Observations and Preservations

by Tolerance

One-Four

Having had a run in with a slew of clones due to her friend Pinkie Pie's antics before, Twilight was at least relieved to learn that her clone was just as capable as she was. Work was still progressing too slowly, and once the final buffer world had started it's demise, Twilight deemed it necessary to clone herself again in her desperate search for an answer.

"Uh, everything we look at is connected to everything else! Every time we come across a bit of data that might help, the slightest change to it would wreck the whole thing!" one of the Twilights shouted in frustration.

"Well, when we set out to do this, we didn't think it would be easy." replied another.

"Are these ones still experiencing problems?" Sentinel asked as he approached the group of Twilights.

The 'original' Twilight turned to face him as the others continued their search. "As a matter of fact, yes, we are having issues. We don't even have a whole day left to fix this and we haven't managed to turn up anything that might help!"

"Has this one considered that one's approach may be wrong?"

Twilight thought for a moment, "Not exactly. It's not like you have been doing much to assist. The only thing you've done is tell me how dangerous it is to change anything."

"We did so in hopes that one might not do more harm than good, not force a barrier upon one's efforts."

"Wait. What did you just say?"

"We said that we did not wish to limit one's attempts to save one's world."

"No, you said 'force a barrier,' that's where everything started! The failure of the structure surrounding each and every world isn't something I can change, but maybe I can create a 'barrier' that surrounds that structure. Sentinel, you're a genius!"

Twilight rushed to her copies to let them know of their new plan of action. She only hoped that she had enough time to pull it off.

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

The plan was fairly straightforward. Figuring out how to execute her plan, however, was going to drive Twilight insane. The various worlds or 'simulations,' as Sentinel was so fond of saying, existed within something referred to as a Shell. Erroneous data values forced upon this shell caused it to tear itself apart. This was something that Twilight had been unable to figure out how to fix. There were just so many things that could go wrong with even the smallest alteration to the world.

Instead, Twilight had discovered that it was possible to create another shell around the first, with the expectation that the new shell would lack the flaws of the original. There was still a problem Twilight was running into, however. She still had no way of guaranteeing that the new shell would be safe from alteration, something that Sentinel was adamant about.

"Couldn't you manage the new shell?" Twilight asked.

"What one suggests is something that goes against the bounds of my program, [Twilight]. Since this one is already outside of the simulation, this one should be the one to maintain it."

"But we don't know what will happen to me once the new shell is activated. My body's still in there remember?"

"Quite the conundrum, it seems."

Twilight had since reined her clones back in and reabsorbed them. She had already started building the lattice that would support the new shell, and it's construction was nearly complete. Twilight gave the command to her console to take her to the edge of the focus.

"There's just no time to test it," She said to herself as she watched the final moments of the last buffer world, "and activating it from here might very well kill me. If only I had more time..."

Unsure what to do, Twilight pulled up her console one last time. As she looked through the various logs that the console had saved, something caught her eye. The idea was a dangerous one, and Twilight wasn't sure that it would even work, but she decided against her better judgment and quickly opened up a few more consoles. This was going to get tricky.