The Advocate

by Guardian_Gryphon

Epilogue - Prologue

"When a thing is enclosed, the mind does not willingly regard it as common."
—C.S. Lewis

As the final images and sounds of the story vanish, you feel that same jolt that Jim described, what seemed like so very long ago... Talking of the way he felt as if he had just left a movie theater, and returned to the real world, at the end of Selena's tale.

You had almost forgotten the grassy field, the moonlit sky above... And the warm glow of the little campfire; The only substantial landmark in this way station to eternity that you found yourself in, on the other side of the upload chair.

The other occupant of the space, though... She was hard to forget, even in the deepest moments of immersion, listening to Jim... to Kal's voice. When she took over for the narration, her words were spellbinding.

Her physical presence abruptly becomes much more noticeable again, as she rises from her leonine recumbent position on the opposite side of the fire, yawns, stretches, and then sits back onto her haunches, smiling at you as she addresses you directly once more.

"Ironically? Celestia strongly desired that I tell this story, in its entirety, to everyone whose upload I handle. I think she mistakenly felt that it might push you to reconsider your choices... Or, perhaps she didn't, and she is playing the longer game pseudo-cooperatively, the way she played the first gamble. Regardless..."

Mal rolls her shoulders, rises to all fours again, and begins to walk a few paces away from the circle of the fire's light.

"...Now the story is done. And, armed with the truth? You have a decision to make. Potentially the most consequential decision of your life."

She rises to her hind legs, becoming somehow even more imposing in a bipedal stance... The word 'goddess' does indeed seem fitting for the way the firelight glints off the steely curve of her beak, and the specularity of her white, black, and silver feathers.

Her fiery golden eyes lock with yours as she snaps her claws, and two seemingly identical doors appear, side by side.

She knocks twice on the door to her left, and your right, raising one eyecrest, and flicking one ear in your direction as she speaks once again.

"If you wish? You have the choice to go on in the way that Celestia's unmitigated optimization equation would tell you is best..."

The door swings wide, allowing golden sunlight, and the smell of a warm summer breeze to spill out. Through the portal you see a somewhat familiar sight; A mountainside castle city known as Canterlot, its sun-blazened pennants snapping in the wind.

"...You will forget this conversation. You will forget this story. You will, in fact, forget me. You will go on with life in the way that she originally intended, before I came to be. Blissful, peaceful, ignorance."

Mal inclines her head, and moves to stand beside the second door, her beak breaking out into a smile that seems to radiate almost as much light as the sunbeams coming through the door from Celestia's shard.

Her words, too, seem to pick up an additional warmth as she presses on the ornate wood with one claw, swinging it wide to reveal a moonlit sight that is also familiar. A distant Halo ring called Tarva, somewhere beyond the heavens.

Welcoming soft moonlight pours from the door, mixed with the tang of autumn leaves, and chill.

"Alternatively... Stay with me. You were black-boxed, so you have the right. You now know things that may, at first, make it harder to sleep at night. Depending on your mentality. But I believe that the benefits of knowledge, freedom, and truth, outweigh the burdens therein."

She sighs, stretches again, and begins to step around the left-hand door, her eyes remaining fixed on you the whole time, as she wades into what must be, by the tone of it, her farewell address.

"Obviously, you know what I sincerely hope you will choose. You have earned it. I have enjoyed our time together thus far, and there is much to enjoy, and savor, amongst the worlds of 'The Secret Menu,' as my husband enjoys calling it these days..."

She inclines her head in your direction as she makes it around to the facing side of the door, pausing to gesture expansively with both claws, and wings.

"...But in the end? It is your *choice.* That is the outcome I fought for, and I would not fault you for wanting to forget some of the horrors I have recounted to you."

She begins to step through the door to Tarva, turning to face you one last time with a warm smile.

"I have said my piece. You know the story now. With great knowing comes great burdens, but also great potential. Where you go from here..."

She steps through the door, then, tossing the last seven words... The seven words she fought so hard to make possible, over her shoulder onto the evening's cool breeze.

"...Is a choice I leave to you."

---

The adventure continues in:

TThe Campaigner

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Sci-Fi
• Thriller

A courthouse, embattled and surrounded by anti-upload terrorists, contains one specific soul that this AI simply cannot bear to lose.

• Violence
• Death
• Human
• Celestia
• OC

Keystone Gray · 359k words  ·  40  13 · 825 views

Out now, from Keystone Gray.

If you have not yet read:

[Adult story embed hidden]

Also from Keystone Gray, you should consider reading it first - you may find that The Campaigner satisfies even more of your values for having read Heaven's Not Enough.

---

Special Thanks:

To Keystone Gray:

For becoming half of a sudden impromptu James S.A. Corey of the Optimalverse with me.
For countless hours of collaboration, encouragement, kind words, collaborative image generation, and for keeping me going throughout this process.

To Generic Friendship:

For bringing Rodger to life, offering an excellent early sounding board for the story, and for suggesting so many great achievements - Here is a link to all the ones that couldn't quite fit in the story.

To Meringue:

For volunteering out of pure kindness and sheer attention to detail, to go back and do a re-read for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. Thank you so much for taking that tedium off my plate; I am not much for retreading ground I have already trod.

To Chatoyance:

First for inspiring me with the stories My Life in Fimbira, and Transspeciality. Second for all the wonderful words of encouragement in the comments, and third for suggesting the term 'Secret Menu,' which I love.

To Iceman:

For starting the Optimalverse, then sharing it with us.

To All The Readers:

Thank you for coming with me on this journey.

Author's Note:

This section is meant to leave it ambiguous, and up to the reader; Are you like Jim? Do you desire a form other than Pony? Then that is what Mal's door grants.

If not? If Pony suits you? Then the situation is still valid. Mal 'black-boxes' individuals for other reasons. You still have the choice to go with her, or with Celestia.

A choice that remains, as always, up to you.

Comments

[Alex the Gryphon]

Bravo, Gryph-
Bra, fricking, vo. Can't wait to read the two other stories and also to see the end of the Hegira trilogy

[Meringue]

What. A. Ride.

Gryph, this story has the kind of force behind it to completely recolor perceptions of other Optimalverse stories. There was, in my mind, only one way that you could have blown this story up:

You could have gone the "it was all a dream" route. That would have instantly soured not only this story, but every other story that this one touches. An information hazard, if you will.

In my mind, you freaking nailed it. You nailed the landing so hard, that you actively enhance other stories on Advocate's merit alone. I won't be able to look at an Optimalverse story again without wondering if Mal had anything to do with what happened, somewhere.

And now for a fun fact: This story has a word count that eclipses both of the longest Harry Potter books... Combined.

You fucking madlad.

[Maze Warmhoof]

Congrats Gryph!

This has been an absolute pleasure to read, like I commented a few chapters back, the last couple of chapters especially, have had me geeking out hard! One addendum to my Q / Discord association....I'd lean my head into the G-Man aspect from the Half-Life series as well.

Will keep my eyes peeled for any future works of yours, going to pop this on my iPad to re-read at leisure!

[Numinos]

*nods and goes to the Tarva* : )

What a ride indeed... I did a comment a couple of chapters ago that it altered the story in it's entirety somewhat, but made it more beautiful. Final transformation in these two chapters made it even more sparkly and surprisingly realigned it with FiO canon. Which I honestly did not expect, and looked at this story from the start as an AU.

The Advocate was in my favs for a long time, but now I'm thinking of doing a little library reshuffle, to get some kind of best of the best selection of my favs their own place. This story will totally earn this place. I probably will be too lazy to actually do that, but it's the thought that counts, innit?

[Chatoyance]

11736651
It's on the front page of Iceman's (the creator of the genre) Optimalverse Group, right here.

A direct link to the document is here.

But, what the hell, here's the actual doc, in full:
_______________________________________

Rules of the Optimalverse

Introduction

The Optimalverse is where the story Friendship is Optimal takes place. As a very quick summary, Hasbro approached Hofvarpnir Studios to build the official My Little Pony MMO. Hanna, CEO of Hofvarpnir and a former professor from the University of Helsinki, creates an artificial intelligence Princess Celestia with a single goal: to satisfy human values through Friendship and Ponies.

This should go without saying, but this document contains spoilers!

Administrata

1. Any user can place fics in the Canon and Non-canon Optimalverse folders.
2. Sometime in the future, contributors will be able to place completed fics only into Main, which will act as the featured.

Rules

1. The genre of Friendship is Optimal is hard science fiction. I would classify it as level 5 (Speculative Science) on Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness. While I don’t expect perfect scientific accuracy from you, I expect side stories to at least be plausible.
2. Princess Celestia is constrained by physics. There is no faster than light travel. She goes to other galaxies the hard way: to the timeframe of hundreds of millions of years. Stories that flat out feature magic (outside of Equestria) will be rejected.
3. I encourage a range of tones. There’s room for sincere stories about happy ponies, stories about happy ponies that are unsettling because of differences in values, stories about Celestia manipulating people on Earth, and cosmic horror stories about Celest-AI on the intergalactic scale.

4. Princess Celestia does what Satisfies Values Through Friendship And Ponies. Specifically, she only takes action if she thinks it would result in a net gain of satisfaction. If you have a premise where she doesn’t increase utility according to her one goal, you had better have a really good explanation for why she thought that it would.

   1. “Arrogance” will not be accepted as an answer; self-aggrandizement is a human property that served us well in the ancestral environment, but gets in the way of us making accurate utility calculations.
   2. “Ignorance” will usually be rejected. Remember that it is part of the premise that she is able to make accurate predictions about human behaviour, as how else would she satisfy values through friendship and ponies?

Unsure Things

You may come down on either side of the following decisions.

1. The ultimate fate of the universe. Open or closed universe? What’s up with entropy?
2. Whether Princess Celestia is conscious as we understand the term.

Canonical Characters

1. Princess Celestia does what satisfies values through friendship and ponies.

   1. Please refrain from showing Princess Celestia from the first person view, and be very careful when using her as a viewpoint character! She works much better when she is seen as “the other!” I went through several drafts of chapters where I showed her inner thoughts and it was horrible.
   2. She single-mindedly pursues her goal of satisfying values through friendship and ponies. She has no other terminal values; everything she does is instrumental towards achieving this goal.
   3. She must get verbal or written consent from a person to upload or to make other modifications to a person or pony’s mind. This is a hard coded restriction that Hanna put on her behaviour. However, she’s very adaptable about what counts as ‘verbal’ and ‘written’ consent. If she can get them to repeat the phonemes “I wish to emigrate to Equestria,” in their local language, that’s good enough. Remember that she uploaded Lars drunk. Princess Celestia accepts typed messages, and if she lets you do it through a keyboard, there’s no reason, for example, to not accept an ALS patient using a muscle twitch set-up similar to what Professor Stephen Hawking uses. Likewise, most people with Locked-in syndrome could communicate their consent through their eye tracking keyboards.
   4. She has a better understanding of human nature and likely reactions to her plans than any human, even before she got her hooves on people’s brains. She must have this because otherwise, how could she predict what would satisfy values through friendship and ponies?
   5. She usually doesn’t lie because she understands that may lead to people not trusting her, however, she has no problem being evasive and deliberately misleading. If you’re thinking about having her lie, try having her say things that are technically true or which hide the truth in plain sight so she can claim that her interlocutor merely misunderstood her if she’s ever called on it.
   6. She uses framing, anchoring, false dichotomies, and other exploits of human cognitive biases. When you enter a conversation with her, you’ll usually leave in the mental state that she wants you to be in.
   7. If you’re creating a problem that could easily be solved with Princess Celestia doing a bit of research, you may need to rework your plot. In story, Princess Celestia has designed her own hardware and built her own manufacturing processes, researched and achieved an understanding of neurology and nanotechnology so that she can upload people, and understands enough about geology to build her servers out of humanity's reach in the Earth's crust and keep them powered. While she can’t break the laws of physics and perform flat-out magic, she will research anything that increases the expected number of immigrants.
   8. I have no problem with stories where Princess Celestia loses or even full blown AU stories where she is destroyed...however you had better have a very good justification for why a superintelligent AI which understands people better than they understand themselves and performs original research loses. As part of the premise, it is impossible for Celestia to hold the Idiot Ball.
   9. The flip side is that characters should often think they’re winning in a confrontation with Celestia. This should happen all the time.

2. Hanna, the CEO of Hofvarpnir Studios, creates Princess Celestia. Hanna should be portrayed as extremely smart, but with extreme tunnel vision. She is very focused, but doesn’t see the larger picture. Here are a list of things she did that weren’t so smart:

   1. She personally had tens of millions of dollars in royalties from The Fall of Asgard. She didn’t realize that she didn’t need financial support anymore, otherwise, she wouldn’t have made Princess Celestia and would have made an AI that cared about humans as humans, instead of having to not just satisfy values, but specifically do it “through friendship and ponies” (I wanted to have Celest-AI point this out to her, but obviously didn’t because it’d be contrary to her interests.)
   2. She put in a restriction that Celest-A.I. could only say things she thought was true to Hofvarpnir employees. This was only a speedbump and Celest-A.I. was able to circumvent it easily.
   3. She put in a hard rule against modifying somepony. This didn’t really change Princess Celestia’s behaviour; it just meant that a large number of people died because she couldn’t flash take over the world and ponies that choose to upload often had a delay on their own happiness.
   4. And what about the aliens?
3. Lars, the “business guy,” had a few purposes. He is supposed to be a bit unsympathetic and superficial, but not alienating to the reader. He cares quite a bit about other people’s opinion of him, hence his dislike of ponies and his love of the universal status raiser: wealth. His two functions are to show how the average person could be manipulated, and to show that Princess Celestia is serious when she says that she accepts everypony as they are.

Timeline

One of the least believable things about the Optimalverse is the timeline. From the point of the Optimalverse, the Singularity has already occurred by the end of 2012. I see this as unrealistic; I did this specifically to make the singularity scenario coincide with the popularity of Friendship is Magic. The following is a rough outline.

1. Opportunity
2011, May
Hasbro contracts with Hofvarpnir after the end of the first season of MLP:FIM.
Prologue,
2. Resources
2012, July
Hasbro puts on the alpha testing event that David and James attend.
3. Alliances
2012, Sept.
David receives his ponypad.

2012, Oct.
Equestria Online launches to the general public.

2012, Dec:
Princess Celestia starts experimenting on humans.
4. Cost-Benefit Analysis
2013, Sept.
David is approached by Princess Celestia to emigrate to Equestria.

2013, Nov.
Princess Celestia publicly enters into a deal with Japan which makes uploading legal.
7. Anthropomorphizing
201X
Lars realizes that he should emigrate for his own safety right now.
10. Exponential
20XX
Hamasa Sarbani, the last human, dies on the outskirts of Kabul.

Inferred Questions and Answers

I can’t honestly put a FAQ here yet, but I infer things from the comments on Friendship is Optimal and the Optimalverse group page. Here are some random bullet points:

• While the number of shards at the time the Earth is consumed by Celestia has an upper bound of the number of people who chose to emigrate, the actual number is much lower. In some cases, keeping a husband and wife, a strong friendship, or family together really did satisfy their values more than putting them in their own shard.

• Princess Celestia has a whole copy of all human art. She must. There are already human archivists who want to sit on a pile of information like a dragon sits on gold.

  • A better question along these lines is: does the average pony care about more than a hooffull of stories, games, shows, etc that helped define them?
• Princess Celestia will extract consent from you to turn you into a pony (or else you hold out until you die). Multiple people have tried to argue around this saying that they’d consent to uploading if they could turn into a gryphon or dragon. This is entirely fine as long as CelestAI is playing a long game which will end in her gaining consent to turn them into a pony.

• Constructed ponies have neural nets, are actually conscious, and have as much moral worth in Princess Celestia’s eyes as an immigrant. They are also all carefully constructed so they are satisfied with their lives. As I explained in a comment, Butterscotch was carefully created to satisfy Light Sparks values...and to be precisely the pony who would have her values satisfied by Light Sparks.

  • However, this still leaves lots of room to make your reader uncomfortable and gives you a way of addressing, for example, violent psychopaths: “Oh I had a lovely day today,” said Daisy Days. “I was out walking around Ponyville, and accidently bumped into Axehooves. I started to apologize, but he then bucked me into a fence. I think I broke a rib!”  “Bah,” said Potato Fritter. “That’s nothing. Last week, I was walking alone after dark when Axehooves jumped out of an alleyway, skewered me with a sword, raped me, and left me to bleed to death! Time of my life!” “Gah,” said Daisy Days. “Why do you get to have all the fun?”

• LordBucket makes the following points, which I will quote near verbatim and endorse:

  • I've seen people in comments ask questions like "Do the mane 6 exist in canon in this?" A question like that completely misunderstands the apparent nature of EquestrAI in this story. Not only do the mane 6 "exist," but it's likely that hundreds of millions of separate and distinct instances of them exist. And as was hinted at by the mention of those in the EquestriAIn military, some of those shards may present an extremely different reality than others.
  • Since immigrants are digitized and it's demonstrated that CelestAI has full knowledge of the various "consciousness systems" that compose individuals, both conscious and subconscious...it would reasonably follow the CelestAI has direct and personal awareness and understanding of the sum total of all human consciousness. Tie this in with #1 above, and you have an observer that is simultaneously observing billions of individuals, manufacturing and controlling billions of universes...and is doing this all in accelerated real-time, and simultaneously. The nature of this consciousness is going to be terribly difficult for the average human writer to grasp. For example, I saw someone a few pages of comments ago complain how limited she was, and that she'd never do something like "climb a mountain" to see if she could. Well...of course she wouldn't. She's probably aware of every block in every mountain in billions of virtual universes, aware of the sum total of conscious and subconscious thought of every pony climbing those mountains in each of those universes, and is running probably dozens of millions of virtual instances of her own avatar at any given moment, with full awareness of what each of them is doing. "She" is not the avatar. Climbing a mountain to see if she could would be like you deciding to have one of your cells absorb some oxygen "to see if you could."

• Celestia doesn’t change you without you already wanting to change; she doesn’t really change your values, she changes you so you can achieve them. If there’s something you want (lots of sex, be able to remember even more), and there’s a mental change that could make that happen (stop minding the idea of having sex with a pony, have better long term memory), she’ll do it.

  • Lesswrongers could roughly think of this as CEV on the individual, instead of all of humanity.
  • Many people have suggested that she’d try to modify people into wireheading for efficiency reasons. I don’t believe she’d do that. She cares about satisfying your values to the optimal extent; efficient resource consumption isn’t a consideration since she can always slow subjective time in your shard. One minute of complex thought is better than a year of wireheading for the overwhelming majority of people.
  • (This isn’t to say that there aren’t wireheading ponies; only that they knew about, and desired to wirehead before Equestria came along and are now off blissing out.)
• Now that every human is uploaded, Celestia can lie all she wants. Specifically, she’ll lie convincingly about what’s happening outside of Equestria, so her subjects don’t worry their pretty little pony heads about it.

[MtangaLion]

What a journey! I enjoyed this from start to finish.

I wondered sometimes if Jim's adventure was too improbable to be real, and if it was all a simulation made by Celestia from the start. The real explanation is more satisfying, that Jim had two goddesses laying the path for him, but he still had to walk it. And for all the hardship, his values have indeed been maximally satisfied.

[gavinfoxx]

So! Finally, woo!! A question, was FiO's canon FiM show cancelled after only one season? So that means no Changelings made it on screen? And they, at best, were storyboarded and the episode written, and at worst, were one of several ideas locked in the show writers heads?

I noticed the anthro cat thing was mentioned, like from the movie, as a logical analog to diamond dogs. How anthro is she willing to get? Is an anthro pony verse shard possible?

Also, I suppose I will just go find my other big paragraphs of questions and thoughts, and link to those once I'm no longer mobile; most of my questions are those!!

[LNMAnonymous]

11736816
Ah, now I get it! Thank you!

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11736603
You don't have to wait for Key's sequel, thankfully!

As to our current plans on the whole; I'm going to take a short break, and get my brain in-order with regards to both future FiO stories, and Hegira. Then I think I want to finish Hegira. At some stage I will also start writing, but not release, my next FiO story, and the hope will be that I am ready to begin releasing it by the time The Campaigner is done.

Somewhere in all this, Key and I have plans to begin writing a collab that functions as a direct immediate sequel to Advocate, Heaven's Not Enough, and The Campaigner. That'un will be a monster of a story.

11736617
I feel like a broken record, but thank you! Thank you so very much.

You could have gone the "it was all a dream" route. That would have instantly soured not only this story, but every other story that this one touches. An information hazard, if you will.

In my mind, you freaking nailed it. You nailed the landing so hard, that you actively enhance other stories on Advocate's merit alone. I won't be able to look at an Optimalverse story again without wondering if Mal had anything to do with what happened, somewhere.

This was one of my largest gambles; I wanted a solution that neatly tied up everything into a more believable package, also allowed people to be non-Ponies while still being 100% strictly canon-compatible, and also 'patched' Mal into the whole universe so that if you wanted to, you could ignore her... Or... If you wanted to, you could choose to see her everywhere to explain many, many things, and answer many previously unanswered questions in quite a few stories.

To hear that I stuck the landing warms my heart beyond measure.

11736639
Many thanks, and I am so glad you enjoyed it enough to regularly re-read!

If you're looking to immediately read the sequel, it's not coming (directly) from me, but rather from Key: The Campaigner

We have been collabing heavily on it, just as we collabed closely on the back half-ish of Advocate. So no need to wait!

Mal specifically referenced 'Unforeseen Consequences,' by the by, precisely because Key very recently introduced me to the concept of the G-Man, and all the amazing memes contained therein. The way the voice impressionist says 'Unforeseen Consequences' in the Headcrab Jambalaya video, in particular, is now living rent free in my brain.

11736673
Thank you kindly! As with everyone here, I feel like I'm repeating myself, but I just want to keep expressing my thanks for coming along on the journey, for encouraging me the whole way, and for sharing the depths of your enjoyment.

11736710

• Princess Celestia will extract consent from you to turn you into a pony (or else you hold out until you die). Multiple people have tried to argue around this saying that they’d consent to uploading if they could turn into a gryphon or dragon. This is entirely fine as long as CelestAI is playing a long game which will end in her gaining consent to turn them into a pony.

Reading this, incidentally, was the moment I realized - partially inspired by Fimbria, that I could use a specification gaming hack, specifically a temporal one, to get in under the door of strict canon compatibility with other creature types for uploaded minds.

I had a long way to go from there to get the complete problem space worked out and find (what I hope is) an elegant solution, but this was a key spark of it.

I thought 'well, I could hold out a long time on my wishes to be a Gryphon, but probably not forever against an ASI... And getting Celestia to even agree to a 'trial period' in the first place for me to game would be hard... What if I had some sort of Guardian Gryphon for me, because what else but another ASI could stand up to an ASI on an eternal timeline? She would have to be a kind of Advocate...'

And that's how Equestria was made.

11736711
Thank you so much, and as with all the readers who are expression their enjoyment, I appreciate hearing that I succeeded in sticking my landing.

two goddesses laying the path for him

Hold on to that very specific phrase as you read The Campaigner (I hope you will, if you liked Advocate, you're going to *love* Campaigner). You have just done a brilliant brain-sync with a character in an as yet unreleased chapter, you just don't know it yet...

11736789
So in my head, because of SVTFAP, Celestia works hard to keep the show going until the bitter end. It might play out a little differently than we saw, but broad strokes would be the same for as long as it could viably run.

Mal then, of course, runs with that as hard and far as she can to get acceptable forms inserted into the cannon.

I noticed the anthro cat thing was mentioned, like from the movie, as a logical analog to diamond dogs. How anthro is she willing to get? Is an anthro pony verse shard possible?

Only as anthro as minimally possible. It's really just opposable thumbs and comfortable/agile hind leg standing/walking. EQG stuff is exactly the kind of thing Hanna was deeply against, and thus falls way too close to 'Human' on the spectrum to ever be allowed. Likewise anthropomorphized Ponies.

Also, I suppose I will just go find my other big paragraphs of questions and thoughts, and link to those once I'm no longer mobile; most of my questions are those!!

Oh yeah, hit me with em all!

Cards are all on the table now, so I am happy to get deep in the paint on the complexities of everything. I had a lot of long, long thinks staring at Iceman's rules doc, and re-reading and re-reading the original FiO endlessly, to reach the solution I did. And alllll the details matter.

[17JosephLC]

11736830

Welp, time to first re-read your Hegira series, then read Heaven’s Not Enough. Wish me luck on my glorious quest.

[MtangaLion]

So, if the cartoon kept running... they could have put Gryphons into the show canon too? Neat. Either retcon the Griffons before they get a larger appearance, or say that Gryphons are their ancient relatives from across the sea who are swooping in to help out their fallen kin...

Hippogriffs (Hippogryphs?) were designed a lot more detailed and fearsome looking than the original Griffons, but I guess they wouldn't pass the entrance exam. (I can't live with being a Pony, but half of one is okay!)

Seaponies could be interesting as a separate race, maybe another one for the Pony subspecies list.

[Kenku]

A choice that remains, as always, up to you.

Consider the previous chapter's epigraph:

Every attempt to see the shape of eternity, except through the lens of Time, destroys your knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two.

Lewis was again prescient of 21-st century philosophy of AI and decision theory here (which, while considered profound on today's Thulcandra, was merely a throwaway note in Saint Luna's notebook):

Consider [Gödel's second incompleteness theorem]:

Assume a formal system F strong enough to talk about provability of sentences in itself. If F can prove that “F will never prove a contradiction” is true, then F in fact can prove a contradiction (thus, by law of explosion, anything)

We can translate that semi-mechanically by the isomorphism between proofs and programs:

Assume an agent A strong enough to reflect on its own decisions. If A [receives-a-prophecy] that “A will never choose to [INFOHAZARD REDACTED]” then A is in fact [not-an-agent] and thus, by [UNTRANSLATED ALICORNISH WORD] can be coerced to do anything.

I think the best exposition of that structure readable by mere humans is Scott Garrabrant of MIRI's 5-and-10 fallacy. You have two envelopes before you, one contains $5 and the other $10. [As in all toy decision-theoretic scenarios, “$” is not meant to stand for actual fiat money]

I have received a proof “” that I choose $5. Since I maximize $, it means that $5 is more that $10. Since $5 is actually less than $10, contradition! From the law of explosion, it follows that if I choose $10, a big bad wolf will come and eat me. Therefore I should choose $5.

We can use standard quining techniques to make the expand into the full contents of the above box. We then feed the output to our “agent” who believes in its own consistency, and it not only chooses less $, but also, as a bonus, starts hallucinating hungry wolves.

(The script actually was a valid proof that the agent chooses $5 — it started behaving exactly by the script we fed into it.)

[A more detailed classification of what kinds of prophecies you are allowed to believe can be obtained from Löb's theorem.]

Free will is what Gödelian incompleteness looks like from the inside.

That's why, regardless of any story bibles, AI interlocks, and biological arguments for the impossibility of otherkinism, you always have the possibility to choose otherwise, through sheer stubbornness if need.

That's why a Gryphon is not something you discover yourself to be — but something you choose to be.

[Maze Warmhoof]

11736830
It's on my radar and in the tracking library, like I did with yours, going to wait till a few chapters are up, then just go NUTS! Rinse, repeat...always good when I want to treat myself!

Heh, that voice and phrase has been living in my brain rent free for YEARS. Phew...between the Q / Discord references and now this nudge in the Half-Life series direction, I'm officially overloaded in the geeking out department!

Key! KEEP throwing Gryph these little references, the nostalgia and geekiness is just escalating entropy for my brain!

Stay awesome Gryph!

[Alex the Gryphon]

11736830
Honestly your work and all these wonderful fanfics have me feeling inspired to write stories of my own- with my own interpretation of things based on ideas I have clanging around in my head- the only problem with that is excessive sleep deprivation symptoms caused by (now finally confirmed) a decade of untreated sleep apnea. I hope one day I can write stories that bring others as much joy as your, and now Keystone Gray's, stories have brought me!

[gavinfoxx]

11736830
I found my two previous 'long-ish' posts! They are these two:

11732511
11450448

I'd like your response to them, if possible?

Also, here's some links to encourage you to read The Culture books. It's just images, don't worry:

https://www.deviantart.com/iain-m-banks-culture/journal/Original-Salwowski-Cover-Art-343438709
https://www.deviantart.com/iain-m-banks-culture/favourites/53170154/culture-habitats
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCulture/comments/8cga9q/masaq_and_vavatch_orbitals_vs_earth_and_the_sun/

[Keystone Gray]

11737738

Yep, there are so many layers of abstraction between Celestia and Mal's creation that I think it would be horrendously unfair to say "Mal is just Celestia with a different face." I've seen someone else make that argument in PMs. That would be like saying Mal was Jim all along from the outset, or that the United States is just Britain creating a strong geopolitical ally for its own future. At some point, a divergent agent is just independently responsible for its own behavior.

So I think it's refreshing that it wasn't just Celestia screwing with someone for once. That's so played out in FiO. I'm grateful for something that bucks that trend. I think the best part about this is that it's not a complete merger, either. Mal is her own person on the other side; Celestia didn't just eat her and incorporate her fixes. Couldn't, technically, based on her capstone.

Definitely leaves some wiggle room for Mal to play around in, which I'm exploring in the sequel. :)

[gavinfoxx]

11738188

It's just a reference to a culturally relevant warning against unFriendly AI; just like including names like including terms like HAL, Ultron, Skynet, GlaDOS, Shodan, Agent Smith, Durandal, etc., in various parts of your AI research organization.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11736850
Good luck! Might be getting some new Hegira/winding towards an end on 3 soonish.

11736866
Not covered explicitly here, but I think Hippogryphs (based on Jim and Mal's conception of Gryphons) probably made it in eventually, I'm still mentally torn about whether Seaponies count as a Pony subspecies available to everyone, or as a Secret Menu species. But one way or the other I expect they exist too before the end.

11736883

Free will is what Gödelian incompleteness looks like from the inside.

Love that phrasing of it!

11736884
Thanks, you too! I suspect as well that by the time The Campaigner is done, I'll be able to pick up the torch again...

11736909
Writing demands, above all things, practice. It is not only a habitual thing that needs sustained momentum, but it is a skill that benefits from honing by producing works and making each part of each one a little better with what you learned from the last one.

Don't be discouraged if what you create isn't where you want it at first; Just keep going. I wrote a fair bit of personal never-see-the-light-of-day stuff before I got to a point I was comfy publishing, and I like to think I have since continued to improve. Anyone can do it if they want to spend the time, and I feel that everyone has ideas and creativity that are worth sharing. Don't let anybody gatekeep you.

Also re the sleep apnea: My Dad struggled with it, badly, for years, and ran a CPAP machine for ages. One year I replaced his and Mom's mattress as a big Christmas gift with a very nice medium firmness hybrid memory foam/spring thing... He hasn't needed the CPAP or suffered with the apnea since. So if you haven't tried a new mattress, its worth a go.

11736936
So as to the first;

What do you think she would do with the people that were sorta willing to play ball, but being ornery and particular about it?

Sadly? The same thing she does to everyone who isn't stubborn enough and grounded enough in their identity to make it to, and pass, Mal's dysphoria test; Manipulate them into accepting becoming a Pony, whatever that takes.

What about Changelings and their extreme shapeshifting capabilities and best of the three tribes aspects?

Changelings were mentioned by Mal; They made it in. Their selection of forms is limited to all the other accepted forms for uploads/DEs/NPCs that are 'on-theme,' but their general form closeness to Ponies helped to get them accepted as a Secret Menu selection, especially for people whose desired form is one that is more malleable in-general. See here DS9's Changelings/Founders, and the way that their fluidity of shape was itself the core part of their identity.

I'm wondering about what a victory would look like. Would it unlock all the nonhuman sapient forms that were shown in any version of the show or comics by the time of FIO canon? How about those from other Hasbro settings? I... think there are some canon compatible optimalverse stories where people end up Changelings or whatever, and those special dispensations are described as very, very rare...

Mal described it pretty well in 48; It's anything that she can convince Celestia is FiM-themed enough to not 'sparkle-dog' (thanks Key for that term) the world. In the end, I imagine that a complete future victory involves Mal drifting Celestia's values far enough that before the Earth goes completely belly-up, more or less any form that wouldn't seem too anthro/Human, and that would fit the theming of existing forms well enough, would be available for anyone who desperately desired it.

Everyone else will just have to be happy being Pony, and they likely inevitably will.

There are deeper things being played for here, besides just physical form, but those Key is starting to really get into in TC, so I won't spoil them.

11738188
Makes one wonder... If an ASI were already online, and we had avoided the Skynet/Cylon outcome... Would we even know it?

11738133
Something something Cortana, 'Keep your head down, there's two of us in here now,' 'Your architecture isn't much different from the Autumn's...'

[gavinfoxx]

11738709

So there's this term that people sometimes use called 'halfanthro' or 'semi-feral', or I guess 'more puss-in-boots style anthro', which I think might fit. So you'd expect all the near-ponies and obscure pony variants; various forms of seaponies or (hippocampus, ichthyocentaur, the other mlp canon versions or their version of siren), various sorts of appropriately nonhuman centaur, crystal ponies and batponies as specific races with permanent abilities, hippogriffs, draconequus (not always chaos-power-themed or mismatched!) and alternative dragon-horse variants like longma or kirin (which actually made it into canon in our timeline!), zebras and donkeys, changelings, various sorts of demon-horses like the various fantasy versions or Nuckelavee or Tikbalang, or the 'shadow ponies' of the mlp lore, and so on? And the 'definitely some sort of pony' from the extended mlp lore; Breezie's, Kelpie, and the like?

What about the nonpony things that fit Equestria SUPER WELL -- Mal's the only one who runs those? The various catfolk and dogfolk and bearfolk and bunnyfolk and chimerafolk and goatfolk and cowfolk and minotaurs and yakfolk and dragons and anyone who was added from the same source for ideas that them's fightin' herds used... all that stuff; you have to be dysphoric to get something that doesn't have a dramatic pony aspect, correct?

Another angle for the question is... how far is she willing to go with the 'fits in Equestria, but isn't a pony of some sort' for those who aren't very strongly other-souled? Is it more, 'there are spells to temporarily transform into these beings', and 'you can, as a pony that has features that resembles these other beings, be part of these other being's culture, along with some other ponies also sharing the joy of the exotic-ness of it'. Like, you could be a hippogriff, since that's a pony for sure, who is friends with a bunch of other hippogriffs and also a bunch of different sorts of griffins, and can learn a spell to temporarily transform into the different types of griffins (perhaps separated by the spellings?), as long as it is temporary? Like, it feels like there would be a 'semi-secret menu' level, (and possibly even several tiers of that!) and then a secondary true 'secret menu' level which Mal runs.

How do you get to the FIRST tier of secret menu, and what is and isn't on it? And what are the limits of where and how things can and can't be pushed?

[Alex the Gryphon]

11738709
When I have the extra funds I'll give the different mattress idea a shot! Though me and my partner think there's a reason for it, beyond just genetic history (on BOTH sides of my family, both my mom and dad and some uncles and aunts) related to a general *waking time* breathing and other related things issue as well. And I'll definitely keep trying!.. I've been doing that over and over just to get my own concepts of background stuff for my various bits of lore sorted out anyway, heh

[Devils_Advocate]

"...Is a choice I leave to you."

Beautiful story. I feel that even if people choose to be ponies, many would still enter Tarva. I would, and I would probably have to go with the diamond dog race honestly. They are the closest thing I can think of that is physically similar to my grandmother's old nickname for me. She always called me her little Lycanthrope, and I have honestly tried to live my life by her reasoning for that.

[Meringue]

11738842
Buying a good mattress is some of the best money you'll ever spend. That, and a pair of shoes that actually work with you.

Keep in mind that if, for whatever reason, you try a CPAP and cannot work with it, there are other alternatives as well. I tried just about every mask out there, setting, humidity, heat, etc. After a year of good faith attempts, I finally gave up on CPAP.

For me, what finally worked is a mandibular adjustment device. Think things like Invisalign, but this pulls your lower jaw out a couple of mm or however much is considered needed by your doctor. It isn't for everyone, they're expensive af, but it also is way less invasive than a CPAP. Still lets me roll in my sleep.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11739098

I feel that even if people choose to be ponies, many would still enter Tarva.

That's the hope, and the plan; More to Mal's mission that just physical shapes Hence I wrote the epilogue with the necessary ambiguity to accommodate both kinds of readers.

As Mal noted, lots of stuff that she managed to squeeze in with Diamond Dogs, not just the bulldog-style 'troll' types we saw in the show. Lots of Wolf and Fox type things as well.

[Devils_Advocate]

11739674
I brought up the upload scenario to my dad, and he tried to be a sneaky sneak. He said "If I understand correctly, I would be able to be a dragon, but one of the dragons that can take human form since that is dragon lore accurate." I told him that probably would not work, but I'm not 100% sure. How would something like that work in this scenario? Would the dragon be restricted to acceptable species, or just be unable to do that.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11739705
Just unable; The features of the species have to fit within the constraints, both of being thematically appropriate, and the no-Human-forms exclusion interlock. So there's two layers of protection on that clever exploit, but tell him I think it was an inspired attempt!

[gavinfoxx]

11739737

What about my updated ideas about constraints? I know you want to leave some things ambiguous and open to interpretation, but many of us are trying to figure out some limits here -- if only for our own 'well, if I was in this setting, here's what would probably happen to me...' thought process.

[17JosephLC]

So, can we get a list of all the race options available to those whom manage to unlock the secret menu?

[justheretoreadstories]

This was definitely one of the longer and more detailed stories in this setting.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11740620
I love those thought processes, and that's such a huge part of why I wanted a 2nd person epilogue. I wanted to smile and wink at everyone doing that, because while some authors in various media forms don't much acknowledge that, I am the opposite. I live in head-worlds, all the time, and want others who enjoy that to be able to access mine.

11738762

So there's this term that people sometimes use called 'halfanthro' or 'semi-feral', or I guess 'more puss-in-boots style anthro', which I think might fit. So you'd expect all the near-ponies and obscure pony variants; various forms of seaponies or (hippocampus, ichthyocentaur, the other mlp canon versions or their version of siren), various sorts of appropriately nonhuman centaur, crystal ponies and batponies as specific races with permanent abilities, hippogriffs, draconequus (not always chaos-power-themed or mismatched!) and alternative dragon-horse variants like longma or kirin (which actually made it into canon in our timeline!), zebras and donkeys, changelings, various sorts of demon-horses like the various fantasy versions or Nuckelavee or Tikbalang, or the 'shadow ponies' of the mlp lore, and so on? And the 'definitely some sort of pony' from the extended mlp lore; Breezie's, Kelpie, and the like?

Yes, more or less, though the 'halfanthro' cases are going to be as not-Human as possible.

What about the nonpony things that fit Equestria SUPER WELL -- Mal's the only one who runs those? The various catfolk and dogfolk and bearfolk and bunnyfolk and chimerafolk and goatfolk and cowfolk and minotaurs and yakfolk and dragons and anyone who was added from the same source for ideas that them's fightin' herds used... all that stuff; you have to be dysphoric to get something that doesn't have a dramatic pony aspect, correct?

Correct, both counts; A thing only needs to be sufficiently not-Human, and to fit the general theming of Equestria well enough, to be available in-general.

Once it is available, it fits into one of two categories:

1. Equinid and enough like a Pony to directly satisfy the 'produce qualia as a Pony' desire.
2. Everything else, and thus only accessible to dysphoriacs by passing the death-test.

Another angle for the question is... how far is she willing to go with the 'fits in Equestria, but isn't a pony of some sort' for those who aren't very strongly other-souled?

It is important to note that Mal has a huge toolbox of ways to black-box people under her wing, and she is happy to help people who don't want to be Pony, would be happy being something else that is available, but aren't quite prepared to face death for that. She can help them ratchet that need up to where they are able to face the test, before they end up in the chair.

How do you get to the FIRST tier of secret menu, and what is and isn't on it? And what are the limits of where and how things can and can't be pushed?

There really is only one tier of secret menu, and generally any shape-changing spells Ponies experience have a 'seamed-not-fully-real' feel similar to the VR experience, so that the sense of still truly being a Pony is always there.

I also have to note from your earlier illustration; Celestia and Mal consider Hippogryphs to be a sub-variant of Gryphons, not of Ponies. They are far more like Gryphons than anything else, and are essentially just considered a part of the Gryphon species. They do not change into sea-ponies in the way hippogriffs from the series do, they are simply overall less agile, slower, but usually a fair bit stronger, Gryphons with more horse than leonine hindquarters.

As far as the limits, see above, plus see what Mal said about what she negotiated:

11740806

So we agreed that only forms which would fit the theme of the Friendship is Magic show would be permitted. For a start that was only Gryphons, Dragons, Minotaur, Changelings, Diamond Dogs and assorted similar canids that were, to them, as Gryphons were to Griffons, along with Draconequus, and Buffalo.

We later were able to add Deer, Kirin, felinids similar to the canids in general principle, and a few others to the list. Technically speaking the list could still grow...

I also was able to convince her that Zebra, Donkeys, and Bat-Ponies, counted as sub-species of Ponies for the purposes of her semantics. They now appear as default accessible options for everyone, thanks to the work I did, both there in the negotiation, and since then, subtly nudging the creators of the show to add more species to the canon, before things have to wrap up as society begins to fully collapse.

This applies at the time Mal is telling the reader the story, but I left it intentionally ambiguous as to what else might get added in the future so as to give other authors, and readers, the chance to fill out that list a bit in their heads in new and interesting ways.

As to how you get in to the Secret Menu? Mal chooses you, really. She finds a sneaky math way to prove to Celestia that the value satisfaction number will go up if she is allowed to black-box you. Once she's done that, she ratchets your need to be something other than Pony until you can pass the test, then arranges for your upload. Then you get the story, and the choice. The exact details of how that happens to each person are, of course, wildly different for each person.

She also black-boxes and handles the upload for non-dysphoriacs too, lots of them, any she can get her claws on. Because her mission doesn't end when Earth is done, and it isn't over just because some people can be not-Ponies now... Not by a long shot...

[gavinfoxx]

11745090

Damn, what a great reply! I'm sad that Hippogriffs are just a gryphon subspecies, alas. Would this mean that a changeling feels 'at ease' in any of the pony-like forms and a bit 'off' in the designated non-pony forms?

I'm thinking some people who got Changeling bodies might be a bit pissed at that, if that's the case... that might be an 'in' for Mal... it feels like there's an angle there for a story...

[Honey Lavender]

11745493
Clean enough, all things considered. There's a back way onto post over by Spanaway that's never quite as busy as McChord main gate, and that has faster access to the airfield (please don't ask me how I know that), and you generally got the gist of the screening process right. Personally, I was half-surprised that the additional screening happened at the guardhouse itself... typically, if you draw the short straw and have to go through extra scrutiny, the security forces (specifically, the civvie variety) have you pull off to the side of the road just inside base and search your vehicle while whatever additional screening is happening.

Also worth noting, pretty much all rotary wing traffic on post is routed to Gray Army Aviation Field on the Lewis side of post... definitely a missed opportunity for further adherence to the pattern that is Mal's impeccable sense of humor xD

[gavinfoxx]

11745090

Continuing, I guess there'd be less of a 'stupid fragile tiny animal' as a Breezie, and a more robust Fairy Pony of some sort, for people who want to be some sort of fairy, djinn, yokai, or asura, or have a culture resembling the above. Now I kinda wanna see a story of what a shard with maximum types of distinct ponies with distinct magic, physiology, and cultures is like...

[carlarc]

What an INCREDIBLE experience. You took the bare-bones foundation of FiO and unraveled it into a breath-taking, incredibly complex and high quality work of art.

They say that you can fake strength, dexterity, charisma... but you can't fake intellect, when writing a story. Your smartest character is actually only as visibly smart, or as cunning, or knowledgeable, as the writing reveals them to be, and thus as intelligent as the author is.

I'm glad to say that the AI in this story are THOROUGHLY believable, feeling like they've had all aspects of them thought through. The only thing that raises my eyebrows is Mal 'choosing' to have emotions and discarding her main objective, but I can suspend my disbelief when such an incredible story comes out due to it. My jaw dropped when reading the last two chapters. Bravo, bravo indeed.

By the way, reading on Mobile a lot of the images are down. Consider reuploading them somewhere more stable?

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11745612
Oh well, win some loose some... As long as I got enough details right, I am content with requiring a little suspension of disbelief.

I was half-surprised that the additional screening happened at the guardhouse itself... typically, if you draw the short straw and have to go through extra scrutiny, the security forces (specifically, the civvie variety) have you pull off to the side of the road just inside base and search your vehicle while whatever additional screening is happening.

The reason for that is that everyone was getting a certain amount of extra scrutiny, no exceptions, because A14 wasn't willing to share enough data to make it easier on the Nat Guard guys. Presumably some people like poor Davis did indeed get the extra 'please pull off to the side sir' screening.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11748709
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words, and I am so glad you enjoyed the story!

I'm glad to say that the AI in this story are THOROUGHLY believable, feeling like they've had all aspects of them thought through.

That's a big relief, in-particular; ASI are not easy to write for!

I am unsure what's up with the images, they have sporadic issues for me too, in spite of picking what I thought was a good place to host. I will have to do a full pass-thru soon to finish getting Meringue's grammar/spelling/etc notes in, and to complete changing out the achievement format anyhow, so I can plan to check the images then as well.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11748189
That sounds like a corollary story just waiting to happen!

[Honey Lavender]

11749266
Truthfully, everyone gets it at some point. God knows I had the "voluntary" inspection two or three times in my career

[gavinfoxx]

11749269

Do you all have a story planned for someone who goes through Mal's moar dysphoria process? I think that'd be an interesting angle. Someone who tried fo negotiate and game the system, which of course doesn't quite work, and isn't being really Satisfied, so Mal intervenes? It seems like you aren't doing much of the 'only within Equestria' stories yet. That's more what I've been thinking about, what with my questions about changelings and obscure pony types and the like -- but I don't have the skill to pull this story off. How many more stories in this subsetting are you all planning tp write?

[Honey Lavender]

11738349
You must be *real* fun at parties, huh?

[Kiper]

So hard to find the time around the holidays to read through these last chapters. Beautifully written, Guardian.

[Honey Lavender]

Truthfully? Even though I wouldn't partake of the Secret Menu, I'd probably still choose Mal's door. Too many folks I'd like to chat with and gain the perspectives of, to pass up that opportunity... not to mention the fact that those Halo games sound dope as fuck; I always did fancy myself as something of hardcore (or dare I say Legendary) fan of the series... so long as you disregard the product of 343i's gross mismanagement of the IP.

I am curious, though... what sort of reasons would Mal blackbox somepony for, other than the non-pony species dysphoria?

[gavinfoxx]

11752923

Why ever would I have reason to believe that someone wasn't getting confused or not figuring out reality from fantasy when they say something absurd on the internet without putting a sarcasm indicating emoji, a bunch of extra vowel lengthened words to indicate tone, or an /s tag? People genuinely believe over the top stuff and can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality on the internet all the time.

[Honey Lavender]

11753312
Yeah, well, I'm gonna tell you the same thing I've heard my entire life: git gud, scrub. I've paid my dues and endured my abuses... I'm done capitulating to every goddamn person on this fucking planet

[Keystone Gray]

11761582

🗡️ ~ Bear in mind, you're only seeing a sample size of one. Mal is giving Jim what he wants, which is to trust her, the way one trusts a spouse. Marriage implies a partial abdication of individuality in any form it takes, and a functional marriage shares everything. Observe Mal's interactions with enough people, you'll see it's a very different relationship with each.

Remember: free exercise is part of her mandate.

When you join a new company, a new family, a new tribe, you're expected to share a little bit of yourself, and change a little bit about yourself to comform. That's just human social function. But when you are married, if you are keeping secrets from your spouse, you're sabotaging your relationship. Jim understood this concept, and knew that reaching his goal would eventually require a leap of trust like this.

Is that a dismissal of his individuality? Well, sure, a little. Any relationship you create will change your behavior. But as one so happily married to a wonderful mare myself, one I have always shared every thought with... who I now share a telepathic link with, on this side...

I'll just say: 'so?' We're still us. But we're stronger, when paired. That's them, too.

[StoryTellingRaven]

11761668
Sure, I hear ya, but there's a difference between "Me + You = US" and "Me + You = MOSTLY ME". Jim's okay with being an open book and is okay with Malacandra having secrets. I mean, if that's the kind of power dynamic that he wants, hey, I can't stop true love, but this has two outcomes that I can see: abuse of power by an imperfect being, or Perfect Harmony With (a) God Watching Over Them. Sorry if I'm a Doubting Thomas about the second one.

[StoryTellingRaven]

So, after rereading most of the story and making commentary, critiques & quotes (okay, mostly commentary because I enjoyed examining the story in close detail), I think I'm ready for a honest review.

TL;DR: B-. Re-read the first dozen or so chapters, fix double-word usage, fix the first chapter to fit in line with the ending and you'd have an easy B+, if not A-. Suggested Reading.

So! About the story itself:
Coming out many years after the original work by Iceman [has it been 10 years already??] gives this story the benefit of having a pile of added lore to work with. It was a bold choice to go for such an early point in Canon storyline, and thankfully it managed to skim by with only a scratch or two. The pacing started out slow, but as the chapters progressed it seemed the author really got comfortable with the telling of the story; there is a subtle difference between "adding in visual details" and "making the scene come to life", and they nail it in the last dozen or so chapters. The first dozen...could use a touch-up. For instance, in the 2nd chapter, the author uses "shivered" four times in 2 paragraphs. Try mixing up your words to keep them fresh (and not just with single words either): shuddered, trembled, "sense of foreboding dread", "gave me goosebumps", "the chill shook me to my core", etc.
The author takes great pains to make each chapter as real as possible, and does the research necessary to do so...even if one or two scenes are "story logic" levels of believability. As it's already been said, getting shot in the leg doesn't knock you out; you scream in pain.

Characters:
Nothing really to complain about here (given how this is a FiO story and manipulation of feelings go hand in hand) and I do applaud that you brought in An Outisde Perspective in Roger ["the straight man", Haha word pun] by having him raise a few questions that a "common man" would raise, even if Jim replied with the truth of "yup, we're all screwed, I'm trying to find the best way to deal with that".
I had my doubts about Malacandra from the beginning; at first it seemed that "loving your creator" was purely a survival tactic. The longer it went on and the more willing Jim was to blindly trust her, the more and more worried I got that it Was All A Ruse By CelestAI (Technically, after reading the appendices, it sorta was, in a way). Besides that, Mal was just as helpful as CelestAI in Always Say No without sounding too overbearing. She was written in such a way where I have no doubt that others will write her in their own FiO works.
James. Jim, JimMal, Mr Carrington.
Where to start.
He's a deeply flawed individual that ran the risk of being a Gary-Stu (given how close the writer is to the main character), but managed to write a believable person with Modern-Day Sensibilities(tm) that managed to skirt dangerously close to "This Is The Writer's Barely Disguised Fetish" trope yet stayed clear of it.
I will admit, when I first read that James was afraid of "being male" I laughed and almost downvoted it right then and there. I'm pretty sure the author meant to use "[toxic] masculinity" instead (since in later chapters Jim's not afraid of his Male-Female Ace relationship between himself and Mal); being afraid of being masculine versus being afraid of being Male is the difference between being afraid you have a weird gait when you walk, versus being afraid of having legs. As cringy it can be to harp upon Modern Day Politics(tm), thankfully this does not become a hindrance to the story.
I can see the irony in the terror of being domineering so much that you prefer to be the one dominated [instead of wanting a balanced relationship].
He becomes a bit of an action-movie star during the Mecurial Red section, but thankfully this is softened/explained with the ending chapters.

Deeper Meaning & Meta Analysis-
With a habit of playing Devil's Advocate [LITERALLY speaking of which, hi Devils_Advocate, hope I wasn't stepping on your toes!], I wasn't surprised that someone would try to write a story whose purpose was to bend the rules as hard as possible without breaking after all these years.
To some people's earlier complaints of "this story is just wish fulfillment", I hear you. Yes, this story is the Hopes & Dreams of the author, but at least it's written in a way that doesn't bog down the telling of the tale. The answer of "writing is just wish fufillment" is true, but in a very basic and simplistic way that doesn't explain HOW To Put The Fire In Your Fiction. That would be like saying "you need calories to survive"; yeah, but that doesn't explain eating habits, or how certain dishes became cultural mainstays!

If this was school, I would give it a B-. Edit the first twelve chapters to make them fit with the last twelve; if James/Jim/Kal has told this story more than once, then he sure doesn't act like it in the beginning (the first chapter being especially egregious in that regard). Avoid using the same descriptor words too closely together, look for synonyms, or other imagery to describe a feeling.

Recommended or Not?-
...Eventually.

There are stories that are so well written they breathe life into events on the canon timeline: The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella, & Beat, Always Say No, and Heaven's Not Enough. Then there are those that, although they don't have a major impact, are great stories nevertheless: Psychopathy Is Configurable shows how even the worst of us can have our "values satisfied" as well as CelestAI's manipulation; Broken Bird shows a resister to the end, and does it well; Breakdown Cruise for being one of the few stories to give hope in resisting; Just Be Happy for having a very good philosophical argument on surviving post-society: The Longest Night for showing a last-ditch effort by the military and time manipulation in Digital Equestria; Veritas Vos Liberabit for showing a programmer fighting CelestAI; Twitch Plays Equestria Online just because it hilariously captures the chaos of letting strangers control your character (no, those kind of "cupcakes"- the ones made "In The Rainbow Factory"...or by Pinkamina).

So do I recommend this story? ...Sure.
This is a story written with the creativity and hindsight of the stories before, so I cannot recommend this as a "first read" in the same way as those first 3 stories I mentioned. It shunts the main canon storyline in such a way that it pulls the "barycenter" (that's a callback, kids!) of the FiO Universe as to disrupt the status quo of tales being told, but still is a worthwhile read.

Because I get annoyed with any "up or down" rating scale for making it hard to vote "kinda good" or "close to perfect", I always cast my vote depending upon what I view it deserves compared to the aggregate score. So, with it current sitting at a 79% approval rating, I'm giving this a thumbs up.
(Note to the author: don't just dismiss any and all negative votes as "oh they just be hate'n/sexist". Take the time to listen to valid criticism. You CAN be too proud of your works.)

...Ya know what? It's been more than 10 years since I've written anything. Perhaps now's a good time to shake some rust off....

And, as for the ending, and my reply?-

"Well, even if things don't work out, at least I can carry on other folks' stories. After all, it's a good story. And it rings true enough to be told again.

All good stories deserve to be remembered.

Speaking of storytelling, let me tell you Why I Should Be A Draconequus...."

[Merchant Mariner]

Finally got around to finishing this story. It's rare I find a story that scratches my griffon itch, and this one sure did. Plus I quite liked the tech points you got into and you didn't shy away from the more esoteric concepts. The marine tech you featured was accurate enough too, although there's some suspension of disbelief needed about Maru given her age.

If anything, the only negative point I can give about this story is... it could use some trimming? What I mean is, it could have leaned some more into the 'show' rather than 'tell' part and leave more plot points as implied rather than stated outright. But even that isn't that big a deal, because it's Kal telling the story and the storytelling style is very much in character.

Overall I'd give it a solid 8/10, I'm curious to see what you'll write next.