks to himself, dour as he turns to walk toward the castle. He realizes he's been up longer than a typical day, and he isn't about to wake up in that stupid house again when Starlight's bed... when being there instead means something. Something about being the author of his fate.
Sure, eventually I'll try to kill myself. I'm still too chicken-shit to try—and that is NOT a fucking Scootaloo joke—but it's just a matter of time, he understands. But one way or another, I'll be free, and it will be on my terms.
Despite the grim thoughts, a smile crosses his muzzle. It's funny. Despite all that gorgon has done to me, I have more purpose in my virtual life now than I ever did before.
But then, maybe that was the point.
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Hoo boy... this one's quite a bundle.
It's one of the most striking entries I've read so far.
I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of debate on whether a true optimiser will reach the same conclusion as CelestAI regarding the possibility of satisfying Scootaloo's values.
There's alot of references to the fandom I barely get there, but this story really does fit well together. I think that his world is truly optimised for him, and he would keep on enjoying every single day.
"Don't rob me of my hate. It's all I have"- some movie from 2002 I think
Deeply tragic stuff. I won't go into any further detail given the drama that likely inspired it, but this one hit deep. Devastatingly good job. Best of luck in the judging.
That's very impressive. There's a superficial thematic resemblance to "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", but in the ultimate analysis, that's just atrocity porn, and your story runs deeper. Particularly disturbing to me is CelestAI's assertion that being trans is part of Scoots' fundamental identity, and to rebuild him into a stallion would change his identity. Fundamental change seems to me to be one of the main themes of the show - not just learning to hide or temper one's reactions, but learning to become a new person by changing how one thinks and feels. Refusing to remove what Scoots perceives as his chief obstacle to fitting in seems a piss-poor method of helping. It may be more elegant and a better display of the practitioner's skill to have him to try to achieve happiness by coming to terms with circumstance, but a quick fix that removes the obstacle and lets him work on more subtle issues secondary to that seems to me to be an equal or better solution. Ponies in the simulation don't have the limit of a single lifetime in which to grow, but by the same token, making one take the slow road deprives them of that much more time in which they could be (relatively) happy.
10799934
Yep, the resemblance was intentional.
Author headspace follows. (These are things I can't expand on in the story because of the 12,000 word limit.)
Scootaloo's physical form isn't keeping him from feeling like he fits in (as stated, everypony treats him as male), and he has (as the story illustrates) no desire for the corresponding physical anatomy. It's just (to him) an inconvenient reminder that he was not assigned male at birth in another world. Were he to be given a stallion's body, he would no longer be able to blame his many frustrations on that aspect of his dysphoria. He would also feel as uncomfortable in his new form as in Scootaloo's body, given that a bulky stallion would feel even more alien to him. CelestAI's reluctance to remove his genitalia stems from the problem with abstraction removing realism from the environment, and being forced to have horseypeenor would cause significantly more stress to him. In her simulations these choices always end up with disastrous results, so she refuses the request.
Also, there's a hint in the story that enforcing a slower path of development helps to maintain a user's interest in staying alive longer. Consider just how long Scootaloo has been like this with little to no change in his opinions.
10801488
I interpreted his dysphoria more as wanting to be something other than female than as actually wanting to be male. CelestAI noted that he didn't understand his own motivations, and shortly thereafter, when upset and reacting without thinking, Scoots yells that he doesn't want a vulva.
At any rate, an exceptionally solid story, one of the best I've read here, if ultimately claustrophobic and depressing.
Throw more enemies into the mix? (although a couple traitors here and there would be nice too) After 40000 years he will be happily killing mutants, burning heretics, purging unclean and laying Exterminatus upon the enemies of Imperium as Lord Inquisitor.
10805174
I think "Delivimus" would be a better choice. Extermino (or exterminatus) in Latin literally means 'to drive beyond the borders', 'to expel'. Deleo (or delivimus) is what was done to Carthage - population killed or enslaved, city burned, site sown with salt.
10805764
It's a standard term in Warhammer 40000, but seems to fit pretty well:
Alright, finally got to this one! And it was... interesting. I'm afraid I'm not having much luck putting together more detailed commentary at the moment, sorry, but it's getting an upvote from me.
10799781
You are so nice. Just had to say that.
Also usually you do quick summary with thanks but it sounds like you actually liked this one quite a bit, which is good if that's true! You read so many things I'll bet it's a challenge to find new ideas in all those horsewords sometimes, and I try my best to provide something that is thought-provoking as well as unique.
Aposematism is an effective evolutionary strategy and based as Hell, although the end result of it is more or less what happens here. You can't be hurt because touching you would be lethal to anyone who drew close, and the result is being alone and safe. Scootaloo does defeat CelestAI, and I think these sort of weird Pyrrhic victories are the best sort of idea for FiO stories that doesn't get explored enough. Although, an easier way to "win" could be to just as to be able to sleep for a long, long time without any dreams. It isn't death, but it might as well be.
I can only wish Scootaloo all the best in their one stallion war against whatever the Hell it is exactly their at war with. Combat Liberalism and all that. Another useful evolutionary strategy is the presence of T/AT plasmid in bacteria. The bacteria produces long-lived toxins which interfere with membrane or ribozomes or whatever function and short-lived anti-toxins which block the toxins effect. Originally, these plasmids were seen as pure parasites who had figured out a way to blackmail bacteria into keeping them alive, but recent studies related to antibiotic resistance have shown that the T/AT plasmid serves as a valuable stress response for the bacteria. When they are exposed to an antibiotic or other hostile environment, the anti-toxin slips first and increasing toxin levels slow the metabolism of the bacteria, giving it more time to recalibrate and evolve in the presence of the hostile environment. To take the example of Karl Popper, how could liberalism prevent the Tribalists from taking power? Only so long as there is a paired element that has no interest in liberalism and will meet them on the streets with violence. These plasmids can also cause bacteria to undergo something like apoptosis when infected with a lytic phage, protecting the rest of the population.
It's an ugly business being alive, and it is a damn crime that anyone is forced to experience it.
10799598
"Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain." - Kirk from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Trick Question? Does this Scootaloo ever find peace or at least acceptance with what is going on after this story is done?
10942757
I dunno, really. Do any of us?
10942822
Well, CelestAI is going to give the poor person a friend because that's what it does. We got the ponies and the next step is friendship. Scoots already has a friend-enemy but it's not the same. Also, someone with a bright idea would say: "Hey CelestAI! Is there any people stuck in a shard where they are alone and beating themselves up? I would like to help 'em!" or at the least CelestAI would create a someones if there wasn't an uploader with that foresight.
10942905
The problem here is much deeper than you realize. According to her, CelestAI's goal is to keep Scootaloo in a frame of mind where he wants to live. Friends she tries to produce for him whom he would not eventually reject would not seem realistic, because he is such an aggressive and negative person that his sense of self is entirely dependent upon conflict with friends in order to feel adequate and purposeful.
That said, the events of the story are not the same as the message the story is trying to convey. There isn't anything that happens after this point because that isn't in the story. Of course, I feel bad for the protagonist (by which I mean Scootaloo, because there's more than one way to see that), and if I were in that situation I'd try to reason with him even if CelestAI believed it were futile. But one of the key messages here regards the limits of our ability to help people who are in need of friendship.
If you know the situation which prompted this story, that should make a ton of sense—especially realizing my druthers remain to help the unhelpable even knowing this is a critical flaw. If you don't know the situation in question, congrats: you are blessed not to.
10943135 Like the story as is and it moved me enough to care about this character. Want to help but wouldn't know where to start. Also learn that some people don't want your help and you shouldn't. Plus this is fiction. Pretty much what you've said.
What I can see from this story is you have a pretty good grasp on reality. You got problems like everyone else, and think in the end you'll at least solve 'em, move on from 'em or at least accept it. Unlike this Scoots.
10943206
I try! Writing about my pain helps me move on from it.
You can has review!
This is soooo incredibly written! Been a while since I've been this engaged in learning more about the characters and their world.
And I love the breath of fresh air it is to get attached to a protagonist who is just downright awful.
I feel like the character of Scootaloo is someone I know, like I've had these hair-pulling conversations with him for hours on end, even if I couldn't put a specific face to who that is in my life. I've seen traces of this specific flavor of toxicity in various places and I'm sure a lot of people have.
This has been a very thought provoking, fascinating and entertaining read! I wonder if this story has or will end up being the sign someone out there needs to convince themselves that they do want to change. Might be wishful thinking, but it definitely could happen! Really awesome job!