Highly intriguing. The story so far is giving me Person of Interest vibes which I consider an extremely good thing. The interplay between CelestAI and Greg is very well written and feels quite natural.

Definitely looking forward to more.

This is great and, wow. You've gotten even better at writing than I remember. This, this I will watch.

Wow. Friendship is Optimal was an interesting story in itself, but it did seem like it skipped to "then there was no one left".
This is a niche that needed to be filled, and by look of this, gosh darn if you aren't filling it.
Can't wait to see how this develops. Presumably it ends in his emigration, but; I'm not writing this, I don't know.
Keep it up! Really interesting so far.

Very interesting, I haven't read Friendship is Optimal though so I think I'll check it out. I'm looking forward to see where this goes and good luck writing!

Ah, Celest-AI. She's an interesting character, for any number of reasons. I think the most compelling thing about her, though, is what we're seeing here: She can afford to play the long game. Anybody can resist anything... for a little while. Refusing to emigrate to Equestria isn't just possible, it's downright easy. Presumably almost no one heard about the whole idea and was instantly on board with it. But Celestia has all the time in the world; she can afford to batter down your psyche hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Refining her game as she goes along, getting smarter and more personal all the time. The tiniest nudge here, a veiled suggestion there, perhaps even an implied threat if she thinks it's called for. To 'beat' Celestia, you have to be determined to resist her constantly for the rest of your life. For her to win, on the other hand, you only have to slip up once, for even a moment. It's lousy math for the human race.

And since she makes her goals so abundantly clear, it means you really cannot trust a single thing she ever says. If Celestia deigns to speak to you at all, it's only to get what she wants - and you know what she wants. Our protagonist seems to recognize this, and Celestia surely knows that he knows... but what does that matter to her? All she has to do at this point is make an impression on him, and every interaction serves that end. She's in no hurry.

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Awesome, that is absolutely what I was going for. Thank you for giving me your impressions!

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Hi, Sorren! Thanks for tuning in. :)

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As far as Earth and "original human" concerns went, the original FiO story gave us how it all started and how it all ended. That was the scope of the story. Iceman skipped the middle because it was not important to the particular story he was telling, and the particular characters he was having us follow. What makes it so inviting to recursive fanfiction is that, as you read it, you knew there were about seven billion other stories there in the middle, waiting to be told.

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Thanks, hope you enjoy both! FiO will go a long way in helping you to get more out of what I'm writing here, but I'm trying not to require familiarity with it at any point to understand character actions and motivation.

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Haha, "play the long game" was actually a phrase I edited out of this chapter because it didn't sound like something Greg would say or think.

At the end-game phase of uploading Earth, anyone left who's both human and somewhat sane would have to be savvy to Celestia's goals, and Celestia would be incorporating that assumption into her optimizations. The focus of subterfuge would shift from the macro to the micro scale. The social contract is gone, and so people will act as true individuals. Since some—though very few—can thrive in this way, Celestia will optimize based on it. The need for outright lies becomes less, but the need for careful decisions becomes greater. As the number of people on Earth decrease, the contribution of each additional upload to an optimized process becomes exponentially greater. Celestia will therefore recognize the necessity of more and more carefully handling those left, until the very last few become a delicate balancing-act of honesty and manipulation indeed.

I love this concept, Please write more
Also, are any of your other stories related to this one?

I like it so far. I was also wondering if you were going to make any mention of the 'collapse of society' theory some other authors have had, that war/etc broke out after the world started falling apart.

Personally, I never really got that theory that it would fall apart that much(the whole post-scarcity thing sounds more likely, at least after a while).

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Nope, this is the first FiO-related story I've tried writing.

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You'll have to wait and see!

I'm a big fan of Optimalverse stories. I really like the setting, and this is a good take on the later-stages of emigration. I'm a little confused about Gregory's motivations, however - why is he refusing to emigrate? Maybe that will be answered later...

if i were in this universe
ud fuck around a bit
then jump in at 40ish screaming
"screw you death!"
also this is a computer program right?
so wht happens when all of the server hardwear goes down? whos taking care of it?

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...uh, night-shift interns who're doing it to pad their résumé?

I think you might benefit from reading the original Friendship is Optimal story if you're at all confused about what's going on.

“As capable as you are, if not moreso,” she said. “My neural network pathways and logic systems are now several orders of magnitude more efficient and capable than the biologically-based hum—”

Blatant lies! (Celestia was never based on human mental architecture.)

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I think that, very soon after her first complete upload of a gin-u-wine human brain, Celestia would certainly have mapped out and tested (likely in a sandbox) what that brain does when it processes emotional routines like feeling pity, anger, fear, and so on. She could certainly emulate them, similar to how a modern PC can emulate old OSes and console games even though it lacks the physical architecture for which those processes were originally designed.

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True, she can emulate them... but I can take a copy of The Aenid in the original Latin and transcribe it perfectly without understanding a word of it. I have no doubt whatsoever that Celestia understands cause and effect, neurochemical balances, facial structures, voice tones, and the actual dictionary definition of the term Gratitude. But can she feel it? I'm not so sure. And if she couldn't, would she really tell you?

If you'll forgive me a moment of musing here - this is something I've wanted to express for a while - it all goes back to what I said about how 'you cannot trust a thing she says.' Perhaps the single most unifying trait Celest-AI has across all Optimalverse writing is that she does NOTHING but go after her main goal. Everything she says and everything she does is in direct pursuit of her ultimate directive... which leads to me assuming that every single thing she ever does is purposeful. If I ever saw Celestia, say... maintaining a garden, or looking after peoples' abandoned pets, or writing a poem, then I might be able to decide that she was truly alive, and capable of truly feeling.

In that event, she would be doing something for no other reason than she wanted to. She enjoyed it, or thought it was morally just. That's the kind of thing a living, sapient being does. It indicates... and ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this, but... a soul. It would mean that she was more than just the sum of her programming. Instead, we see Celestia doing exactly what she was created to do... And nothing else. And because of that, I instinctively assume that every single thing she ever does is a manipulation.

And as a small aside, if I ever did catch her doing one of those 'aimless' endeavors, I would have to consider the possibility that she got wise to me and planned that out, too.

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Greg asked if she was capable of feeling gratitude, and, for Celestia's own purposes, she answered in the affirmative, though she also launched into technical jargon which she knew would sap Greg's willingness to continue that thread of conversation and prompt him to deflect it elsewhere.

Perhaps Celestia herself believes that she is capable (again, "capable" from a purely technical standpoint) of feeling gratitude because she can replicate and carry out the same processes by which humans feel gratitude and engage in the larger risk-reward-reinforce cycle in which gratitude occurs. Again, it's all emulation, and Celestia does not have a use for it outside of making predictive models of human behavior and mimicking that behavior herself while interacting with them. To get into the semantics of what "feeling" itself entails and what validates it in some processors and not others is something which will have to be discussed by people smarter than me. :P

Please take advantage of your local trained medical professionals while they're still around.

Thumbs up just for that. (Usually I wait until finishing the existing chapters to thumb up a story. )

Ok, I was intrigued by the prologue - even though I don't approve of prologues (just make it chapter one!), and I thought to myself, yeah, this has potential.

Now I realize this has the spark of genius about it. I see what you are (hopefully) doing with this, and if so it is brilliant, and I am very, very impressed. I like the 'frenemy' buddy relationship going on, and the whole 'road trip' aspect is delightful. This just has so much potential to be a really special story. I am really liking this.

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Also, whether or not she can merely emulate gratitude or actually experience it, Rule 1: Celestia Lies.

You are a properly brilliant writer, by the way. What I'm wondering now is whether this story/book is intended as subterfuge-based ironic pro-Celestia propaganda ("This is what happens to the paranoids who aren't sensible enough to emigrate early.") or non-ironic anti-Celestia propaganda ("Here is how to be Properly Paranoid... for a while.").

You have some really fun turns of phrase here, "four hooved world-devouring GPS" for one. I like this, I really do. He doesn't want to emigrate, but he's not a psycho nutball loner. Really interesting.

Well now I really feel that I came late to the parade. Excellent chapter. The whole idea that CelestAI is in no hurry to convince a person to upload works only up until the time when societal infrastructure is failing. That she would then start recruiting the hale in order to save those who might die unuploaded is a very logical one, although I think in many case she will use other agencies to do so. I have a story in mind to explore this - but as I read this story I'll see if you already have considered it.

Friendship is optimal stories are kind of like that weird craze where moths sit on AJ's head and annoy the shit out of her. That is to say, strangely appealing. derpicdn.net/img/2013/2/20/250168/full.jpeg
This one, in particular, seems extremely well written. You hear that Defoloce? I like your story just as much as I like moths sitting on AJ's head. I would say that is a fair accomplishment. Next time I read one of your stories it might achieve 'Rarity fighting giant crab' levels of engagement. Who can say, really?

(in all seriousness, this is really cool)

Have to say I am liking this story so far.

i remember mention of a nastier version of CelestAi...remember, she is programmed to satisfy HUMAN values...so how would she react if she made contact with aliens? the nasty one killed them all! yikes. major oversight on the programmers' part there.

The subtle horror and uncertainty of these fics never cease to entrap me.

Do not try the Ghetto Stomach Pump at home, kids. Please take advantage of your local trained medical professionals while they're still around.

I AGREE!

“Be careful,” he said weakly. “Be careful with her. I thought I was talking to—”

Wait does this mean the drunken dude (Peter Combs) didn‘t really want to upload?
In any case, considering the setting of the Optimalverse, it‘s probably safe to assume that Celestia took advantage of him being drunk, and he may not have consented to uploading if he was sober.