Manehattan's Lone Guardian

by Curtis Wildcat

A Limitless Chest Of Tales

At the end of the day after I'd finished appraising the newspaper, I decided to put myself back in hibernation for a bit. I didn't have anything to do that would require me to stay awake, and it would let my power generators piece themselves back together with ever-increasing efficiency, and without interference. Drama was alright with that just as long as I stayed out of everypony's way, so I returned to her living room upstairs, put the relaxing record back on, and let my dreams carry me away.

As an aside I learned that the name of the singer was 'Naye'. I'm sure there's a joke here somewhere, but I don't feel it's important enough to dwell on.

The next day was pretty busy... for Drama Heart. Somepony came by to replace the ruined glass in her bedroom window, so that had to be settled. In addition there were several groups of ponies who gathered around the theater's closed doors, demanding to be let in to see me with their own eyes and not being deterred by Drama's statement that I was asleep. Thankfully, there were officers on patrol in the area who were willing and able to break up the gatherings before they could gather much steam.

The third time it happened, Drama got fed up and posted a sign on the door: "Excuse me? When somepony tells you to leave them alone, you leave them alone. The Pyre is CLOSED today. If you're so anxious to see somepony who is trying to rest and recover from her recent trials that you're willing to disturb us unnecessarily, then I will notify the authorities and have them tell you what I just said. Let Leviathan rest in peace, and let me work!" A bit on the irritated side, but it got the job done. Nopony wanted to risk the annoyance of the Royal Police, at least not badly enough to see me.

...Well, almost nopony. Butterscotch, the little foal who asked to borrow my helmet the other day, and his mother lingered after the last group had broken up. When Drama inquired why they were still there, Butterscotch gave her an envelope that he'd been holding in his mouth and asked her to give it to me when I woke up. With a face like his, there wasn't a snowball's chance in a desert that Drama was going to refuse him. "I just melted," Drama sheepishly admitted when she gave it to me.

That brings us to today. It's two days following the release of the Minutes' special section about me. Or for those that are having some trouble keeping track, the start of my fourth full day in Manehattan. I'm sitting in a corner in Drama's kitchen, working my way through my second package of Heartbreakers. My landlord is finishing telling me about everything that transpired yesterday over her own breakfast... and it's right in the middle of her explanation that an update crosses my HUD. It's one of those that I've been waiting to see.

Power Output: 99%. Maximum capacity: 100%. Power generators have been repaired.

Wonderful. One down. Let's see, refocusing the auto-repair on my frame and synthskin... there we go. Things are going smoothly. Still not as smoothly as they would have been if I had an actual capsule, since that would've brought me back up to speed in a matter of days instead of weeks, but under the circumstances I can't complain.

A question is crossing my mind as to whether I should continue wearing this coat full-time after all repairs are complete. I think I'll worry about it later when it becomes more relevant.

While Drama takes a break from talking to continue eating, I open the envelope that was given me. The paper it contains has very childish and colorful scrawl, with crude caricatures of a foal's smiling face and mine. Even with my newfound understanding of the local language, it takes a few moments for me to make any sense out of the writing:

"Dear Laveathin..." I wince at the visual butchering of my name. "Don't give up! You're a good Reproid!" And again. "You can do better! Go home and be a hero! ---Butterscotch." I shake my head, bemused. "A hero? Foals and their big imaginations."

"Turn it over," Drama says. "There's more on the back."

I do so, noting that the writing was much neater (and smaller). I read it aloud: "'To Fairy Leviathan: I was unsure of you when we met, but now that I've read more about you, I would like to express my thanks to you for capturing the Midnight Castles. I was always worried that they would rob the office I work part-time at blind in their greedy quest, or that they would hurt Butterscotch somehow while pursuing something unrelated. There may be plenty of crooks on the city streets, but because of your efforts there are seven less roaming about. I wish you the best in your search for a way home. With sincere gratitude, Cotton Ball.' ...Well, now."

"That's an uplifting message if I ever heard one," Drama commented. "You might want to hold on to that. It'll come in handy in the event that someone sends you hate mail."

"Mind elaborating?"

"Well, you have read your share of fiction before, haven't you?"

I nod. "Some things are universal." I wouldn't have been able to comment on my placement in this world if I hadn't.

I wait patiently while Drama finishes eating, and I'm rewarded when she sets her dish aside and turns to me. "There's a novel that's been out for about... I want to say six years now. It's about a petty thief who was falsely accused of murder, and the stigma remained even after he was acquitted. While on a trip to Canterlot he's inspired to join the Royal Guard, but he's faced with an uphill battle: accusing stares, uncomfortable glances, harsh words, the works. One day after he's given a particularly scathing speech from somepony who hates him, a little foal trots up to him and gives him a letter. When reading the letter, he remembers rescuing the foal from somepony who was abusing it, and when he finishes reading he realizes that his mood had gotten better. From that point on he hangs on to the letter and re-reads it whenever he has a bad day, and it's able to keep him going. His perseverance finally pays off by the end of the novel when he completes his training and officially joins the Guard as an officer."

"I have to wonder how much of that I'd be able to benefit from," I say after a second's deliberation. "It could just be wishful thinking. I interacted with those two for less than fifteen minutes, and they were just individuals I happened to meet. It isn't as if I have any sort of emotional attachment towards them."

"You'd be surprised just how much impact words can have on someone," Drama replies. "Never underestimate what they can do. They can either build somepony up or tear them down, depending on the speaker's motivations and how his words are interpreted. Those that encourage can potentially have their words remembered for as long as the listener lives..." She gets up to bring her dishes to the sink. "...while those that discourage are best forgotten."

"Don't teach an orator how to be wordy," I remind her. "I'm no stranger to psychological warfare, whether it's good or bad."

"Says the person who falls to pieces around that Zero fellow in more ways than one," Drama tells me with a playful smirk. "You know, most ponies just ask somepony out when they meet that one individual who riles them up."

That's a divide-by-Zero situation if I ever heard one. "Just how often does 'romancing the enemy' work in reality?"

"Not a lot outside of fiction, and there's troublesome consequences for those who try." My host gets to work cleaning off the sink's contents. "My point is... well, magic takes many forms in Equestria. There's the more tangible variety that you see me using everyday. There's the flight and weather magic utilized by pegasi. The pure power and 'green hooves', as some put it, that make earth ponies so good at working the land... and there's even one that mechanical beings like yourself might be able to utilize."

Oh-ho? Tell me more. "And what would that be?" I ask after swallowing the last of the Heartbreakers.

"For context, ponies are a very emotional and herd-centric species on the whole." Drama winces at something. "For the most part. At our cores, we want to care about others and be a part of their lives. When we combine our strengths, our mentalities, the very things that define us as ponies, there are few things we can't do. But places like Canterlot, Manehattan, Baltimare, any especially large Equestrian city... we might get along with others, but our focus tends to lean towards supporting ourselves and looking out for number one. You get rare ponies like Charity Kindheart who are able to bring out the best in others, but that's just it: they're rare in this day and age."

I idly tap my fingers against the wall. "So if you had to simplify it, how would you put it?"

"With three words," Drama answers. "It's an age-old expression that ponies think they understand, but they never come anywhere close to utilizing to the full." She sighs softly. "I freely admit I'm no less guilty of misunderstanding it. I learned it when I was a filly, but I didn't comprehend it as well as I thought, and it ended up getting shoved to the back of my mind due to other concerns. Maybe you can figure it out someday." She pauses her dish-washing for a few moments, just long enough to turn back towards me with a completely serious look. "'Friendship is magic.'"

...And she's expecting me of all people to learn what friendship's really about? "You're kidding," I finally respond, my voice uncharacteristically dry for my element.

"No, silly. I'm Drama Heart." She really should not look so amused by that remark. "Ha! Dad joke!"

There's a reference there that I'm not getting, and I don't think I want to know. "So let me see if I have this figured out, then. You think that I, a sapient robot from another world with no prior experience with magic and no real friends of her own, can figure out what 'friendship is magic' really means by using the words of a foal as a starting point?"

"Stranger things have happened," Drama says as she puts the now-clean dishes away.

Unlikely. "Name one."

"I can name one that's about to happen, if you'd like." When I shrug in response, she elaborates on her comment. "Singing robots."

...Huh? "By singing robots, you mean..."

"You specifically. You are the only robot around here, correct?"

That... what? "That doesn't make any sense," I argue. "Reploids can't sing."

Ah, the traditional raised eyebrow for suggesting the painfully obvious. "Have they tried?"

Have they... Oh for crying out loud, pony. "I'm not saying we haven't, but as it stands it's a physical impossibility for us. We just aren't built for it. I'm not going to embarrass myself by using someone else's voice data in a vain attempt to partake in the arts, so don't even bother convincing me."

Drama's looking contemplative. That's not a good sign. "So by 'using someone else's voice data', you're saying..."

"When a Reploid 'sings', the best they can really do is to try to imitate others. In the end, it just comes off as a recording since that's the best our hardware is capable of," I explain. "And not even very good recordings at that."

She's smiling earnestly now. "You're worried about sounding like somepony else when singing? Dearie, here in Equestria that's the last thing you have to worry about." Her work done, she gives my hand a gentle tug in her magic and heads for the exit. "Follow me and let me show you what I'm talking about. I can guarantee you that you'll be able to sing by the end of the day. If you aren't able to, then I'll find another way to wake you up that doesn't involve close contact."

I can't wait to hear how this is all connected to supportive children, I murmur mentally as I follow her out of the apartment and down the---

Stumble."Whaaa---!" Crash.

---stairs, oh for the love of X why this again...

Drama's thoughts are in line with mine as she re-orients me and levitates me to the bottom of the flight, grunting a little at the required effort. "I told you, Fairy. I told you about those stairs."

You can imagine the comical indignation I'm sporting. In fact, I encourage you to. "It's not my fault it keeps happening!"

The auditorium looks a lot better when it's well-lit.

I'd been in here before when I was helping Drama put back some of the things that those thieves tried to steal, but at the time she'd insisted on keeping the bulk of the lights off. As a result, the assorted decorations and knickknacks gave the room an unnerving feeling. With the illumination on, it's easier for me to ascertain that everything is homemade, as opposed to being the genuine article. Good thing, because I was wondering why Drama had a set of smiling and frowning pony skulls hanging over the stage.

The seats have lower backs than what I'm used to, so instead I'm sitting on the floor in one of the aisleways. A quick count of the seats reveals that there's enough space for around three hundred ticket-buyers, counting a few rows at the back meant for the city's other species (which is understandable; the average minotaur would probably block everypony's view of the stage). The Midnight Castles were obviously trying to take everything, so part of me is curious as to how they would've been able to grab all the chairs on top of what was already in the alley.

The stage is currently empty save for my host, with maroon curtains blocking the back of it from view. Drama's attired in a black and hale navy dress that's tattered by design instead of wear and tear, with a pendant-slash-microphone in the shape of her Cutie Mark hooked on a chain around her neck. Her mane and tail are going beyond 'unkempt' and into 'all over the place' territory; looking at her from the front, I can't see her bow anymore. Her eyes are red, which she tells me are due to contact lenses instead of any sort of magic.

Yes, I had to ask. When it comes to red eyes, you can't be too careful.

Seeing that I've made myself comfortable, Drama... or I suppose I should call her "Salamandra" now, given what she's doing... clears her throat and begins her lecture. Speakers on either side of the auditorium carry her voice through the entire room. "What I'm going to tell you about now is a phenomenon sometimes experienced by this world's residents, but rarely acknowledged by the whole. Most who go through it will take whatever is offered from it, but tend to forget it even happened before too long. Those few who do recognize its existence use different terms to describe it, though personally I favor 'heartsong'."

"A heartsong?"

Salamandra paces back and forth across the stage. "There are times when somepony feels so strongly about something that their emotions get the better of them. They will seek to get their message across, but not by screaming or yelling as if whoever they're speaking to can't hear them. Whatever their desires, feelings, opinions, or goals may be, this world's magic catches them in its gentle embrace and funnels them through music. It could be as basic as wanting to enjoy a fine spring day, as benign as desiring to help another pony succeed in life, as dance-worthy as getting a crowd to move their hooves in time with the beat, or as dark as seeking to twist another's mind for one's own ends."

I open my mouth to say something along the lines of 'that's rather strange', but she raises a hoof and cuts me off. "Yes, I realize it's difficult to believe. Like I said, even those it happens to have trouble believing it sometimes. I was front and center for a griffon's take on their desire for money once, and when I asked him about the song afterward he just gave me this weird look and asked if my medication had any side effects."

"I wasn't aware you were on medicine."

"I'm not. That's not the point."

"Then what is it?"

Salamandra points at me with her hoof. To me that gesture loses some effect without any fingers, but I can still appreciate that she's trying to list me under an index. "The point is that you don't have to be physically capable of using magic yourself to be subjected to a heartsong. That's the job of this world's magic, so let that do its work in peace... though don't be surprised if it comes and goes so quickly that you didn't realize it took place. It's not something that can be forced; it has to be a natural occurrence. Otherwise you just look silly singing without any sort of instrumental accompaniment."

Hmm... "If you can't force it, then I suppose there's no point in asking you for a demonstration, is there?"

Salamandra giggles at this. "Fufufufufu! Not true, dearie. See, when it comes to my lot in life, my emotions are always at a fever pitch. I love my work, I love telling stories, and I get an absolute kick out of entertaining ponies by scaring their coats right off their skins. My destiny is realized, and I just can't get enough."

There's a faint hint of something at the very edge of my hearing, a musical instrument woven around short bursts of tumultuous sound. Her lesson continues: “When I'm drawing in foals for matinees, I take it easy on them. My dominance over fright would be wasted on their young minds, and I would rather their parents didn't give me trouble. I use prerecorded music purchased from the record stores, bog-standard puppet shows and basic illusions. My stories are no more frightening than the average campfire tale.”

The unmistakable rhythm of a drumbeat threads itself seamlessly into the mix, and... and why did everything around Salamandra go pitch black? Her horn's not channeling any magic...! “But come the evening hours, that's when I'm free to cut loose. The packed theater is subjected to the full force of my storytelling. Ponies pay me to be unable to sleep at night. And what do I use to kick off my performance, you wonder? What do you think I use to show them what they're in for?”

The darkness expands across the theater, enveloping me. I don't like this, I don't like this---! “I leave my dramatic heart to burn like the salamanders of legend!” she howls, her pupils and sclerae ablaze. Her horn finally lights up, and her mane and tail flare out behind her, gaining an orange gradient effect akin to twilight. Her pupils are pinpoints, her gaping maw filled with crystalline drills...! “I hit them with the full force of my emotions... AND I HOLD NOTHING BACK!”

From nothingness, a wall of noise---!

A few moments prior...

Two ponies of average coloration, shape and size stared forlornly at the 'Closed' sign hanging on the Pyre's door. "Again? I was hoping for a chance to see that robot."

"It would be a real hoot if Salamandra wrote a new puppet show with the robot in it," the other said as they turned away, walking around the side of the building towards a destination that only they knew.

"You read the paper, right? Leviathan, or whatever her name is... it said that she wasn't interested in acting."

"Hey, a mare can dream, right?"

"So did anypony say when the Pyre's supposed to re-open again?"

"Dunno. Might take a little bit. Don't think it'll be too long. She's got to earn a living at some point..." The speaker paused. "Wait, you hear that?"

The other pony strained his ears. "Yeah, it almost sounds like---"

No more words were spoken. Abruptly, the world roared with the sound of music and swept them both away.

A conflagration unlike any I've ever recalled seeing rises towards the sky (wait, there's a sky indoors?). Broken skeletons, be they human or Reploid, are scattered about (she's never even seen a human skeleton before!). Somewhere behind me past the flames, there are screams of terror and cries for mercy.

The blaze splits down the middle, and Salamandra approaches me with complete disregard for her surroundings. The scenery shifts as if bending to her will: a cemetery untended for centuries, a dilapidated tower that stretches towards the sky, a trail barely fit for traveling through a heavily forested territory, a village that scarcely qualifies as a safe haven. All the while, it feels as if her words are leading me someplace that I don't recognize.

It is a lovely night
To go embrace your fears
Don't run, don't cry
To me, now
Ponies, I am tonight's host
For your trip to mania
Restless hours await my present guests

You wonder: 'Who am I?'
A restless raconteur
Who just cannot remain silent
She of dramatic hearts
Burning Salamandra
Is ready to assail you all with dread!

I am the mare even Tartarus fears
Emerald envy that Nightmare Moon hears
A bottomless tome that contains your tears
I hold the words of all existing life
Stories travel many, many miles
Simply waiting for a listening ear
And I am waiting to bring you near

In the interim between verses, creatures that are probably from this world's mythology are making themselves known. An almost transparent horse-like creature with its back half fading into oblivion, gazing at me with hatred as it passes. A star-furred bear large enough to block the entire sky, briefly giving me a look that tells me that I'm far beneath its notice as it stomps past. A tremendous beast that can only be a dragon, one of its fangs more than twice as big as I am, exerting its dominance with a roar.

This is too much, this is completely and utterly TOO MUCH!

I land before a yawning cave, its depths unfathomable. Bare meters from its entrance is a tent, its gaudy colors obvious even in the dim lighting. Salamandra emerges from it, pulls a squeaky red sphere off her nose, and chucks it over her shoulder without a care as she continues singing.

I am comedy
Not just a catastrophe
I wield both
The horror and the fun
What better way to aim
To both charm and scare
All of those poor souls
Who seek entertainment?

Inexplicably, I find myself in a theater seat sized just right for me. I double-check for myself, and sure enough the chair is as real as I am. Salamandra continues on:

Go leave your cares behind, they're immaterial
Come, take your seat
Your mental doors ajar
In Salamandra's world,
Your thoughts intensify
Patrons, brace yourself
For the greatest tales ever told!

Despite having become acquainted with Drama's personality in the time I've lived here, I find myself overwhelmed by Salamandra's sheer confidence in that statement. For just a moment, she really does seem capable of telling the greatest stories in the world.

And deep down, something about that scares me.

I am the mare even Tartarus fears
Emerald envy that Nightmare Moon hears
A bottomless tome that contains your tears
I hold the words of all existing life
Stories travel many, many miles
Simply waiting for a listening ear
And I am waiting to bring you near

I am the mare even Tartarus fears
Emerald envy that Nightmare Moon hears
Digging through realms for another's home...

…

…

I can hear the coolant rushing through my systems. The Frost Javelin is in my hand, and I have no recollection of summoning it. A mob of skeletons bearing down on a lone warrior. A crowd of ponies with torches and farm tools gearing up for an assault on a foreboding castle. A lone individual braving a blizzard; why, I don't know. A building-sized spider with both many eyes and many mouths, appraising spelunkers with idle curiosity.

This is happening too fast for me to fully comprehend. I have to get my senses about me---!

...

The music comes to an abrupt stop, and my surroundings don't fade so much as shatter back into the brightness of the Pyre's auditorium. I'm no longer in a human-sized seat, but sitting in the aisleway. My weapon is in storage, not wielded for battle. It takes a second for me to realize that I'm hyperventilating; I shut my eyes long enough to get myself under control.

As for Salamandra, her countenance doesn't give me 'mysterious, charismatic storyteller' vibes anymore. Her bombastic demeanor has been derailed: she's just a normal pony now, or at least as normal as my limited experiences with her kind have showed me. “You looked like you were about to have a heart attack. I didn't realize that was possible for a robot. Did I go overboard?”

I would later learn that at this moment, not only did my eyes superimpose themselves over my helmet, but my mouth was open wide enough for Drama to see the inside of my throat. "What... was that?!"

Drama Heart's hoof awkwardly dusts off the stage before her. She's pretty much the exact opposite of 'frightening' right now. "I guess I should have warned you about the imagery. I'm sorry."

“You said you could communicate through song!” I exclaim, gesturing at the auditorium around me. “You never said you could alter reality!”

“Yes... heartsongs do that.” Drama beckons me to sit next to her on the stage, which I do. “But the effects are temporary, never lasting beyond the boundaries of the music. The magic doesn't let things go any further than that, and it reverts everything to normal once the song is concluded.”

My face has been living in my hand so much, I should start charging it rent. Drama rests her hoof on my arm, but it barely registers as I utter what has now become my catchphrase for my stay here. “Everypony... in this city... is crazy!”

“Eh-heh... wish I could say you were wrong.”

Author's Note:

As I type these notes, 2022 is twenty minutes away here in the Midwest. People are paying more attention to New Year's Eve celebrations than anything else. Far as I'm concerned, that's a perfect time for an update. >^_^<

The music links for this chapter as follows include: The theme from "The Apartment", by Ferrante and Teicher; and Nightwish's "Storytime" (volume warning).

I don't like metal. It's incredibly too noisy, and "Storytime's" no different. But the music itself fits Drama's M.O., even if the lyrics don't; it was just a matter of creating entirely new ones to fit the circumstances. If the plot permits it, I'll try to create lyrics for an entirely original song down the line just so I don't have to use a pre-existing song. (Just don't expect me to actually write the music itself. That's way outside my abilities.)

The name "Naye" at the start of the chapter is pronounced "Nah-yay", for those curious.

Before anyone asks: no, I've never read "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff", nor do I intend to. I'm familiar with the "stairs" bit thanks to a Twitch stream I watched back in September, and that's about it.

Can't really think of anything to say about the auditorium segment; I just hope I wrote that scene right. I probably could've worked on it more, but I was really hoping to get this done by the end of the day.

Brace yourselves for another year, people, and please stay safe out there.

Estimated Update Deadline: January 14, 2022

EDITED 40 minutes later: Forgot the link to "Storytime". Oops.

Comments

[Twilight_Shimmer]

did Fairy wind up singing along?

[57west]

I think it would be funny if it turned out that Fairy had an incredible singing voice. Even funnier if she was scouted by a talent agent.

[Hyan]

Drama's thoughts are in line with mine as she re-orients me and levitates me to the bottom of the flight, grunting a little at the required effort. "I told you, Fairy. I told you about those stairs."

Sweet Bro, Hella Jeff, You will not get past me.

Also, we all know Leviathan confessing to Zero would not have worked. The plot of the Zero series revolves around him because he's Just. That. Dense.

[Kichi]

Happy new year for you, it's been 13 hours and 22 minutes here since new year

[computerneek]

Oooh, nice! I must’ve completely missed the first link, but Storytime is actually in my library, so High Definition Music for the win! …. It’s one of two of their songs I like. I’m not generally a fan of heavy metal either.

That said. As a computer nerd…. Fairy actually has a chance of singing non-immitatively, from a technical perspective: Machine learning, no doubt the same way she’s speaking fluently with emotional inflection. It’ll just take a lot more training to successfully learn to channel her voice into music, since there’s the added variable of pitch- but that’s pretty easy to do, after words. Modern computers can sing really well, though text-to-speech works on an immitation basis, sometimes with a machine learning backing for pitch and accent control, because machine learning/AI just isn’t there yet.

Reploids, on the other hand…

Generating music in her ”normal” voice, once she builds the appropriate “vocal matrix” (which will already be much larger to store than her normal one), will probably be an extra burden on her CPU, but likely not that much larger than her normal speech- it’s mostly just a larger dataset. Generating that vocal matrix/dataset, though, is likely to take some time (albeit less than her existing voice did since she can start with that), and require potentially significant exposure to singing (as “training data” to learn from). Depending on how many orders of magnitude her processor is from modern ones, I could see the processing taking anywhere from months to hours all told- I’d recommend at least a few days or the like, so she has to store it instead of generating it afresh each time, which would keep her singing voice from changing overnight. She will be able to do some of the processing after each exposure to music, and even once complete, she will get better through continued exposure to music (and subsequent processing) rather than practice.

Then comes the fun part. Once she’s built her singing matrix, if she uses it all the time, her voice will gain a musical quality- which would no doubt drive the other Reploids back home absolutely nuts if she’s able to return. If she saves her original voice matrix as well and switches between them when she needs to sing, she’ll give off the impression of being utterly unable to sing…. Then turn around and produce masterful music, which might be a great way to stun Zero long enough for her to beat him. She probably knows and/or can imagine the effects of either approach on the other Reploids as well.

I could even see her doing that processing subconsciously with otherwise “idle” CPU time- with how she described Reploid speech earlier in the story, despite obviously not using that method herself, she may not have noticed as her vocal matrix got gradually more complex and her speech became more fluent/expressive. The samples used to train it would have been other Reploids and all the humans she ever was close enough to overhear in Neo Arcadia- and, depending, may have included a limited amount of singing as well.

[Curtis Wildcat]

11103669
Nope. That was entirely Sally's doing. 🙂

11103710
So do I, but I have my doubts that she'd be able to accomplish that without an upgrade or two.

11103788
Like Fairy said: it's a "divide-by-Zero" situation. In this case, literally.

11103862
Hmm...

Admittedly, Leviathan's comments on the topic came from this bit of info from the Megaman Knowledge Base's article on Reploids: "In the drama track Alouette's Good Day, Andrew mentions that Reploid children learn much faster than humans, but any attempt at singing comes off as a recording as they can only replay voice data." I'd taken that last part to mean that it held true for mature Reploids as well.

I'll try to consider what you said in the future, though. Just because I've been using computers since the late '80s doesn't mean I'm well-versed in their intricacies.

Also, I almost forgot about this: the first link is situated at where it says "That brings us to today".

[computerneek]

11103920
Yeah, I think I remember it now... I don't tend to click the music links unless it looks like they'll add something to the story (such as the song Drama was singing)...

As for the music thing, it's actually true. Even with such a machine-learning approach, she's still technically just reproducing recorded voice data- except that it's been broken down to smaller and smaller chunks of data and reassembled into what she wants. I imagine a Reploid's first words are from recorded data only broken apart into words (which lets them communicate extremely early in their lives, able to reproduce any word they've ever heard from really the moment they've heard it, even seconds after activation), making it a very stunted speech (if you've seen Transformers 1, think of how Bumblebee speaks with the radio)... but quickly graduate to breaking it into syllables, phonemes, or even half-phonemes like Siri does- and allowing them to pronounce words they've never heard before. After a while, they start to get down to where it's single waves of sound (emotional inflections start being possible), or partial waves (pitch control), as they refine their voice... and Reploid is probably clear down to pairs or even single samples, given her age- at which point she's only technically replaying recorded data, since she's rebuilding it from its smallest components, giving her a truly unique voice that is truly her own. That gives her way more than the required granularity for singing, whereas a younger Reploid still on the phoneme (or larger) levels hasn't accumulated enough samples/granularity to have any hope, which forces them to replay long segments verbatum unless they want to make an utter disaster of a song by stitching together too many odd pieces- something that isn't a problem for normal speech, and won't really be noticed other than a "rough voice" once they hit the phoneme level (which wouldn't take very long, but each level would take an order of magnitude more time than the last- I bet the "whole word" level would last a matter of minutes to maybe hours)

Naturally, increasing granularity like that also increases the size of the vocal matrix, and the CPU required for voice production- but if Siri can do it on-device so quickly you can hardly tell she's doing it, a Reploid's CPU is no doubt so much more advanced than an iPhone's that it's well below 1% utilization when Reploid is talking about a huge number of whatever- a processing speed that allows her to have alarmed or startled orations, since she can do it realtime rather than ahead of time.

Especially for a Reploid that has reached the lowest possible level of single samples, singing will be a relatively small task. Words are already hellishly easy- and while adding note and beat to the vocal matrix for singing will tend to alter anything it produces to be muscial in quality (since it will still require some value for those inputs, even when not singing), singing is also a separate task than talking- so while it uses mostly the same matrix, I can imagine her CPU would simply copy her vocal matrix and start building the singing one from that. Possibly even from the first time she'd heard singing and the CPU realized the granularity was small enough (say, partial waves) that she could reasonably hope to reproduce it...

Speaking of, especially in that scenario, I could see it using new data to expand both speech and singing matrices together and separately, meaning the singing voice- which wouldn't have had CPU priority, but with long periods spent underwater traveling or whatever you tend to have a ton of spare CPU time- may have even reached single-sample granularity before her normal voice did (thanks to increased training data volume from considering "nonverbal" singing, aka humming/etc, as well)! As a result, depending on how much singing she was exposed to in Neo Arcadia, she may even already be perfectly capable of quality singing... without realizing it.

Note that this assumes that verbal comprehension is completely separate from vocal production, and that they can understand any spoken word even if it's the first word they've ever heard, due to "preloaded" voice recognition software (which will also no doubt improve over time with machine learning, but still)

... Yes, I'm good at coming up with reasons/backstory/whatever like that. It's something I use heavily in my stories, so much so that a lot of them have very "scientific"/constant backstories and otherwise ways things work... With new factors being added to them all the time because I want something to happen, yet if you read the story, that new factor could've been there all along! (And, usually, at least, wasn't really.)

[computerneek]

11103936
Hmm... As an aside, had she been originally built for combat, Fairy's spare CPU time would probably have been spent analyzing martial/combat techniques she'd seen, generating variations, and refining her ability to reproduce them without her involvement (at least after halfway-decent vocal synthesis for free communication), therefore causing her to become exponentially more powerful as a soldier after each fight (and protracted rest periods in between), and voiding the need to practice/train that extra move she used on the whateveritwas gang, rather than simply use it. However, she was originally built for environmental restoration, which in itself is fairly simple- so after some spare CPU time was spent making that more efficient, it would have then moved on to luxury features such as singing, faithful emotional reproduction (in more than just voice), and perhaps something different.

This even stems back to my Starliner stories- in The Equine Starliner, it is revealed that the Starship Athena (which is already basically a Mary Sue ship) is a warship... with this kind of self-improvement "background processing". She's constantly seeking ways to improve- techniques, designs, etcetera, and implementing them with her self-repair/maintenance system. Constantly finding ways to be more survivable, more powerful, more dangerous. Hence, the reason why she usually (in my unpublished stories/imagination) rapidly becomes the most powerful warship in the universe, despite her mission to serve in the name of peace. Her processing capacity is so great that, for emotions/etc, she simulates long periods of time several times over with different variants and decides what's best, whereas Fairy Leviathan- despite a very, very tiny fraction of her processing power- has devoted more CPU time to developing an emotional response system... so whereas Athena's "emotions" are momentary simulations, Fairy's are very real, and it's only the expression of them that are simulations. As such, Athena requires many orders of magnitude more processing power (likely far more than Fairy has available to her) to produce a realistic emotional response to something than Fairy might, simply by being a combat unit rather than a "civilian" unit.

I don't know if Fairy Leviathan would have reset her background CPU priorities along combat lines when she became an official soldier- but her demeanor/stories give me the impression that she didn't. Possibly because she may not have been even aware of said background CPU tasks aside from "systems operations"... such as self-repair system operation/management, which she is evidently leaving to a background task- but that task can't possibly consume all her spare CPU time. This actually reminds me of the whole "materials my self-repair system recognizes" thing some chapters ago, when getting that coat- had she been a combat unit, it wouldn't have taken long for her to adjust her systems to accept the new fuel- those candies- in stride, even when crunching them, and eventually expand her dietary freedom to basically all food or even the air itself... or to expand self-repair system materials recognition up to include surrounding materials, perhaps even include dirt/dust/water removal from her chassis by repair system rather than by outside intervention, nevermind repair system efficiency improvements (which can only go so far for an onboard system presumably based in nanotech, but would theoretically offer her Capsule-level performance without a capsule).

[LunaRisen-Web_System]

"I told you, Fairy. I told you about those stairs."

I WARNED YOU ABOUT STAIRS BRO!
I TOLD YOU DOG!!!
IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Don't you think you can sneak that by me

[57west]

Could pony magic have an impact on her voice?

[Arceaion]

Holly fuck you picked a excellent song and your explanation of the musical parts of the show is incredible.

Mind if I take your idea on Heartsongs for my stories?

[Curtis Wildcat]

11105098
It's possible. Admittedly, I don't have all the details worked out yet.

[Curtis Wildcat]

11105182
If you want to, sure. Go ahead.

[Arceaion]

11105186
Thanks.

[KiaraGate]

Robots can't sing Fairy? Roll, Guts Man, and Rafflesian disagree.

[Curtis Wildcat]

11108553
As much as technology advances in some areas, it degrades in others. Sad, isn't it?

[KiaraGate]

11109370 True. Not much need for singing robots during the Zero games, give it a hundred or so years.

[Teraunce]

Alt Chapter Title: How to Give a Reploid a Heart Attack 101

[tsaukpaetra]

Hehe, we were like, "she's going to trigger a Heartsong. Wait, this is the other direction than intended! Hold on we're in for a ride!"

[Poparakelis]

My face has been living in my hand so much, I should start charging it rent. Drama rests her hoof on my arm, but it barely registers as I utter what has now become my catchphrase for my stay here. “Everypony... in this city... is crazy!”

That's a somewhat diminutive reaction