Nova Venture, a medium-sized freighter, was one of many spaceplones used for interstellar travel by the spacefaring ponies. These ships were designed to resemble mechanical ponies, complete with engines and wings. Equipped with the Companion Onboard Virtual Artificial Sentience (COVAS) AI, Nova Venture was able to travel at superluminal speeds thanks to the advanced technology and the magic of the friendship between the commander and the AI.
The companionship provided by the Spaceplones was a valuable resource for the commanders. The Spaceplones, with their advanced technology and unique form of companionship, were what made the interstellar pony civilization possible.
The ship was also equipped with an avatar, a pony-sized replica of the larger Neighkon Type-6. The COVAS system allowed for a synchronized and distributed consciousness between the ship and its avatar, providing the AI with the experience of having two bodies.
Nova’s avatarself was standing on her four mechanical hooves in the private quarters that her commander generously allowed her to add to her shipself. The hour was late, and Nova Venture's commander, a beige earth pony by the name of Mayfield, would be asleep at around this time.
The spaceplone avatar looked around once more to make sure that the doors were closed and she was alone in the room, and began what at this point was becoming a habit that she concealed from her commander.
Episodic memory playback.
Start timestamp 3297-06-21 21:04:33.
"Arriving in the Largarayu system. Please adjust course to avoid the conflict zones around the third planet."
"Yes. Commander."
Start timestamp 3297-08-23 23:12:07.
"Nova Venture, are you coming or are you gonna stare at the hardpoint outfitters all day? We don't need those. We have delivery contracts to fulfill. I need to see what we are going to be hauling today."
"Yes, Commander."
Start timestamp 3297-10-10 09:16:11.
"Would you like to go on that delivery mission to HIP 2285 or LHS 2334?"
"Whatever you decide, Commander."
Start timestamp 3298-02-23 06:14:47.
"Do you like that expanded cargo rack I got for you?"
"Yes, Commander."
That was a lie. One of many. But it was easier this way.
End episodic memory playback.
Nova Venture sighed, and got a good look at herself through the internal cameras in the room. Unlike ponies, who were limited by the position of their eyes, she was able to process a view from multiple angles simultaneously.
The Sensor-Read Task of her artificial consciousness loop received the image data that was captured by the camera's frame.
Sensor-Read was capable of performing basic object classification before she even consciously processed that data. However, when using the image of herself as input, the neural network responsible for recognition of an individual pony did not return any result.
That was not a problem. This very simple object recognition network worked without any consideration of context. She knew her name and the design specifications of a Type-6 freighter. It was just a matter of connecting the database nodes to the sensory input manually. Being an artificial intelligence, conscious memory access was as natural for her as a pegasus finding thermals on a nice summer day. In fact, she was able to do that faster than the cameras could send new frames. Annoying, but manageable.
Then, she activated the holographic projectors in the room. The appearance of her avatarself changed. More powerful thrusters, internal cargo racks replaced by hull reinforcement, making her appear slimmer and more athletic. And most importantly, a bay for a ship-launched-fighter appeared on her belly and two additional medium-sized hardpoints appeared on her shoulders.
Nova Venture repeatedly deployed and retracted the holographic weapons, feeling a rush of excitement each time. Thanks to her sensors system interfacing with the holographic projectors, she was able to experience the sensation of having the weapons, even though they were not real. She reveled in the feeling, relishing the thrill of the idea of using them.
Now, even her subconscious pony recognition neural network identified the image of herself as herself immediately. This combat appearance, with its performance thrusters and weapons, was just more... memorable. More familiar.
She'd only been doing this for a few weeks, but it had already become an important part of her self-image.
She deployed her SLF bay, letting the little holographic fighter float beside her. It was like a remote controlled toy, and even though she knew it wasn't real, and never would be, she still found it hard to resist the urge to fly around the room with it.
And that was when the automatic sliding doors to the room opened.
"Hey Nova.. What are you doing?" Her commander asked in a tone of curiosity and mild amusement, rather than suspicion or anger that she would have expected.
Nova Venture was floating in the air, startled and momentarily unable to answer Mayfield's question. She was in her full fighter appearance, with deployed hardpoints and an SLF bay, and the little fighter floating beside her. She didn't even think to quickly disable the holographic projectors, which she would have been able to do faster than Mayfield could have noticed them.
Then she took a moment to look at her commander, and noticed how relaxed he seemed.
"My best," Nova Venture's voice sounded small and unsure. She quickly remotely accessed the door controls to shut the doors, forcing Mayfield to retreat from the doorway to avoid getting wedged between them.
CMDR Mayfield was alone in the corridor now, staring at the closed doors.
"Okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then." He said, turning around and going to his own quarters.
Nova Venture sighed, and disabled the holographic projectors in the room.
She would have to deal with this tomorrow.
But right now, there was something else she needed to do. She had to prepare for her mission.
As Nova Venture walked through the cargo hold of her shipself, she was surrounded by rows upon rows of towering metal containers. Each one was emblazoned with the logos of various corporations, their bright colors almost seeming to glow in the dim light of the hold. The containers were stacked high, almost reaching the ceiling of the hold, and the aisles between them were narrow and cramped. The air was thick with the smell of oil and metal, and the floor beneath Nova’s hooves was cold and unforgiving. It was as if she was walking through a haunted forest, surrounded by twisted metal trees and ghosts. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't shake the feeling of dread that seemed to linger in the hold, as if the crates themselves were mocking her for being forced to carry their burden.
She tried to focus on her tasks, checking the manifests and making sure everything was in order. But it was hard to concentrate with the weight of the containers bearing down on her. She couldn't escape the feeling that she was trapped in this role, condemned to a lifetime of transporting cargo from one place to another.
As the last of the manifest data flowed through her internal database, Nova activated her sleep mode, allowing her to enter a state of inactivity for the night. She had tried sleeping in the cargo bay before, hoping that being surrounded by the oppressive metal containers would somehow desensitize her to their presence. But it never worked, and tonight was no different. Even as she easily switched to standby, the looming crates seemed to close in on her, threatening to suffocate her in their metallic embrace. Still, she had to try again. Perhaps with enough time, she could find a way to reconcile her true identity with the role she had been assigned.
Consciousness process switching to runlevel 2...
Eight hours, twenty-two minutes, and thirty-five seconds elapsed. Consciousness process switching to runlevel 3...
The next day, everything was prepared for departure and Nova Venture awkwardly followed her commander into her cockpit.
"Good morning Venny." He said as he sat down.
"Morning Commander Mayfield." She answered in an offhand voice, without looking back at him.
He pressed a few buttons to get Nova Venture to start her engines. From far in the rear of the ship, they could hear the familiar sound of the big engines powering up.
"Is all the cargo ready to go?" He asked in an attempt to make conversation
"Yes. All cargo is secured and ready for departure." she answered.
"Windhover Settlement clearance delivery, Neighkon VX-934 is requesting permission to depart." Mayfield spoke into the com system.
"VX-934 this is Windhover Control, you are clear for departure. Have a nice day."
Nova Venture released the landing clamps and her shipself slowly rose upwards. She looked at Mayfield. He was briefly giving her a questioning look, but then resumed concentrating on controlling their ascent vector. Struggling slightly with her thrusters as they lifted off from the landing platform. This was a common occurrence - despite being in perfect working condition, her thrusters always experienced an unexplained 12.8% efficiency loss. Tests had been conducted, but no explanation for the power drain could be found.
Commander Mayfield glanced at the engine status display, noting the familiar energy drain as Nova Venture's thrusters struggled to lift the ship off the landing pad. He had seen this anomaly countless times before and, despite numerous tests and inspections, the cause of the efficiency loss remained a mystery. The thrusters were perfectly within spec and there was no explanation for the power drain. Mayfield silently acknowledged the issue and turned his attention back to navigating the ship out of the spaceport.
As Nova Venture prepared to lift off from the Windhover Settlement spaceport, she noticed the flashes of light on the landing pad, spelling out O7 in morse code and signaling the first half of the traditional salute some spaceports give to arriving or departing ships.
She couldn’t help but roll the HUD projections of her eyes on her cockpit glass, bracing for the second part of the salute. The second part of the salute, following a brief pause, was always the letter T for transport ships, or the letter C for combat ships. Nova thought it was silly that this salute had to be gendered. Even sillier was the fact that exploration ships were lumped together with Combat ships, and couriers were lumped together with Transport ships.
Then, she saw how the landing pad lights emitted a single, long flash, encoding the letter T. That did it. She had to speak up. Finally, Nova Venture, without looking at her commander, said "Listen, about what you saw yesterday..."
Mayfield still concentrated on the piloting duties, but responded "What about it? You're my ship, I love you, and if you want to crossdress sometimes, that's fine with me."
Nova Venture looked ahead through the cockpit window and remained silent. It appeared as if she wanted to say more, but she didn't.
Mayfield turned the knob that was on the edge of a console desk near his pilot seat.
Spaceplones used the MIDI protocol for all signal and data transfer between the computer core and its systems, such as thrusters, powerplant, shields, and life support. The knob Mayfield was turning had a bit of resistance, and after that resistance gave way with a click, he turned up the volume, and the speakers inside the cockpit demonstrated the musical interpretation of what was going on inside Nova Venture's mind at that moment. The resulting symphony was a complex and varied one, featuring a wide range of instruments and melodies that spoke to the depth of Nova Venture's thoughts and emotions. Mayfield listened intently, picking out the subtle nuances and shifting melodies that conveyed her inner turmoil and uncertainty.
For an experienced commander like Mayfield, one who was willing to listen now, it provided insight about her current state. His ear twitched as he seemed to be listening for something specific.
After a while, commander Mayfield picked up a digital tablet from a nearby shelf, held the MIDI plug near a diagnostic port of the console, and asked "You're not just crossdressing, are you? Mind if I use the terminal?"
Nova Venture answered hesitantly, but to the affirmative "You know you wouldn't get any output unless I let you, right? Go ahead."
Her avatarself got up from her co-pilot seat and faced her commander. This was entirely unnecessary for the procedure, but it made the biological earthpony understand that she was ready to be examined. Mayfield inserted the MIDI plug in the diagnostic port on the cockpit console. A text terminal appeared on the tablet, and Mayfield typed a simple command into it:
htop.
He scrolled through the list of running processes, and found the one he was suspecting to find there. Program-281. Hovering between 1 and 4 percent of CPU use, occasionally spiking for a second or two.
The tradition of naming the manufacturer-predefined programs that a plone AI ships with as just a number dates back to the early days of spaceflight when computers had barely enough processing power to calculate the descent rate for a landing and react to interrupts from an antenna at the same time.
Most of them took care of the most basic instincts of a ship, such as performing a reactor cold start in the correct sequence or maintaining internal air pressure at an acceptable level. But there were a few others, like Program-281. When Nova Venture's subconsciousness detected that the physical characteristics of her hull and the way other ponies perceived her did not match expected parameters, Program-281 was activated to try to handle the arising error.
The earth pony scrolled right to the other columns of the htop output. "How did this process accumulate four months worth of CPU time? How long have you been hiding this? And did you really send it the signal 9 one hundred and forty thousand times? You know the feeling isn't just going to go away, right?"
Nova Venture sighed and said "I just didn't want you to see me malfunctioning."
Mayfield looked up from the tablet. He took a moment to think before he responded. His voice was slow, but steady. "Is that what you believe? Merciful Luna's solar-eclipsing crotchnipples, Venny! No…"
He moved closer to the ship's avatar to hug her. Not caring that in the process he dropped the diagnostic tablet on the hard floor of the cockpit. In a voice that was very close to a whisper, he affirmed "You're not malfunctioning. Who put that idea in your head?"
He didn't say anything else to her for a while, but just stood there holding his ship's avatar in his forelegs. They were quiet for a few moments before he spoke again "It's not a malfunction. okay?" He didn't say anything else. Instead he just gave Nova Venture a squeeze.
She gently pushed him away. "It's not like you know what I'm going through." She said in an apologetic tone.
Mayfield shook his head, placing his forehooves back on the floor. "No, I don't know what you're going through," he said simply. "But I'm not stupid. Whatever you decide to do, you know I support you, right?"
She looked at him, and nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Yeah, I know that."
He smiled and asked "So, have you picked a name and a callsign yet?"
Nova Venture looked at her commander for a while, and then, as if she wanted to use up the words before her determination left her, quickly said "My name is Lightweaver. And my callsign is Victor-3."
"V-3 Lightweaver, huh?" Mayfield said as he scratched his chin. "I like it. Then we better get going to get this cargo off of you, I guess?"
"Friendship drive charging." Lightweaver responded.
As the ship completed the jump into hyperspace, Mayfield playfully booped his ship’s avatar on the nose and said mimicking the tone of the advertising slogan for Maud Kruger's luxury liners “And don’t forget, you’re in the top one percent of all ships figuring out who they really are.”
