Adventures in the TARDIS

by Scroll

Part 2: Empty Chalice

When Feather Wind and Stern Wing step outside the TARDIS's doors, their breath is taken away by the sight of a gigantic forest all about them. For some of these trees, they cannot even see the top at all. Some branches are closer to the ground, however, and they gasp again when they see the leaves of the gigantic trees shift colors before their very eyes. Most of the leaves shift colors within four seconds apart from each other, but a few of them are doing their own thing.

Down below and a few feet away from them, the Doctor is just standing about with his sonic screwdriver in his mouth. The device is busy making noise and he is slowly turning his head. He seems to be scanning for something. However, the look on his face indicates some minor frustration as if he is failing to find what he is seeking.

“What's wrong, Doctor?” asks the ever-cautious Stern Wing. “Is something amiss? Something we need to be on guard against, perhaps?”

The Doctor keep scanning for a few more seconds before spitting out his sonic screwdriver into his left hoof. He continues to have a flustered look on his face as he says, “No. It's just that . . . Well, maybe, but first I want to check something.” He snaps his head and gazes back at Feather Wind as he asks, “Feather Wind, what do you detect about the local environment? Can you speak to the air here like you can on any other world?”

Reminded of that, Feather Wind closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in. He holds it for a few seconds to let the message of the air really sink in but then pops his eyes open as he realizes something alarming.

Noticing her friend's alarmed expression, Stern Wing quickly asks, “What is it? What's wrong?”

“I, uh . . . I can't really explain this one. I have never felt anything like this before!” Feather Wind exclaims in unpleasant surprise.

“You're not getting anything from the air, are you?” asks the Doctor with an educated guess.

“Ah . . . no! I'm not! This is the first time the air I breathe has been dead silent.

“Ah . . . hold on. Let me examine this a while longer. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the language of the air on this world,” Feather suggests.

“Take your time,” the Doctor encourages. “We're not in a rush for the moment,” he adds with a thoughtful visual scan of the environment. “I want accurate feedback. If taking more time to examine this place improves our odds of gathering reliable information, then I'm all for it as long as no sudden urgency pops up.”

“In that case, while he does that, I'm going to patrol the local area,” Stern Wing proposes. “I suggest we do this together on two fronts. I'll take to the skies and get a bird's eye view of our situation, and you patrol the ground within sight of Feather Wind. Make sure nothing happens to him while I am gone.

“Oh, and just in case you do run into trouble, use your sonic device to project a noisy signal of some kind. Maybe the shrill cry of a bird or something like that. If you do, I'll come diving back and back you up as soon as I can.”

“Sounds like a reasonable proposal, but you be careful up there too,” the Doctor cautions her then waves to indicate the upward direction with an uplifted and spiraling hoof. “There are a lot of branches to be caught in up there, and we still don't know if anything dangerous lives up there as well.”

“I can be dangerous too if I want to be,” Stern Wing assures with a confident grin. “Don't worry about me too much. If anything does take me out up there, then they really earned it.”

“Just be back in a few minutes,” the Doctor requests.

“I'll try, but I don't have a watch,” Stern Wing points out.

“Then I'll send an audible signal either within two minutes or when we run into trouble,” comes the Doctor's refined proposal. “That will also help you zero in on our position unless you find your own way back to us first.”

“Sounds good,” Stern Wing agrees before crouching down and then leaping upward with a big flap of her large wings. With that, she shoots off into the sky.

---

Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, Stern Wing lands back on the ground near the Doctor and Feather Wind. Feather Wind already arose from his meditative focus and the Doctor stopped issuing the sonic scream the moment he realized Stern was fully aware of where they are.

“Okay, let's compare notes,” the Doctor proposes. “Who wants to go first?”

Feather Wind and Stern Wing look at each other with a mutual questioning look. They soon realize they have a stalemate in that regard so Feather nods to Stern Wing invitingly and with a questioning look as if to say, “You want to go first?”

Stern Wing nods then says, “You're not going to believe this, but this is incredible! We seem to be on . . . um . . . I can almost describe it as a tiny island floating in the middle of a vast empty sky, but it's more like we're on a tiny planet because the landmass we're on is spherical. I also spotted several dozen of these floating tiny planets and each of them seem to have a vastly different environment on them. Some of them are desert, some of them are the arctic, others are the ocean, and still others . . . I don't even know how to describe them. Lots of neon and artificial lights. That's about all I can tell you.”

“Wow! That's . . . unpredictable,” Feather Wind says with wide eyes in amazement then narrows his eyes as he goes on to say, “But that might partially explain what I'm getting.”

“Which is?” the Doctor checks with Feather.

Feather Wind shakes his head as he says, “For the first time in my life, the air is dead silent to me. I searched and searched and breathed deep, but every breath I took felt hollow somehow. It's like it's not really there. That we're not really breathing air. I keep getting this very odd sensation like we should be suffocating right now due to being in an airless void, but we're not. I'm thus getting conflicting feedback.

“That's not all. I'm not feeling anything from the local environment either. Not the trees, not the earth, not the life in the forest. Nothing! About the only thing I can feel is magic, and that particular category is unusually abundant. I feel like if I cast any magic, my magic will replenish in this environment unusually fast due to its thickness, but something feels off about it as well.” He shakes his head. “I don't know how a substance like that can feel so strong yet empty at the same time. It's like I'm beholding a beautiful and bejeweled golden chalice that is totally empty of anything else, including air.”

Feather and Stern both grow curious when they see the Doctor nodding in neutral acceptance before he finally says, “Thank you both for that information. That's about what I expected to hear.”

“What's going on, Doctor?” Stern Wing presses the hourglass cutie-marked stallion. “You seem to know something about our confusing situation. Would you care to explain it to the rest of us?”

“Certainly,” the Doctor agrees in a light tone. “The short version of it is we're in an artificially produced environment. Nothing feels real to you,” he says with a nod to Feather, “because nothing here is real. Rather, it is a simulation. A solid illusion. It has sound, texture, taste, color . . . everything it takes to fool your five senses that this place is real, but it's not. It's a projection made solid with very sophisticated force fields and other kinds of advanced technology.”

“Which is what you encountered before!” Feather Wind realizes. “In the other dimension predominately run by humans, this world in that dimension ran on a similar principle, didn't it?”

“Very similar, except for one thing; the power source,” the Doctor points out with a lift of a hoof. “Back in the other dimension, the simulation was supported by a computer that ran everything, and before you ask, a 'computer' is basically a thinking machine that can produce quantum-level calculations, store and retrieve a huge amount of data darn near instantly as well as process and scan a bunch of things. Think of it like an advanced artificial brain.

“Anyway, back in the other dimension, I managed to hack into and edit this computer by using my sonic screwdriver. By emitting a certain sonic frequency, I was able to tap into this machine, especially when I did it near one of the environment's hidden projection nodes which is the cause of simulating everything else you see here. I had hoped to use this access to acquire certain kinds of data, but this system runs on a different power source and therefore the sonic frequency I used before is no longer valid here. I think, eventually, I can learn to attune to the new type of frequency, but it will take me some time to figure it out.

“I do know of one local sample I can try to scan to help me figure it out, though.

“Hey Feather, cast a spell for me, would you? Anything non-hostile will do,” the Doctor requests of the young wizard.

“Anything non-hostile?” Feather echoes as he ponders that, then nods with a dim smile as he says, “Okay. I think I got it. I'll go for something simple.”

Feather Wind closes his eyes and concentrates. One second later a light projects from his horn which shines as a silvery ball. He has it float off his horn and hovers a foot in front of him. Feather Wind then pops his eyes open and looks at the Doctor as he asks, “Does this help? I can make it stronger if you want me to.”

“No. That should be fine,” the Doctor says back as he aims his sonic device at the sphere and then activates his device. “I only need to compare the magical energy of your signature versus the energy of the local environment. By comparing the difference, I might be able to get a mental picture of what I'm dealing with here faster.”

“Strange you never thought to scan his magic before,” Stern Wing muses aloud.

Once the Doctor finishes scanning Feather Wind's ball of magic, he nods to the young stallion in appreciation then proceeds to aim his device outward at the rest of the environment then scans it again, only this time he's armed with a sample to compare it to.

While the Doctor does that, Feather Wind muses aloud, “A simulated environment. How interesting. That means they can produce whatever they want at any moment, or at least whatever these com-pue-ters are able to replicate. If these thinking machines rely on data to produce anything, then they will need a real sample of some type before being able to simulate anything else.”

“A simulated environment on a moon?” Stern Wing asks. “I wonder how far this technology goes, and I don't strictly mean in terms of raw power. I wonder how widespread this tech is on this moon. Imagine if this technology was prevalent across the entire moon, including within it.”

“If the other dimension is any indication, that's very close to the truth,” the Doctor mentions while still busy scanning. “Here, they don't build houses or buildings or cave systems or swim in real lakes. They rely on their simulations to produce absolutely everything, and the projection nodes are implanted across this entire world, including within it. There are only a few spots where the projection nodes aren't, and those are places the residents can't go anyway like into solid walls or in machines taking up space to produce other things. For example, their computers will take up space or their power generators.”

“Power generators?” Feather echoes questioningly.

“Magic on this world isn't produced in the same way as it is on your home planet, or even the Water World we recently left. Instead of flowing about the environment and being produced by every living thing that is there, it is produced by one or more giant machines that just spew it. From there, that energy is channeled into whatever device is useful to the residents here. From there, those devices take that energy and shape it into some specific form, including the air you're breathing. Apparently, it is real enough to sustain us, but let's get one thing straight here. It isn't actual air any of us is breathing, but pure magical energy that is simulating air . . . and everything else, for that matter.

“While I'm on the subject, I should mention that if that power source were to totally stop and they had no backup to replace it, then everything in this environment that is simulated will suddenly disappear along with anything else that relies on this energy to function. At that point, we'd see this moon's true form which, if memory serves, is a metal spherical moon with a large gridwork of pyramid-shaped projection nodes.

“Oh, and if the simulation totally stopped with no backup, we'd be suffocating too . . . apparently.”

“Huh. How interesting,” Feather Wind says with an ironically bored expression, then he looks at Stern Wing the same way as he adds, “The residents here can produce anything they want at any time. They can have instant gratification to any wish, basically, as long as they attempt to fulfill that wish on or within this moon. If they can perfectly control what they experience, then there'd be no need to fear anything they produce provided the machine that is producing the simulation does it properly and safely. In other words, this place is a Hollow Paradise.

“However, you may think this is strange of me to say, but I'd much prefer to live in the Water World we just left rather than here. The Water World may have been a much more challenging environment to live in, but at least it was real. Real ocean. Real sky. Real sea life. Real ocean rigs. Real magic. It had depth and substance to it. It actually mattered.”

Feather sighs then shakes his head before going on to say, “It may be that my magic may replenish much faster here, but I'm kind of afraid to have my magic replenished by the synthetic magic that is produced here. If I rely upon that too much, what if I start to become fake, too?”

“I know what you mean,” Stern Wing agrees. “I didn't notice this at first as keenly as you did, but now that I know this place is fake . . . I'm not comfortable here anymore. Initially, I was fascinated because I thought this was real, but now . . . I don't know. I don't feel like I really have a true purpose here. If the residents are indeed perfectly secure in their synthetic environment, then good for them, but that also means they don't need a heroine like me and I can get out of here.” Stern Wing twists her hips to aim her cutie mark, which is a giant shield with wings off to the side and a heart in the center of the shield, at Feather Wind. She also points to it.

“I got this cutie mark due to my passion for protecting others. As a side effect, I think it is also trying to lead me to places where I am needed,” Stern says while looking at Feather at first, but then aims her flank away from him again as she visually scans her environment.

“However, here, where everything can be perfectly predictable and by the numbers, I don't think I am needed here.” Stern looks back at Feather. “Not to mention this probably isn't the best place I can grow. I need to keep up my strength to prepare for future challenges in other worlds and periods.” She shakes her head. “And I don't think I can do that here. It's too safe and I don't wish to become complacent.”

“If you two wanted to stay here, I wouldn't stop you,” the Doctor mentions as he keeps scanning in different directions approximately every five seconds. “But know this; I wouldn't stay here myself. As a matter of fact, I generally can't stand stagnating in any place for too long. I spent too long constantly being on the move. That's the 'normal' for me and it has been for a very long time now.”

“Really?” Stern Wing asks the Doctor with interest tinged with a bit of sadness. “Then that means you feel you can't settle anywhere and raise a family and whatnot.

“But . . . you mentioned earlier that you had a granddaughter so does that mean you used to be settled at one time?”

Right after Stern Wing asked him that question, the Doctor finally stopped scanning and put his device away in the hidden pocket just above his hourglass cutie mark. He then grins at Stern Wing as he says, “You don't expect me to answer all of your questions, do you? I think I prefer to keep some things a mystery, but I won't stop you from hypothesizing all you want. If you're very observant, they can even be educated guesses.”

“I don't understand. We're on the same team, so why keep secrets from your fellow team members?” Stern Wing wonders.

“Is that what happened to you when you were on a sports team?” the Doctor reflects questioningly. “Did every single member of your team spill their whole life story, including their deepest and darkest secrets, just because you were all on the same team?”

“Ah . . . no, but we didn't feel compelled to withhold that information either,” Stern Wing answers. “We kept our environment feeling open and friendly because we each needed to trust each other. Telling our life's story, while not required, was an available option to us. We didn't have to, we get to if we wanted.”

“Well, that is fine for you and your former team. I respect and commend you all for it,” the Doctor expresses to Stern Wing. “But as for me, there are secrets about my past that would be dangerous to know. Some of them are dangerous to me already but at least I can handle them.” He shakes his head. “I see no reason to spread that danger unnecessarily. It's not because I don't trust my companions, it is because I refuse to endanger them when it isn't necessary.

“If, for some reason, it does become necessary to share some or all of my secrets then I shall do so, but not until then. As a pony who appreciates the need for security, I expect and request for you to respect that.”

Stern Wing smiles at the Doctor softly as she says, “Very well, Doctor. As you request. I shall-”

She is interrupted when they all notice a bright golden streak zoom across the sky, momentarily brightening their immediate area before it fades into the distance.

“What was that?!” Stern Wing exclaims in shock.

“We already established that this environment is synthetically produced, right?” the Doctor reminds. “Well, that also means someone is here to request this in the first place. My guess is we just saw a sign of the player of this game.” The Doctor grows a daring grin as he goes on to say excitedly, “So let's go check it out!”

Comments

[Walrusesarecute]

*Talking through my thoughts (Nothing to do with the quality of the story as far as I know)*

I assume you are talking about Susan Foreman as the doctor’s granddaughter, but the doctor also has a daughter completely made from his DNA in an episode of New Who called ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ if I am not mistaken.

This Doctor in this story seems a lot more experienced or laid back, I wonder if this is because he’s seen everything in the previous universe or something, I don’t know how he came to this universe originally, it could be by his own volition and free will.

So it could be assumed that a lot of other people could have been his granddaughter, he’s been in a lot of places, I don’t know what’s happened. To be fair I don’t even know what’s been retconned.