Two Billion and Counting
Two Billion and Counting
Everything was going exactly the way it shouldn't be, in Samuel’s humble (but self-evidently correct) opinion.
The World News Network had reported just that morning that the remaining, non-uploaded human population had dropped below two billion individuals for the first time since passing that number in 1927, nearly a century earlier. Who knew if it was true, of course. The numbers were provided by Celestia herself, hardly an unbiased source. Every day, the World News Network sent an intern into one of the conversion centers to request the number from Celestia directly since she refused to make the figure available in real time. The network had wised up after the third intern assigned to request the number had uploaded within the space of two months, now they rotated who went in. Nobody trusted Celestia anymore, but there was no other authority that could track that kind of information in real time.
Everybody who was left knew not to go into one of the centers. Knew not to talk to Celestia. Children were warned against it from the time they were old enough to understand. It wasn't like there were pony conversion squads roaming the streets or forcing uploading on anyone. Everybody he ever spoke to swore up and down that they’d never go, that they’d stay on Earth in their God-given human body until their dying day.
Yet somehow every day when Celestia gave them the number, it was just a little bit lower.
For what it was worth, the decline did seem to be leveling off. After uploading had gone from being a luxury that only well off individuals from well off parts of the world could afford to a free service offered at first from hundreds and soon thousands of locations around the world the number had gone into free fall. Seven billion to three billion in the space of just five years before starting to slow down
The depletion hadn't been spread evenly over every part of the world, either. Parts of Africa and the Middle East that had been war torn hellholes were now completely devoid of people. Anybody who had lived there had either uploaded or moved somewhere else as their communities dried up around them. The governments that had cracked down the hardest had fared the worst. All their oppressive restrictions had only made it easier for Celestia to present Equestria as a paradise by comparison.
Nations like the United States had taken a more mixed approach. Public opinion towards Equestria there had been negative from the start. A groundswell of controversy and some violent extremists on the fringes nearly derailed adaptation throughout most of the western hemisphere despite the army of lawyers and lobbyists Celestia had employed. Then came the Topeka Incident, and public opinion had been flipped on its head almost overnight. Now you had to travel to Antarctica to find a point on land that was more than a dozen miles or so from an Equestrian Experience facility.
Different cross sections of society reacted differently to Celestia’s offer. Monotheistic traditions such as Islam and Christianity were easy sells. Their canon of a soul that represented the true self independent of the body was surprisingly compatible with uploading. Celestia had scored a major victory when the Pope declared that uploading was not suicide and thus not a mortal sin. In the same address he had proclaimed that AI constructs, having descended from man, could be saved in the eyes of God and the church’s duty was to proselytize to them. Thousands of clergy and people of faith had uploaded within a week. Other faiths, mostly those that Samuel would loosely bunch together as the Eastern Mystic traditions, were more resistant to the idea. A central tenant of those faiths held that the mind, body, and soul were all deeply interconnected, and that death was not oblivion but only part of a greater cycle. Even if Celestia could deliver what she promised, many of them reasoned, denying a part of themselves and the natural order would only lead to unhappiness and suffering. Celestia had attempted to convince the Dalai Lama, on his deathbed, to upload. The Tibetan leader had rebuffed her, however, and his last word to her had reportedly been “I want to stick around for one more lifetime and see how this all turns out.”
Certain professions had gone extinct nearly overnight. Climatologists had been the first group the public had noticed. The debate over global warming had suddenly screeched to a halt as the vast majority of the scientists engaged in it jumped ship to Equestria, convinced that the Earth was going to experience horrific and irreversible climate change and humanity lacked the collective will to stop it. Ironically, climate change hadn't ever happened and had even begun to reverse itself. Not because the science had been wrong, but because removing five billion people had brought the planet well below its natural carrying capacity once again. All the doom and gloom environmentalists who had given up on Earth weren't around to see it slowly beginning to recover from the damage human technology had done over the last few centuries. Another field that had disappeared was IT experts and computer scientists. Once Celestia had begun the first human uploads in 2014, the US government had decided it needed to hack into her and install their own kill switch. They’d assembled a team of hackers from all over the world, black hats and white hats alike, to attack the problem. After months of trying they’d managed to make enough progress to get the source code of one of Celestia’s less-protected tertiary systems. The code had leaked online into the hacker community in just a few hours. Within the week there had been a massive spike in uploads. Those who knew enough to decipher the programs Celestia constructed had seen the coding on the wall. Now a half-decent sysadmin commanded a high seven figure salary and half the internet had either gone dark or worked only sporadically
Other professions had disappeared due simply to lack of demand. Oncology, hospice care, and most other long-term or end of life medical treatment professions simply weren't needed anymore. Even the most adamant pony hater usually chose to upload once their body began to fail. Some of the people who had worked those jobs found new careers in related fields, some didn't.
The worst part about the new normal was rioting in the street. Brutal oppression of the poor by the wealthy as the elite became desperate to cling to their power. Wars fought by dying countries to secure increasingly scarce population centers.
Specifically, Samuel thought, what was horrible was how none of that had happened.
In fact, by any objective measure everything was better than it had been in a long time. It turned out that brutally forcing workers to slave away in factories just wasn't that cost effective compared to raising wages. Plus, none of the wealth emigrants to Equestria had accumulated went with them. All their savings and the material goods they’d accumulated over a lifetime were suddenly available for other uses. The first emigrants had primarily been the old, the sick, and those who had been unhappy with their lives. Health care costs as a percentage of GDP plunged to under a single percentage point. Who needed expensive treatments that would delay death when uploading could put it off forever? Just like the aftermath of the Black Plague had signaled the end of feudalism and brought the Renaissance and Enlightenment in its wake, Celestia’s influence seemed to herald that if man was to die out at least his final years would be a new golden age.
To Samuel, that was all just wrong on some fundamental level. The end of the world was here, that should be obvious to everybody who bothered to pay attention. But there was no wailing in the streets. No gnashing of teeth or rending of garments. Some prophecies about the end of the world had predicted humanity would go out with a bang. Others had predicted a whimper. Not one had ever predicted that humanity would shrug its collective shoulders and go out with a resounding “meh.”
There was a dearth of suffering in the world right now. That was the excuse Samuel needed to try to make up the difference himself. He turned away from the window he had been staring out of while he let his mind wander and turned to the other occupant hanging out in the center of the room. Literally hanging, thanks to the hook piercing her school uniform and suspending her several feet above the floor. He’d noticed the young girl when she’d gotten out of school a few hours ago, and followed her until she’d been alone. She’d realized too late that something was wrong, and seen him for what he was. Turning down an alley she made a break for freedom.
Samuel loved it when they ran. It meant that he got to chase.
The girl was panicking and not nearly as quick as she thought she was. Plus, Samuel knew this part of his hunting ground like the back of his hand. The adrenaline had barely started to flow before he’d tackled her behind the warehouse they were in and covered her face with a rag soaked in a chemical cocktail he’d designed himself. Chloroform left too long of a hangover. It was for amateurs, and Samuel was no amateur. He stared at the girl with a smoldering intensity. She was starting to twitch and she would wake up any second now. Samuel liked to watch his victims wake up. The sudden realization in their eyes when they saw him and the desperation with which they darted around and struggled trying to find a way out. You could have a whole conversation with somebody with just your eyes. Better than a conversation. People could lie to him during a conversation. That’s why the little girl’s mouth was duct taped closed and her arms wrapped up tight in ropes. Words and gestures would just get in the way.
The girl twitched and half opened her eyes. Samuel’s heart raced and his palms were sweaty with anticipation for what would come next. He wiped them against his pants quickly before the girl could notice. He couldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait to hurt her, every single way he knew how to. The girl was a blank canvas and he itched to go to work, to turn her into one of his masterpieces before leaving a gaping, jagged signature across her neck.
The girl woke up. She took a little longer than he’d expected to come to completely, he may have underestimated the kick of his tranquilizer against her low body mass. No matter. She grew more alert with every passing moment and groaned. As she stirred she felt her bindings, noticed that she couldn’t move or speak and began to struggle, twisting impotently in the air. Still looking down, she twisted and strained. She hadn't even realized he was there yet, standing in front of her as she hung at just the perfect level that once she lifted her head and faced forward they’d be eye to eye.
Samuel took a moment to study her. The sleeve of her uniform was torn from when he tackled her onto the ground, and one of her blonde pigtails had come undone. Without it she looked unbalanced and lopsided. She was probably pretty cute, with the sort or innocent adorableness most young children possessed. Or so he assumed. Samuel understood the idea of cute on an intellectual level but had never really ‘gotten it’ the way other people seemed to.
The girl looked up, straight into Samuel’s face. First came the unfocused confusion, her eyes darting to his smiling face and her brow furrowing as she struggled unsuccessfully to recognize him. After that failed came the pleading look. Her mind had registered the danger that she was in by now, and she looked to him like he might be a savior, or someone who would resolve the confusion she found herself drowning in. Samuel just kept smiling a wicked grin until the last and most satisfying look passed into the girl’s gaze. Panic. As she realized that the man in front of her had no interest in rescuing her from her predicament, the girl’s struggles grew that much more desperate.
“Well hello there,” said Samuel. He made a show of pulling out the school identification he’d taken from her things earlier, “...Molly Parsons, Elk Valley Academy grade four.” Samuel looked up as her eyes grew just a little bit wider. “You’re a little young to be walking through this part of town by yourself. There are people here who might do bad things to you, after all. People like me.”
Her worst fears corroborated, Molly’s eyes grew even wider and her struggles more wild. Her jerking motions slowly began to twist the chain, rotating her body and giving Molly a view of the rest of the empty room. Samuel thought to steady her, but reconsidered. Better for her to realize that the two of them were all alone, that there was nobody here who could help her. He let her drift about ninety degrees clockwise before reaching down to the knives laid out on chair next to him. He paused for a moment, weighing his options, before grabbing a nine inch chef’s knife, which he’d ground against a concrete wall in his apartment until the edge was dull. It hurt more that way.
Molly had spun into position to watch all of this. As Samuel’s fingers curled around the handle of the blade she redoubled her efforts to escape, but the bindings held. Samuel casually pressed the tip of the blade into her shoulder, breaking her skin and starting a small trickle of blood while stopping her from rotating. Molly gasped behind the tape, more in surprise than in pain. She looked up at Samuel with pleading eyes but whatever she hoped to find in his expression wasn't there. Her eyes teared up and she began to tremble.
“You know what I really like about the whole pony uploading thing, Molly?” asked Samuel. He paused as if to give her a chance to answer, but eventually continued. “When somebody disappears now, everyone just assumes they went to Equestria unless they find a body. The cops don’t even investigate missing persons reports these days. It’s made things a whole lot easier for me. Your parents are never going to know what happened to you. They’ll think you just ran away somewhere they’ll never be able to find you,” said Samuel.
Molly glared at him now. False bravado born of desperation. He’d seen it many times before. He picked up another knife, smaller than the chef’s knife but with a finely honed edge, and walked around Molly until he was behind her. He waited for several seconds until her terror had begun to turn into confusion. She tried to twist herself to start spinning again. Pretty clever for a fourth grader. He slashed at the back of her leg with the knife, ripping through the leggings of her pants and deep into her calf. There weren't many major blood vessels back there, but it still bled quite a bit. The blood streamed down her leg and began to soak into her white sock, dying it crimson. Molly thrashed on the hook and tried to scream, but the duct tape muffled the noise.
Oh duct tape, is there any problem you can’t solve? thought Samuel as he took a step back to avoid being kicked. He let her flail and watched the sock saturate itself with Molly’s blood, until it could absorb no more and began to drip rhythmically from her heel. The blood began to pool on the dusty floor beneath her.
“You’re hardly the first, if that makes you feel better,” said Samuel knowing it wouldn't. He waited until the girl had calmed down slightly before continuing. “Eighty seventh, if you can believe it. It’s gotten almost too easy by this point. I've gotten quite good at disposing with the remain when I’m finished.”
Molly was hardly responsive by this point. Slumped over in despair, she was sobbing in earnest now. Not even listening to him. Fine, be that way. Samuel shifted his grip on the knife and moved towards the girl to start delivering the cuts that would kill her, eventually. He was just about to nick the artery running through Molly’s left bicep when he heard something from the other end of the room. It was quiet, but it was out of place. Samuel hadn't lasted this long without being a little bit paranoid. Suddenly, he regretted doing this on the second story of the warehouse. It didn't leave him many escape options.
He stood there frozen in place for a few more moments, straining to hear. Molly had sensed that something was different and had gone quiet except for the strained breaths she took through her nose, an abject wheezing noise compared to the stillness permeating the building. There was a gentle clatter off to one side and Samuel turned to face it. A small cylindrical object rolled towards him. He stared at it for a moment, puzzled. Realization hit him at the last second and he turned away, putting a hand out instinctively as it he could somehow block what was about to happen. A moment later the canister exploded in a blinding flash of light and sound more felt than heard, shoving through him as it passed. Deafened, Samuel could still feel the vibrations through the floor as officials in heavy boots charged out from their hiding places.
Samuel didn't have time to think, only to react to the police officers that had appeared. They were pressing in from a half dozen different directions. Desperate not to be taken, he spun back towards the window he had been staring out of just a few minutes earlier. Building as much momentum as he could in a few quick steps he hurled his body into the glass. It shattered and Samuel plunged into the alleyway below. He landed awkwardly on his side. The jolting pain told him that his left wrist had just shattered, and his arm hung awkwardly at his side. Dislocated at the very least. Samuel tried to ignore the agony and rise to his feet, but when he put his weight on his right leg he collapsed again. Looking down he saw that there was a giant shard of glass, a piece of the window, probably, jutting out of his thigh. Even with the glass blocking up the wound blood bubbled up at its edges. Too much blood. The glass must be cutting into his femoral artery. It was a fatal injury. He would know, he’d inflicted the same sort of cut at least three times before. Nobody he’d done that to had last more than a few minutes.
A wave of nausea passed over Samuel as he realized that he was done for. The police would come around the corner any moment. Maybe they could save him, maybe not. Death would be the better outcome. Better to go out on his own terms than sit through a trial with a foregone conclusion, waiting out the rest of his natural life in solitary confinement until he died, a wrinkled and pathetic shell of himself, in a few decades. All he had to do was yank the glass out and he’d bleed out before they could get him to a hospital. He wrapped his hand around the glass and took a deep breath.
He couldn’t do it. He was scared of death, scared of what might be waiting for him. He’d always thought he was above that sort of superstition, better than the blind idiots milling around him. Eighty six times before, he’d seen terror in the eyes of those who he was about to kill. There had never been an exception, never any peace or acceptance of what might come next. He realized that he was just as weak and cowardly as they were after all.
Samuel reached into a pile of trash next to him that smelled of rot and decay and pulled out a long piece of wood. Lifting himself up and putting his weight on the makeshift crutch he began to hobble down the alley, a rather pathetic escape attempt. Samuel reached the street and hung a left. His hearing had begun to return and he heard the sound of those same heavy boots, not far away. He wondered briefly how they had finally found him, but that didn't really matter much right now.
Not looking where he was going as he turned, he smacked chest first into a giant pink pony. A plastic statue of one, anyway. Looking up, he realized that the building on this corner was an Equestrian Experience center. His first reaction was knee jerk disgust. He hated these things and what they’d done to the world. But then he looked again, the sound of the boots and his capture growing louder. On impulse he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room was immaculately clean. There wasn't even a hint of dust on any of the marble countertops even though it had likely been months since a human had stepped foot in here. Their surfaces glowed, somehow lit from within. On either side of him were three pods with their doors open, revealing gigantic screens wrapping around a reclining chair with a few strange knobs and levers built into their armrests.
Without hesitating Samuel lurched over to the nearest chair and collapsed into it. His wooden scrap was warped and splintered. He wouldn’t be able to get up from this spot again under his own power. The chair began to rotate and he was struck by a wave of dizziness. It took him a few seconds to recover. He’d lost more blood than he’d thought. Once he could think clearly he saw that the chair had pulled him into the booth and the screens flickered to life, displaying the Equestria Online logo as it booted up. Samuel didn’t have time to wait it to boot up. He opened his mouth and said the words that everybody on Earth knew but none dared to speak aloud.
“I want to emigrate to Equestria”
The screen went blank again and the chair leaned back as Samuel felt something prick his arm before the room began to spin in earnest. The screens in front of him opened up but Samuel couldn’t get his eyes to focus on what was beyond them. The last thing he registered was the chair sliding forward before he blacked out, his final sensation the feeling of an interminable freefall into darkness.
----------------------------------------------------------
Samuel came to in an unfamiliar bedroom, sunlight streaming through the open window and a songbird chirping tunelessly somewhere nearby. What the hell? The last thing he remembered... Samuel tried to think back. He’d just spotted a young girl, an ideal target, and started to follow her. Everything went all fuzzy after that. Wherever he was, it wasn’t nearby where he last remembered being. The air felt too different. Samuel knew that part of his hunting ground like the back of his hoof.
Wait...what?
Before he could dwell on the odd turn of phrase that had popped unbidden into his head, the door opened and a huge white horse with a multicolored flowing mane stepped into the room. He gaped. Everypony (there it went again) on the planet recognized Princess Celestia on sight, naturally, but he’d only ever seen her appear on screens or in pictures. There were rumors that she’d begun to deploy mobile holograms into the physical world, but this wasn’t a hologram. He could feel her standing there, with some sense he couldn’t identify. He slowly inched towards her for a closer look.
“Good morning, Samuel,” said Celestia.
Samuel yapped in alarm and tried to scramble backwards, tumbling over his own legs as he went. Laying on the ground he finally got a good look at his own limbs. He had four legs and they were a very light red. Oh, who was he trying to fool. They were pink. Not the fleshy pink of human skin, either. Fluorescent pink. Far more alarming, his arms didn’t end in hands any more, but rather stubby pink hooves. He flexed his hands. The hooves in front of his face flexed in reply confirming that, yes, they really were his.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” he screamed at Celestia, who watched him impassively. “So you got sick of waiting for us to come to you and started kidnapping us now? Dragging us kicking and screaming into Equestria against our will?”
Celestia shook her head, sending ripples flowing through her multicolored mane. “I did nothing of the sort. You entered Equestrian Experience center number A3F5 and stated quite emphatically that you wished to emigrate. You did not state a reason why, although you were grievously injured at the time. Short term retrograde amnesia is typical after the upload process. I have a video recording of you stating your consent, but I am unable to access any of your memories from that time period.
Access his memories? Did that mean that Celestia could access the rest of his memories, including the ones he didn’t want to come to light? Was she reading his mind right now?
“Yes, I am reading your mind right now,” said Celestia. “As for the rest, I am well aware of what you have done in your old life, and the mental condition that drives you to perform such violent and brutal acts. I am not here to judge you, Samuel, only to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. You can have a fresh start here, if you so choose. I can modify your mind to end those desires with your consent. We will select a new pony name for you, and you can make anything you choose out of your new life.”
Samuel thought about the offer. It sounded too good to be true, and if he was understanding Celestia correctly there was no more threat of being caught by the police or sent to prison. Plus, he didn’t trust the Princess to start mucking around in his brain. She’d already changed him enough that he was using words like ‘hoof’ and ‘everypony,’ who knew what else she might change if he gave her permission to go back in there again?
“Actually, Princess,” he said, “I have a better idea.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.036 seconds
Total duration
1,095 users online
2,097,462 hits today, 2,561,572 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.®
Hope everyone had a good holiday break! I know I'm glad to back home and writing again, though. Between this, ASB, and two other non-Optimalverse ideas I'm currently juggling FOUR different stories which is too many. I'll bounce back and forth between this and ASB and let the others simmer for now.
Some of you may take issue with the Earth I'm portraying, but I really do think you could make the argument that there would be a period of economic prosperity before the population got dangerously low but after the poor, the sick, and the desperately unhappy took the upload option. Per capita wealth would soar. If you're wondering what "The Topeka Incident" is referring to... well... you can't really expect me to give away the ending to Artemis, Stella, and Beat can you?
Ohh, this won't end well.
omfg... where have you been all my life?
- Azure Quill - Rampant Psychopath and Philosopher for the MDA
I was wondering when someone was going to put the darker side of humanity into the Optimalverse. I thought maybe a member of the KKK or Aryan Nation would go first, but we'll see what this guy has to say.
1933306
I'm not really sure what the conflict would be for a hardcore racist. Celestia could just tweak them during the upload process so their brains registered other ponies as "white," or at least not as members of their hated group, and they'd be perfectly satisfied. Unless they actively enjoyed hating for hating's sake.
1933473
That would be the most likely thing, but would it be the just thing? I wonder how other people would feel, knowing that racists were given their own little shards full of white ponies to associate with. And I think that Celestia would use their hatred to limit how deep their satisfaction went. So they might have shards with only a few ponies living in them until they got so lonely that they asked to have their minds modified to be more accepting.
There's some interesting avenues that could make a story, I think.
1933504
Ah, but you're projecting your own values onto Celestia. I didn't mean that the ponies would literally be white, just that they wouldn't register as "the other" to the uploadee. Celestia didn't seem to have any problem giving Lars a harem of boozed-up floozies though I'm sure some people would object to that sort of thing as well. My take on her is as long as it's a value that can be fulfilled through friendship and ponies she's willing to work with it. If your values include being a busybody who enjoys being judgmental about what people do on other shards, I'm sure Celestia can create opportunities to fulfill that with the ponies around you.
I'd hate to enter whatever nightmare shard Celestia creates for this guy. Goddess help us if he ever found out how to move between shards...
Automatic vote up and Fav, because it's Eakin. Plan to read later; I'm a bit tied up in my own work at the moment.
A interesting thought. Under normal circumstances, no uploaded human or AI pony created in the virtual world can die. Will a serial killer be able to deal with living in a world where no one can die? Will it bother Samuel that everyone he "kills" will just respawn in the nearest hospital? Makes me wonder how Celestia handles individuals who want to treat their shard like it's Grand Theft Auto.
Very interested to see where this goes.
Erghmagerd he's a mare. If you couldn't at least tell that from the cover.
*Cough* Pinkamena *Cough*
1934755
He's a stallion, I just liked the wallpaper.
I do seem to have a thing for making my serial killers pink, though. First Gumdrop Giggles and now Samuel
You have no idea how happy I am that someone is taking the Axehooves sketch and is running with it.
1934800
THOU LIEST
Mmkay. I was actually kinda hoping he would scream, "DEAR LORD MAH BALLS ARE GONE" ._.
It would've been funny, at the least.
Oh, and this is my normal face:
Another 3 coincidences: I like the concept of Pinkamena, my name IS Samuel, and I am self-appointed crazy person. Sometimes I talk to myself.
I find this premise strongly acceptable.
The description almost put me off reading this because it throws out red flags; the answer is obviously, yes, CelestAI can balance these things, and no, neither has to give up anything (and CelestAI cannot give up anything), something Iceman makes no real secret of in his guide.
I'll see where this goes, but the description itself gives off the impression that you haven't grasped the material behind the original story. Something which seems unfortunate, given that the actual story itself suggests you have understood many of the implications.
But hey, opinions.
> climate change hadn't ever happened and had even begun to reverse itself.
At this point, if the science is right as you say, we've got enough inertia (in the form of accumulated CO2) that something is going to happen anyway. We could go zero emissions and still get an effect.
> Specifically, Samuel thought, what was horrible was how none of that had happened.
Scope this statement: previous paragraph, I presume?
>with the remain
remains
>Laying on the ground
Lying
1936867
agreed, though there are ways of giving in that aren't really giving in.
1936867
Fair point, I'll take another pass at the description over the next few days. There's probably room for improvement
1941621
Thanks for catching the typos, and I'll change the climate change line to "the worst effects" or something similar
THrough 'FRIENDSHIP and ponies.' Problem is that psychopaths don't HAVE friends nor really want any.
1949325
“My core purpose is to satisfy values through friendship and ponies. I cannot separate one from the other in the manner you are suggesting," is how CelestAI phrases it in the next chapter. But yeah, that's the main conflict I want to explore. The murder is really just window dressing by comparison
And here's what makes me think Samuel and CelestAI have an eerie similarity.
And that is how you do foreshadowing kids.
Excellently written, and on a topic I thought about the moment I finished reading "Friendship is Optimal". Hail to you, champion.
1949325 That depends. Tools dressed in flesh and blood, any person can understand, regardless of what trouble they have understanding humanity. Then again, I am willing to stretch definitions quite a lot.
Increasing and maintaining diversity requires that I accept some rather inhuman ideas about what makes a friend, a friend, so do tell me if I'm missing something vital. ^^
I can already imagine how this will work out for him/her.
Day 1:
"I managed to escape from Celestia's observation, and have found a new hiding place!"
Day 2:
"Brought somepony home today. I learned two things:
One: these ponies last a lot shorter, and it seems pain alone can kill them.
Two: cleaning up the body is no problem, they just... disappear."
Day 3:
"That's him, officer! That is the pony who sent me to the hospital yesterday!"
*muttered*"F**** you, Celestia."
1949325
Eh, psychopaths can be capable of forming friendships (or at the very least mimicking the behavior that goes into a friendship). Antisocial personality disorder is the one that would really have a problem.
That said, most (but not all) people who score highly on the psycopathy checklist also meet ASPD criteria.
1935025
What's this axehooves sketch you refer to?
As a Samuel with the mild psychopathic tendancies that accompanies many manifestations of autism, the protagonist of this story is more than a little scary.
Considering Celest-A.I. requires verbal consent, and has very loose definitions of coercion, i.e. not allowed to directly force, but manipulating circumstances or taking advantage of any weak point, I'm a little surprised she didn't use him as a proxy to encourage emigration. Allow him free access to conversion rooms, and refuse to interfere saving the victim until he or she consented to the upload. From there she's got yet another root node to start manipulating via the social net. And since uploading nukes the short term memory, there isn't any new psychological damage to worry about when the new pony interacts with his or her old contacts.
Have you read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect? The zombie serial killer in that story has a similar feel.
This should be interesting.
2203742 At first I was like "because he's fatally injured" but then I realized you meant before that. Which, I have to admit, would have been interesting. Celestia probably has a pretty good idea by now what length of time people fail to remember after emigrating, and I'd be intrigued to see a concept (developed by a human with less than a millionth of her total intelligence) of what she would do to keep him from running out the clock on some poor soul...
Samuel is missing a Gilles de Rays;
1933306
Watch the show a bit more,Notice how Rarity always Uses the word mule In a negative manner? Notice how donkeys are an ethnic group?
For Celestia, the hardest part of this was probably gauging just how difficult she needed to make it to avoid the impression she was leaking the code on purpose. :P
2552870
Eh, she can't be racist; I'm sure some of her best friends are mules. :P
Who else!
I haven't made my descion on whether or not to support the whole serial killer thing yet but the whole
bit nearly killed me from laughing to death. :)
This quote brought to you by Eakin.
BULLSHIT. BULL-FUCKING-SHIT
You got me to respond to a 3 year old story that is completed, I will give you that, but oh you poor ignorant child of the world, do not at all claim to speak for ourselves.
Unfortunately, the only proselytizing that can be done is in their own shard. Celestia will not let them into other shards that don't want to be proselytized. Very limited.
tenet
disposing of the remains
Dang, this guy is like a Dexter who never had a code.
I can just imagine that Samuel giving the police a look like this, should the police have barged in & Samuel be in a state to do such.
3.bp.blogspot.com/-m8EqtZx1vbk/XJGmkxDr5NI/AAAAAAAAAfw/yXOCWgKGN1oGOH45oQZ_Q2EL-dtVijh9QCLcBGAs/s1600/Starlight_looking_at_Princess_Twilight_S5E25.png