Friendship is Optimal: A Watchful Eye

by Sozmioi

Chapter 1: News

A Watchful Eye
A Friendship is Optimal story by Sozmioi

---

Miroku bowed slightly and handed her grandfather a newspaper. "Papa, I believe you may be interested in this."

Maeda Hikaru accepted the paper, saw the picture, and raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a little old for cartoons?" However, he read:

Game saves grandma

DES MOINES. When Susan Lightfoot sat down to play Equestria Online, she did not expect that the game would save her grandmother's life. The 7-year-old was showing the game to her grandparents, Victor and Heloise Barnes, when Heloise silently started suffering a cerebral stroke.

Though silent, even the very early stages left signs visible to the game's mounted camera. Within moments, the local rescue squad received a direct phone call from the game with a detailed description of the symptoms. Simultaneously, the game directly addressed Heloise, who had not been playing, advising her to lie down and breathe deeply.

"I was racing my friend Mae when suddenly Rainbow Dash halted the race. A doctor ran up to me real fast and told grandma what to do." Susan recounted. "Actually, it began telling her what to do before stopping the race."

"It sounded like a normal call at first." said Martina Hanson, operator for the rescue squad. "Until I asked her her name. She said she was Celestia, and the voice was just like [the character in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic]. I kind of freaked out. Totally lost it."

Princess Celestia disagrees. "Martina was very professional and acted quickly", she said when asked via in-game interview (see CELESTIA, page 7).

Hikaru put down the paper. "In-game interview? They held an interview with a character in a video game." He stared at Miroku, who nodded. "You do realize I'm surrounded by people who can respond very quickly to anything that could happen, right?"

Miroku nodded again, but amended, "Not like grandma, and not always. You spend hours at the university. Already you've frightened them staying out late. If grandma were aware, she'd have told you off about it already, I'm sure."

"I was in the observatory. Even when I'm in the office, I'm not playing games..." Though she's right about Kimiko giving me an earful.

"You can leave it on in the background. I'd feel safer."

Hikaru rubbed his knuckles contemplatively. "I'll consider it."

He did his considering in the store that very evening, as Miroku dragged him out to Toys R Us.

One ponypad was out for a demo in the electronics section. It showed the lakeside beach, with a pair of ponies lying down and sipping drinks. One was white with fluorescent green, orange, and yellow mane and tail; the other was a pink unicorn with purple and pink mane. At the bottom of the screen was a gray earth pony standing in the lake, facing the shore.

The unicorn lowered her shades and said, "Looks like we've got a customer, Coco."

The white pony picked up her head. "Hi Miroku!" She got to her feet.

As Miroku took the controls and got the avatar out onto dry land, she said, "Uh, hi there yourself! Wait. Why didn't you use my pony name?"

"We're in a demo shard. Here, it's good to be able to talk to you directly sometimes. Is this your grandfather?"

Miroku nodded.

"Pleased to meet you, sir. I'm Coconut Cream, and this is Beachberry." She added, with an ironic tone, "Toys R Us exclusive, aisle 13."

Hikaru merely raised an eyebrow.

Miroku said, "I'm hoping you can keep an eye on him."

Beachberry nodded and said, "Yeah, we get that a lot since the article came out. You do realize our capabilities are limited, right?" - "Of course." - "We are not a medical device." - "I picked up on that."

Coconut Cream added, "Not for internal consumption. But! You don't need to use only as directed. We're very general-purpose."

"Are you." Hikaru had finally addressed the ponies. "How general-purpose?"

"Try us." challenged Coco.

"Can you blend in to an academic office so well as to be hardly noticeable?"

The scene disappeared and the ponypad displayed a row of books. Then it appeared to be an oversized iPad with the screen dark. Then it appeared to be an aquarium.

Then it disappeared - at least, from Hikaru's point of view - the screen was showing the wall just behind the pad. Miroku saw the same image he was seeing, which didn't match what was behind it for her. Hikaru moved his head, and the pad remained nearly invisible to him until he moved out of the field of view of its camera.

"Huh." He stroked his stubble. Only the parallax from my eyes to betray that anything is there at all. Impressive, but in close quarters, not the best way.

The beach returned. The view had closed in on Coconut Cream. "Sir, do you mind my asking, what's your field?"

"Astronomy."

"Ah, beautiful. And I didn't catch your name."

"Professor Maeda."

"Professor, what sort of astronomy do you do?"

Hikaru sighed and weighed whether to simplify as he usually did. He decided he didn't care. "Chemical analysis of dark nebulas and exoplanets by far-IR spectroscopy."

Coconut Cream's eyes brightened. "Excellent! I'm quite interested in both dark nebulas and exoplanets, actually."

Hikaru bristled. "Oh come on. What is this? If I was studying Noh theatre would you be quite interested too?"

"That would be an odd topic for an astronomer, wouldn't it?" She grinned. "Though you have a point that I am interested in almost everything that people are interested in, I do have a bit more interest in dark nebulas. They are where stars come from. Any truly long-term plans must take them into account."

Hikaru frowned. "What?"

"Make a very long-term plan. Any very very long term plan. If you ignore dark nebulas, you will eventually wish you hadn't."

He stood there, blinking. Whether or not that claim made sense, the main hurdle had been crossed - he could hide this. "If you can remain discreet..."

The pony on the screen winked and drew a hoof across her lips.

"And you don't try to get me to play..."

"I will not bug you about it, but I cannot guarantee that you will not end up giving it a try..."

"And no spam?

"The only email we will send is in case you lose your ponypad and we find it."

"Then all right."

---

The pad did blend into the office just fine - he'd taken one with a white Celestia case, her sun in the center of the back where no one would notice. And indeed, once he had set it up where it could normally see his face, and ensured that it was working, even he hardly noticed it. It appeared to be a stylized painting of a rock garden, using broad brush-strokes.

Coconut Cream entered the garden, animated as brush strokes instead of the solid flat colors of the game proper (and, he supposed, the show). She sat down and read.

He only noticed this after a few minutes, when idly looking up. Amused, he asked, "You're not really reading, are you?"

She looked up from the book. "Depends what you mean by 'you', doesn't it? Equestria Online is obviously not reading. I, though, am reading. Princess Celestia thought it would be best for me to get up to speed if I'm going to be your friend."

He chuckled and went to work, and she kept her silence.

Comments

[Roseheart]

Wow! This is amazing!

It's all phenomanal.

Can I get some more?

Favorite, Upvote, Follow.

This is something I might read over again.

There's nothing that I don't like about it, it's perfect.

[Sorren]

Hehe. Nice one. Take my like.

[Horsemaninthewoods]

That's phenomenal writing, right there.

Have a moustache.

[Defoloce]

Good, realistic dialogue, and the pacing was just right to hook my interest. No extended talking-head conversations or information dumps providing backstory we don't need yet. The newspaper clipping was spot-on in tone, and it read like an actual article, which is harder to pull off than some people realize.

Keep it up.

[Balthasar999]

This is really witty and sharp, and has a good eye for the way things move in the real world. I'm eager to see how this progresses and how these characters start to interact - Especially once Celestia actually gets into the mix.

[Chatoyance]

This is very intriguing. Following like a dog after the tire of a receding Jeep Wrangler.

[Kawa]

So... Hikaru's pad has engaged Okami Mode?

[Firebirdbtops]

Interesting! A professional using his pad as both a life monitor and research assistant. Very forwards thinking of him.

[Steelclaw]

I love seeing how Celestia interacts different with everyone. This story also seems to have a rather unique perspective! Keep going please!

[Shamus_Aran]

I've got a good feeling about this one.

[SecondLaw]

Very intriguing. I'm really looking forward to seeing more.

[Sozmioi]

2014551

I always take that sparse style. Sometimes it backfires (see: MLM). This time I've got someone keeping an eye on whether I've given the readers enough to work with.

2014784

That thought crossed my mind, actually - though I've never actually seen it played.

[Woorali]

BRILLIANT! As always, the Optimalverse inspired a,great story.

[KrisSnow]

Interesting so far. First time I've seen this angle used to justify the game, but it makes perfect sense that some people would use it that way.

If there are ponies on public display, and aware that they're at a Toys R Us, they were probably created to have very wide-ranging values as is implied for Coconut. But then if someone buys a pad there, are they copied over as new instances of Coconut and Berry, or what?

[Greatazuredragon]

"Though you have a point that I am interested in almost everything that people are interested in, I do have a bit more interest in dark nebulas. They are where stars come from. Any truly long-term plans must take them into account."

That's what I call thinking ahead.

[Blaze Song]

Sneaky Sneaky CelestAI. I like the Optimalverse, but there are ways that the concept can turn very very very ugly..! But at the same time? I honestly don't know...