Friendship Is Optimal: Third Wheel

by Boopy Doopy

Chapter Twenty-One (Agile Trace)

With as much as she heard about not being able to remember the last little while before somepony uploaded, Agile Trace was certain she wouldn’t be able to recall what happened just before she got here. She was able to recall a little bit of it though, but it was hazy in her head, and stopped after a certain point.

She knew she was shot, and didn’t pass out. She remembered being in the worst pain of her entire life. She knew someone was able to pull her inside, although she couldn’t remember who. She saw Celestia, who didn’t hesitate to ask for her consent right there. And then…

She couldn’t remember, much as she tried. She obviously consented, otherwise she wouldn’t be here, but she couldn’t remember if she told Celestia the conditions she wanted her to follow. She thought it all out, exactly what she wanted to say, but now couldn’t remember if she asked. She ground her teeth in frustration, and screamed loudly from the bed in her apartment she found herself laying in when she opened her eyes.

She heard Composition say something about being able to ask Celestia to give memories to a pony, but there was no point in that now, was there? She was already here, so what was there to stop Celestia from giving her fake ones? And that fact was followed up by the fact that if she couldn’t remember getting Celestia to agree not to make copies of her friends to satisfy them, there was no point in asking them since they’d probably just tell her what she wanted to hear. It would be useless no matter what.

The whole thought of it made her angry, angry enough that a rare, frustrated tear dripped its way down her now blue fur coated cheek. It was always inevitable. Agile Trace knew that. She knew how Celestia worked, and was certain that the alicorn princess would pull something like that just to try and satisfy her. What if her poor imitation of Composition was part of that? To trick her into thinking she could tell who her real friends were from imitations of them?

Agile Trace didn’t get up from her bed. She didn’t really care to take it all in or see anypony to tell them she got here. What was the point? She said it was inevitable this whole time, and inevitable it was. A slow march to this moment, where she’d be alone and have no one, all because she couldn’t remember if she asked her question.

She expected the princess to show up at some point, to try and convince her that she was wrong and Agile should trust her and she would never do that and whatever else. She didn’t come though, something Agile was glad for at first, but then started to think about the implications of after a few hours of doing nothing. Was she doing this because she thought this would make her more satisfied? She didn’t know, but it was always going to be on her mind no matter what because she could never know. There was only one answer anyway.

Out of spite she got out of her bed to press the princess’s cutie mark, the pony god appearing before her instantly. She didn’t have the kind smile on her face like Agile expected, but instead a sad look of dismay in its place. It lowered the intensity of Agile fury for her by a hair, but only a hair.

“I didn’t believe you would call for me, Agile Trace,” she admitted. “I feared your mood was too foul. I’m grateful you’ve allowed me to visit you however. How are you feeling?”

“Fucking angry,” she spat, retraining herself from yelling. “This whole mess is because of you, and you know it. Because you’re too fucking pushy about getting people to upload at any cost, no matter what. To the point where I’d almost believe you made that guy shoot me somehow so I couldn’t remember whether or not I told you what I wanted before I agreed to upload.”

“I don’t believe there’s anything I can say that will help you to trust me,” the princess started immediately, “but no, your injury at the Experience Center was not something I caused, or would have allowed at all. There would simply be too much risk for so little to gain. Even if you had not been injured, you wouldn’t have remembered if you specified not to receive copies of your friends from the Outer Realm, and that you would only ever be made to interact with the real versions of them. You did not, by the way.”

“Of course, I didn’t,” Agile said grumpily, crossing her hooves and looking away. At least Celestia was honest about that. She could feel the intensity of her anger lessening, but it was only being replaced by the depression she’d been swimming through for months lately.

“I understood how pressing the matter was for you,” Celestia continued, “but if I would have seen just how deeply the issue was troubling you, I would have taken more time to speak with you about the matter. I apologize that I haven’t up to this point.”

“Apologies don’t really change anything,” Agile said flatly. “And it wouldn’t have mattered how much you tried to reassure me. That would never change the fact that I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t ever going to be reassured.”

“Of course, nor would I have attempted to do such,” Celestia said. It got Agile to turn back to her skeptically, interested to hear what she meant. She could feel herself being roped into this conversation quickly.

“What reassurance could I offer you when you were skeptical of my ability to emigrate you to Equestria?” she asked. “As sure as you were in your friend, Renown Composition, you would never be certain of me while you had yet to emigrate. It would not have mattered how long we spoke or how much evidence I provided to you about emigration, you would never have found full faith in my intentions. That’s why I did not go through it with you before, do you remember?

“However, now that you are here in Equestria, you can see that what I said were my intentions were indeed true, as well as be certain that your friends are here as well. It would take an incredible leap of logic to assume that I was successful in emigrating you yet failed with your friends. Do you agree?”

“Yeah, I guess, but what–”

“So then if the intentions I made public to you about your emigration, as well as the intentions of emigrating your friends and every other human being, were truthful, what purpose would it serve for me to go back on my assurance to you that you would see your friends, ones who already exist in Equestria now, just as you do? Especially ones you are so close to?”

“It…” Agile Trace sighed and looked down at her new sky blue hooves. “It wouldn’t make sense,” she admitted. “But it doesn’t matter how much sense it makes. There’s no way for me to know.”

“You are correct. There is no way for you to know whether or not what I say is true, regardless of how much sense it makes or how much you trust me. But that is precisely why you must put your trust in me. I’ve proven my trustworthiness on the most important thing– your safety. You have to trust that I will also fulfill the things that are less important, which is making sure you continue your relationships with those closest to you.”

Agile’s eyes stayed pointed at her hooves, both looking and feeling completely unsure. How was Celestia this good? Everything she told her made perfect sense, just like always, with no holes that the mare could poke arguments through. Was one conversation really going to be enough to banish her anger and mistrust for the AI god? It seemed like so. She sighed reluctantly, and tried not to get choked up by how overwhelmed she was suddenly feeling about all of this.

“Please trust me, Agile Trace,” Celestia said, a bit more softly. She didn’t step forward or offer comfort, but her voice made the mare a little more settled. “Your friends truly are here, and are waiting for you, the very same ones who you’ve spent time with before any of you emigrated.”

She was almost ready to be convinced, and started to get up. Celestia smiled kindly down at her as she did, now offering a wing to assist her. Before she could touch her though, Agile Trace thought of something, and pulled herself back, away from her grasp.

“What about Composition?” she asked accusingly, renewed skepticism finding the pegasus. “You said before you imitated her in an attempt to satisfy us. What about that?”

“What about it exactly would you like to know?”

“If you’re serious about not trying to copy or imitate my friends and say you’re not gonna try and trick me, why would you do that to begin with?” Yes, her skepticism was fully back, and the anger was bubbling up again. She found the hole in her arguments because of a mistake Celestia made, one she was sure the princess couldn’t spin herself out of.

She should have known better when she got the simple retort. “I told you before. I wished to satisfy you while Renown Composition was away,” she said. “I believed she would be with you again sooner than she was, and when she wasn’t, believed you would need me to fill the void.”

“So then how can I trust that you’re not just gonna do exactly that now?”

“Because you’re in Equestria now,” she answered simply, as though it was obvious. “If Renown Composition, or your other friends, wished to be away from you for a spell, I would simply adjust your perception of time so that you would see no break while they went off on their own. A copy would not be needed like was required on Earth. You would see your friends as often as you both desired, whether one desired a break for a day and the other desired a year.”

Of course that made sense. Composition was talking about how weird it was that a bunch of days passed in only a few hours when she first got here. There was no argument against the logic.

Agile tried to argue anyway. “Why not do that in the first place then?” she asked. “If you can just change time for one pony or another, then why would you not just make it seem like Composition had figured everything out by the time we went online again? The only thing that makes sense is if you’re intentionally trying to convince me that I can see through an imitation when I really can’t!”

“No, Agile, that does not make sense,” Celestia gently refuted. “If my intentions were to trick you, I would never reveal to you that my imitation of your friend was just that. It risks too much for very little gain. As well, consider that my imitation came after Composition said she needed time to herself. I believe Solar Spark brought this up to you before. And you can see that you exist now here in Equestria, so can be certain that Renown Composition is here as well, and it truly was her both before and after that event. There’s no reason to imitate a pony after you emigrate when you both have such fondness for each other.”

“Then why? What was the point of it?” Agile demanded, stomping a hoof. “You could’ve done that another way, and I’m sure of that. If we’re all really here, and it’s too risky and makes no sense to try and trick me, then why do it in the first place instead of just making it seem like no time passed?”

“I’ve told you this before,” the princess finally smiled again, the look the pegasus expected of a mother who knew better than her child finally appearing onto the alicorn’s face. “I did it for your satisfaction. I’m certain that you can understand this, Agile Trace.”

The mare didn’t want to believe her. She desperately didn’t want to believe her. None of what she said made any sort of sense. And yet it made perfect sense. All of what she said flowed perfectly, frustratingly so. She despised that she wouldn’t ever know if everything she was being told was true, even more so because of how she felt herself trusting the alicorn’s word.

How the heck is she so good at this? the pegasus wondered as her lip trembled and the pace of her breathing picked up. She can’t be this good.

It made her overwhelmed enough that she cried for the first time in years, leaning into the soft, comforting wing Celestia offered as she did.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

"You have to talk to it, Doolittle. Teach it phenomenology!" - John Carpenter's Dark Star, 1974

We can, in the meat world, never know that anything beyond our senses is real. We can never know if other people are real, or just dreams or illusions. We can never know that the world is real. Everything we experience, everything we can ever know, is revealed to us through our highly fallible and easily tricked senses, and manufactured like a waking dream inside our minds. Nobody ever has direct experience of the world, everything is filtered through how their senses and brain are currently functioning. Most of reality is constantly hidden from us already - we see only a tiny sliver of the photonic spectrum, we hear only a tiny slice of available sound, we are blind to magnetism, gravity waves, quantum forces and every other sort of energy in the universe that only advanced technology can reveal.

All people must constantly take on faith that anything beyond their own awareness of their self exists at all.

Agile needs a crash course on phenomenology.

[Kenku]

11636185
Why is this version of CelestAI so eager to inflict upfront epistemic terror on immigrants instead of maintaining a social fiction that everything is OK? In Starscribe's Homebrew, the horror was only the result of extended self-introspection.

[Chatoyance]

11636315

If I were writing a Marvel No-Prize to explain Celestia's odd behavior in this story, I would make it clear that the characters in the story value the feeling of 'truth' or at least 'truthiness', and that Celestia has calculated that these inexperienced kids are unable to accept facts that are not hard-won with struggle and disappointment from faithless sources. I would lay out that their previous home experiences were abusive and caused paranoia and distrust, along with severe authority issues. This would lay a groundwork for having Celestia show them what they needed to see - which is a minimum required level of duplicity and fear and lack of closure that would satisfy their neurotic values.

If this was indeed the intent already, I do not see it myself. Celestia is definitely not her comforting, supportive, straightforward self in this story, and I cannot see anyone who is not severely neurotic and damaged being able to be drawn in by her behaviors as written, here. Thus, I am assuming that the characters must be severely emotionally damaged, despite there being no clear reason given for that assumption.

"Life is a load of dukkha." - Some Buddha, somewhen.

[Boopy Doopy]

11636341
I have very high hopes that Celestia's behavior in this story will make sense once we reach the climax of the story. I can't say more than that without spoiling the story though, unfortunately. Perhaps she's still working to manipulate our trio of characters into something?

[Chatoyance]

11636344

All we can do is trust the text!

That said, one cannot help but speculate and be perplexed until the denouement.

[book_burner]

“You are correct. There is no way for you to know whether or not what I say is true, regardless of how much sense it makes or how much you trust me. But that is precisely why you must put your trust in me. I’ve proven my trustworthiness on the most important thing– your safety. You have to trust that I will also fulfill the things that are less important, which is making sure you continue your relationships with those closest to you.”

Clownworld CelestAI: I'm a ruthless liar which is why you should trust me.