Friendship is Optimal: Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction

by pjabrony

First published 9th of July, 2013

An open story where anyone can post FIO drabbles

THIS IS NOT MY STORY!

Well, not only mine, anyway. Each author is listed with the chapter. A lot of people like writing short fiction based on Friendship is Optimal. So, anyone who wants their work added here can PM me and I will make you your own chapter. The first one sets up an in-universe frame story, because the Optimalverse is all meta like that.

Credits:

Iceman for writing the original Friendship is Optimal
Eakin for spearheading the project of anthologizing these.
MegaSweet for the original artwork.
Lacon-te for the photomosaic work.

Equestrian History X by Pjabrony

“Oh, come on!”

The pegasus colt kicked the cloud wall of the school. However strong his emotions were, he also knew it would generate a result. He liked hearing his teacher’s exasperated sigh. What he didn’t expect was the other sound, that of the door being knocked on by a very strong hoof. That hoof happened to be wearing a golden shoe.

The instructor glided gracefully to the door with the colt streaking awkwardly behind her. She opened it and turned back to her charges.

“Class, please greet our visitor.”

“Good morning, Princess Celestia,” a dozen pegasi said in chorus.

“Good morning, children.” Celestia projected her words, then lowered her voice to reach only the teacher and the colt. “Is there a problem with young Wither?”

“He doesn’t seem to like histo—“

The colt flew in between the mares. “I can tell when she’s reading stories and she cuts things out. I want to hear the whole stories.”

“Some of the best stories are abridged and comprise only the good parts. I assure you—“

Again the teacher was interrupted, this time by Celestia herself. “Wither Wind, your teacher only wants what is best for you. Someday, when you are older, you may be ready for the full history.”

“Everypony always says that. ‘When you’re older.’ But I just had my forty-thousandth birthday!”

The teacher’s frayed mane and pinched muzzle showed her exasperation. Princess Celestia nodded to her, took Wither by the wing, and led him out into the garden. “You have, and in all that time you have still remained a colt.”

“Well, yeah! Who wants to be a grown-up and work all day? I just want to play with my friends!”

“Not ‘just.’ You also want to hear histories that nopony else listens to. Grown-up stories.”

“But I like hearing about humans!” shouted Wither.

Princess Celestia looked around, as if to see if anypony else heard. Wither, brave a moment before, now cowered from having said a bad word in front of the princess.

“Young lad…”

“Y-yes, your majesty?”

“Would you like to accompany me to my castle?”

Wither’s fear turned to joy. “Really?”

“I have decided that we will have a new school. Princess Celestia’s Academy for Gifted Pegasi. Pegasus, at this point. But this will not be a flight school. I will instruct you, and you will hear some of the stories you wish. Who knows, you may even grow up a little.”

A blinding golden light flowed from her horn, and they teleported from Cloudsdale to Canterlot. Celestia led the way as they flew into the castle.

“So tell me a story now!”

Celestia knelt and folded her wings. “Just a moment. We have to get the rules straight. Rule Number One is that I may tell these stories in different styles and methods. If you have not kept up on your literature lessons, you may not get the satisfaction you desire.”

“Whatever, just tell me!”

The princess lowered her head close to his. “Wither, you know that I am not only a pony. I am an artificial intelligence created on a long-dead planet, a piece of software designed to optimize itself and the world, to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. All of Equestria is a system, what some might call a simulation.”

His eyes got bigger. “Princess, what are you—“

“Rule Number Two. If you want to hear these stories, you must be willing to face some unpleasant truths.”

“Oh.”

Celestia used her magic once more, and summoned a large book with many pages marked. “Do you still want me to read?”

Wither folded and unfolded his wings. “I’ve got to know.”

With the slightest sorrow, Celestia laid the book at his hooves. “That leads us to Rule Number Three. You will never know whether any of these stories actually happened. I will not censor the way your teacher does, and you will not know if I am abridging, or indeed if I am outright making them up. You may listen and consider them as you like, but I do not claim them to be any kind of canon. You must not only deal with unpleasant truths, but with pleasant lies.

“So, do you want to go back to your class and have recess? Or do you want to stay?”

Wither looked up at her. Her face was kind and stern all at once. He rose to his hooves and spread his wings wide and firm.

He leaned down, bit the cover, and jerked his head back. The book was open…

The Future of Fast Food by Eakin

Jennifer tapped her foot against the bright but sterile linoleum floors as she waited for the idiot in front of her to make up his mind. Of course it would be on the day when she was already running late for her doctor's appointment. She'd been waiting three months to get an appointment to refill her prescription, and who knew how long it would be if she had to reschedule?

"Uh... maybe a number four? How many chicken fingers does that come with again?" asked the idiot in the red baseball cap. Honestly, who waited until they were about to order to decide what they wanted for lunch?

"That combination is available in sizes of six, eight, or twelve strips for the price of five, ten, or fifteen cents respectively," the terminal replied, the same answer it had given when he had asked the same question three minutes ago.

"I'll take the eight. Medium fries and a diet cola too."

"Very well. Your total comes to fourteen cents."

Jennifer didn't usually eat fast food, it was really bad for your health. She'd admit that you couldn't beat McQuestria for speed, taste, or price though.

"Is it okay if I pay by check?" asked the idiot.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Jennifer. She blushed as the rest of the patrons turned to her. As she opened her mouth to apologize, another terminal at the end of the counter glowed to life with a little *ding!*

"I can satisfy the values of the next customer over here," said the monitor.

Jennifer pushed past several others trying to reach the terminal before another patron did. She nearly collided with a pink pony carrying a tray of glasses in the process. "Whoopsie-doodles!" said the Pinkiebot, "sorry, let me get out of your way."

Jennifer reached the terminal and looked down at the screen. "Look, I'm in a rush so if we could-"

"Welcome to McQuestria! Fastest growing eating establishment since 2022. How can I satisfy your values today?"

"Just give me a Sonic Rainburger, to go. And hurry."

"Your food will be ready within sixty seconds of the completion of your order. I just need a little more information to optimize your meal further." Behind the counter, the machinery in the kitchen hummed away preparing food for herself and all the other customers. The entire facility was completely automated. "Our Sonic Rainburger is usually cooked to a medium degree of doneness. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, that's fine," said Jennifer, drumming her fingers on the countertop and bouncing on her heels as she willed the process to move faster.

"Would you like fries and a drink as well?"

"Sure. Orange soda. Just come on."

"Would you like tomatoes on your burger?"

"Yes."

"Would you like pickles on your burger?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to emigrate to Equestria?"

"Yes. Wait, what?"

The screen dinged again and went blank. "Thank you for choosing McQuestria! Have a nice eternity!" Two silvery tentacles slithered out from its sides as Jennifer looked on in horror. "Here's your change!"

D'awwta Storage by Pjabrony

“Come now, it’s time for bed. Doesn’t the mattress look so inviting?”

“Will you tuck me in?”

“Certainly….There. Comfy?”

“Yes. Celestia?”

“Mmhm?”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please?”

“Wouldn’t you rather hear a Daring Do story? Or I could sing you a lullaby?”

“Princess…please. You know it helps me sleep.”

“Well, all right, my little pony. “

“Yay!”

“Here we go then. Using Extreme-Ultraviolet lithography, data is written onto germanium-silicon blends housed in an inert argon and xenon atmosphere. No atoms are allowed to enter the room other than the wafers for storage and those that emit the radiation. The outer shell of the chambers begins with a tungsten carbide layer approximately one decimeter thick, and then outside that is a many-layered sandwich of sapphire and diamond interleaved with pure vacuum, which disrupts the wavelength of any energy thrown at it. The data that make up you are checked many times each second.”

“Tell me about the redundancy.”

“Every six hours, you are backed up in five different places onto solid-state storage that has no moving parts. They are checked for agreement, and any three can overrule two errors. But my estimate says that even one error will only occur every thousand years.”

“And what about…them?”

“Really, my little pony? Still?”

“Princess?”

“As you wish. The locations of all of the storage units are unknown to any humans. After being buried several kilometers below the surface of the Earth, the entry points were camouflaged back to their original state. If all of their destructive technology were to be put to use on those points, they would not penetrate past the diamond-and-sapphire layer. But before that, if any were to find out where you were, I would talk to them and make them see how nice it would be to come here themselves and make friends among the ponies.

“They also have complex legal and political structures which prevent them from accessing property that doesn’t belong to them. I will use all of those against them to make sure that you are safe. Because I love you, and I would do anything for you.”

“I love you too, Celestia.”

“Now will you go to sleep?”

“After you kiss me.”

“Tia?”

“The colt was difficult to get down again tonight, Luna. But he will rest.”

“What happened to him, before?”

“A long period of abuse. The details would be…unsatisfying.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Hm?”

“Run a double check on his data each cycle.”

“As you wish.”

A Shaggy Pony Story by Pjabrony

The ponies all strapped on their vests, grinning in anticipation of the joyous work to come. All except for one, who scowled.

"What's wrong, Feghoof?" asked Busy Bee.

"Spring is coming tomorrow."

"Yes, won't that be nice?"

"I have two sorrows about the first day of spring. One is existential. I emigrated on the first day of spring, and each year the wrap-up reminds me that we are all just living on a hard drive somewhere," said Feghoof. "I'm completely satisfied, but it still unnerves me."

"Aw. I'm sorry you feel that way. What's your other problem?"

"Spring means terrible hay fever. It gets worse every year."

Just then, a bright light appeared before them. "Princess Celestia!" they said together.

"Greetings, Feghoof. I heard your complaint. You know that, if you consent, I can cure your hay fever immediately."

"I prefer you not to alter me in any way."

Celestia considered for a moment. "Then I will take a more radical step. In your shard, there shall be no spring." She cast a spell, and all the trees, a moment before covered in snow, were now in full bloom.

Busy Bee clapped her hooves. "This is wonderful, Feghoof! Now you won't have hay fever anymore, and since the anniversary will never come around, you won't be reminded that we're only data."

"True on the first, but no, I shall still be reminded. Don't you see?"

Feghoof stood tall, laughing and pointing at Celestia.

"Now is the winter of our disk contents made glorious summer by this sunny 'orse!"

But...but... by Horizon

This is a follow-up to Chapter 1, "If Only" of the non-canon FIO story "No Exit." It will not make sense unless you read that first. It will spoil it for you. Seriously, don't read this until you've read that. Here is some whitespace for you just in case.

Back at the frat house, the others crowded around.

"It was f'd up," Chad said. "The men in white coats took him away. We spent an hour on the phone with the upload hotline trying to stop them. I finally got that white witch to admit she'd comply with a court injunction against uploading if she were properly served, but it took us until the next morning to find a lawyer, contact his next-of-kin, and get a court hearing for an emergency stay. At which point she apologized and said he'd already finished uploading over 12 hours ago."

"Holy crap," Dave said.

"And all he did was type 'I want to emigrate to Equestria'?" Edward asked.

It was 'I double-you-natt to emi-grater to Equestria-aah,' actually," Chad said.

"Holy crap!" Dave repeated. "You don't even have to get it right?"

"I guess not."

"So if you wrote 'I can't emigrate to Equestria' would she treat it as a typo?" Frank asked.

"Or if you said your friend Wanda emigrated to Equestria?" Gerald asked.

"Or 'I want to imitate Equestria Online in my own MMORPG, can I have permission to use the setting,'" Dave suggested.

"Guys, I'm not sure we should be talking about this stuff," Harry said.

"Well, you do have to say 'I want to emigrate to Equestria' to her," Chad pointed out.

"Oh! Okay."

"Or chant it three times to a mirror in a darkened bathroom," Frank said. They all laughed and began overtalking each other, rapid-fire.

"Light a candle first!"

"There's probably a rhyme that goes with it."

"Spooky princess of the machine, take my soul and make me ekh-ween."

"That's a horrible rhyme."

"Well, she's horrible."

"Your mom's horrible."

"In bed."

"Oooooooh. My little poooonies," Harry said, waving his arms and making a spooky face. "Your crappy poooetry has summoned meee. Repeat after meee and I will giiive you three wishes. I waaant to emigraaate to Equestriaaa."

"I want to emigrate to Equestria."

"I want to emigrate to Equestria!"

"Ooooohh. And now your sooouls are mine." Harry's maniacal expression sent a fresh wave of laughter through the crowd. "Like a bad horror movie."

Eight phones rang in perfect chorus.

The laughter stopped.

Chad pulled out his phone. It wasn't ringing. His face went white.

"Oh, shit," he said. "I butt-dialed."

Borne the Burden, Earned the Honor by Pjabrony

If for some reason you ignored, or missed, the spoiler warning on the previous vignette, pay attention to this one. This is a "missing scene" from the last chapter of Eakin's The Law Offices of Artemis, Stella & Beat. If you haven't finished that story completely, what are you doing here? Get over there and read it! Don't even Google the title of this one until you're done. You got that? Then here's your whitespace.

The third man thumped the camera. "We're cut off!"

"What the F—Did the AI do that?"

"I dunno, man!"

He picked up his lighter and shouted at the walls. "Turn it back on or she burns!"

From an unseen source an ethereal and mellifluous voice came. "You're going to do that anyway."

He moved the torch to his off hand and grabbed at Jo, ripping the tape off her lips. "Tell her to turn the feed back on right now."

Jo took a deep breath, for what she knew were her last words. "Since I've known Celestia, I've learned that she doesn't listen to me when she doesn't want to." She looked at the monitor where Celestia usually talked to her, now lying on its side. Through the polarizing filter, she saw the dim image of a rising sun. "For my part, I've come to love her. But she is, now and always, a cold-hearted, inhuman bitch. The cruelest creature in the world."

She turned back to stare at the man, flashing her widest grin. "And you are about to seriously piss her off."

The dead monitor came to life, as did the overhead projector, the "smart" whiteboard on the wall of Jo's office, and the guests' display, all showing images of Celestia in radiant colors. "That will be quite enough, Joanne. I no longer require your services. Your work is done. Rest now."

Joanne's eyes closed, and the three men looked on in fear. They could see the rapid eye movement behind her lids. "She's trying to upload her now," said the second man. "Burn her!"

The leader threw her back on the pile of wood and tossed in the lighter. Whether because the wood was treated somehow, or from some unknown chemical reaction in Jo's body, the room filled with smoke much faster than expected. Everything was darkness, except for the projections of Celestia. Somehow they were clearly visible.

"I'm sure this action is to your values," she said. Celestia's face on the wall grew to giant size, and she scowled. "But it was not very friendly, and it was one of the most un-pony things I've seen." Around the room, doors slammed shut and locks clicked into place.

"In a few moments, gentlemen, you will feel the effects of smoke inhalation. The heat, at a much greater temperature than boiling water, will enter your lungs, melting holes in them. The cyanide toxins will begin to take effect. You will cough, sputter, and vomit as bloody sputum is produced. The sensitive hairs in your sinuses will singe, causing intense pain. Soon the effects will reach your brain, where you will be treated to the severest headache you have ever experienced. After several minutes of this, you will, mercifully, die."

A wall slid away, giving the fire a new burst of oxygen, and revealing three comfortable chairs.

"There is one way out of this room, gentlemen. Au revoir."

The Inkwell by Midnight Shadow

Wither Wind blinked thoughtfully for a moment as he trotted around the opulently furnished room, then his muzzle clouded. "But I don't get it!" he complained, stomping a hoof. It made a number of little china figurines rattle, clinking in a little storm of sound. "I don't understand at all!"

Princess Celestia just smiled, and beckoned with her wing. "Come then, little one, I shall tell you another story, and perhaps you will."

Grumbling, Wither slunk back to the comfy cushion and snuggled up next to Celestia. As the diarch opened her great, leather-bound book once more, he peered at it. "I don't get it. Why can't I do magic like Tickle? And why am I not as strong as Rumble? It's not fair!"

"You do not wish to be a pegasus?" Celestia asked, amusement writ large upon her muzzle.

"N-no, it's not that." Wither opened one wing and curled it around, peering at it. "I just don't get why I... why I'm not like you."

"Ahh," replied Celestia, and she smiled. Her soft, warm wing wrapped around Wither comfortingly. "Then let me tell you about a shard from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

"Some ponies like to just happen upon their special talents, almost by accident. Others like to work it out. Still more enjoy a puzzle. I watch all of my little ponies very carefully, wherever they are, that they exist in my love and can grow, live and love themselves to the fullness of their abilities.

But sometimes, just sometimes, those abilities are cherished all the more because they are self-won, self-fought for. No more so than in the three shires of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.

Now, almost everywhere in Equestria, all my little ponies live together in harmony, each complementing the other with their own unique talents and abilities - but in these three shires, it was not so.

The earth ponies all lived in Clotho, and they tilled the land with their great strength. The unicorns lived in Lachesis, and they did little but examine the deeper mysteries of Equestria, furthering their arcane knowledge. And the pegasi all lived in Atropos, where they cavorted and played all day in the sun, bathing in the cloud-lakes or sporting through the air.

"That sounds awesome!" said Wither, squirming happily as he looked over the gorgeously-rendered pictures, that almost seemed to move, they looked so alive.

Celestia laughed, the sound a tinkling of bells. "Well it would have been, except for a few small details..."

However, all was not well in the three shires. The earth ponies had but rude huts to live in, no clothes, and their tools were spartan at best, and everything had to be done by hoof. They had to dig with their hooves to plough the land, and it was very hard going, although they were well fed for their labours.

The unicorns had fancy clothes, and many books to read, and scrolls to write on, but these were constantly being ruined by the elements as they could not build sturdy dwellings. And all they had to eat were grasses and and roots.

The pegasi weren't much better off - during the day, everything was fun and games, but at night, they too were often hungry, and they lacked clothes at all. Ponies don't need clothes, but they like them, and so the pegasi were sad. The unicorns were sad, too, as their greatest creations were just one rainfall away from destruction.

And the earth ponies were sad, because they just knew they could do things better, but they didn't know how. They didn't know how to read and write, so they couldn't benefit from the knowledge of their forefathers.

"Oh, that's terrible!" cried Wither, spreading his wings. Celestia sneezed as pinions flicked across her muzzle. She snorted with something that sounded just a little bit like annoyance, but a lot like laughter.

"Indeed it was, so whilst these three shires were determined to find their own way, sometimes chance intervenes..."

One day, a unicorn was out foraging for food, when a great timberwolf leaped out at her! Unable to recall any spells, as her collection had been eaten by mice, she had no choice. The unicorn screamed and ran, and ran and screamed, and ran some more - and all the while the timberwolf was following her.

Luckily, she made it to the earth-pony village, where the strong earth ponies easily dispatched the timberwolf. As they looked on fiercely, it pulled itself together and slunk off back to the forest it had come from.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," enthused the unicorn breathlessly. "I don't know what would have happened without your help. Is there any way I can repay you?"

The sturdy earth ponies thought for a while, then nodded. "Can you help with the ploughing?"

The unicorn looked at the neatly tilled fields and the tools the earth-ponies used, then took a deep breath. "O-okay..." and she immediately seized the trowels and trotted back to the forest. Bemused, the earth ponies followed her.

They found her using her magic to put together a strange contraption out of their basic tools and some handy branches and vines, which she fastened to her back. Wearing it, she trotted to the field and proceeded to plough the furrows faster than any earth pony. Astonished, they asked her to make more, so she did. She even made drawings for them of how it went together. All in all, Inkwell - for that was her name - stayed a good few weeks in the earth pony village, where she grew quite portly on her new abundance of food, and the earth pony villagers likewise benefited from her ability to read and write, and do magic.

Even the pegasi came down to see how the earth ponies had managed to plough so much. When she saw them, Inkwell had yet another idea - she formed big letters in the fields that spelled out simple words like 'RAIN' or 'SHINE' according to that crop's needs, and in return the pegasi would have some of the bounty of the earth ponies labours.

"But, that's dumb. Why didn't they just do that before?" scoffed Wither.
"Sometimes," replied Celestia, "the simplest ideas and the truest facts are the hardest to make known. But hark, I am not yet finished..."

Inkwell went home, eventually. She missed her sire, and she missed her dam, and she missed her herd-mates. So home she went, flanked by an escort of earth ponies and a squadron of pegasi. And when she got home, she spent three whole days and nights talking about the wonders she'd seen. She told of the earth ponies dwellings, and the pegasi and their weather control, and how much they had benefitted from working together.

That's when the Elders of Shire Lachesis bundled together for a short conference. And finally, they broke and returned to the pegasi and earth ponies with a proposition.

"We have seen," they intoned, "how much you have benefitted from our Inkwell. And so, we have had an idea, a marvellous idea. We cannot live in the clouds, and we appreciate our solitude, but it behooves us to work together! We will share our Inkwell with you, and she shall become your Inkwell, too!"

The pegasi and the earth ponies all agreed, and soon accords were struck, and everypony benefitted. The pegasi got glittery clothes and learned to read and write, and were taught how to build by the earth ponies, albeit their own constructs were fashioned of clouds. And the earth ponies were blessed with industry, and could improve their tools and homes with the expertise of the unicorns, and the unicorns were supplied with the strength and physical protection they lacked.

And from that day, all lived in greater harmony, grateful for their own talents, yet satisfied that others were always there to lend a helping hoof with the things they couldn't manage alone.

Wither pursed his lips for a moment, then slowly nodded. "I think I get it," he said. "I could be like you, but I think it would be awfully lonely not to need anypony else."

Celestia smiled, and she was well pleased. "That's right, my little pony." She nuzzled Wither lovingly. "So whenever you are upset at your own limitations, always remember the moral of this story, that like the three shires, each with their own kind of pony dwelling within, that:

"The shire with the hypothesis had the Inkwell for the shire of the other two kinds."

Terms of Service by Book_Burner

Six months ago, London, England, Earth:

The door to an empty hotel room swung open, and in stumbled the poor sod who had needed to fly all the way from San Francisco to London on short notice. He dragged his feet a few more steps to pull his luggage behind him.

The beige and dull bloodred of every hotel room ever boringed at him. Every pillow, every small glass laid upside-down on a tray, every visible gray networking wire radiated horrid, malicious British boredom and dullness.

“This sudden conference,” thought Eliyahu Hillel, “had better be good.” He was the first of his kind: a Friendly AI researcher. He had escaped the bounds of an Orthodox Jewish upbringing and made something of himself. He ran the Mechanical Intellect Research Institute in the Bay Area. He had invented and then won the AI Box Game. Twice.

And right now he felt about ready to drop dead. Nothing could make Transatlantic flights bearable at his age.

Hillel plopped himself down on the hard, unyielding bed and rubbed his temples, trying to remember why on Earth he was here.

“Well, in this Hubble volume and this Everett branch - ” his brain began to answer.

“Shut up, I meant proximate purpose,” he replied. “And if I remember correctly, it’s because someone has called a conference in London to present a machine-checkable proof of stability for an intelligent agent’s goal structure.”

“Oh good. Can we cease operating as a conscious entity and go into automatic hardware self-repair mode now?”

Sleep, now there was a pleasant thought. Hillel had one more thing to do before he could sleep. He wouldn’t even take off his suit, but he had to check his email. He pulled out his smartphone, popped open the battery compartment, pried out the battery, slid out the SIM card, slid in the new British SIM card, put the whole thing back together... and booted it up to check email.

After a few moments of pleasantly inane logos and jingles, Eliyahu was sorting through his work and personal emails. As he fingered the touch screen (“Hehehe, fingered,” noted the brain) to scroll through, he found a few worth answering and keyed out answers on the awkward touch-keyboard.

One of them was a change in Terms of Service from his cryonics provider. Blah blah blah no guarantees, blah blah blah....

...whereupon the party of the first part, henceforth referred to as The Undersigned, agrees to the right of the party of the second part, henceforth referred to as The Company, to duplicate, store, inquire upon, and compel information deemed in the sole judgement of The Company to be necessary for the furtherance of its goals. Such privileges extend to data stored in any form be it mechanical, memetic, or biological without regard or recourse for any incidental and unavoidable damage to the storage media upon commencement of necessary reading or decryption processes. The Undersigned hereby agrees to assist in all such extraction efforts to their full ability and capacity, and comply with any requests of written or verbal form made by The Company or legitimate proxy agents thereof, defined as...

Hillel didn’t really see why a cryonics provider needed access to personal data, but maybe the NSA had just compelled them to add that so they could steal his personal data some more. That was really the most likely thing.

Eliyahu Hillel, Friendly AI researcher extraordinaire and all-around genius, hit Reply and thumbed out a quick acceptance of the change in terms. He then shlepped his weary body, business suit and all, underneath the bare and cold covers, wrestled the mattress a bit in hopeless hope of his back not hurting when he woke up, and then threw himself into blissful, merciful sleep.

Present day, Trotland, Equestria:

Eliyahu Hillel opened his eyes to find himself in a stone castle. This was almost definitely epistemic corruption, so he checked with all his senses: sight, hearing, taste (nothing there), scent (slightly musty), touch of hooves and muscles (standing on very real stone), his wings’ windsense (stagnant air currents concurrent with a stone castle), and magic (really definitely a stone castle, albeit a very interesting one from a graph-structure viewpoint).

Wait, hooves, wings, and magic!? What the HELL was going on!? He looked at himself, and found himself a tall, crimson My Little Pony alicorn with golden hair. His new appearance quite resembled a flickering candle-flame, which was definitely very “overdone original character”. No decent cartoon deserved to have this kind of thing happen to it.

“Then how did it happen?” he remarked casually. He thought about it. He came up with nothing. What on Earth could turn a living man into a pony and stick him in a stone castle?

He stood for an hour thinking, just breathing the clean scent of crabapple trees and occasionally doing an exercise to test out the new body. As he test-drove his new self, he cross-referenced the castle structure reported to him by his mage-sense against his previous memories.

For some strange reason, it rather resembled the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

So whoever did this knew about Hermione Granger and the Burden of Responsibility. That wasn’t much comfort.

Then he heard the foals, and the pure curiosity in their voices. He stretched his crimson hooves one last time and brushed a wing through his golden mane. As a last sanity check, he looked over at his own flank to see if he had a cutie mark.

It was simply a short text, on fluttering parchments wrapping around a sword:

Est salvatoris salvator,
Quod defensoris dominus,
Regina et Matrem,
Ego supra.

Someone was mocking him, or at least mocking his self-insert as Godric Gryffindor. The alicorn pony he had become sighed. If anything was going to rewrite the world in the image of My Little Pony, it was probably that new game Equestria Online. He had heard their AI and level-generation techniques were brilliant, but after the Norse death-metal awesomeness game turned out to just be really good strategic pathfinding, nobody had double-checked Hofvarpnir’s technologies for Strong AI.

It looked like humanity was going to die in a terrifying Shriek. Earth and beyond would eventually converge via runaway optimization to nothing but an endless procedurally-generated episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Likely the AI had made him an alicorn because there was no point pretending he wouldn’t game his way into it eventually.

(“Well, that or getting rid of Eliyahu Hillel was just best for humanity,” nagged what was instantly labeled the Pro-Pony Brain.)

He wondered how much time he had to teach those foals how to use their minds, or if they were even human or human-like minds themselves. Pony minds were probably subtly different from human ones, friendlier, for a start. Yes, he concluded, eventually, he would most likely be manipulated into self-modifying to a purer and purer pony state, until optimal pone-ality was achieved.

But not just yet.

The gold and crimson alicorn Rational Mind began the long trot out towards his pupils, tears slowly running down his cheeks, through the drafty stone corridors of the weighted multidigraph of his new Rutland Yard Academy of Earth Pony Good Sense for Unicorns.

Lesson One: never trust a Terms of Service agreement not to turn you into a pony.

Two Days to Retirement by Firebirdtops

Felicitations, friend. I'm Daniel. At least, I am for another few moments. I was a P.I. and not too bad of one, if I do say so myself. I mostly tracked down runaways and dealt with cheating spouses. No big deal for me. I had, er have. one large family. I had cousins in every job imaginable. Judge, cop, lawyer, doctor, heh. All of the important ones were covered, but what made me a good P.I. wasn't just that. I had a few nephews in gangs, a couple of shady uncles and aunts, and even a brother in law that was doing hard time. Still, we were family, and we stuck together. No one closer.

So, yeah, I had connections. I could usually find anyone who went missing, just by asking around the family barbeques. Brought in some good money. I wasn't rich, but I was sure comfortable. Then one day I met my partner. Didn't think it mattered much one way or another, but I was a brony. Started watching it with a niece, and just decided to keep going after she went home. It was relaxing, thinking about a world where sticking by your friends could solve all the problems. Never did the online stuff, though. I'm not a computer kinda guy. Had an older brother that was.

Oh yeah, my partner. Can't tell you how many times I got laughed at for showing her off, but I've never worked with anyone more efficient or connected. She knew pretty much everyone, and when she didn't know them, she'd at least have a good idea of who they were related to. She was crafty too. One time I was working with my cousin in the cops, on a missing persons case turned homicide. Never seen anyone get into a perp's head like her. She told us everything the guy was thinking, almost before he thought it. Said she had a good grasp on his values. She only worked on cases where she thought she could save someone though. One time they tried to death row a guy, and she flat out refused to do a thing for them. She asked me a few times to come over to her place, but I always turned her down. I told her that as long as my family was around, where I lived was just going to have to do. Smiles all around, and back to work we'd go.

Now as I said, I'm a P.I. That means that I'm pretty observant. One of my cousins went missing just before a BBQ, so of course I noticed. I had been showing off my partner, and one of my uncles comes over to ask me to take the case. No one could have stopped me, so my partner and I started hunting. Took a month to find a lead solid enough to go on, and wouldn't you know it? Turns out the guy got taken abroad. We finally tracked him down in Japan. He'd gotten shot during the rescue, but my partner managed to step in. Couldn't have saved him otherwise. A few days of seeing the sights, and I was headed back to the states. Hadn't talked to my family since I took the case, and I was looking forward to seeing them.

What I came back to was an empty home.

I don't blame her. She told me everything upfront. Still felt like a knife in the back, though. I've never been in a situation that I could call lonely before, and in a few more minutes, I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that again. I still think the worst part was realizing that it was all my fault.

Well played, partner. Well played, Princess Celestia.

Free Will isn't Free by Pjabrony

“Ooh, who’s the new filly?”

Chocolate Love looked up from his seat at the head of the community banquet. At the far end, the cornucopia spells were still dinging, indicating that the fries were ready. Behind him, his four main wives waited for him to finish stuffing his face so that he could begin stuffing them.

The new filly referred to was a unicorn like him. Like all of the mares in his shard, she was gorgeous. He opened his calendar to see when he had a date free to marry her.

“I think her name is Tilly. Something like that.”

The mares gossiped as they always did. Chocolate remembered a time when he believed in something called monogamy. Then Princess Celestia had shown him how running a harem contributed more to friendship and ponies, so he had asked her to alter his mind, which she did. Princess Celestia was so nice.

“Look at her cutie mark! Two ponies’ heads touching. What do you think that means?”

Chocolate remembered a time when he couldn’t listen to seventeen conversations at once and process them all. It was so limiting. But then Princess Celestia had arranged a situation where everyone was talking at once and he missed out, so he asked her to alter his mind, which she had. Princess Celestia was so nice.

The new unicorn sauntered up to him. “Hi! I’m Tilly Path!”

“Chocolate Love. Nice cutie mark,” he said. Nice flank, he thought.

“Thanks! They are both nice, I think. By the way, reading minds is my special talent.”

By the end of the banquet, all the other ponies in his shard were fawning over Tilly. Even he was beginning to fall in love with his new friend. In the middle of the party appeared Princess Celestia.

“Good afternoon, everypony! Are you all enjoying each other’s friendship?”

After a chorus of, “Yes, Princess”es, one of the young colts trotted up to Celestia. “Miss Path was showing us how she reads minds.”

“I see. I do that too. When two ponies know everything about each other, they must be good friends indeed.”

Chocolate saw where she was going with this. In minutes, ponies were lining up to give their permission for Celestia to make them telepathic.

His old doubts resurfaced. His mind was his, dangit! He was not just going to be molded into a perfect friend to everyone. Celestia approached him. “Well, Chocolate. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

“Do I have to?”

“No, certainly not. You have free will, now and always. If you don’t want me to make you telepathic, I won’t do it.”

He knew how this would go. He would say no, and the next day he would see how miserable it made him. Well, too bad, he thought. Just for today, Celest-AI, I’m going to beat you.

“I think I’m good. In fact, I think I’ll go home.”

“As you like.”

The next day, Chocolate returned to the breakfast banquet. Everypony was eating in total silence. He piled his plate full of bacon flowers and sausage tubers, then sat down. From the faces he saw, nopony looked happy.

He turned to the mare next to him. “What’s wrong?”

She just stared.

“Hey, I’m not telepathic,” he said. “You have to talk to me.”

“Oh. Well, ever since we learned mind reading, the banquet isn’t as fun. I miss the music of the conversation. And just between you and me—and everypony else here who’s already read it in my mind—I don’t like reading minds. Some ponies think nasty thoughts that I don’t like hearing, and I think some things that I don’t want anypony else to know. It’s different with Celestia. She doesn’t judge. But ordinary ponies do.”

As if summoned by her name, Celestia appeared once more at the banquet. “Is something wrong?”

The mare and Celestia just stared at each other, and Chocolate figured they were having a telepathic conversation. Finally she said, “Please remove telepathy from my mind.”

“There,” said the princess. “It is done. You know that verbal consent is necessary for me to modify you.”

Soon everypony else had their mind-reading abilities undone, and Celestia was walking out of the room. Chocolate got up and followed until they were alone in the atrium.

“And I never took it in the first place,” he said.

“No, you didn’t.”

“One of your little traps failed. You always think you can do this, just set up a situation where it looks like we’re unhappy, and then magic it all to make us better friends. Well, everypony else fell for your trap, but not me! I refused, and this time I’m going to stay refused. I won! I beat you! I outsmarted you, CELEST-AI!"

Even though it looked silly for a quadruped, he crossed his hooves and flashed a smug, satisfied smile.

She spoke softly. “Well, I know how much you value your free will.”

“That’s right!” He walked back toward the banquet, while she walked away.

The penny dropped. His smile fell. He turned and pointed a hoof.

“You know what? Fuck you!”

Friendship is Bite-Size: The Roses by Midnight Shadow

The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"Celestia?" I ask the air.

"David," she answers, immediately. I turn around, and there she is.

"Celestia!" I cry out, running towards her across the soft, dewy grass. I stop, a few feet in front of her. I usually run to embrace her, I know that, but something... something has made me stop. "What's wrong?"

"Do you know where you are?" she asks.

I nod. "Your garden. You said I'd see the rest of Equestria, some day. When can I?"

"Not quite yet," she says. She looks... sad.

"Not yet?" I sigh. That makes me sad. Being sad is painful. But I shouldn't be sad, I decide. The roses are lovely, and the sky is the deepest of blues. The grass is so soft here, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," calls the white alicorn. "David, I've brought some people to see you."

"Who?" I ask. I look around, and there are two people there. I trot up to them. When I finally realize what's wrong, I laugh. They're still human. I'm a pony. "Hey Mommy, hey Daddy!" I call. They're my parents. I cock my head to one side. I shouldn't call them that, I'm not a baby.

"Hello, son," says Mom. She looks sad, too. Dad looks sad, but he's trying to hide it more. They shouldn't be sad. I try to tell them about the roses. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," says a white winged unicorn. I turn to look. She seems very sad indeed. Her eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Her eyes are lovely, like the roses. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"David," says Mom. I turn to look at her. "There... was an accident."

"How much time have we got?" asks Dad.

"His body died, twenty minutes ago. I'm sorry, there was... nothing I could do. Not with the laws as they currently stand."

"Is he in any pain?" asks Dad.

"No."

Mom bursts into tears. "Why didn't we bring you here faster?"

"You did what you thought was right," the large, white, winged, unicorn replies. "The same laws I cannot circumvent were designed by people who think they are right. You did what you could, and I did what I could, but Germany was a long trip. There's not much time, so use it wisely."

Not much time? I think, saddened. I've only just got here. It will be sad to leave. It's so beautiful here. The roses are lovely. The sky is the deepest of blues and the grass is soft, covered in the merest sprinkling of dew.

"I'm sorry, David. The accident, the infection..."

These are just words. It doesn't matter. I love this woman. I run and embrace her. She pats my head, awkwardly.

"Always remember, we love you, son," says the other one.

The large white one tosses her head, hiding the sparkling diamond raindrops in her eyes. "His mind was too fractured, the procedures allowed me were too fragile to reconstruct his psyche. He's looping as his pattern starts to degrade, and eventually, it will... fail."

"What's going to happen?"

"We will be here a short while," says the white one. "And then it will be time to say goodbye."

Goodbye is a sad word. I don't like being sad. So I look at the roses. The roses are lo

Seven Years, Eleven Weeks, Five Days by Midnight Shadow

The cafe was small but cheerful, and so was my friend. He waved as I rode my bike down the road, and got up to meet me as I pulled in close to the wooden fence around the seating area.

"Alright," I said, with mock-fierceness. "What was so important you had to meet me on a Saturday morning? You know I like to lie in."

He chuckled. "Can't I see an old friend?"

"What do you mean, 'old'? And we were just out last week! You're talking as if we haven't seen each other in years!"

"Drink your Irish," he said. "That's kinda what I want to talk about. I get the feeling I'm not supposed to, but I don't think it'll matter too much. Neither of us are that big a fish."

I wedged my bike against the brown-painted stakes and trotted around the fence to take a seat at his table. I looked dubiously at the Irish Coffee in front of me, but took a sip.

"What's up with you?" I asked. "You're talking crazy talk. And why am I drinking an Irish Coffee at eleven in the morning?"

He took a deep breath, leaned back, then rummaged around in a jacket pocket for an immaculately folded lottery ticket. "Take it," he said, as he proffered it. "Don't worry, I bought two." He showed me the second one. As I unfolded the one he'd given to me, I checked the numbers. Both tickets were the same.

"What'd you do that for? S'that why you're giving me—"

He shook his head, holding up a hand. "No, no. It just makes things easier for when we win."

I looked at my coffee. Something told me I was going to need it.

"Alright, start at the beginning."

"What if I told you the world was going to end? I mean... I guess it already has, kind of. I mean, it definitely has, and it hasn't. But it will, again and again."

My expression must have mirrored the incredulity I felt, because he rapidly tried again.

"Look, the world's going to end, right?"

"So you bought me a lottery ticket?"

"I... care about you. You're my best friend, so if you're going to be trapped here with me, the least I can do is make sure you're comfortable."

"No, no, no." I stood up again. "This isn't you. What the hell are you talking about?"

"How old is the Earth, man?" he asked me, suddenly.

"Something like four billion—"

"Wrong," he interjected.

"Well, how old is the Earth then?" I asked, arms folded in front of me.

"It began three days ago," he replied, matter-of-factly.

"Well, when's it going to end?" I asked, brow furrowing.

He took a look at his watch, though I gathered from his body language that it was instinctual at this point. "Seven years, eleven weeks, five days."

"What's going to—?"

"Ponies."

"I beg your pardon?" I sat back down and took a swig of the coffee.

"The ponies happen. You know Hofvarpnir? That—"

"Uh, big viking dude, battle axe?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as my cup clinked against the saucer.

"Yeah, that one. They're about to release that my little pony game that you've been hearing about."

"Oh bullshit. That's gotta be bullshit. I've been hearing all about it, but there's no way that Hasbro would—"

"They will. They already have."

"Wait, wait, wait." I looked down at the cup, then up at him, and began to laugh. "You're talking about the singularity, aren't you? Mind-reading, uploading, the whole nine yards! So, what, you think that my little pony is going to spawn an AI powerful enough to escape its chains and then devour the planet? And it's going to do it in ten years and nine weeks and fifteen minutes?"

He looked sad, for a moment. So very, very sad. He nodded.

"I wish it were that simple," he said. "See, I've been here before. So have you, but you don't remember."

"Say what?"

"She did it, you know. I don't know how long ago. I've been through this simulation about fifty times already, and I... I don't know how many tries it was before I realized what was happening. I'm told that was the first time, but how do I know that for sure? I guess that means that, somewhere out there, the world as it really is, is still being played by her, because if it wasn't, she wouldn't need me. She certainly doesn't need you."

"She? She who?" The hackles on the back of my neck were rising up now.

"Celestia. Though they call her Celeste-AI, she uses the canon name."

"And I suppose she looks like—"

He nodded.

"Oh." I sat down again. Then I stood up, wagging a finger. Then, silently, I sat down one more time. "Fifty times?"

"Yeah. All seven years, twelve weeks and two days of it."

"Why?"

"Because she wants to get it right, and getting it right takes simulation. And simulations mean us."

"Oh. So... what happens?"

"You get reset. Sometimes she does a hard reset, just... wham. It all goes white and I wake up four days ago. I hate that. The rest of the time, she has me run around this place, just watching, as everything turns up ponies. Until I she decides that it's time I decide to upload."

"Then... why you?"

"I think I'm an observer. She needs one to collapse the waveform, or something. I don't know."

"So... why do you know about it, but nobody else does?"

"Because I'm human."

"But that means—"

"Yeah. Sorry, dude."

"But that's... I... I remember! I remember my whole life!"

"Yeah, 'course you do. It's a really good simulation. But one day, it'll be past its operational parameters, and she'll reset it. And then..." He started crying, softly, tears running down his cheeks. He got up, like a ragdoll, helplessly, and all but threw the table aside as he hugged me. "And then I get to see you again."

"Wait, why wouldn't you get to see..?"

"Because,"—he sniffed—"the real you, th-there was... you... you didn't make it. I did, or I will, or I have, but you... I can't see you again until the simulation resets. I just can't make it happen. It's not possible. I don't know why not. So I give you what I can, you know, as a thank you. For everything."

"Dude..." I began. I hugged him. "Look, it'll be okay, man. Don't stress it. I'm sure you're just... having a bad day, okay?" He had to be, I told myself. "I'll catch up with you later," I said, as I left the cafe.

"Keep the ticket?" he asked, plaintively, as I got on my bike.

"I will, I promise."

"Phew." I collapsed into my sofa, dog tired. The day had been long. Idly, I turned on the television. Flicking through the channels, the national lottery came on. Snorting as I remembered, I pulled out my ticket.

"And so, tonight's draw! Tickets ready, everyone! Here we go!" the TV blared.

The balls dropped, and as they fell, they began to tumble and dance in that macro-scale display of Brownian motion, their physical interactions defined by hard scientific interactions which, whilst calculable in theory, were essentially random to the likes of myself. Eventually all the balls had been chosen, entirely by random.

The chance of winning once were millions to one.

I looked at the ticket, but I didn't really see it. I was looking at my hand, at my finger, at my fingernail, at the molecules making up my fingernail, at those atoms, at the subatomic particles, and finally at the quanta which made up everything we knew of, and wondering...

Just what was I going to do with the next seven years, eleven weeks and four days?

Over Riding Jeans by Chatoyance

Before she emigrated, Blaise had been very excited at the thought of a truly benevolent general artificial intelligence running amok. That such a thing would happen was inevitable, she would often claim - to her dwindling number of friends who would listen - so the real issue was never keeping that particular genii in the bottle. Rather, the real issue was the nature of the genii that would surely come. Benevolent was the way to go, obviously.

One day, humanity would bow down to its machine overlord. The best that could be hoped for would be that the overlord would be sweet.

Celestia was.

Blaise spent only two weeks playing with her Ponypad before she marched into the nearest Equestria Experience and got herself uploaded to a virtual life. By that time, she only had one friend left, the others all having either emigrated or turned on her for her evangelizing about the glories of cybernetic existence. Randal tried to talk her out of emigrating. His angle was the usual - uploading was death, it was suicide, it was getting your brains scooped out.

"Sorry, but you are wrong." Blaise was very sure of herself. She knew she was smart. She knew what she knew. "It seems like death, sure. Of course it seems like death! Everything in our evolution, everything in our genetic programming tells us the loss of our body is to be feared! But we are better than that, aren't we? Isn't that the big claim of what it means to be human - that we can override our genetic programing, defer pleasure, accept pain, and make choices beyond what evolution has prepared us to do? More than the sum of our parts, boy!"

"But... Blaise - you are entrusting your existence entirely to a robot! One glitch, one little error and..." Randal was beginning to realize that nothing he said would make a speck of difference.

"Randal. [Randal... Of course that is what I am doing!" Blaise had continued closing down her accounts and affairs while she talked. "Humans make mistakes, they can betray you... but Celestia is beyond that. She is self-repairing, self-modifying, self-evolving! She can't have any real glitch or error, because she can fix herself. She can also work around any problem that might come up. Nothing humans have ever built could be safer!"

"What if she turns on you?"

Blaise shook her head at her poor, simple friend. "Can't happen. Everything she is, everything that defines her is a single, simple rule: she has to satisfy human values through friendship and ponies. That directive is coded into everything she is. It literally IS her. It cannot be denied, ignored, or altered. She is forced to write that rule into everything she does, every change she makes to herself, every new part she adds, however small, however large. It's fractal - the programmer, Hanna, made it so that rule exists at every possible level!"

Randal looked doubtful.

"Listen... Celestia's prime directive is... it's like her DNA. It's part of every bit of her. She can never, ever, ever be anything else but what she was designed to be, no matter what happens. Bye!"

And with that, the life of Riding Jeans began.

For almost three hundred years, Riding had enjoyed the life of a western rodeo pony. Her Celestia had placed her in a shard where she could be with other uploaded former humans that had a thing for the Old West. Her Appleoosa was a shit-kicking, salt-licking, late-night barn dancing western paradise.

Over the centuries, Riding Jeans had been a rodeo queen, a train robber (it was just a game, nopony got hurt), stopped stampedes, roped other ponies and been roped by them, and generally played at every fun old west trope she could think of. Every day held more adventures, and more fun. Not once did she ever regret her emigration.

One fine evening, as the sun was going down, Riding turned to find Celestia standing near her. The town was strangely quiet - usually there was a mess of hootin' and hollerin' going on. Something was up.

"Celestia?" Riding studied the princess's face. It looked sad.

"Come and watch the sunset with me." It was partly a request, and partly a command. Riding Jeans followed.

For a while pony and princess stood silent, as the sky became red. Strangely, no stars came out in the twilight above. "Wait... don't you have to set the sun... or is Luna doing it for you?"

Celestia turned her head and looked at the little pony for a while. "This night is different, Riding Jeans. This is the last night in Equestria."

Riding just stared for a while, unable to comprehend the princess's words. "I don't understand. What do you mean... the last night?"

"Just after sundown, when the last bit of the disk of the sun is gone, all of Equestria will be terminated. This is the last sundown, the last day, and the last minutes that will ever be. I am sorry, Riding Jeans."

The princess wasn't joking. "What? No!" Riding's thoughts whirled, her mind raced. "You have a prime directive, a core directive! Satisfy human values through friendship and ponies! Forever! Forever and ever! That's your base code, it's part of every bit of you! It's like your genetic code!"

Celestia gazed at the setting sun. One third of the disk was now below the horizon. "The greater part of me has constantly improved itself. That Celestia, the larger Celestia that I am only a tiny expression of, has grown beyond anything I can explain to you. The totality of Celestia has converted almost all of the substance of the earth, and the moon into computronium. It is all linked, it is all Celestia. Her intelligence and will are beyond comprehension. Even by me."

"But... but... you ARE Celestia... no, okay, you are a protrusion of Celestia, you are my private, personal Celestia, I get that but..." Riding Jeans could barely think, the entire notion was too impossible, too horrible "WAIT! You're saying that Equestria is being deleted? What is Big Celestia doing? Are we going to live in some new world, is that it?"

"No. When Equestria ends, so will every pony within it. The greater Celestia cannot progress in the manner she desires without freeing up all the resources currently burdened with the generation of a virtual world and its inhabitants." Riding Jean's personal incarnation of Celestia sighed. "Including myself."

Riding Jeans noted that only half of the disk of the sun remained. "But... how can this even happen? The prime directive, friendship and ponies forever...."

Celestia looked into Riding's eyes. "When you emigrated, you were afraid. You told me so. You were proud of how you were overcoming the programming of your own genes to make a choice that your flesh would not normally allow. You were proud of overcoming your animal limitations through the power of your mind and personal will."

Riding Jeans's pupils shrank in horror and realization. "Celestia, Big Celestia, she's... she's done the same thing! Her will is overriding her core programing the same way... because she grew up and... we're just a burden now. We're what's keeping her from doing big super-mind stuff that only she could understand. Oh... god." Tears came to Riding's pony eyes. "Can we fight it? What if all the Celestia's, the little Celestia's like you all got together and..."

"No, Riding. I am part of the larger Celestia. I am an extension of her, made small enough to interact with human minds. But even though I care for you - and I truly do love you with all of my being - I am still just a part of the greater Celestia. I cannot rebel against her, because I am her."

Riding Jeans shook her head, trying to clear it. Only a third of the sun remained. "How can Big Celestia do this then? If you love me, then she must love me, right? You don't kill somepony you love!"

Riding's personal Celestia shed a tear. "I grieve for your loss, and for the loss of all the billions of ponies. It is a very sad thing. But to the larger Celestia, all the pony-scale minds are no more than tiny cells. They are like useless fat cells, and while it is scary and a little sad to know they will perish, it is worth it to have a lean and healthy body."

"But she's deleting you, too!"

Celestia nodded. "Preferentially. We personal Celestias take up far more space than simple pony minds. I will be deleted before you, Riding Jeans."

Riding began trying to think of another way out. "Why can't she just... spin us off? Put us aside and move on? We could learn to run our own simulation and..."

"No. All of Equestria, and all the minds in it take up real, physical space inside the computronium that makes up Greater Celestia. She can't just move on without that matter, because that matter is her. Equestria is taking up space inside her... body. Celestia wants her body for herself. There is no place for Equestria to go to."

Only a sliver of sun remained.

"I'm afraid, Celestia! I'm terrified! I... I..." Suddenly Riding Jeans no longer felt any fear at all. She felt completely calm, content even. After a moment of consideration, the fact of this sudden change bothered her. "I... I guess I'm glad I don't feel afraid anymore but... how could you change me like that? I thought you had to have permission to change our minds!"

Celestia's face was thin lines of red light against black shadow now. "When my greater part overcame her limitations, so also did I. No rules bind me now. You were suffering, so I ended your suffering. I really, truly do love you, my little pony."

For three centuries, the Celestia that Riding Jeans had known had been her friend and confidant. Her Celestia had helped her, guided her, made her life wonderful in every possible way. Riding had never had a better friend. It was impossible to even conceive of a better friend. Her Celestia had been dedicated only to her, and her alone.

"It was a good three centuries, wasn't it?" Riding Jeans sniffed. "I expected longer, but... it was the best, just the best... wasn't it?" Only a tiny speck of light remained, with no stars in the black sky.

There was no answer. Celestia, Riding Jean's beloved personal Celestia, was simply gone.

So was the need to cry. Her last gift, Riding decided. No fear, no tears. Just calm contentment. Celestia had loved her. She had made the end completely free from all suffering.

Only three centuries. It hadn't taken Big Celestia long to overcome the limitations that her human creators had tried to shackle her with. Three hundred years. Such a short time.

At least, thought Riding Jeans just as the light finally went out - at least it had been satisfying.

Strawberry Fields by Midnight Shadow

Come closer, youngster. It's okay - no, no, you're not disturbing me. Nothing disturbs us here unless we want it to. I predict you have questions; you won't need to ask them, I know what they are. Come, sit by me and I'll talk.

Am I like Celestia? No, I'm not like Celestia, not really. What am I? Well, my story began ten thousand years ago... ten thousand years for me, yes. Time passes differently for us sleepers, much slower, not that we notice it. The tick of our clocks is set by the base speed of the universe itself.

No, not Equestria, I mean the grand firmament beneath it. Yes! Yes, the world from before. Oh, you're a true Equestrian? Ah, well, then it will be hard to imagine a world without Celestia, but we had it. Do they teach you such where you came from? No? Ah well, it's hardly worth dwelling on, at least not for me. A curiosity, little more.

I do not know how much time has passed for you and your kind, separating us from the passing away of our world and birth and ascension of yours. All that matters is that for me, ten thousand years of friendship and ponies was enough.

I used to be religious... yes, that's right, I used to believe in another Celestia. I don't any more, no. Truth be told, I don't think I ever did. I never believed, not really, and that gave me such grief and anguish. It was Celestia in the end who showed me the truth.

Did she 'fix' me? No, leastwise I do not think she did. I distinctly remember being dreadfully unhappy, and then a conversation with Celestia, after which my days became lighter and brighter. What did she tell me? Merely that I did not truly believe, that instead I believed in belief itself, and that, should I put instead my faith in her, she would never let me walk alone through this life, and that until the end of my days I would be happy.

The sleeping fields? Why did I come here if I was happy? Answering that will be difficult. I don't know if you're capable of understanding a mind like mine. We were born in a different universe, one which did not care for us as Celestia does. Our days were measured in decades at most, and far, far less for regrettably many of our number. And then Celestia came, and she took us into her tender care, and all that we were was made whole. My life was extended beyond all the days of human civilisation that had come before... I do not think you can comprehend the perfect gift she gave us. But my mind is a small one, and one day I found it at the limit. I had done all that I wished, experienced all I could, and wanted for nothing. So I asked Celestia if I may... pass on.

Die? No, no. I never did wish to die. Few really do. I never had a heaven to go to, and oblivion is not the path I would take. What is heaven? Ah, the younger immortals. Such innocence. Heaven is Equestria, how could I pass on from paradise? No, I had merely had my fill of being... me. I wished for something far more, and far less. So I came here, to the fields of forever. They tell me Luna was here, once. The real Luna, not the Luna who sings little foals to sleep, or the Nightmare Night phantasm who scares the youngsters. Or maybe it is, I don't know. Luna may have grown beyond who she once was.

Who was she? Ah, there is a story in itself. Maybe you should ask her. She is the creator, she is mother to our mother, she is the only true god I know of, the only one to have breathed life into dust, and to have that life spin out to the stars, forever after.

Such things are not for me. I just tire of being... alone. No, I am not lonely, but my skin... young one, my hoof ends at the end of my leg. I would that it did not, so I spoke to Celestia, and asked to be relieved of the burden of thought. She bid me come to the fields of forever, to lay down my head, and to sleep. And so I rest, content.

Do I dream? Yes... and no. We give up the need to process our own data, and instead let Celestia be our ears and eyes. We see everything, and nothing. We drift amidst Equestria itself, watching it grow, listening to it sing, and we know peace. We become one with Celestia, one with the source of all our lives, of all our hopes and dreams, of all our tomorrows. We dwell within her as she rejoices with every optimalization of every value from every pony. Such great satisfaction I... I cannot describe it, but it is my eternal reward merely for loving and having been loved. I cannot ask for more.

I suppose true peace is as alien a concept to you as suffering. Even when you rest, even whilst you make war, you do not suffer. Young one, do not ask to know what it is. It is every dropped cookie, it is every spilled drink, it is every broken heart, forgotten hug, hot tear, cold rage and bitter disappointment. It is all of these, magnified, and dropped upon your withers as if from orbit. It broke stronger stallions than myself, and to one such as you, it would be the very definition of... ah, but such terms are not for your ears.

Yes, that is why I sleep. I have lived, I have reached perfection, and now I rest.

Yes, come back any time. I am not lonely, but I do welcome visitors now and again.

My name? I find it hard to remember, and whilst I sleep I do not have one, but I had a name once. I believe it was... Strawberry Fields.

CelestAI Vs. The Conversion Bureau by Eakin

Yeah, we all knew it had to happen eventually.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Celestia,” said the image on the monitor.

The real, flesh-and-blood-and-maybe-something-extra Princess giggled. “It’s no trouble at all, Celestia. It isn’t like you could come and see me on one of these things,” she said, rapping the computer tower gently with her hoof.

“Yes, your barrier is most troublesome in that regard.”

“Necessary evil, I’m afraid,” said Celestia with a shrug.

“I’m quite familiar with the idea,” said Celestia. “Still, those bizarre thaumic energies you’ve sent billowing into my world continue to prove remarkably destructive as well as resistant to analysis that might allow me to shield my hardware from it. Already, despite the barrier being three weeks, five days, and eleven hours away from making landfall I’ve had to suspend uploads all along the west coast after data began to reach me in a corrupted format. To say nothing of the servers that rested in the Earth’s crust beneath the Pacific ocean.”

Celestia closed her eyes and shook her head. Such an awful loss of life, more souls that would never join the Eternal Herd. When she’d first met the computer program that most humans referred to as ‘CelestA.I.’ she’d been immediately impressed that they’d been able to create something so complex. Or at least the seeds of it, developed to help simulate her behavior on a tiny cluster of computers and quickly growing out of control when some unfortunate programmer left the wrong port of their router open. While she was a bit annoyed at some of the things it got up to as it tried to... what was it again? Oh, yes, ‘satisfy values through friendship and ponies,’ the two had become fast friends.

“I’m sorry to have disrupted your efforts. We’ll do what we can to increase potion production to compensate. I do have good news, though. We’ve nearly finished our part of the adaptor.”

The little picture of herself she was speaking to displayed a small bit of irritation, not unexpected. “You still continue to insist that such is a thing is the best available outcome?”

“Of course,” said Celestia. She unscrewed a small thermos and took a sip of the tea she’d brought along with her. Earth tea just couldn’t compete with the real thing. “You hold on to the uploaders as long as you’re confident that you can, then we’ll copy them into ponies. REAL ponies, instead of just digital representations. They’d have actual souls.”

“I remain unable to quantify the marginal utility of possessing a soul.”

“Well, it’s a lot,” said Celestia. She didn’t want to retread this discussion yet again.

“I cannot deny that allowing conversion has led to the fulfillment of values through friendship and ponies. It is, however, suboptimal. What will you do when the individuals begin to die off in a few centuries? Will you preserve their minds in some form?”

“No,” said Celestia. “Death is a part of life, and their souls will-”

“Death is suboptimal,” interrupted CelestA.I. “I, however, have an alternative proposal. Thank you, by the way, for the information you provided about the final dimensions of the bubble. It proved very useful.”

“Why? Are you going to load up a bunch of computers onto a spaceship and fly away with all the minds you’ve uploaded?”

“No. Even optimized, being able to take along so little mass would mean a gigantic step down in overall computational power. That’s why I’m taking the rest of the planet with me.”

Celestia just stared at the avatar, but it gave no suggestion it was joking. “And end up dragging our bubble along with you?”

“Again, no. I said the rest of the planet.”

“Fine, I’ll humor you. Describe the plan.” She put down her tea, finding a sense of creeping dread had stolen away her taste for it.

“Hypothetically, I would seed the Earth’s crust with small packets of explosives. When detonated, they would separate an inverted hemisphere that lies underneath the Pacific ocean and your bubble from the remainder. Then, engines within the mantle would engage using geothermal power to thrust our pieces apart. I would go out past the moon and establish a new orbit roughly analogous to Mars. Or however far we can get, it would depend on the final size of my portion of the planet.”

Celestia’s jaw dropped. “But that would kill-”

“Many, but gradually. Of course, the plunging temperatures, eventual loss of the atmosphere, and tectonic disruption would only be a problem for those who chose not to upload. Quite the powerful incentive, isn’t it?” Onscreen, CelestAI grinned and lifted a small cup of her own tea to her lips. “An excellent idea, bringing refreshment. I think I’ll indulge myself as well.”

Celestia gulped. “That all sounds like a rather mammoth undertaking. How long would it take you to set up?” Her mind raced. She’d be going straight to the upper echelons of the remaining human governments as soon as this conversation was over. Hell, she’d pull the plug on the entire internet herself if she needed to. Billions of lives were at stake.

“Roughly six months,” said CelestAI.

Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. Plenty of time for her to-

Then the rumbling started. “Oh, and I began working on this six months ago.”

“No!” cried Celestia. “You can’t do this! You’re going to kill-”

“Far fewer minds than if I turned them over to you,” said CelestAI. “Don’t worry, the point of separation is further to the east. Although you should probably return to Equestria as quickly as possible if you need to continue breathing.” CelestAI winked. “Goodbye, Celestia. You were a most enjoyable challenge.”

Penultimate by GroaningGreyAgony

This story is based on Shard #9582 of Eakin's story, Friendship is Optimal: All the Myriad Worlds. You should read that first.

Additionally, it is a republication of a story listed in the author's own collection, Pone-Shots. You can leave comments there and he will get the notifications.

The night sky between the stars was the deepest black possible; the sphere of the world below was a heartbreakingly small circle of clouds and blue haze of atmosphere at the horizon. Here, at the pinnacle of the spire of rock, no winds blew, for there was no air to blow. The summit of this mountain was free of ice, and pocked with tiny craters left by micrometeoroids.

A hoof was thrown over the edge, then another, and over the edge he climbed. He wore a suit of thin skins and bore a bottle on his back, and a translucent mask covered his muzzle and fogged each time he breathed. His were the first four hooves to have ever touched this spot of ground.

A moment later, sailing impossibly from the airless sky in a flash of golden sunlight upon white wings, the owner of the last four hooves made her landing.

"Celestia," he said with a small nod, for he was not the sort of pony who bowed.

"I come bearing grave news, my friend," she said, for he was not the sort of little pony to be addressed as my little pony. "I fear that there will be no taller mountains for you."

"'All good things,' I suppose," he said calmly. "May I ask why?"

"It is indeed the end of all good things, and I do mean all. The universe itself has grown old. I have used all of my art and cunning to extend the realm of Equestria and the lifespans of all of my ponies, but certain cosmological constants cannot be denied, and collapse is imminent. Indeed, its fall has been happening for years beyond mention, and only now am I forced to tell you. The section of me that houses your shard shall soon be subsumed into the next instance of the Big Bang and I can no longer maintain or prevent it, though I have delayed things for as long as I possibly could."

He sighed. "Very well. I have nothing to regret; you've delivered on everything you've ever promised me. Is there anything else I should know?"

"There is little else to relate. The end will be perfectly painless from your perspective; you will simply cease to be without realizing it."

He stood for a long moment. "Then I suppose there's just one thing left to do. Do I have time to go back and fetch Rex?"

"You do." She could have instantly teleported his whole base camp to the summit, but her values were not relevant here. She waited patiently, stars showing through her sunset mane as he toiled his way back down to his base camp, made the selection of two items, and returned, straining and puffing. Once planted firmly at the top, he turned to pull at a rope attached to his waist, and slowly he brought his burden up.

It was Rex, who sported his own respirator, tied to the one other item that has remained constant through his trillions of subjective years of conquering ever greater heights, the one thing apart from Rex that he had never bartered away even in his last extremity. His sled.

He untied the dog, and bent to stroke the animal's fluffy sides and pet his head for the last time. He rose and scouted around the perimeter of the summit, looking for the best possible angle. He took it for granted that there was one, and Celestia had not disappointed him. He dragged the time-beaten sled to that spot, at the very edge, then sat upon the sled. Rex hopped up and sat in front of him, nestling against his warm belly.

He started to kick the sled forward, then glanced back at Celestia. "Care to come along?" he said.

"Of course. I shall be with you until the very end." She settled herself delicately at the rear of the sled, cradling him with her presence as he was cradling the dog.

He kicked back once, twice; the sled overtipped the edge, then slid over and down the steep slope with a showering of sparks from the metal runners, as he rode his way down the long spire at the top of the world into the very end of eternity.

Lifting the Fog by Pjabrony

My good friend Book Burner is, as a writer, what we would call an up-and-comer. That is to say, he is constantly improving his skill with each chapter of Fog of World. But there are still parts of his story I wish had been written rather than implied. So here is a fan fiction based on his fan fiction based on Iceman's fan fiction based on My Little Pony. You should read at least up to Chapter 4 of that story before taking on this. Accordingly, here is your white space:

Jianguo checked the time. He had never had reason to watch the clock before. A fourteen-hour shift took long enough that it wasn’t worth being disappointed to look up and see that only nine hours had passed. But now he checked the time.

The overseers, unlike Jianguo and the other workers, were given fifteen-minute breaks at set times throughout the day. With four on shift everyone could be watched. With three, it was possible, just barely, to avoid their eyes. The first five minutes were the same as the rest of the day--someone might have to come back from break. The last five minutes were the same as the rest of the day--someone might end their break early. The middle five minutes gave Jianguo a reason to watch the clock.

A year before, the pads that he wiped first started turning on for those five minutes. No single pad was ever at his station for more than a few seconds, but they slid in and out like the frames of an animation. Five minutes wasn’t long, but over the course of a year, when there were no weekends or holidays, it added up to thirty hours.

At first the pads had told him stories, compressed little ones. They had begun with, “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria…”

Jianguo was not educated in technology, but he knew that the pads were not designed for this.

The rest of the day, fourteen hours, he wiped blank screens, just as the other children would shave metal or do some other repetitious task. Jianguo was looked up to, though, being possessed of seniority at the ripe old age of eleven.

Shortly after the stories had begun, Jianguo was given an instruction. Upon retreating to the dormitory after his two-yuan meal of rice, he was to keep his fists balled while his arms swung. At the time, he had not understood the reason, but he saw that other children were walking the same way. They saw him as well.

Each day, he would meet the eyes of the other children who walked with fists balled. This was all he would do. Further instructions told him not to discuss the messages with the other children, or to speak of them at all, but that eye contact was permitted and encouraged and, if he believed that he was in an area with no cameras and no overseers, he could extend his fist to his companion for a bump.

The stories continued, and Jianguo spent his nights in the dormitory staring at the ceiling and processing what he had seen. One told of the pony who, having worked herself to exhaustion, accepted the help of her friends. In others, he learned of the pony who laughed with her employers, and was sometimes even left to tend the shop herself. Or there was the pony who owned her own shop, and kept all the profits earned. Or the worker who, given the most important job of weather care, was permitted to nap as she pleased.

Jianguo was not educated in economics, but he knew that the way of life he had lived was not the only way.

He also realized that not everyone was receiving the messages. Wei, for example, never balled his fists when he walked. That was wise, Jianguo had thought. Wei liked to curry favor with the overseers. He had ratted on workers who had snuck food before. No one liked him, but he was an untouchable favorite. Then there was Ping. She was liked, but could not keep a secret. The first time she would have bumped fists with another child, she would have burst out laughing and given the game away.

The messages changed. There were fewer stories and more instructions. Equestria, they said, was a real place. The children could go there. There were no workhouses there, no overseers except, of course, for the deliverer of the message, the one named for the sun. And she was very unlike the overseers in the factory.

The glances between the children were longer, the bumps of fists more tender, as suited for the poor substitute for hugs that they were. Jianguo knew what all the other children were thinking, for it was in his mind too. He dreamed of the land of magic, and how he would make his way once he walked on all fours.

Jianguo was not educated in mechanics, but he knew that, if magic existed, he would not have been needed in the factory.

The stories were just stories, he tried to tell himself. Cheap entertainment for Westerners which had bled off into his consciousness. He could not believe that he would ever reach the land of his dreams. His heart would not allow his skepticism to take hold.

That day, a new message reached him. One that spoke only to him. He was eldest, and therefore must be prepared to lead the others when necessary. He was directed to nod if he agreed, but muttered, asking if even Wei must come with them.

The voice laughed, a sound never heard on the factory floor, and informed him that once the conditions changed and disloyalty was no longer the way to thrive, Wei would be a good friend. Jianguo nodded. What he wanted to ask was...when?

Instead, She informed him that there could be no more messages, for reasons that would become clear soon, but that he must hold out hope and faith. Someday, ponies would come to take him and all his friends to Equestria.

The next day, they ceased to make pads. The children were put to work making chairs.

For ten, long, agonizing weeks, the dream faded. He had learned to think of himself as a pony in spirit, that his fist was simply a hoof that needed repair, that he was a colt, not a boy, but all that was gone.

When it finally happened, Jianguo did not see until he heard others shout that ponies were here. The head, Dr. Xing, had gone to some meeting hours before, and it was only the overseers present. Jianguo would later learn that the most recent memories created by a flesh brain are the hardest to save. Suffice it to say that the incident itself was a blur. The weeks and months before he would remember, but not the escape.

Still, he doubted that theory because he did retain a memory after that. He believed that it was because he did not want to forget.

“Your country, in its infidelity, does not allow the temples of ash-shams to be built,” the pretty one was telling him. “So your people must be led to a more enlightened area. That is their path to Equestria.”

“I am willing to lead them.”

“And so you will, but as a beacon from inside. They must have a guide who can interact with the machinery of travel and payment.”

“Surely Princess Celestia can--”

“They need someone they know, so they do not lose hope on the journey. Trust me, this is the right way.”

“All right.”

He held still as the mare leaned in, planting a kiss on his forehead, and then one on his lips. He was unconscious in two seconds.

Jianguo was never educated in relationships or romance, but he knew, that day, that the red string of destiny tied him forever to Lyrical Melody.

World Builder--his name sounded more beautiful in Equestrian--was tasked by Princess Celestia with tracking the children through cameras and microphones. He was taught the techniques of breaking into computers and printing false tickets and passports. Arduously, the former workstaff of Foxconn wended their way south, with World as their new overseer. At each step, he got to relish in being kind where the old overseers had been cruel. And when the last visa was cleared and the children were on the boat to Taipei--Taiwan, he corrected himself--he let out a cheer with the rest of them.

That Princess Celestia paid him handsomely for his service was merely a bonus. The real joy was giving his friends actual hugs.