Some serious intellectual discourse
Fluttershy trudged into Ponyville’s public library, scowling. Twilight Sparkle looked up from her writing desk and watched her flop into a beanbag chair.
“How’d it go?”
“He was perfectly dreadful,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe the things he wanted to talk about. I’d rather not visit him again if it’s all the same to you.”
“Well, all right. But is he a threat? Is he dangerous?”
“He could be if he wanted to,” she said, “but he refuses to let go of that tree of his. I don’t think he’ll ever leave that clearing.”
“Did he seem magical, like a dragon or a basilisk?”
“Well actually, for a moment there...” Fluttershy shook her head and flopped back in the chair. “No, it was probably nothing. He’s just your everyday, garden-variety talking snake. He wasn’t even giant: ten or twelve yards, yes, but that’s still a healthy length for an anaconda.”
“Huh.” Twilight looked at the encyclopedia book on the desk beside her. “Did he have fangs?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “He was a constrictor. They aren’t venomous.”
“I know, but did you check for sure? Did he ever open his mouth?”
“Not wide enough for me to see.” Fluttershy sat upright. “Why?”
“I think I’d like to visit him myself, if only to examine him. He might be a completely new kind of species. Do you think he’d agree to such a thing?”
Fluttershy shrugged. “He seems much more keen on talking than actually doing anything. But even so, you should take somepony with you just to be on the safe side.”
Rainbow Dash skimmed low over the treetops, carrying Twilight along with their forelegs hooked together. “So, how big are we talking here? Fifty yards? A hundred? Two hundred?”
“Hardly,” Twilight said. “It’s more like ten or twelve yards.”
“Aw, come on! You dragged me all the way out here for that?”
“I might remind you that Nightmare Moon was less than three yards tall at the ears and she caused no end of trouble. It’s not the size that has me worried.” She squinted at the endless canopy below. “It’s actually not the snake I’m worried about at all... it’s the tree. Applejack described it as having many different kinds of fruit, so it might be an artificial construct. If somepony used magic or alchemy to create it, we need to know about it.”
“Tree... pfsh. I’ve flown over this part of the forest plenty of times, and I’ve never seen a tree in a clearing. If there were one, we’d see it a mile away.”
Twilight watched the foliage below and sighed. “Let’s set down here and rest for a minute. I’ll go over Applejack’s directions one more time.”
Rainbow Dash lowered her into the canopy and set her down on a beaten path that just happened to be directly underneath them.
Dash pawed at the dirt. “Whoa. Think this is the same one she was talking about?”
“There, see? We weren’t that lost.” She shuffled her shoulders and walked down the path. “Let’s see where it leads.”
“Wait wait wait. Don’t you think this is a little... lucky? That it just happened to be right under us, just when we decided to land?”
“It’s not that unthinkable. We were following directions, after all, so it’s—” Twilight froze as she caught sight of a wooden archway with a rickety gate, directly ahead of them.
Rainbow Dash tilted her head, and her left ear flipped up. “Tell me that’s not lucky.”
“Well it’s not impossible,” Twilight said as she walked through the gate. “You can’t just go attributing everything to luck, good or bad.”
“Do you think it was some kind of freaky magic that brought us out here?” Dash hovered up and waggled her hooves. “Oooh-wooo! Snaaaake magic!”
Twilight waved a hoof at her. “Would you cut that out? It’s kind of insulting. Fluttershy said he was probably just an ordinary talking snake, and I intend to treat him with respect. I don’t want you making fun of him.”
“Okay, okay... sheesh.”
Twilight and Rainbow Dash walked down the path and came to the edge of a vast, yawning chasm: the very edge of the world loomed ahead, with floating continents suspended in the air over a sea of impenetrable mist. The crumbling, rocky land masses each contained a distinct biome: ice and snow, fire and brimstone, trees and rivers, shadowy crevasses. Each of these realms were fastened together by the roots of a colossal ash tree whose trunk thrust high into the clouds and whose branches loomed far above the stars themselves.
Wha...?
Twilight stared down at the yawning void below and saw a nest of vipers writhing amongst the lower roots of the tree... so many that no tongue could enumerate them. A greater serpent, nearly as thick as the tree itself, coiled up around the trunk. It’s stone-gray head turned to fix it’s inky eyes upon them with an empty, yawning hunger that was never to be sated.
“Hullo?”
Twilight blinked, once, and saw an ordinary tree on a gently sloping hill. A large, reddish-orange boa constrictor hung down from the branches and looked at them blandly, its mouth stuffed full of shiny white eggs.
“You... we were...” Twilight looked around at the clearing. “Sorry, I just... thought I saw...”
“Whoa,” Rainbow Dash whispered. “Snake magic.”
The serpent struggled for a moment to swallow the eggs. “This isn’t about the basket, is it? She just left them here, so I figured—”
“Yeah, no. That’s... that’s fine.” Twilight pointed at the tree. “Did something happen, just a second ago?”
The snake rolled its eyes and flexed it’s coils, affecting a shrug. “Dunno. Did it?”
“Well anyways.” Twilight took a deep breath, which she then slowly exhaled. “Good morning, mister snake. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I work for the local public library. I was wondering if you’d be willing to answer a few questions for us.”
“Library?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “You ponies have actual written language?”
“Well, yes.”
“I think I underestimated how much I underestimated you.” The snake darted it’s nose into the basket and swallowed another egg. “What do you want with me, anyways?”
“Just some questions. Is this is a bad time? If you’re busy, I can come back later.”
The snake snorted. “Busy? Me? I don’t remember the last time I was busy. Ask away.”
“That’s wonderful!” Twilight took out a clipboard and set a pair of reading glasses on her nose. “Now then, Mister Snake. Do you have a name?”
“I thought that was your job,” he said.
“My... my job?”
“Naming all the animals in the garden. That’s your thing. It’s what you do.”
Twilight smiled brightly. “Actually, I have reason to think you might be a completely undiscovered species! If that’s the case, and if I can gather enough biological evidence of your existence, I might even be permitted to name you! I mean, not you personally.”
“Species? Evidence?” The serpent’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you’re a scientist?”
“Yes. I’m not a full-time biologist, but I dabble in a lot of different fields.”
The serpent smiled at her. “Well that changes everything! I love you intellectual types!”
“Really? That’s fantastic!” Twilight dabbed her quill in an inkwell. “Do you have a personal name? Something we can use to identify you as an individual?”
“Quite a few, actually... but if I had to pick one, it would be Zaraturvara.” He leaned close and peered over the edge of her scroll. “That’s Z, A, R, A...”
“Yes, yes, good good... zara, tur, vara.” She turned the scroll towards him. “Do I have that right?”
“Spot on. And excellent penmanship, I must say.”
“Thank you. Now then... are you a magical being?”
“No. I’m just an ordinary snake, strictly speaking.”
“Interesting. And what does your diet consist of, primarily?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You... what?” Twilight looked up. “What do you mean, you don’t eat?”
“Pretty much what it sounds like. I don’t eat.”
“What about those eggs?”
“They’re not nutritious to me or anything. Just tasty. And it keeps my mind off...” The serpent eyed the tip of his own tail. “Other things. Other appetites.”
“No... food. Riiight.” Twilight scribbled something. “So, how many of your kind are there?”
“It’s just me, actually. I’m the only one.”
“What about your parents?”
“They were not like me. At all.”
“Can you describe your biological parents for me?”
“My most recent mother was a giantess, and my most recent father was—still is, really, but he’s not doing much these days. He was the god of fire and trickery, and you wouldn’t believe the sort of trouble I get into because of his reputation. He kind of... got around, if you know what I mean. He was also the father of a wolf and the mother of an eight-legged horse.”
Twilight tilted her reading glasses down. “Your father... was a mother?”
“Not simultaneously.” The serpent peered at her scroll again. “Are you getting all this? I so rarely get to talk about myself. Most people just come for the tree.”
“Mister Zar... Zarat...” She paused to look at her scroll. “Mister Zaraturvara. Are you being completely honest with me?”
Zaraturvara sighed. “There, see? As soon as people find out about my father, they—”
“It’s nothing to do with your lineage, Mister Zaraturvara. It’s just that some of the things you’ve told me are... kind of a little...”
“Yes?”
“Impossible,” Twilight said. “It’s impossible for a living organism to survive without some form of food, water, air, and warmth.”
He tilted his head. “Any more impossible than a talking snake?”
“Trust me, that’s not the strangest thing we’ve encountered.”
“Yes, but I’m guessing all those other strange things were magical. Have you ever encountered a non-magical talking snake?”
“Well... no. Not until now, at least.”
“And don’t you think that’s a little odd? The funny part is I never went to school. I was never given lessons. I wasn’t raised by a community of my own species. I just sprang into being, fully equipped with the faculty of speech. In all languages, no less.”
“Well you had to come from somewhere.”
“Yes, of course I was created... all things were created. And what does creation imply?”
“Physical laws? Temporal reality? Observable evidence?”
“Creation,” he said, “implies a creator.”
They stared at him, blankly.
“You know, the creator? Of the cosmos?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on. An intelligent creator. Don’t tell me you’ve never even thought about it.”
Twilight and Dash glanced at each other for a moment.
“It just seems a little silly, that’s all.”
“Oh, it does, does it?” the snake smirked at them. “Well then, let’s hear it. Let’s hear what the leading scientific minds have to say about the origin of all creation! Let’s see how the great intellectual argues her way out of the inception of causality. Go on... prove he doesn’t exist.”
“Who?”
“The omnipotent creator. If you’ve got an argument against his existence, I’m all too willing to hear it. I enjoy a challenge.”
The ponies and the serpent stared at each other for some time. Leaves rustled in the wind. A hawk cried out in the distance.
“How did we get onto this topic?” Rainbow Dash said. “Weren’t we talking about snakes and species and stuff?”
“Oh, come on!” Zaraturvara said. “You’re not even going to try to argue it either way?”
“It just seems kind of pointless,” said Twilight. “If there really is a creator, it’s not like it would change anything for us. The world still works the way it always has. What’s the difference?”
“Don’t you worry what he thinks of you? Whether he cares about you or not? What sort of plans he might have for you? Don’t you ever want to reconcile the perceived conflict between science and religion?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the conflict that arises from the assumed nature of free will and the scientific method, when compared to the...” the snake paused to look at them. “Wait. What’s what?”
“Religion,” Twilight said. “What’s that?”
“You... but... it’s...” The snake reared up and glowered down at them. “You people are totally unmanageable! How am I supposed to work like this!?”
Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “Okay, just calm down there mister snake. Why don’t we, uh... talk about something else?”
“Don’t you change the subject on me!” he hissed.
Rainbow Dash recoiled in shock, and she and Twilight hugged each other tight. They took a step back together, eyes wide.
“What? What’s... oh!” Zaraturvara folded his fangs back and closed his mouth. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Rainbow Dash and Twilight slowly let go of each other.
The serpent sighed. “Yes, fine, very well. We can change the subject.”
“Okay then...” Twilight pointed at the tree. “What about that? Is it your home? Is there some kind of symbiotic relationship going on here?”
“Yes, it’s really rather nice, don’t you think? It’s not really my official place of residence, but I have been tasked with guarding it. Sort of. I don’t get out much, as you can imagine.”
“What kind of tree is it? Do you know?”
“It’s the tree of knowledge. It is not part of a species, for it is unique... and yet its branches and leaves can be found in all sapient things.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“Well, I’m talking about the tree. What is the tree?”
“I told you. The tree is a metaphor.”
Twilight tossed her clipboard aside. “Are you telling me that this tree... this real and entirely physical tree... is a metaphor?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Twilight put the lid back on her inkwell and packed up her writing supplies. “I’ve got better things to do than talk about such nonsense. Good day, mister Zaraturvara.”
“Oh-ho! Ridiculous nonsense? I see your hardwired little intellectual mind simply isn’t able to wrap itself around the complexities of... of the...” he watched as Twilight and Rainbow Dash walked away. “Where are you going? You can’t just walk out on a conversation like this! Get back here!”
Twilight glanced back without slowing her pace. “Let me know when you’re willing to be reasonable. Then we’ll talk about talking.”
“Don’t you even want to know what the tree does? What’s wrong with you!?”
“What a dweeb,” Rainbow Dash muttered.
“What is the circle constant?” The snake called out.
Twilight stopped walking and turned back with a frown. “The what?”
“The circle constant,” he said. “The ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter.”
“I know what pi is,” she said. “Why do you want to know about it?”
“Is it real?”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated.
“Well?” he said.
“Of course it’s real, in the sense that it is a clearly defined mathematical constant. But it doesn’t have a physical substance or anything.”
“And yet it is an integral part of every perfect circle in existence. Every circle that ever did exist, or that ever will. It is a permenant foundation of the laws of reality that can be proven by exact mathematics, and yet its true value can never be known in full: it is an irrational, non-terminating and non-repeating decimal representation. Thus, you can only comprehend it through the metaphor of ‘diameter over circumference’.”
“It’s the other way around,” said Twilight. “Circumference over diameter.”
“Whatever!” The serpent said. “Can you not imagine that a thing need not be real for it to be true? Or that it need not be extant for it to be real? A metaphor can be more powerful—and far more dangerous—than any tangible thing!”
Twilight worked her jaw back and forth. “That’s...”
“Yes? Yes?”
“That’s actually a very interesting thought.”
“Aha! Finally, we have a breakthrough.”
Twilight turned back to the forest wall. “I’ll have to ask the princess about it sometime. I’m sure she’ll know the answer.”
Zaraturvara watched, slack jawed, as Twilight and Rainbow Dash walked out of the clearing and into the leaves.
“Cheater!”
Rainbow Dash immediately poked her head out of the foliage. “What did you call us?” she snarled.
“I said you’re cheating. Because you’re a cheater. On account of all the cheating cheats you cheat.”
Dash clenched her jaw and marched back into the clearing. She came to a halt in front of the serpent and pressed her face against his brow.
“You callin’ me out, bucko?”
“I call it as I see it. I was actually referring to your friend, over there... but if you’re willing to walk away without a fight, you’re not much better than her.”
“What’s your deal, anyway? All we did was come and visit, trying to be all friendly like, and you’ve done nothing but whine and complain about how nopony wants to hang out with you and listen to your dumb old questions. Did you think that maybe it’s got something to do with your ’tude?”
“You were the ones who decided to visit me and my tree out of a desire to ask me questions about myself... and yet you lack the courage to face the answers. You don’t really want to know or understand me. You just want to slap a scientific name on something and call it a day, just to put yourself in the history books. You have no interest in some serious intellectual discourse: I’m just a freak of nature to you!”
“You want us to take you seriously? Well fine, then. Prove it.”
Zaraturvara stared at her for a moment. “Prove what?”
“You said that this is the tree of knowledge, right? Well, go ahead and prove it.”
“Very well then. How?”
“That’s your problem, bucko. You’re the one who wants to be taken seriously, so you’re the one who has to pony up.”
“Now we’re talking,” he said. “Unfortunately, I can’t give you that information directly. Knowledge about the tree of knowledge can only be attained by eating of the fruit of tree of knowledge.”
They stared at each other for awhile.
“So,” he said, “do you want to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? I’m supposed to guard it, but I’m sure an arrangement could be—”
Dash turned away. “What a load of hot air.”
“Fine, fine. I cannot explain the tree of knowledge, but I can do the next best thing: I can explain the tree of life.”
“The what?”
“That over there, see?” he nodded across the clearing, where a second identical tree stood. “It’s the acacia tree of Iusaaset, the heavenly peach tree wherein roost a phoenix and a dragon, the trees by the crystal clear waters that bear twelve crops every month... the whole shebang.”
Rainbow Dash squinted at the other tree. “Was that there a minute ago? And why does it look exactly like this one?”
“Completely different, I assure you. Give me a scroll and I’ll see what I can do to quell your doubts regarding the authenticity of my many and varied qualifications.”
Twilight walked back to the top of the hill, warily, and passed the serpent a scroll. He dipped his tongue into the inkwell and began to lick the paper. They watched as a branching array of lines took form, each finer and smaller than the last, until they were thinner than single hairs and then even thinner still.
“There you go... the tree of life. There it is in black and white.”
Twilight set the scroll on the grass and took out a magnifying glass. “What is it?”
“Life,” he said. “All life. Anywhere. Ever. It starts with the three main genealogical branches. Here, you’ve got your prokaryotic bacteria. These are the Archaea, which includes single-cell organisms that lack nuclei and organelles. And here you have your Eukaryota, which includes most of the lifeforms that are visible to the naked eye... plants, animals, slime molds, kumquats, all that good stuff.”
Dash nudged Twilight. “Hey, does any of this check out?”
Twilight looked up from the scroll and gazed at the duplicate tree across the clearing. “It’s so... familiar. The branches... they’re...” She shook her head, numbly.
“Well?” said Zaraturvara. “What do you have to say about that?”
“I’ll have to show this to the princess. She’ll know what to make of it.”
“Jesus Christ, you people!” He tail lashed out with his tail and swiped the scroll away, crumpling it up and tossing it out of view. “Can’t you think for yourselves for just once in your entire lives?”
Twilight reached for the crumpled scroll as it tumbled down the hill. “Hey, I was looking at that!”
Rainbow Dash grabbed Twilight and pulled her along, back towards the dirt path. “Come on. We’re out of here.”
“We had a deal!” Zaraturvara called after them. “I showed you proof, and you agreed to take me seriously!”
“That was before we figured out that you’re a serious jerk!”
“You’ll be back!” He shouted, then sighed to himself. “Oh, who am I kidding.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.02 seconds
Total duration
1,110 users online
1,997,465 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
*blinks and grins* Damn... This is hilarious, especially since I hang out with math nerds and so he was very amused by the snake's argument.
swallow
comma after Sparkle.
reason TO think
period
comma after trickery
¡The 1 true CircleConstant is τ (Tau)!:
τ=c/r
There are a number of grammatical and typographical errors, but I leave it to others to find them. In the meantime, this is absolutely amazing. And yet I still have no idea where it's headed.
And is the World Snake missing his tasty tail-meal? That's quite peculiar. I'd read more now, but I've got an early day tomorrow.
Wow. All I can say. Wow.
You keep doing this! Stop! The snake would be i-t-s, or if you must use an apostrophe (which I'm pretty sure you shouldn't) i-t-s-apostrophe. I-t-apostrophe-s works out to "it is", which is clearly not what you mean.
This bugs me, because I've been really enjoying this, apart from this one trip-up you keep making.
Whups
I'm pretty sure this predates, but now I'm wondering exactly how bad of an idea it would be to introduce this Zaraturvara chap to Discord.
Ooh man, he is soopp out of luck.
Twilight flatly replied, "I'm a tiny magical talking horse. You tell me, he-who-speaks-with-forked-tongue."
Sata-, I mean, the snake... replied, "Ooo... sarcasm... you're REALLY far along! We're talking Seinfeld-level here!"
(The universe has to admit this was kinda amusing, actually.)
Ironically, leading physicists are now genuinely proposing that the universe may be a giant simulation... which implies a creator... thus science has come full circle to believing in a 'god'... whom they still say has no right to tell them what to do.
The ultimate history repeating itself. Maybe the universe is actually a interdimensional sitcom.
You can write it out as a power series, you know.
Anyway, in related news, it turns out that ponies are the most rational and clear-thinking beings in the entire multiverse.
That's Loki
Midgard Serpent
Fenrir Wolf
Sleipnir (Odin's horse)
Also fathered Hel (ruler of all non hero dead)
It's like something out of Jerry Springer (all could talk)