• Published 31st Jan 2013
  • 1,286 Views, 30 Comments

Observations and Preservations - Tolerance



The final puzzle solved, Twilight Sparkle discovers that everything she's ever known is wrong.

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One-Three

Sentinel showed Twilight how to use a device he referred to as the Console. To her, it seemed similar to one of the many viewports she had seen in the control center of the Focus. Sentinel informed her that its function was to bring information to a user.

"But I've only seen these viewports looking at different worlds or locations. How are they supposed to bring anything else to me?" Twilight asked, imagining that the other end of her console was going to look directly into a far-off library somewhere.

"Every piece of information you might need is stored within the System, and each Console has the ability to bring that information directly to you. All you must do is command the console to bring you what you wish and it will do as instructed."

"Alright then. Console, I command you to bring me information on null values."

{Processing...}

The viewport of Twilight's console brought up daunting amount of information and displayed it as though the viewport was a piece of paper or a scroll itself.

{Search Complete.}

"Although, one does not need to verbally command a console. One's mind is in control here." Sentinel added.

Before she got too focused on her search for a solution, Twilight decided to try out a mental command on the console.

'Console, tell me how much time I have before the destruction of my world.' she commanded.

{Processing...}

{Search Complete.}

The console brought up several items for her to look at. First, there was a list of every world that had ever existed. The ones that were gone were all marked as 'Deleted.' Twilight noted that they were disappearing in what she could only describe as an incremental order, the numerical descriptors were in some sort of 4th dimensional script. There were five other worlds standing between her own and deletion.

The second piece of data informed her of how much time it took to complete the deletion of a world, but it was in a unit of time that Twilight didn't understand, so she asked the console to convert it into the amount of equivalent time on one of the worlds.

{8640 Cycles remain before deletion process initializes on [Twilight Sparkle's World]}

{1920 Cycles convert to approximately 1 simulated day.}

{4.56 days remain.}

Twilight was able to do the math herself the moment the conversion factor had been displayed. She wasn't too pleased with the thought of having less than a week to study a subject that she had never previously heard about, but at least now she had something to measure her progress against. A deadline.

Deciding her best course of action was to begin studying the null data values again, Twilight pulled up the information on them once more in hopes that she might find a way to alter their properties. If they could be fixed, then it might be enough to spare her world.

"Before we leave, we warn one that changing things on a running simulation can often lead to disastrous results, as [Starswirl alternate] discovered when it accidentally destroyed its home simulation."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After some time, Twilight was frustrated to find that she couldn't read through all of the information they way she would normally read one of her books. While she would normally just try to power through the vast amounts of information she was coming across, every piece of material she looked up on her console was intricately connected to everything else. It was all she could do to keep from wondering off of her current topic.

Not that every moment she wandered off topic was bad. Twilight had come across quite a bit of useful information, even if it was of no direct use to her mission. For instance, she now knew how to command her console to move her form directly to where she wanted to be, no magic, or movement, necessary. After her little discovery, she made sure to visit the outer reaches of the Focus every time another world was up for deletion. A simple reminder to keep her on track.

'Console, how much time is left?' she thought, the command directed towards her console.

{3840 Cycles remain.}

She no longer needed the console to do the math, and now there was only a single world to act as a buffer to her own. As much as she would like to keep every world safe, Twilight still didn't have a solution ready to save any of them. The last few days of research had only let her scratch the surface of why the problem with data values even existed at all.

As she returned to the control center of the Focus, and before she resumed her studies, she approached Sentinal to ask him if he knew a better way to go about her search. Twilight was only mildly surprised to find him using the form of an Alicorn to represent himself this time, which was something she assumed he was doing it solely for her benefit. If only his choice of form didn’t resemble a male version of Night Mare Moon, she might have appreciated it more.

"Sentinel, I need to ask you another question. I've been reading through the console like you said, but I still haven't found a solution as to how I can save my world. The information isn't structured in a way I'm used to, and I was wondering if you knew a way to change it?"

"We can assure you that there is nothing wrong with the way the System holds information, [Twilight]. One is simply going about their search the wrong way."

"What do you mean?"

"Surely one remembers meeting us for the first time. Here we are not so restricted to a single form, as form itself is not necessarily required. One simply needs to alter oneself to be able to access multiple threads of information simultaneously."

"You mean to say that I need to make copies of myself? I don't know how to do that. I'm not even sure that the spell that brought me here is capable of supporting something like that."

"One's consciousness is capable of focusing on more than one thing at a time, can it not? What we suggest is no different."

Twilight turned away from Sentinel back towards her awaiting console. "So, all I need to do is try and focus on two things at once. That shouldn't be too difficult, I suppose."

'Console, make a duplicate viewport for me.'

{Command Complete.}