Requires
Sweetie Belle had a bevy of strange experiences since she woke up. It was unnatural to come back from the dead, both for her and everyone around her. But nothing quite prepared her for what it was like to circle her own body—a mechanical corpse, waiting to be born.
Lucid was there of course, wearing a lab coat laundered and starched for the cameras. Just as the first moment she woke up, this was as big a moment for him as it was for her. With the activation of that body, he would make another step to prove the viability of robotic ponies as an alternative to fully biological ones.
But Sweetie couldn't see this pony corpse as what it represented for Equestria's future. Ponies all around her spoke like that all the time, about what she represented and how the world changed because of her. She had to live her life for herself, or else be stuck in endless paralysis.
The body lay as if in repose on black cushions that brought out the white of her coat for the cameras. She was in every physical respect an upgrade over Sweetie’s current body. She no longer had obvious physical segments, cooling ports, and structural elements visible on the surface. There were only a few faint lines in the fake fur in her most important joints. Where her legs met her body, her neck, and under her belly.
"The greatest innovation is here," Lucid explained, speaking to a camera as Sweetie approached. He gestured to her forelegs, which only had fake fur down to the shoulders. Past that was a white metal lattice, along with a few mechanical bits at the joints.
"Our newest cooling system is fully passive and closed-circuit. This accounted for about a third the power usage for our first model, and also most of the physical weaknesses that slowed her down. Sweetie here will no longer have to fear the rain. Technically speaking, she'll run even better with a little moisture on her legs."
Then he looked up, and saw her standing there. He beamed, waving her up onto a little platform beside the body. There was a chair there, with a few complex braces that would hold her head in place. "Pretty exciting, isn't it? I hope she's everything you imagined."
She looked so old, so mature. Older than her friends, though not quite an adult, like her sister. This was the body of a young pony who was just going out into the world for her first time. It was the age Twilight Sparkle had been when she first arrived in Ponyville, when Sweetie herself was just a young foal.
"She's older than I thought."
"Unfortunate, but necessary. Right now we still have limited adoption, and no economies of scale. So we have to pick our ages carefully. Foal, young adult, and adult. Then both sexes already makes six. Many parts can be standardized, scaled... this body will last you until you are fully grown up, and an adult. She will be capable of things you didn't understand when you were younger. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I consulted with your friends on the matter. I've never been a teenage filly, so I couldn't guess what they would want. But I didn't have to guess."
Sweetie wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but she had more of an idea now than she did before. She didn't feel any different herself. But Scootaloo and Apple Bloom clearly did. The things they talked about made her feel like her cooling system didn't work anymore.
But she wasn't going to say any of that—not to a stallion, and not to a camera.
He seemed to interpret her hesitation as doubt, because he kept racing forward. "There's so many other advantages here. All day power, endurance with rough conditions, modular replacement parts. You won't be experimental anymore. You won't have to wait days or weeks for replacements when things break."
He gestured to the bench. The technicians all crowded around it, holding their tablets and other unplaceable tools.
She was up in the chair before she even thought to hesitate and ask questions. "What will it feel like? Will I... die again?"
Lucid shook his head vigorously. "Nothing at all like that. Your mind isn't being re-downloaded. We'll physically transfer your brain from one body to the other. You remember the device I showed you, years ago? That machine."
She nodded weakly. It was all she could do, now that the straps closed in around her head. The other her lay with her head right beside Sweetie's own. The back of her skull was already open, taking a section of mane with it. Inside was a thin plastic cover, with an opening just underneath. Waiting for Sweetie's brain.
"It should be minutes," said Capacitor, just beside her head. "You'll sleep, then be up again before you know it."
She almost said no. But then she had to keep looking at her broken body, falling apart in a dozen different ways. But a few minutes to rest, and she could have what all the other ponies her age got to have. She could grow up.
"Do it."
Lucid touched something on his tablet. "Full shutdown. Higher functioning prepare to shu—" then nothing.
Sweetie's world returned in a sudden blur of color, overwhelming her. For a long time she was unable to move, struggling against an invisible weight that she couldn't lift. It was as though the tools she were accustomed to had all abruptly been taken away, and what replaced them was unnatural and confusing.
The sensations were so powerful—touch, smell, sound. It came so fast that she didn't know how to react. It crushed against her, irresistible.
Until she resisted it anyway. Sweetie inhaled, took one deep breath, then another. The motion made her chest rise and fall, the way it did in ancient memory. The memory of a pony who looked a lot like her, but hadn't lived like her. A pony made of flesh.
Then the chaos resolved. Sweetie was on her belly, in a room lit by harsh technical lights. She was surrounded by pony scents, but older, not a crowd pressing in all around her. Only a few of the smells were close.
Lucid Storm she recognized, and Capacitor. They worked over a few monitors nearby, which hadn't been there when her eyes closed last. There was no light from the skylights anymore, but instead a sky full of stars. There was no corner of the room filled with TV cameras and recording technicians.
"I'm reading activity in the crystal cortex!" Capacitor shouted, startling several of the other ponies all around her. "I think we have her back, Lucid!"
The bat was so surprised that he squeaked audibly, dropping the tools he was holding to the floor.
Sweetie tried to turn towards him—in vain. The new body had just been resting before, without restraints. She could see no straps or bonds to hold her down, yet her body wasn't responding. She was trapped just as effectively as if she had been tied.
"What's... happening? Can't... do anything."
The bat appeared over her in an instant, tablet beside him. "We had to disable your motor functions. But don't be alarmed, it was for your own protection. You went into seizures as soon as you woke up—or whatever the technical equivalent. Quite the... display, for everypony in here. They were terrified."
"Sorry?" she whispered. Was that even the right thing to say? It was clearly much later than it had been when she left. She'd been promised one thing, but the bat had delivered quite another. "I thought it was supposed to be... a few minutes."
"It was." Lucid set the tablet down in front of him, and started going over it rapidly. "It was routine. There's no physical reason this should’ve happened. Your mind can't tell the difference between this body and any other. We've replaced parts before, this just..."
"It's a new field," somepony else suggested. She wasn't even sure who spoke. Another set of hooves, working somewhere she couldn't see, because she couldn't turn her head. "We don't know what the consequences of an upgrade might be. Maybe her mind can't handle the change."
"Maybe..." he said, clearly not sounding convinced. "We'll have time to study and figure out what happened. Right now we need to make sure she's stable, and get her on her hooves. There's family waiting outside."
Sweetie twitched at the use of that word, perking up. So many important ponies had filled the stands around this laboratory. Now they were gone, and she was left without memory of the intervening time. Like the sleep her old self had to do, but worse.
"It felt like I... couldn't wake up. Trying to, over and over. But I couldn't move. Couldn't whisper or scream, couldn't do anything."
"What about now?" Lucid asked. "I'm going to unlock your head first, and your neck. Can you move them?"
She felt stiff at first, sluggish—but they responded. That motion spread, and soon her whole body could move.
Her old body was still there, a corpse strapped down to her operating chair, with the back of her head opened. It wasn't reverently covered with the plastic of something new—this body was dead, and did not try to be anything else.
Everything felt different. Her limbs all took more effort to move, yet they were also stronger. And she could feel. There was a breeze on her fake fur, and warmth radiating from her forelegs and into the air around her. It almost felt like the heat of being alive, returned to her at last. Almost.
"Readings from the crystal cortex are stabilizing," Capacitor said. "I think we're good to seal her up, Lucid. This is what we expected to see."
They clicked something closed on her head, and suddenly she could feel her mane again. It was shorter than her old self once kept it, back when it was real hair. But now that it was simple fiber, keeping it clean and replacing it regularly was the bigger concern. At least they had managed to capture her old colors, and some of her curl.
"I want to see you move," Lucid said. He stepped back, gesturing at the stage. "Let's make sure the transfer is complete. I want to see that you can use your body without it giving up on you."
Sweetie stood. She wasn't the shortest pony in the room anymore, though she wasn't as big as the grown stallions. She had underestimated just how tiny a little filly could be! And when she walked, she felt stretched and unbalanced, with a different center of gravity than before.
"It's... harder than I thought," she said. Even her voice was different! A little lower, like the other crusaders. Not high-pitched and squeaky. She wanted to see if she could sing again—but not with an audience. "Why do I feel so awkward?"
"I believe they call it puberty,” Lucid said, smiling weakly. "You've just gone through it in a matter of seconds. Or hours, depending on your perspective. The physical changes you've experienced will be handled by your adaptive subsystem, the same one that helps you keep functioning as your body wears down naturally over time. The mental changes that usually come with this period of your life are... harder. But I'm sure there's a way, in time."
She didn't know what that meant—but Sweetie didn't much care. Seconds later, and several sets of hoofsteps pounded into the room. Her sister was at the front, with a few young mares just behind her. While so many others had given up and gone home, her best friends in the world had remained. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were both here!
"She's alive!" That was her older sister, charging right towards Lucid and fixing him with a glare of furious intensity. "We were terrified!"
She barely heard the conversation that followed. Much of it was too technical to really interest her, in any case. She just wanted to see her friends again, and here they were.
They didn't tower over her anymore. In fact, Sweetie was now the tallest of the three, though spindly Scootaloo might soon catch up if she kept growing. Apple Bloom looked her over, then back across the stage to where the old body lay lifeless. "This is... you? Not that one?"
"This is me," she said. Her voice was still strange in her ears. But it was close enough. Maybe she could get used to it, like Lucid said she would. "They took my brain out, put it in here."
"How's it feel?" Scootaloo asked. She had become subdued, not looking directly up at her anymore. Was she embarrassed?
"Good," Sweetie said. "Better, anyway. We'll see if I get used to it."
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I didn’t expect me to log in fimfiction right at the moment this chapter was released
11500346
Don't worry, I didn't expect you to log in the moment the chapter was released either.
11500355
I guess not hehe
This chapter does well to show that you can't prepare for everything when dealing with new experiences and science. Glad things turned out well.
Come to think of it, I’ve been in this fandom for more than five years and have read several robot Sweetie Belle stories but I still don’t really know the origin of this trope.
Scootaloo: Oh no she's hot!
11500443
AFAIK, the idea of Sweetie Bot came from the Friendship is Witchcraft series.
11500443
freindship is witchcraft, its on youtube if you wana see it, basicly someone took the original stock footage of several episodes of freindship is magic and redubed them with audio to make the context....very diffrent.
nice update.
Hoo, this was... interestingly tense.
It's marvelous that the interface lattice is even able to still adapt to the upgraded systems. Well, mostly, as obviously some amount of tweaking was involved.
11500437
And that is why you DON’T do press conference with untested prototype.
One thing that is not investigated is that they could, in theory, DUPLICATE Sweetie… they have the original data set, so they could redo what got this one and have another and the another… etc.
if my brain suddenly got like 5 times the amount of information coming in i Imagine it'd freak out too
11501732
yes but i think there might be a few moral reasons not to. I do think they will likely have to cross the bridge of making a back up of sweetie every now and then soon as if they were to accidently have her brain prossess too much at once they just might burn her brain out.
Nicely done, and very likely how it would go the first few times.
Given they regular disasters suffered by her hometown, I wonder if they will give this version a CO2 laser? Hardware like that could probably handle a 40watt tube : )
11502835
If that is a Terminator reference I THINK it was megawatt range in the original movie, although 40 kilowatt output would likely be more than enough to discourage most monsters if properly focused? 40 watt output would be a hefty soldering iron or perhaps moderate propane torch equivalent....a tool dangerous enough to require responsible use but not a reliable weapon in air with a bit of dust in it against, say, a manticore??
11519442
But against anything with eyes...
11519454
A valid point, but far from a slam dunk.
MUCH smaller target for most monsters, but also much more vulnerable to light. She is probably much more accurate since she has no heartbeat and if she has an equivalent to an adrenal response it probably doesn't include the shaking mammals (and other animals?) get.
Still a much smaller target...
There is almost certainly a good reason I have heard of pepper spray and Mace (tm) but not a "self defense laser". Then again, it would be better than NOT having the option (all things being equal). IF more volume and/or weight are available than for a pistol-equivalent then that might help. I don't know how big a 40W laser would be.