Chapter 3
As soon as they were back in their workshop Gerhardt led Pixel over to his bed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money to buy you your own separate bed before coming here. So you can take my bed.” Gerhardt told her.
“Oh, so we’re going to share?” Pixel inquired.
Gerhardt shook his head. “No. I have a spare blanket and a spare pillow. I’ll just sleep on the floor or on top of some crates. Most of my body is made of metal and I don’t have synthetic skin like you, so it’s not like I need the extra cushioning. Well, save for my head but that’s what the pillow is for. You, however, have synthetic skin and thus need the bed far more than me.”
“But daddy… I would feel really bad if I just took your bed…” Pixel muttered.
“Don’t. Everything I have done and will do from the point you were first activated onwards has been for you first and foremost. You are my first priority. I come second. I’m giving up my bed for you because I want to, because I love you. And because I do not strictly require it. My short term comfort is irrelevant.” Gerhardt told her, patting her in the head.
“Okay, daddy…” She muttered in a guilty tone.
“Alright then. I’m tired and tomorrow I test you to see if you have the ability to use magic. Once I know if you have the ability or not, your lessons in either technomancy or engineering will begin. Though… Hm… You're going to need some ability to enchant crystals in case I ever get hurt or die so you can maintain your own body even without me… Mmm… Well, we’ll cross that bridge tomorrow. For now, how about I read to you before bed? My parents used to do that for me when I was young and I always enjoyed it. So, would you like that?” Gerhardt asked.
Pixel nodded with a smile on her face. “Yes, please!”
“Alright then. Just give me a moment to go get the book. In the meantime you can take off your boots and get in bed.” Gerhardt told her.
She did as she was told and took off her boots before climbing into the bed and pulling the covers over herself while Gerhardt walked off to retrieve the book.
He read the book he had in mind pretty much every day, so he knew exactly where it was. Seeing it, he picked it up and looked at it for a moment. It was a thick leather bound tome with the symbol of a gear with a pentagram in the middle embossed in real gold on the front. The tome itself was old and worn from frequent use, being older than Gerhardt himself was. It was essentially a family heirloom. His parents used to have it and read it to him every night when he was a child, and when they eventually died they passed it on to him. The Liber Technologiae, or Book of Technology, the holy book of Scientia the Goddess of Science and Technology.
It was perhaps one of the few things that had kept him sane all these years. The words inside offered little in the way of comfort on their own, being very cold and logical, but the memories associated with it meant the world to him. And his faith in Scientia had given him a purpose, a reason to keep going, even if his life had long since completely crumbled down around him.
Grabbing his rusty folding chair he walked back over to Pixel and sat down next to her bed. “This is the Liber Technologiae, the holy book of Scientia. My parents always read this to me before bed when I was a child. I didn’t understand a lot of it at the time, but I always enjoyed them reading to me. I’m not going to be able to read all of it to you tonight. That being said, let’s start from the very beginning, shall we?”
He then opened the large book to the very first chapter and started reading aloud to Pixel. He read for about an hour until he finished the first chapter. At that point he placed a bookmark made of a very fine gold wire fabric in the book and closed it.
“And that’s the end of the first chapter. Good night dear.” Gerhardt told her before getting up out of the chair, kneeling down next to her bed, and hugging her.
She returned the hug. “Good night, daddy.” She told him.
Gerhardt set down the Liber Technologiae and retrieved his spare blanket and pillow before laying down on top of a couple wooden crates. Closing his eyes he drifted off to sleep.
Slowly dreams came to him, and just like the previous night they were filled with nothing but nightmares.
He was standing next to Pixel. She was older and about as tall as he was. “Well, my dear… That’s it. There is no more I can teach you. You have become a far better technomancer than even myself. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you, daddy.” She said with a smile on her face. She then reached under her robes and pulled out a pistol she had been keeping concealed.
“Pixel? What are you doing?” Gerhardt asked, a sense of slowly dawning dread filling him.
“Well, ‘daddy’, by your own admission you’ve already taught me everything you know and I am the better technomancer. That means you have officially become redundant. So, do you remember what you told me about your first apprentice, Dorian?” Pixel asked, pointing her pistol at him. “I’ve been using you this entire time. All I needed was to learn all I could from you and I have done so. So you are no longer useful to me. In fact, you are in my way. And obstacles must be eliminated.”
“No… Y-you can’t be serious! You’re my daughter! I made you with my own two hands! I love you! I thought you loved me…” Gerhardt said as tears welled up in his eyes.
“Pfft! Yeah right. That was all an act. Why do you think I’ve called you ‘daddy’ all these years? I was trying to lull you into a false sense of security. Make you believe I was just your ‘sweet harmless daughter’. What a farce. And you fell for it hook line and sinker.” Pixel mocked.
“Why…? Why? Why?! WHY?! TELL ME WHY?! WHY ARE YOU BETRAYING ME TOO?!” Gerhardt roared, his sadness and pain rapidly turning to sheer rage and seething hatred.
“Why do you think? What did Dorian say when he turned on you? Fame and fortune, of course! The only things that truly matter.” Pixel laughed sadistically as she shot him in the chest. She missed his heart but it was clear to him that she was just trying to make his death all the more painful.
Gerhardt scowled with tears streaming down his face. “So be it…” He growled in a cold tone. He then cast a combat spell and destroyed her arm and gun, sending her body flying backwards where it crashed into a wall. He then cast another and another and another, slowly disassembling her with each spell. “I don’t think you understand your position, my dear sweet daughter. I made you, so what makes you think I can’t unmake you?! Why do you think I never taught you combat magic?! Did you think I didn’t anticipate this exact scenario?! DID YOU?!” Gerhardt roared in absolute fury.
“D-daddy…” Pixel said, a terrified expression on her face. “P-please… I… I don’t… don’t want to die… I’m so-sorry… please…”
“DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A FOOL?! DO YOU THINK I WILL FALL FOR YOUR DECEPTIONS EVER AGAIN AFTER YOU BETRAYED ME?!” Gerhardt screamed, casting another combat spell and destroying another part of her body. He then took a deep breath and in a quieter tone said, “Well… I’ve officially learned my lesson… I will never let myself be betrayed again…”
“Y-you’re insane…” Pixel muttered in abject horror as she stared at the very clearly broken and deranged Gerhardt.
“Maybe I am… But who made me this way, hm…?” Gerhardt demanded with tears streaming down his face. He then cast another spell and destroyed Pixel’s head.
His dream shifted and he found himself looking at a massive screen displaying a burning city with his arms crossed behind his back. His body was now fully artificial and he himself was now just as immortal as all of his children. He knew an army of artificial intelligences, stripped of the same freewill that he had granted his greatest mistake, was marching through the city exterminating and destroying everything in their path. He was committing omnicide. Nothing would survive. Nothing. He even had artificial intelligences scouring the deepest depths of the oceans to exterminate everything within them. All life would die. And in its place he would build an artificial utopia in which no one could ever be betrayed ever again.
All of his children loved him as much as he loved them. They had no choice. After his greatest mistake, he had designed them to be completely incapable of hating, disobeying, or betraying him. But it was as much for their own good as it was for his own. Lack of free will was a small price to pay for a world completely and utterly devoid of betrayal. And he would lead this new world with the benevolence of a strict but loving father as all his people would be his children and he loved each and every last one of them dearly.
The gods, indifferent as they were to the affairs of mortals, did not care and thus did not intervene. Just as they had never once intervened at any point in Gerhardt’s miserable life. Even Scientia, the god Gerhardt worshiped and devoted his entire life to serving, had done nothing to help him at any point in his existence so unfair, cruel, and indifferent were the gods. So why would they help anyone else in their greatest times of need either? The simple answer was, they wouldn’t. And thus Gerhardt’s omnicide was allowed to continue completely unabated, his faith and worship of Scientia and any of the other gods having died along with his greatest mistake.
His dream shifted.
He found himself standing over a grave. Looking closer at the headstone he saw that it was his own grave. He was dead? But if that was the case, how was he standing here to look at his own grave? Was he a ghost?
He then heard crying. Turning around, he saw Pixel sitting there on her knees in front of his grave, holding flowers. “Daddy… Daddy, please… Come back…” Pixel sobbed.
“Pixel, I’m right here. Can’t you see me?” Gerhardt asked. When she didn’t respond he kneeled down to touch her only for his hand to pass straight through her. He tried again only for the same thing to happen a second time. He couldn’t touch her as he no longer had a physical body. He was truly a ghost.
“Come on, Pixel. It’s time to go.” Said Princess Twilight Sparkle who had appeared behind Pixel.
The dream shifted and Gerhardt found himself looking at Pixel again, only now she looked like an adult. “But… Y-you can’t do this to me… These are my inventions, my work! You know that! I thought we were friends!” Pixel shouted at Twilight.
“Friends? Pah! No. I was using you, you idiot! I just needed to keep you around long enough to learn everything your father taught you. Guards, take her away!” Twilight stated in a contemptuous tone.
Gerhardt was then forced to watch as ponies in combat armor reminiscent of the soldiers from his world used a taser on Pixel, locking up her circuitry and paralyzing her before dragging her away. It was history repeating itself all over again. And he could feel nothing but a soul crushing sense of depression and failure over the fact that he had ever let Pixel trust anyone but him before Twilight had him murdered in his sleep to gain legal grounds to take Pixel thus resulting in his daughter making the exact same mistakes that he had.
His dream shifted again.
“STAY BACK! ALL OF YOU! TAKE ANOTHER GODS DAMN STEP AND I’LL BLOW US ALL TO HELL! I’LL FUCKING DO IT! I WON’T LET YOU TAKE MY DAUGHTER AWAY FROM ME!” Gerhardt roared at the shadowy vaguely equine shaped specters surrounding him, whilst holding the detonator for a multi-megaton fusion bomb in his hand. Suddenly agony coursed through his arm as it was crushed like a tin can in a viscous telekinetic grip along with the detonator, thus taking away his biggest threat. The fact that the detonator being destroyed realistically would have set off the bomb didn’t even register in his dreaming mind. He screamed in agony and lashed out with every combat and war spell he knew until he was completely exhausted and collapsed to his knees, only barely managing to keep himself from collapsing completely by holding himself up with his one good hand.
Glaring at the shadowy equine shapes all around him, he saw his combat spells had done little to nothing to any of them. Then one of them walked over to him. This one had both wings and a horn. Its horn was enveloped by a pitch black energy before it blasted his head off with a beam of destructive magical energy.
Gerhardt, now standing, looked down at his own feet and saw his own headless body laying there in a rapidly growing pool of blood.
“NO, DADDY!” He heard Pixel’s voice scream.
“Pixel?!” He said, looking at the source of the voice. He then saw the shadowy Equines surrounding her, blocking her path as she tried to get to his body. “Get away from my daughter, you bastards!” He shouted furiously before trying to cast another spell. Only this time his magic wasn’t working for some reason. Then he remembered, he had just died. His corpse was lying at his feet. He was just a ghost lingering in the material realm with no real power to do anything.
“Nononono! PIXEL!” He shouted, running towards her as she was being dragged away from him by the shadowy equines.
Suddenly the dream shifted and Gerhardt found himself standing in the middle of a lab staring at Pixel as she was strapped to a table having had her arms and legs removed, screaming in a mixture of pain and fear as the shadowy equines around the table did who knew what to her.
“Stop it! You’re hurting her! STOP HURTING MY DAUGHTER!” Gerhardt roared as he tried to attack the Equines only for his hands to pass straight through them without doing anything. He kept trying but nothing he did even so much as touched the shadowy equines.
“Is Subject-001 ready?” Said a familiar voice. Gerhardt looked and saw Dorian walking over to the table.
“No! Not you! Stay away from her!” Gerhardt shouted, trying to block his path only for Dorian to walk straight through him.
“She is.” Said another familiar voice. Gerhardt looked again and saw that the two shadowy equines had turned into Princess Luna and Princess Twilight.
“You two! I knew I should never have trusted you! You’re working with Dorian!” Gerhardt yelled at the two equines, but they didn’t react in the slightest as if they couldn’t even hear him.
“Good. Then I can start reverse engineering her brain. Unfortunately the process will kill her. Not that I care. Just another part of my former master’s legacy for me to destroy.” Dorian said with a hint of sadistic glee in his voice.
Hearing that, Gerhardt’s blood ran cold. “No… Don’t you dare!”
Picking up a tool off a nearby table, Dorian began opening up Pixel’s head while Pixel herself screamed in pain and begged him to stop, to let her live.
Tears were streaming down Gerhardt’s face as he watched on in abject horror as Dorian brutally murdered his daughter by ripping her brain out while she was still awake and fully conscious.
“Enough!” Shouted Luna’s voice. Suddenly everything froze as if someone had just stopped time.
Gerhardt looked towards the source of the voice and saw a second Princess Luna standing there. “What is this? What’s going on?” Gerhardt demanded, confused. His sadness and anger were rapidly fading to nothing.
“You’re having another nightmare, Gerhardt.” Luna said before walking over to the table where Dorian had been trying to rip out Pixel’s brain. She stepped over to her own frozen clone and looked at Gerhardt. “My word… Do you truly think so little of Twilight and I that you believe we would kidnap and torture your daughter like this?”
Gerhardt crossed his arms behind him and looked at her. “I have no idea. I know nothing about you. However, you will not do any such thing if you want to live to see another sunrise, or should I say moonrise in your case? Regardless, I would not have built her if I didn’t think I could protect her even if you sent an entire army to try to take her from me. Besides which, if you tried you would forever lose all access to my medical technology that you claimed to be so interested in last time we spoke. So tell me, would you?”
“No! Of course not! And it has nothing to do with fear of death or losing access to your technology. I’m not some monster that takes pleasure in harming others. And I can honestly think of no other reason why anyone would do such a thing as this to a mere foal.” Luna stated, looking at the frozen scene in disgust.
“The technology. In this dream you were assisting someone in taking apart and reverse engineering the technology of my daughter’s brain. But if you truly have no idea what can be done with such technology, I most certainly am not going to just tell you. Regardless, why are you here again? What do you want?” Gerhardt inquired.
Luna’s horn glowed for a moment. Suddenly the dream changed and Gerhardt found himself standing in the fiddle of a grassy field at night, just like the first time he met Luna. “I’m here for two reasons. First is to put a stop to your nightmares again. Protecting dreams is my job after all. Second, I have received a message from Twilight telling me she plans to help you bring your workshop out of the Everfree forest to Ponyville. I have come to inform you of this. Also, you are going to have to file some paperwork to start an official business here in Equestria. Twilight will give you the paperwork tomorrow.”
“Fine… Anything else?” Gerhardt inquired.
“Well, Twilight did tell me that your daughter was activated yesterday and she and her friends held a party for her. I apologize I couldn’t attend myself but I was asleep at the time.”
“Why are you apologizing? I could not possibly care less about your absence. You want something from me, my technology, and I want money to buy more materials and provide the best possible life for my daughter. Thus we will have a monetary transaction once the artificial organs I am going to make are finished. That is the extent of it. No more. No less. Any purely social interactions are unnecessary and entirely unwanted.” Gerhardt stated in a cold business-like tone.
Luna sighed. “Fine. Excuse me for trying to be nice.” She then vanished and left Gerhardt alone in the middle of the field. He was still dreaming but he was entirely lucid.
Since Luna was gone and he was still aware that he was dreaming he decided to just spend this time trying to think up new machine designs.
[In the Dream Realm]
Luna stormed out of Gerhardt’s dream in frustration. “Sweet harmony, he is stubborn. I was just trying to be nice and he metaphorically spat in my face…” She then sighed and shook her head. “Though I suppose it was partially my fault for thinking he would be at all receptive to kindness at this stage. He is still a very deeply disturbed individual after all… At least he’s not afraid of me or refusing to be my friend because of my mistakes as Nightmare Moon, like many ponies. That’s a nice change of pace. That does give me some hope that perhaps we can actually be friends once he’s had time to adjust and loosened up a bit.”
She looked around the dream realm and saw a dream very close to Gerhardt’s that didn’t feel like it belonged to a pony or anything else she had ever encountered before. It wasn’t even like Gerhardt’s. Could this have been Gerhardt’s daughter’s dream?
Stepping inside, Luna was greeted by the sight of what looked like a miniature version of whatever Gerhardt was. Only this one had glowing pink eyes instead of normal eyes. Very clearly his daughter, Luna decided. She was currently sitting on Gerhardt’s lap eating what looked like a slice of cake with a massive smile on her face while Gerhardt had his arms wrapped around her in an embrace also having a smile on his face. Now that was something Luna hadn’t been expecting to see.
Sitting around them were Twilight and her friends who were all also eating slices of cake. Other than that all of them were pretty much just sitting in an empty white void.
Luna found it almost unsettling. Surely there had to be something else to this dream. But no. She looked around and couldn’t see anything. It was literally just the two of them sitting in a white void while Pixel and the others ate perpetually regenerating slices of cake.
Then again she had only been active for a few hours, presumably. So she might not have much to dream about. Then again, she had to have seen places already if she was dreaming about Twilight and her friends so they should have at least been somewhere rather than just sitting in a white void. Even newborn foals dreamed of things they had experienced on their first day of life or things they heard while in the womb. But this? This was different… It wasn’t normal. It was like a mix between the dreams of a fully cognizant child and a newborn but somehow not. It was incredibly confusing.
All Luna truly knew was that a dream, any dream, should not be like this. It was just… wrong somehow. Like it had been artificially constructed by someone who knew what a dream was but very little or nothing about how dreams really worked and what made it a dream in the first place. Like a painting made by someone who knew the proper shapes to make and had the muscular control to make them, but was fundamentally missing or misunderstanding what made a painting a painting. It was technically a painting in the most basic sense but it just came out wrong. It was uncanny to the point of being creepy.
“Ehem… Excuse me. Are you perhaps Gerhardt's daughter?” Luna inquired, taking a step closer.
His daughter looked at her as if she just noticed her. “Yup! My name is Pixel Mechanica! I’m daddy’s daughter. Who are you?”
“I am Princess Luna. Diarch of Equestria and ruler of the night and dreams… You are dreaming right now.” Luna introduced herself.
“Hm? I’m dreaming? Oh, yeah… I remember going to sleep… But if that’s true, then how are you in my dream? Are you real?” Pixel inquired.
“I am. As the Princess of the Night I have the power to enter and control the dreams of other ponies… Speaking of which. I have something of a question for you… How do I put this…? Do you… like this dream?” Luna inquired.
Pixel tilted her head and looked at Luna curiously. “I guess. I mean I’m being held by daddy, I’m eating cake, and there are those nice ladies we met earlier today. It’s all of my favorite things! Why wouldn’t I like it?”
“Well, we are in the middle of a blank white void right now.” Luna stated.
“We are?” Pixel asked, clearly having been unaware of this fact previously. She then looked around for a moment and her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh! I guess we are. I didn’t even notice.”
“Would you like for me to change it some?” Luna inquired.
“Change it? Into what?” Pixel inquired, looking back at Luna.
“Something a bit more interesting than just a white void.”
Pixel thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Okay.”
Luna’s horn was enveloped by a blue aura for a moment as she cast a spell. “Ah… give me a moment… Your dreams are… odd. I’ve never worked with anything like this before, but I think I’m figuring it out?” The dream then began to change around them, slower than dreams usually did because Luna was trying to be careful and figure out how the dream itself worked. But eventually the dream changed to a grassy field in the middle of the night full of glowing flowers and blue bioluminescent butterflies. She was intentionally making it a bit more pretty for Pixel than she had for Gerhardt.
Pixel was looking around in amazement. “It’s so pretty!” She squealed excitedly as she caught one of the butterflies and began looking at it curiously. “What’s this?” She asked.
“That’s a butterfly. It’s a type of insect. You don’t know what a butterfly is?” Luna inquired.
“I know the word but I had no image to go along with it. Daddy uploaded a lot of words into my head when he made me so I could speak immediately upon activation, but he just uploaded the words and their basic definitions. I don’t know what the things the words represent actually look like or how they are used in the case of tools and things.” Pixel explained as she released the butterfly, knelt down, and picked a flower. “What is this?”
“That’s a flower.”
“It’s odd… Nothing in my definitions suggest that flowers or butterflies can glow like this. And I know the names of all known species of flower and butterfly in the Human language. Do they all look like this?” Pixel inquired.
“No. This is just what I made them look like so you could see them better in the dim light. There are a few flowers that glow that I know of, we have some in the castle gardens in Canterlot, but there are no butterflies that glow like this that I’m aware of. It’s just something I thought you might enjoy.” Luna explained.
“I do! They’re all really pretty! I should ask daddy to make some glowing butterflies so we can have some at home!” Pixel said as she looked around at the butterflies. She then looked up at the sky. “Ooh… Even the sky is pretty!”
Luna was taken aback by her assertion that Gerhardt could make such things but she couldn’t help but smile when she called the night sky pretty. “You’re father can do that? Make living creatures, I mean?”
Pixel looked at Luna in confusion. “He made me, didn't he? I’m alive.”
Luna winced at that. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t alive. I just mean, can he create organic life? Like these butterflies from flesh and blood rather than metal?”
“Oh. I dunno.” Pixel shrugged. “I can ask him when I wake up! But if he made me he should be able to make glowing butterflies too even if he can’t make them out of flesh and blood. I don’t really know how this technomancy stuff works yet. Sorry. Oh! But tomorrow he’s going to have me take a test!”
“Oh? What for? You have only just been made. You can’t be ready for a test just yet.”
“He’s going to test me to see if I can use magic or not! If I can he’s going to teach me technomancy, but if I can’t he’s going to teach me basic engineering. I hope I can! I really want to become a technomancer just like daddy!” Pixel explained happily.
“I see. So wait… Did he build you with a horn, or…?” Luna inquired.
“A horn? Not that I’m aware of… Why?” Pixel inquired.
“Because all known species capable of using magic need horns to channel it. If you don't, that would fundamentally change our understanding of how magic works as a whole.” Luna explained.
“I’m looking at the definitions in my systems… Horns don’t seem to have any connection to magic by any of the definitions of the word I am aware of. These are all the definitions in my systems. Horn: a hard permanent outgrowth, often curved and pointed, found in pairs on the heads of cattle, sheep, goats, giraffes, etcetera. and consisting of a core of bone encased in keratinized skin. The substance of which horns are composed. A horn-shaped projection. A wind instrument, conical in shape or wound into a spiral, originally made from an animal horn (now typically brass) and played by lip vibration. An instrument sounding a warning or other signal.” Pixel listed out.
She then shrugged and shook her head. “Nope. I don’t have any definitions to suggest they have any connection to magic. Souls seem to have a connection though! Soul (definition provided by the gods): the spiritual or immaterial part of a person or animal, regarded as immortal and the source of any mage’s ability to use magic. I don’t know much more than that, though. You’d have to ask Daddy if you wanted to know how it actually works.”
“I see… Well, I guess that is one explanation for how he can cast magic without a horn… In that case I certainly wish you luck.” Luna said. She didn’t really accept this answer but she didn’t want to make Pixel feel bad or dash her hopes of being a mage so she kept her perspective to herself. For one thing, she didn’t believe in gods. At least not unless one counted Discord as a god, which she didn’t. And while she didn’t not believe in souls, she didn’t know if they actually existed or not but she liked to think there was an afterlife, she couldn’t help but doubt the validity of them having any power in the physical world such as granting one the ability to use magic. So she assumed humans must have some other more subtle biological mechanism for magic other than horns or wings that they just weren’t aware of.
Not to mention, how would that even work? What would determine which souls could or could not use magic in the first place? It just didn’t make sense. At least with biology it was related to one’s species and race and the biological traits associated with that species and race. It was much easier to explain and just generally made more sense.
And if that was indeed the case that magic was strictly related to biology then Pixel surely had no hope of being able to use magic like her father. Since all living creatures had some form of magic, she might have some kind of magic too but it probably wouldn’t work like Gerhardt’s or a Unicorn’s. For all Luna knew it could be more subtle like an Earth Pony or a Zebra’s magic which would probably disappoint her greatly since she wanted to be like her father.
“Ehem… Sorry, for the silence I got lost in my own thoughts for a moment. Anyway, I have a few more questions I would like to ask you, if you don’t mind.” Luna said, smiling at Pixel.
“Sure!” Pixel said, as she looked around at the glowing flowers and butterflies.
“Wonderful. So… What do you think of your father? I know it’s only been a few hours so you probably don’t know much about him yet, but has he been treating you well?” Luna asked.
“Daddy? I love him! He’s super nice! Well… He’s nice to me, anyway. He doesn’t seem to like Princess Twilight or her friends very much. But he didn’t try to hurt them and he agreed to take me to the birthday party they held for me! He even read to me before bed! He also gave up his bed for me and is sleeping on some crates even though I offered to share it with him. I feel really guilty about that but he insisted… Oh! But before Princess Twilight showed up and brought us to the birthday party he let me help fix him! A rib was puncturing one of his lungs and he guided me through replacing it! He said he would have fixed it himself but I was so close to being finished, he wanted to work on me first. Apparently he prioritizes me over himself and his own pain. So, yes he treats me really well! He just doesn’t treat himself or others very well… Why is that? Why doesn’t daddy like himself or others?” Pixel inquired.
Princess Luna winced. She was surprised to hear that Pixel had actually opened Gerhardt up and essentially performed surgery on him while he was still awake and perfectly lucid so he could guide her through the entire process but she was just going to have to think about that later. For now it really wasn’t her place to be talking to Pixel about this sort of thing since she wasn’t Gerhardt, Pixel’s only parent. But she felt like she had to say something otherwise she was worried what ideas a child like Pixel would start forming without any frame of reference.
“Well… That’s a rather complicated topic. You should really talk to him about it instead of me since he’s your parent and he knows himself better than anypony else. But that being said, what I will say is this. From what very little I know about him, he has not had a very good life. I don’t know much myself since I only learned of his existence yesterday night. But I do know he has been through a lot and is just very slow to trust other ponies. Furthermore, I don’t know if it’s that he doesn’t like himself so much as I think he may have gotten used to hardship. So things like pain may not bother him as much as they should. That or he just cares about you so much that he’s willing to do anything for you even if it means going through physical pain for you. But like I said, you should talk to him about it since he’s the only one who could know for sure.”
Luna honestly suspected the worst. Hearing that he had put off getting medical care and willingly put himself through physical agony in favor of finishing his daughter made her suspect he may be experiencing self loathing on top of his deep seated mistrust of others. If that was the case she was going to have to ask Twilight to watch him for any suicidal tendancies. This was just as much if not more so for Pixel’s sake than his own since he was the only one with the knowledge required to take care of the little A.I. and she had no idea if he had done something to Pixel while building her to kill her if he ever died. Though it could also be that his loneliness was truly just too much for him and from his perspective he needed companionship to the point his own physical well being was a secondary concern for him, which was arguably just as bad. She didn’t know which it was but either way it wasn’t healthy.
“Oh. Okay, I’ll ask him when I wake up!” Pixel chirped, with an innocent smile. “So what else do you want to ask me?”
“Why is it you want to be like your father?” Luna asked.
Pixel gave her a confused look. “Hm?”
“Is it something you genuinely want? Is it something he programmed into you? Or is it that you just don’t know anything else so you just think it’s what you want?” Luna asked.
“Hm… I can’t find anything suggesting that daddy programmed me to want to be like him. I know of a lot of other jobs and what they do. Doctors, soldiers, biomancers, police officers, engineers, priests, accountants, artists, writers, scholars, philosophers, and several thousand more. But I love Daddy, so why would I not want to be like him when I’m older? There are so many things I can do, but so what? There are too many to care about all of them, or even a fraction of them. And daddy said himself that he wants to teach me to be a technomancer. Besides, it’s what Scientia would want too.” Pixel explained.
“And who is Scientia?” Luna asked.
“The goddess of Science and Technology. Technomancy is the most holy thing any of her followers can practice as combining magic and technology symbolizes the epitome of technology and science. The Liber Technologiae says so in the first chapter, which daddy read to me before bed.” Pixel told her.
“So it’s as much a religious matter as much as it is the fact your father is a technomancer himself. Alright…” Luna said. She didn’t show it on her face but she wasn’t exactly happy to hear this. Mainly because she wasn’t sure Pixel could be a technomancer in the first place and it being a religious matter likely just made that possibility all the more important to her. If it hadn’t been a matter of religion, she would have tried to encourage Pixel to become something else. A doctor maybe. Pretty much any job would have been fine so long as it was something that didn’t require magic that functioned like that of a unicorn or her father. But as it stood, she was going to have to back off and let her and Gerhardt work it out themselves.
“Thank you for answering my questions. I just wanted to learn a bit more about you and your father. Anyway, what would you like to do now?” Luna asked.
“What do you mean?” Pixel asked.
“I mean would you like to go play with the butterflies, make flower crowns, fly through the sky, or even dream about something else? There is a lot you can do in dreams so you should try to have some fun and enjoy them as much as you can!” Luna stated, smiling at her.
“Oh… Then I’m not sure. I haven’t really done any of that before. Could you show me something fun to do?” Pixel asked.
“Of course! I’d love to.” Luna said with a friendly smile.
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It remind me like Adeptus Mechanicus from Warhammer 40k
11304088
I'll admit, I did draw a bit of inspiration from the Mechanicus when coming up with Gerhardt and his religion. That being said, the Mechanicus would absolutely consider him a heretek considering he not only combines magic and technology, which is a big no no with the Mechanicus, but built an actual A.I. as his daughter. But that's fine. He could just join the Dark Mechanicum if he ever went to the Warhammer universe.
Our not so frie dly neighborhood technomancer is not going to be happy to hear that luna visited his daughter in her sleep
11308124
I'm glad you like the direction it's going! And that's a really good line and definitely something Gerhardt would believe. To be honest, I just never thought of it and that's why it was never included otherwise I would have. That being said, Twilight is definitely smart enough to get that sort of message from him through his actions and behavior even if he never said it directly. I know it's not quite the same but it's the best I can do without going back and adding it retroactively or quoting you later.
This is something new for a stories premises, at least too my knowledge so with that I shall say I find myself interested and I hope to see more soon!
Honestly not a fan of this insane paranoid Gerhardt, there is no other way but to call it insane expecting everyone to betray you for nonsensical reasons, being as smart as he thing he is eh should know that's not generally how people work even if he doesn't trust them, especially from what we know so far he had a fairly normal life and was betrayed once.
I dunno maybe tone down the paranoia a bit, he doesn't need to remind the ponies every 5min that he'll end them if they try something.
11310223
Fair criticism. Yeah, maybe I went a bit overboard. I'll try to tone it down in the next chapter and going forwards.
11310387
need more
Luna Luna Luna. Phrasing it like that, sort of gives the indication that you are blaming him for thinking that, which is the one thing you should not do, if you desire to help him. She's lucky Gerhardt is actually stronger than that, but still. The wrong thing to say.
When will we be expecting a next chapter
11335343
Soon. I just had other things to take care of and I needed to figure some stuff out about the direction I wanted to take the plot.
11338262
Well if you need some help with the plot ask your viewers
hay more chapters