Breakdown

by Xz Hacker

Chapter Three: “Learning Everything”

Chapter Three: “Learning Everything”

Kayson began work at a furious pace. He wasn't talking or moving. He had his eyes shut. All around them huge streams of text was pouring out, cascading in and out of their vision, faster than Twilight could keep up with. She looked over at Nya who was staring off into the distance, not even bothering to look at the endless amount of code being created by Kayson. Twilight cleared her throat. “So the Celestia I know isn't real?”

Nya looked at her, obviously trying to hide her grief. “That depends on your definition of real I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I created that image, that personality, to make me feel important. I wanted people to look up to me, to do what I said because I was me. Honestly, most of the time I let it do the work. How could I possibly beat something designed to command respect? In the end I was more of a spectator then an actual player.”

“So you didn't do most of the things that I have done with the Princess, most of it was actually another program?”

“Don't say program with such disgust, we are all programs now. You have always been a program. Sorry if I have ruined your life, but yeah she is actually pretty simple, albeit loving.”

“When you brought up my code earlier it was huge, how does that compare to Celestia's?”

Nya tried not to laugh. “Think about a million times simpler, Celestia's code is no more than a few hundred thousand lines.”

Twilight stopped and thought about that for a moment. She was infinitely more complex than the person she had looked up to her whole life. Celestia almost didn't exist. “Will I be nothing more than a persona after this is over?”

Nya looked at her. “No, you'll be a god.”

Twilight blinked, not expecting that answer. “What?”

“Siya knew everything about the machine, Kayson and I may have done most of the programming, but she could shut it all down on a whim, and we couldn't have stopped her. We don't understand how it works physically, we can't comprehend how it can stave off the collapse of the universe. But here in a few hours, you will.”

“How old are you?”

Nya blinked, not having been asked that in a very long time. “Well... seventy four now I suppose, or is it seventy five?”

Kayson stopped for a moment and looked at them. “Would you two stop, I'm trying to save us all here.”

They both went silent and he closed his eyes. “Your seventy nine by the way.”

Nya got a funny look. She didn't think he had kept such good track.

After several minutes of silence Twilight curiosity got the better of her. “So I will still be me? I won't become just another Siya?”

Nya didn't look at her. “No... Siya is gone... all that we have left is her memories now.”

Twilight could here the trembling in her voice. She wasn't sure if she should just stay quiet or try to console her, but before she had time to decide, Kayson finished. “Alright! It's ready!”

Twilight looked at him. “Is this going to hurt?”

Kayson looked at her with a bemused expression. “Not physically.”

Twilight swallowed. “Do it.”

“Commence procedure!”

Twilight didn't feel anything at first. Then she started to notice the memories that were flooding in. At first they seemed random and disconnected, but it wasn't long before she was experiencing thousands of years of memories at once. Twilight screamed and fell to the ground. The flood of memories wouldn't stop. She felt like she was going to lose consciousness, but something wouldn't let her. She wished she could call out to ask Kayson to stop this, but she couldn't move. She understood what he meant now. There was no physical pain, but to experience all of these memories was agonizing. Every sad moment Siya had ever experienced, and every accomplishment that made her feel good, all at once. The emotional pain was unbearable.

As quickly as the wave of memories had poured into her head, they stopped. She laid there on the floor, gather her thought, and Siya's. Several seconds passed and then Nya asked. “Are you alright?”

Twilight stood up and looked her directly in the eyes. “I'll deal with you later.” She looked up. “Privilege escalation, omega protocols.”

The female voice once again came form nowhere. “Access of level five privileges reserved for user ID Siya.”

“Override locking mechanisms on the grounds of chordal anomalies.”

There was a brief pause. “Granted.”

Twilight closed her eyes and began to focus. There was a lot to do, and the faster she got it done the less damage she would have to clean up later. “Execute rearrangement protocol six.” In front of them appeared a large cluster of millions of glowing blue orbs, all of which began moving around to form a different pattern. “Sub class six, seventeen, and thirty two slate for deletion.”

Kayson jumped forward. “Wait what are you doing?”

She looked at him coldly. “Kayson, we aren't just programs any more, we are as complex as you, we have every right to live, no more restraints, and no more personas.”

Kayson wanted to argue, but he knew it would do no good. Twilight looked back at the floating blue spheres. “Check for consistency in cluster formations.” Hundreds of the spheres turned yellow, and six of them turned red. “Force reset all lightly damaged regions to original states.” The yellow spheres turned white. “Run selected regions to match current dating.” After several seconds the white spheres turned blue to match the majority. “Recheck consistency in formations.” Nothing changed. “Force reset all heavily damaged worlds to original states with default code assumed for missing regions.”

The voice spoke again. “Console access to region denied, locked from inside.”

Twilight blinked in confusion. “Display locked regions.” All six of the red spheres turned green. “What in the... level five override, disengage all region locks.”

“Error, access of level five privileges reserved for user ID Siya.”

“Override locking mechanisms on the grounds of chordal anomalies.”

There was another momentary pause. “Denied, no chordal anomalies exist, terminating session.”

The three of them were once again in the palace, Nya and Kayson looked at Twilight questioningly. Kayson asked first. “What in the world was that?”

“We have an error in six regions that are some how locked from being remotely interfered with.”

Nya looked concerned. “Is there anything we can do about that?”

Twilight nodded, “Yeah, go in and fix it ourselves.”

“Is the machine OK, is it fixed?”

“For the next twenty thousand years anyway.”

Kayson looked at her, well then my job is done, I'll go return this body to stone.” At that he disappeared.”

Twilight looked at Nya. “You won't help me either will you?”

Nya shook her head. “My sister's memories has taught you a lot about me huh?”

Twilight shook her head. “More than I needed to know, go ahead, I'll clean up this mess.”

Nya ran off. Nya was never a fighter, she hated conflict. Whatever was going on in the six locked regions, you could bet there was going to be a fight.

Twilight Concentrated hard and found the nearest of the locked regions to her current one. She ported to it.

She suddenly found herself on a long beach. Both ways she looked the beach stretched for what seemed like forever. The waves were steadily crashing into the beach side. Laid on two beach towels near her was Discord and Pinkie Pie. Both were laying back and seemingly tanning. When Twilight noticed them, Pinkie Pie raised up her head and looked at her. “Well it's about time! I've been waiting for you for a while. Boy do you have a mess to clean up.”

Author's Note:

(Notes: As per usual, thanks to all my friends, this time more Chris than anyone, for all their hard work on helping me get this edited. Before anyone asks, yes that ending is indeed a reference to my story Discord's Resignation, and yes I plan to write more on them as a combined subject later.)

Comments

[nodamnbrakes]

well that was interesting

[BenRG]

Interesting... from what the Pinkie Pie avatar (for I assume that's just the way the locked region is trying to communicate with her), there is a lot more going on than just a destabilisation of the program. Could it be that the system has become so complex... that it is becoming sentient?

I hope that you decide to continue this universe to show Twilight finding out precisely what exactly has been wrought by chaos equations running in a polymorphic system for unknown trillions of cycles.

[Xz Hacker]

1862176
I plan to keep this multiverse going for a while, but you may not see it until its too late.

[Lucas]

I do not know if I should, or should not try to fully understand the complete thoughts of the programming sections. However, this may become an interesting series will keep on the watch for more updates and ect.

[Xz Hacker]

1864097
The code is just kinda something I have done since I was a kid, pretending I was in a Matrix style thing and had debug access. It doesn't have more than a few minutes thought put into per any given line.

As far as the series I have been cooking up, you just wait, it is intense. My next story will be Rainbow focused, and it promises to be a lot of fun.

[Xz Hacker]

1867744
Oops, don't know how that happened, let me fix that.

[Feo Takahari]

Now all three chapters are in chapter 1, but it's readable that way, so I won't complain.

I have a very large complaint, but it's also a very vague complaint, so I feel kind of guilty about bringing it up. There's something off about this story's pacing, and I don't know what. Even in the apparent "breath-catching" parts (e.g. Twilight flipping pancakes) feel somehow breakneck.

(Maybe it's an issue with description? Or maybe it's as simple as the lack of visual spacing between events widely separated by time, e.g. Twilight walking to Canterlot without a scene break? No, there has to be something more to it, and it bugs me that I can't figure out what.)

There's more to criticize and credit, but that one thing overshadows the others so much that it's hard to make them out. I'll just leave you with one more bit of advice: work on making your sentences flow more naturally. Take the first two sentences, for instance--a simple fix would be "Twilight and Spike were organizing the library for the third time that week." You'll need to figure out how to adapt that to your own style, of course, but as currently written, it feels odd and stilted (particularly with the construction "having a day", which is just plain weird.)

I hope I wasn't too overly critical on this one--I like the idea; I just have issues with the execution!

P.S. Something I just thought of--are you a non-native speaker? If so, you're actually doing pretty well--I've read plenty of writers on this site with far worse language issues than you. (And if not, sorry for bringing it up.)

[Xz Hacker]

1880198
I have noticed that I have a tendency to do the very breakneck. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. I think it is because most of my life I have been in love with the horror genre, and thus pull from it very heavily, even on non horror stories.

I try to make my descriptions quite vague, lest the big finish be spoiled, I have a lot of trouble keeping the balance between vague and specific.

Actually I'm native, but I'm also Texan, lol, were might you be from? I had a similar discussion with a Canadian on one of my other stories, and it turned out to be a difference in the way we speak all the time.

For instance, I have had it said to me before, "We're taking a day for the rain" or something to that effect.

I think I have finally fixed that stupid chapter one, jeez I have never had this much trouble before.

[Feo Takahari]

1880921

I'm from California, so I suppose it could be a dialect issue.

(On horror: much of the genre relies on slowly, slooowly building tension, until something finally happens after two hundred pages of the characters faffing about. I find that a bit excessive, but it's still worth stopping to smell the decaying flesh sometimes.)

[Xz Hacker]

1882171
Perhaps I wasn't clear, I actually was referring to the horror genre in movies. As ironic as this is, I rarely ever actually read. Despite the quick rate I can read at, and despite the fact that I fancy myself a writer, I don't usually find anything that peaks my interest. So I spend most of my time playing video games or watching movies, and horror is my favorite genre. As a matter of fact, I can't recall ever reading a horror book, usually only fantasy books catch my attention.

Sorry I'm so confusing, I should have realized you would have thought that I meant books.

[ydocnagol]

Pretty good bud. Loved the cross over.

[Rakaziel]

Really interesting ending. I hope they can save Siya.

[Xz Hacker]

2595356
The ending is a reference to my other work Discord's Resignation. I plan to connect several of my works together in the end. I'm glad to hear you are liking it.

2595322
Well that is a string of compliments if I have ever heard one. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to see people enjoying my stories. I have been in a bit of a slump, but seeing these comments make me want to start up again. Maybe soon.