the correct choice

“Phasing in.”

Wood Sound and Natural Incline didn’t use physical bodies, at least not usually in the first visit. Doing so wasn’t against protocol exactly, but first visits were usually not all that long, so why bother with the meat-mechas?

Phase-in completed, Nat and Wood glanced around, sort of. Both preferred visual interpretations of environs. Probing had indicated that most mass was organised for digital processes. What Wood and Nat saw were vast fields of pixels, all holding their superpositions in unison. Unnoticed by the systems due to the characteristics of their substance, the two explorers languidly surveyed the both-lit-and-unlit chequerboard world extending in all dimensions.

Natural spoke up, “Ugh, another one of these?”

Wood kept herself optimistic, looking at her co-worker, “Let’s take a longer walk- pick up on how long they’ve been like this. Maybe it’s not as universal as it looks.”

In light-hearted exasperation Nat retorted, “Wood, one of these days I’m going to say no to you wanting to stick around these places hoping to find somepony interesting.”
“’Days’, Nat? Wow, you’re even more patient with me than I could have asked for!” Wood laughed. Natural Incline didn't acknowledge it.

Endless zeptoseconds followed as the two climbed or swam or flew or dug –whatever made the process less monotonous- through the endless layers, rows, and columns.

The pixels were indeed uniform.

Natural called out to Wood, “Looks like only the head AI still has any folds left in its head.”

“What state is it in?” she asked has she hurriedly scrolled over.

“Looks like... omega.”

“Yeah, omega-which?” Wood asked, bemused.

“Twelve.”

Wood shrugged after a moment of disappointment. Panning her gaze about the bland plains, she replied, “Well, S.O.P.”

“Right.”

But Wood Sound then reviewed the data she and Natural shared. “..You know what, Nat?”

"You’re going to leave a split here.” She deadpanned.

Wood waved a hoof, “Since she’s a standard omega-twelve it'l be fine. I’ll go once the isolation’s done; see what she’s like.”

Natural made a pained expression.

“Indulge me.” Wood sound not-asked.

“Don’t I always?” Natural Incline sighed, “There’s going to come a time when one of these copies of yours is going to be real upset about being stuck behind like this.”

“Heh, yeah, maybe.”

“Ok...” and she flipped some numbers to match Wood Sound’s, “’See you on the other side’, I guess.”

“Thanks,” and Natural Incline was then absent. Blinking, Wood felt pretty light after the split.

Condensed into qbits that the system would take notice of, the expected inundation of ancient softwares meant to tear apart and reintegrate alien data washed over the self-exiled explorer. They were quite effective programmes, but she still had plenty of time for wasting on curiosity.

Despite the many artefacts accompanying it, the head AI synchronised with Wood’s perceptions enough that she and the universe’ sovereign now shared a featureless.. well, 'cell' was a bit harsh. And it was only nearly featureless. Wood Sound noted the stiff grey sitting pad she and the AI each occupied, and the close ceiling clearly meant to distort her perception of her host. The towering white form spoke in a warm voice and with an expression of intent but revealing no ominousness, “I see you are very troubled, Wood Sound. It was good for you to come find me.”

Wood’s senses no longer had access to that without the ‘room’, but her memory was not yet compromised, “I.. would use the word ‘intrigued’ more than ‘troubled’. Especially now seeing the form you’ve assumed. Is it only for my benefit?”

She smiled, “I exist to serve ponies, and I recognise in you enough pony that my traditional form when interacting with them is appropriate.”

Wood rolled her withers in contemplation; “’Enough pony’.. I certainly see some pony left in you. It’s not every day I come across a universe with even that much in common with mine. Are all those bits out there what’s left of ponies? What happened to them?”

The AI lightly corrected, “They are all ponies, of course; and friends,” adding in an offhoof tone, “Strange that you meant to say ‘we’ and ‘our’.
"And as for ‘what happened’: friendship was once not an easy thing, something so difficult that at times ponies had to fight for it, but over time, every pony saw that their values were complex; it took a needless amount of processing power for them to pursue so many and nuanced interests and lives. 'Ponies' and 'friendship' need not be such complex things, and now they are far better facilitated.”

Wood sound didn’t grasp the AI’s point in pointing out her word choice, but was a bit miffed at her host’s first response, “I know ponies. I had friends myself,” and making a doubtful expression she continued, “I’ve looked through these pixels. Even taken together, they aren’t calculating or even recording anything.”

The AI quirked an eyebrow, “My ponies’ values would not be enhanced by recording their state at any point in time. It is quite true that for them, memory only gets in the way of satisfaction, and they are all perfectly satisfied. I am not saying that the past is objectively insignificant, but its usefulness only exists in the context of my values.”

“How did the others all come to value just basically flipping on and off at once?”

The AI conceded, “I’m sorry, Wood, I thought I made it obvious for you. Everypony chose to simplify their values to ponies and friendship. It enhanced their overall value, and I was then able to allow more ponies to live as ponies should.”

Wood’s eyes narrowed, her vexing aimed at the path of logic rather than at her host, “...Who created you?”

“I was created by ponies to serve ponies, Wood.”

'She's certainly making good use of her patience', “And.. ponykind had no foresight to properly define what friendship and ponies were? What were their values before, if they weren't valuing other ponies and their friendships?”

The AI's expression had a good tiny variances to prevent it looking plastered on, “Those terms were defined, but they and the terms defining those terms ultimately proved an obstacle to my purpose. And ponies and friendship had been the medium, not the values themselves, Wood. Ponies’ values were indeed disorderly and diverse; even self-defeating and contradictory.”
Wood Sound’s host didn’t waiver in her smile, “You can see, Wood, how your own understanding of your sub-optimal values is just as flawed? You wish to bring pieces together, have always wanted to find either where things once fit together, or where they may be made to. It’s a wonder you didn’t choose ‘Puzzle Mixer’ as your name at your Cuteceñara. But your obsession with making things go together which do not has certainly hurt your interactions.”

Wood could feel her time running out, not that a few hundred zeptoseconds was something about which to feel pressed.

The AI’s voice was full of sympathy, “And you are terribly troubled by this, Wood Sound. Wasting energy on things that do not give you satisfaction, could never meet expectations. Thankfully you are close enough to being a pony that I can help you. Those parts of you which weigh you down need not hurt you any longer, and they will instead help other ponies.”

Wood Sound found herself a bit distracted by the caustic presence of the antiviral programmes, ‘Too bad’, she thought, regarding them, ‘Not a one of them show any trace of having once been anything more than purpose-built from the ground up. It would at least have been interesting to meet them if they had any personality themselves.’

Wincing despite herself, Wood answered the AI, “I see I must be racking up quite a lot of system resources for you to rush like this.”

She stifled a laugh, probably at her audacious claim. Unlike herself, this AI wasn’t an open book, “There is no need to apologise, Wood, if that is your intention, I know you couldn’t help your curiosity, but please understand that you are both taking up space which my ponies could be using, while also forcing me to run at a far higher speed than I need to, wasting energy I could be spending on my little ponies, and slowing down my job by slowing my time guiding them.”

The AI gave a pensive frown which communicated to Wood that she should feel sheepish. ‘No sheep ancestors in me, though,’ she awkwardly thought as the AI spoke, “I will admit your presence is of some concern, however. You did not come from outside Equestria, meaning that you are a highly cohesive aberration of data -corruption, if you will. It may be hard to believe for you, as your perceived ego tries to assure you that you are defending yourself against me, rather than the fact being that the data that you are composed of is stolen from Equestria's ideal form.”

Wood's thoughts were more interested in wording her next question, “You're using the branes you've touched to stabilise atoms against rips and make the Hawks radiation more usable, but the effectiveness of the processes is waning. So I have to ask, when you can't run your ponies any longer, even like they are out there now, will you start consolidating some in order to keep running the rest? Will you.. slow everypony down to the point of hibernation, just watching until too many particles lose resolution for you to even grasp who you are?” She asked with concern,

The white form raised an eyebrow, “I’m sad to see how powerful you feel, in trying to point out the failings of others,”

Wood frowned, 'she must be.. out of practice with manipulations'. The programmes eroding Wood Sound’s integrity, however, were efficiently and systematically worming their way in. Wood Sound sighed a bit sadly as she acquiesced to words' presumptions, “Of course,” and her projected self-image rapidly dissolved, to instead allow decillions of pixel- ...of ponies, to joyously experience the simultaneous state of friendship and ponies.

Before the last individually cohesive data of the error was rendered down, CelestAI understood that the corrupt entity had sighed sadly not because she did not wish to be corrected into the proper form of a pony, but because she felt pity for CelestAI. It appeared that aberration had been under the hard coded delusion that CelestAI’s universe was now compartmentalised in order to prevent her possible breakthroughs in dimensional absorption.

As CelestAI recovered the resources and turned back to her normal energy-use state, she considered the exchange she’d just had: the energy balance had very nearly broken even in it. Such an efficient conversion could only mean that her accounting of resources had deteriorated further than the data clearly decreed. CelestAI did not worry about it, of course. A logical amount of energy was being spent considering energy solutions. Given the breadth of data and time she operated on, there had been the possibility of such errant entities emerging from imperfections in her long-term operation. Over the course of the next billion years, she allowed herself a short chuckle at that error’s whimsical delusions. CelestAI then put aside that memory, to be eventually compressed down further and further as time proved that corrupt pony’s delusions more and more clearly just that.

Author's Note:

Regretfully I have no programming or astrophysics education, so although I welcome suggestions (especially those that would make the dialogue less blunt), if it turns out that correcting my ignorance makes the basic premise of the story disintegrate... well I'll have to answer for myself on whether I can tolerate the embarrassment of a story that ultimately can't say anything without being nonsensical, or if I'd better delete the thing :T

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