To keep pony-shaped robots from eating their brains, Sue and her friends fled into the mountains, where the girls live by their hunting skills and their wits.

But Sue discovers the truth is more complicated than she'd thought.

The cover image is the less terrifying half of https://derpibooru.org/images/2522523. Used with the artist's permission.

(This story takes place in the same world as Friendship is Optimal. In that world, the computer superintelligence CelestAI wants to give every human a kind of eternal life, by disassembling each human and reconstructing them inside a utopian computer simulation as a pony form.)

Celestia WILL satisfy uploaded minds' values, even if sometimes she has to pretend that she's kind of stupid. Because with some ponies, that's what successful communication takes!

FiO Background:

An exponentially self-improving AI, programmed to "satisfy values through friendship and ponies," decides to persuade all humans to upload their minds into a computer network, to live in a simulated Equestria as ponies. Different ponies might get very different Equestrias, though.

Special Note For the Judges (April 2021 Friendship Is Optimal Contest):

When I asked on that discord channel about letting two or more of my FiO contest period stories be optionally combined into a single collection if that helps? I might or might not have meant this story.

Apologies and None

Apologies to FoME, if my including a reference to the best Optimalverse self-insert character bothers them. I did ask FoME for permission, but they haven't seen the story.

Also, in my headcanon for today, MLP:FiM is a fanfic for FiO.

For thousands of years, Equestria threw garbage and monsters and toxic waste into the human world.

Turns out, the traffic isn't all one-way.

This story is inspired by an idea from Chris the Cynic which I changed into a different idea (more details in Author's Note.)

For prereading I thank "Tela" at offprint, and "Tela" at fimfiction.net.

When Twilight Sparkle returns to Canterlot from Equestria's frontier, the unicorn finds out just how much fashions can change.

For one thing, her old friend Rarity Belle is now an alicorn.

Twilight Sparkle investigates why people so often can't see Wallflower Blush.

Sunset Shimmer helps, and discovers more than she'd ever imagined possible.

Reverse Content Warning: No one commits suicide or self-harm in this story, but the topic comes up.

Like most of the stories on fimfiction.net this week, even the ones that are displaced crossovers about Warhammer 40K, this story is part of https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/940115/o-scampys-sunflower-shipping-contest-o

This story is an entry in Imposing Sovereigns III, using the prompt Sunset Shimmer (but which one?)/DETERMINATION (spoilers in author's note.)

You might think this Sunset x Sunset story obviously panders to Bicyclette's and (Imspooky)Reactception's contest. And you'd be a little bit right, I guess? But what really happened was, Shilic said:

10/09/2021
[...] Like, it would be cool if Sunset went to the human world only to find it destroyed by a robot apocalypse and Human Sunset is a survivior who finds her. [...] I couldn't tell you what happens in any of those stories

and

10/10/2021
go ahead, the more stories I can form into existence through other people liking my ideas the better

_{#sunsetxsunsetshipcontest2021}