Poniocracy

by sunnypack

First published 16th of October, 2014

Cryogenics was a pretty cool concept until we forgot about it and buried it. So sorry you're going to be woken up ten thousand years in the future... Give or take a few thousand.

When David volunteered to be part of a cryogenic experiment he thought he'd be at the forefront of human technology, spearheading research and development.

Unfortunately politics doesn't work that way.

Lucky for him, the science was solid... For ten thousand years.

AN: Don't take this seriously. Seriously don't. I don't.

Special thanks to my editor: Thornwing!

A-d-d-ditional Tags: Science Fiction, Parody, Waking Up In the Future, Equestria used to be Earth, Parity Bits, Things That Could Be Considered Irrelevant To The Premise And Is Only Used As Humour, Twi-bright, Kangaroos, Towels and Brawndo.

Rated teen for inappropriate scenarios. Well, lots of inappropriate scenarios. Now with 20% more Dark!

List of Side Stories:

The Story of the Equinos and Celestia
Twilight's Report
A Butterfly Bash
The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Unpublished Stories now available here.

I'll also keep the former list I made here:

The Story of the Gorlians and Equestria
Human Manual I
Equine Manual I
Why Emergencies Should Be Handled Calmly
Why Emergencies Should Be Handled Calmly II
Blue Pill
David's Nightmares
Robot Manticore Attack
The First Law
Discordant
A Dated Journal Entry
McQuestria
McQuestria II
To Touch The Stars

1 - Is It Me Or Is It Cold In Here?

When the human race was at the pinnacle of its own existence, it decided that the Internet was a pretty good idea. Mind you, the Gorlians several hundred light years away would shake their bulbous, tentacled skulls in disagreement, but that didn’t stop humanity from developing what they thought was a good idea.

The poor sods.

While most of the world thought that the Australians were too busy drinking beers near a barbeque and riding kangaroos, the Australians came up with a brilliant idea:

Why not preserve the best of humanity in cryogenics?

Imagine if Albert Einstein could help us now? Quite possibly, in the near future, we’d have presumably cured cancer, old-age, HIV, poverty, hunger, achieved world peace and a whole myriad of things. Perhaps if we sealed up the brilliant minds and popped into the future, we’d be able to laud the achievements of humanity and hopefully come to terms with why we ever decided burning copious amounts of oil and gas was a good idea.

Well, burning was fun. So there was that. Don’t ever come between a human and their fire. Ask the cavemen. They were of the opinion that fires were something to be hoarded. Fires were good. The bigger the better. The more the merrier… until forest fires became a thing and the caveman responsible was beaten to death by his more level-headed compatriots.

The fact that only minutes later they went off to systematically destroy the environment and all neanderthals everywhere, was not hypocritical.

Because let’s face it, an axe is never wrong.

Going back to the Australians, they were a clever lot, if only a tad laid back.

“—and the doctor was never heard of again!” the masked doctor laughed, slurping down a cold one.

David laughed along with the doctor. “A ha ha,” he chuckled nervously.

The doctor took off his sturdy wire-framed glasses and wiped away some mirthful tears. “Anyway, that’s how I lost my medical license.”

David whipped his head back. “What was that?!” he squeaked, bolting upright in his chair.

The medicinal man adjusted the laminated card on his scrubs. “Sorry, mate, did you say something? I was prepping the cryo-chamber.”

David slowly sank back down in his seat. He was probably joking. The lab-coated individual shrugged and went back to task, tapping away at a keyboard and monitoring monitors—you know, science-medicine stuff.

“It’s so rare to get such a good test subject. Average, average, average, that’s what we want, mate. Gotta tell the higher ups that we’re getting work done down here, earn my pay check and all that,” the doctor chattered, flicking a few buttons as he did. David got the distinct feeling that the doctor was reassuring him, but at the same time, insulting him. He decided that it was just his nerves acting up.

“Will it hurt?” David queried carefully, asking what he believed was a sensible question, glancing at the steel chambers around him. The ominous glow of the blue liquid running through the i.v. and into his arm was not inspiring confidence.

“Nah there won’t be any pain, mate. If something goes wrong, you’ll just never wake up,” the doctor laughed and yanked on a yellow lever. A low hum filled the room.

“Of course,” David replied drily, though inwardly disturbed. “At least there’s no pain.”

“That’s the spirit, mate!” the doctor exclaimed, slapping the smaller fellow on the back.

“Just sit back, relax, and make medical history!”

Heavy glass shielding slid slowly over the capsule and a second black-out panel followed, plunging the interior into a deep, hollow darkness.

For science, David thought, feeling a sudden bout of claustrophobia. It went away when the gas kicked in and he drifted off to a gentle, if somewhat cold, sleep.

Meanwhile, the Australian parliament had an argument over the funding of this project.

“We simply can’t have this!” yelled one of the backbenchers.

“Well, we’re right and you’re wrong, because we were voted in!” another yelled in reply.

The rest engaged in similarly logical argumentative volleys.

As per usual, the debate drifted off into matters of scandalous behaviour, general name-calling and bringing up the past only to rub it in each other’s faces.

Which, let’s be honest about this, was the same as a divorce.

Like a divorce, the original subject matter was quickly forgotten. The original site of the lab was bulldozed over, and a fast food restaurant chain replaced the multi-million dollar facility. Coincidentally, the facility was just on the verge of curing cancer. Research along those lines was eventually scrapped and medicine was set back about two hundred years.

Politics.

So what happened to our brave human experiment, stewing in the confines of his cold uncaring coffin? Luckily, the life support system was built using solar batteries, and after mistaking it for salvageable construction material, the capsule was shipped off to America for reprocessing.

A factory worker named Steve saw the magnificent device and made a few phone calls to his architectural buddy, Michael. Michael saw fit to include it as part of the new New York Art Complex, where it fit snugly as part of the roof acting as a support for the upper railings. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for David, the solar cells received adequate amounts of sunlight being positioned under the skylight, so neither emergency mechanism kicked in to either revive him, or upon sustaining catastrophic damage, euthanize the poor soul.

David lay dormant for years.

Then decades.

Then centuries.

Millennia.

And finally, Ages.

The rest of civilization, blissfully unaware that the art complex housed a cryogenically frozen human in their midst, continued on its slow pace to destruction. After a catastrophic trifecta involving a nuclear power plant, a meteor and a rubber band came to fruition, the humans left their beloved motherplanet, rendering it uninhabitable after only three hundred years since David began his fateful journey.

Ships took off to look for other worlds to explore and inhabit.

Hopefully this time, they wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

The Gorlians buried the odds. The humans still had Google+.

Back on Earth, the planet started to freeze over. Nuclear radiation poisoned much of the land and the flora and fauna mostly perished. Life was a stubborn thing though, and it persisted in spite of adversity. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily again, David wasn’t exposed to too much lethal radiation—although he could say goodbye to fathering kids and he’d probably have a more than guaranteed risk of cancer in his later years, assuming he lasted long enough for the cancer to develop.

Dirt and soil pitter pattered, there was movement of the plates, and the world kept on spinning. Several curious creatures popped their heads out of the cradle of humanity. It was thousands of years after the humans left, but there were traces enough for these little creatures to gain knowledge and wisdom without the pressures of competing predators.

There weren’t many records left of how they had arrived on this dingy little planet but they liked it here and so they made their little homes among the ruins of a forgotten civilisation. David’s pod had barely survived the nuclear winter, but fortunately, the railings and the building had collapsed around the pod. No longer was the pod a weight-bearing architectural shunt. Unfortunately, it had been exposed to light and one of these new little creatures, of many shades and vagaries both in colour and personality, decided to mount this curious box with its softly glowing red, green and yellow ‘stones’ on the rooftop of their most favoured stone building.

If David were conscious for the period, and assuming he didn’t go mad—although there was a good likelihood of brain damage setting in—he would be frustrated that yet again his cold coffin was being retrofitted as another architectural feature. There it sat on cold stone, soaking in the sun and never once giving David a chance to stretch his legs. I mean, think about the cramps!

The little creatures gradually grew in number and they formed their own cliques. They were all different types so they first grouped together by shape and split off to find befitting lands so that only those of their kind would live together. The equinely shaped ones were the most interesting but they too wished to further differentiate themselves.

The ones with wings liked to stick together and stay in the sky, so they did. The ones with horns liked to tend to their studies, so they retreated to castles of stone. The quiet ones with neither horns nor wings decided that they liked to eat the most and that they were pretty hungry, so they started growing food.

Over time, the winged ones learnt how to work the weather, the horned ones learnt how to control the matter around them and the ones with neither became really, really good at growing things. Though initially, they happily traded their services to one another, the relations started becoming bitter when a sudden cold snap set in. Arguing amongst themselves, they couldn’t come to agreement with each other and stormed off to find new lands.

Luckily for David, one of the horned creatures took a liking to the pod design and decided that it would be a good idea to incorporate it into the new castle, wherever it would be. Despite sustaining a little damage to the auxiliary power supply and the euthanizing unit, which David would come to be grateful for, the pod remained relatively unscathed through the transport process. Over time, plates of gold and jewels were added to the sides and it looked like an ornate casket rather than a life-supporting pod for a medical experiment.

Eventually, the different creatures realised that arguing with each other was fairly pointless. As the cold spell receded, they were able to move past their differences and work together again, leading to a Golden Age of prosperity. The land was named, the civilians were unified and the newly formed country became a growing and prosperous empire that spanned the small little strip of land, now surrounded by sea to the east and west.

Excited, the exuberant little things once again built castles, because let’s face it, everyone likes castles.

They were happier than ever when perhaps by coincidence, or even by design, two creatures were born with both wings and a horn on the same year the country was founded. Seeing this as a good omen, the unified creatures painted their new flag with the two auspiciously born and all rejoiced. Once again, David’s pod became a centrepiece on the rooftop of this castle which would later be known as ‘the Castle of the Two Royal Pony Sisters’, or simply abbreviated as ‘the Castle of the Two Sisters’.

Time passed and David continued to gather dust.

There was a bit of excitement and chaos thrown around but David was never party to that nonsense—not until a great upheaval in the system of government got underway which gave the two siblings sovereignty over the whole entire country. It was sudden, it was impulsive, but the little creatures were very relaxed and they thought, ‘after a century or two we can get our government back.’

Unfortunately, the greater populace found out that their new rulers were immortal.

Luckily for them, the sisters were wise and just and things went on as peacefully and happily as one could hope for.

That is, until one sister turned against the other.

The resulting turmoil would not be significant to David if it weren’t for the fact that the castle roof caved in as a result of the protracted battle between the two sisters. The damage knocked out a couple solar panels, which would have been fine had the auxiliary power been available, but since that was damaged years ago, the power supplied to the cryo-pod was now sinking to dangerous levels. It would be a slow fall but eventually the pod would run out of power in a couple of thousand years… give or take a couple hundred.

Meanwhile, the devastation of the castle was never really repaired. The place was simply abandoned with most the items in and around the castle left to slowly rust or rot. Taking pity on a beautiful cultural artefact, the Royal Architect for the new Canterlot Castle decided to incorporate the box-like design in the new castle.

Ten guesses on where it would be.

Yes, that’s right. In the library.

It was in a secluded part of the library where none of these strange creatures usually visited (it was the non-fiction section) that the architect cleverly worked in the box as part of a large bay window for reclining purposes. It only needed a few cushions and anyone using it could comfortably recline and read their books.

It would have been a nice view and a nice idea if not for the fact that no one read non-fiction. Non-fiction is only something you read and put back straight away. Nobody likes touching those books longer than they have to.

Well, except for one strange creature.

One of the horned ones had a passion for reading. Every day he would spend some time reclining on the box with a couple of comfy cushions he brought along with him. For a few hours he would read from the selection of non-fiction while basking in the sun. He was an avid reader and through the years always admired the small bay window. It was one of his favourite places to relax and forget about the pressures of his work. His work would come to be pivotal in the development of this strange race’s version of technology, but such things were hush, hush, for now. This horned one with a dull grey coat and bright yellow eyes sapped what easily could have lasted David another couple thousand years in terms of solar energy, to merely less than a thousand.

When that horned one eventually passed on, the bay window became disused and practically forgotten.

Until…

One fateful day, a purple-coated horned one decided to use the bay window again. Some measure of time had passed but this one was more ambitious and studied longer. Sometimes, she would take sheets with her and cover the whole box depriving the pod of precious light for hours on end. The consequences of which were made quite apparent on an auspicious day in spring...

——

Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic, the Princess’ protégé, Ponyville’s librarian and self-confessed bibliophile, bubbled with excitement.

Today she was set to return to the Royal Canterlot Archives and enjoy a relaxing afternoon reading non-fiction in her favourite spot by the bay window overlooking the fields and buildings of Canterlot. The glass was clear, not stained, and the sunlight that fell through would be warm, not hot, on her furry coat as she sampled the delights of learning that only such a relaxing setting could offer.

It seemed like such a long time since she had been back, always reflecting quite fondly on this secret place hidden away in the far reaches of the library. The base of the pod was quite decorative and there had been several restorations done on the ancient artefact itself. Twilight had initially felt shy and too reverent to be reclining on such an antiquity of the ages. Eventually, she had come to love the piece for its worn edges and its familiar shiny blackness covering the top. She found the style to be elegant despite the strangeness.

Whoever designed this masterpiece was a genius in their time, she thought.

Customary to her usual jaunt, Twilight pulled out a tome concerning works of astronomical phenomena and began to read, reclining in a nostalgic position that she so enjoyed during her fillyhood.

She read through a few passages when a strange noise permeated through the silence of the library.

Beep.

She frowned. Where had that noise come from?

Beep.

Her eyes widened. Was it coming from the box?

Beep.

It was!

Twilight scrambled to her hooves as the box creaked. She could hear the sounds of clicking and screeching as the black covering slid back almost colliding with her. She hastily backed away and watched with increasing amazement as a newly revealed glass covering also pulled away, this time with a loud hissing sound that echoed through the confined spaces of the Royal Canterlot Archives.

After the glass clicked into place, the library fell silent.

Twilight’s mind was abuzz. Is this some sort of hidden treasure? Could it be part of a long-lost civilisation? She squealed inwardly. I’m just like Daring Do in her books!

She carefully nudged her way forward, mentally psyching herself up for the mound of treasure and gold that perhaps lay within the ancient casket. She paused. It could even be never-before-seen scrolls or ancient parchment that nopony had ever laid eyes on before! Twilight was practically head over hooves with the discovery.

No longer able to contain her excitement, she rushed forward to examine the contents of the container.

She blinked at what she saw.

David blinked back.

“You’re not my doctor,” he commented dryly, losing all interest in further proceedings.

Author's Notes:

Ah the ludicrous shenanigans that happen when one is frozen in cryostasis for over ten thousand years. State of the art solar panels, built like a bomb.

Next Chapter: Duh what? Ten thousand years old? You're kidding me.

As always, my fruity and flavoured readers, thanks for reading!

NB: For those of you new to my stories, I don't have a prereader or editor in favour of releasing things faster. Having said that, it means I'm relying on your excellent skills in identifying my glaring grammatical and/or spelling errors in this fic. I'm lazy like that.

Also if it hasn't been made obvious to you, I use Australian English, apologies to the other English counterparts out there.

P.S. Oh yeah, based on the premise of Idiocracy with less of the wit and humour. Sorry!

P.P.S. HiE are the best. I can never read enough. Really.

P.P.P.S. Going to re-read the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

2 - Maybe It Was The Sushi I Ate?

Here’s the thing about waking up in the future — you never quite know what to expect. For most people when they wake up from cryostasis, they might find themselves on a spaceship with major systems failing. Perhaps they accidentally got frozen while delivering pizza and come out into a wide, sprawling futuristic community. Maybe, if they’re really unlucky, they could accidentally wake up in some modern dystopia where everything is controlled by tight lipped senators.

The one thing in common with all of these scenarios is that there would still be humans.

David was not expecting a unicorn.

Conversely, he was expecting his medical overseer. No matter how incompetent that doctor sounded, David was confident that he was at least partially enthusiastic about completing the project.

David was really not expecting a unicorn.

David was not exactly an average person, insomuch as the doctor had claimed. He was simply normal. Normal to the point that someone would think, ‘if he wore a red shirt I would probably be sad for about ten seconds of on-screen time.’ David was a pretty non-average person because he was so normal he was bland. Then again, following a series of interesting events surrounding an uninteresting person makes that person an interesting person indeed. Stuck in the struggles of the medium to low income bracket, he slaved away working as a handyman at several medical research institutes until he unwittingly signed a contract that got him on a better payroll.

What should have tipped him off about this ‘opportunity’, as the sleazy salesman-type recruiter had pitched to him, was that David was only required to eat well, exercise and be on call when they needed him for a clinical trial.

When one thinks of clinical trials the mind gravitates to the development of world-class drugs, new diagnostic testing or possibly new and innovative therapies.

Not being frozen in a cryogenic stasis pod.

David received the notice via sms:

David, 2day is ur lucky day!

The Institute 4 Cryogenic Research & Development has selected u 4 a clinical trial!

Report tomorrow @ 7 AM 4 a $ 50 reimbursement @ end of trial.

Mr. Johnson, CEO

That REALLY should have tipped him off.

Waking up from cryo-sleep was a shocking experience. After melting all the microscopic ice particles in David’s bloodstream via the reversal of whatever preservative was injected to prevent those crystals from killing all his cells, adrenaline followed to prime his heart followed by about two thousand volts to depolarise the big ol’ circulatory muscle and get it beating again.

The cool thing about this procedure was that it was worked akin to kicking a drunk, almost passed out college student and hoping they would wake up. In most cases, you’ll get an uncooperative grunt and they’ll go back to sleep, but every now and again you might get a more interesting response—yelling and screaming perhaps, or a funny line before collapsing back to dreamland.

When David regained consciousness for the first time, it felt like he’d had the biggest hangover since… well since ever. He wasn’t much of a drinker so his frame of reference was limited to the few times he’d actually been smashed out of his mind—rush week freshman year stood out as one such time. Confused and disoriented, he looked to the right and recoiled from the extremely bright light which he assumed came from the surgical theatre lamps. To his left were books and shelves. Lots of books and shelves.

Blinking, he shifted his gaze upward as something purple, black and pink drifted into view.

It resolved itself more distinctly as... well… David thought the drugs would have worn off by now. His sluggish brain sparked dully as the gears began to turn and he tried to process the onrush of information. His brain decided that ten-thousand years of napping wasn’t quite enough and gave up on the spot. The body’s union then fired up its defenses to protect it against a lawsuit from the gut company—which was complaining that David hadn’t used the facilities before he embarked on this experiment. The stress was beginning to take its toll.

The gut system was overruled because the brain owned the union and it was a dictatorship. Later, when the immune system finally got sick of slaving away at below minimum wage and decided to declare war on everything, the revolution that resulted from the overactive destruction of cancerous insurgents hanging around David’s legs served to alleviate the latent intent of the cancer in destroying his whole body which was inadvertently thwarted in the immunosuppressive coup. Shocked at the development, the body finally accepted a democracy at David’s tender age of ninety eight, brooking a new age of peace and prosperity.

Only one year later, David succumbed to old age and passed away peacefully—though, he was never quite sure why he felt so much at peace during his last year of life. It just goes to show that inner peace was just as important as outer peace. Whatever that meant.

In light of this, David recalled the only thing that came to mind when he saw the purple equine-shaped creature studying him.

“You’re not my doctor.”

As David sunk back down, fairly pleased with himself that he was able to initiate verbal communication at all, he spotted a faint outline of a symbol on the side of his cryo-chamber. He didn’t spend much time processing it before collapsing into a deep state of unconsciousness.

——

The best way to incite argument is to throw a controversial idea among your fellow species and then ask for a ‘discussion.’

Discussions were a misnomer. With a hot topic such as a relic preserving a live being from millennia ago, it would undoubtedly bring the religious ones, the scholarly ones, the political ones, the excited ones, the angry ones, the hopeful ones, the crazy ones and of course, the rich ones in droves.

The Gorlians had long ago abandoned politics. As long as it didn’t affect them, other Gorlians could do whatever they wanted. Some of them liked to spy on other planets to see if the native lifeforms had evolved to a point where an interesting dialog could begin. It just so happened that they were curiously checking up on the planet where those crazy ape-like people lived. Hopeful that there had been some progress, they spotted the equine-like creatures and found that the humans had moved on.

This caused some measure of panic.

Some Gorlians immediately hopped in their battlecruisers to ‘contain’ the infestation. The others stayed behind to observe these new, interestingly peaceful creatures. What they found, they liked, even if these equines were ridiculous from time to time. They didn’t initiate First Contact though, as they were leery of what their projections showed.

Meanwhile, Twilight was having fun talking to the cryogenics unit.

Now that supporting a human wasn’t on its list of things to do, the pod could now speak to occupants in the room. It didn’t like speaking to the doctor, who was mostly wasted in a perpetual state of drunkenness owing to his self-prescribed dosing of Fosters. It also thought David was boring. All he did was talk about work, relationships and the weather—the three most boring topics in the known universe.

All that aside, whirring to life it immediately spotted the purple equine-shaped creature and proceeded to have a stimulating conversation with it.

“Hello,” it began using standard contact protocols in English. It didn’t know whether or not the horned equine could answer, but by golly it would try! “My designation is Cryo-stasis Pod One, version zero point zero zero one five, but you can call me Cry-pod.”

Twilight gaped at the box when it seemed to be talking to her. “Uhm, what?” she garbled incoherently.

“I’m glad you speak English,” Cry-pod continued. “I was getting worried that there would be some sort of communication barrier that would undoubtedly hinder our interaction.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Yes…” was all she could say. What? You try talking to a box!

The Cry-pod continued its buzzing and beeping, potentially assessing the likelihood of further conversation. The probability was decreasing by a factor of ten with every twenty seconds of silence.

“What is your designation?”

Twilight put a hoof to her head. Was it asking for her name? Quite possibly. She gathered herself up and composed her thoughts.

“Ahem, my name is Twilight Sparkle-“

“Hello, Ahemmynameistwilightsparkle”

“Wha- no, I’m saying my name is-“

“Relax, Twilight Sparkle. I am merely trying to interject humour. This was a popular format in my recorded human plays, although it may not translate to alien organisms.” The Cry-pod paused. “Was it humorous?”

Twilight took a deep breath forcing herself to relax the tense muscles down her neck.

“Perhaps we could discuss humour later? You might want to talk to my friend Pink-“

“What is your age?”

Twilight gaped at the ornately decorated device. “I’m sorry, what?”

The Cry-pod paused.

“My apologies, I was reviewing the human interactions manual and I had not reached the section on conversation pauses.”

It paused again.

“I think I’m doing quite well.”

Twilight let loose something between a scream and a grunt. “Okay, ‘Cry-pod’, I have a feeling you will be dictating the conversation so why don’t you go first with your question, end, and let me respond until I finish and then continue as such. I think that would promote the most efficient method of communication.” Twilight crossed her forelimbs in front of her chest as she sat down on her haunches.

The machine stayed quiet for some time.

Twilight began to worry.

“H-Hello?”

The Cry-pod immediately responded.

“Once again, my apologies, I have taken the time to write another manual for these series of interactions, hopefully it will prevent utter destruction and chaos!”

The Cry-pod was silent for a moment more.

“I appear to have a heating problem. Dissipating heat now.”

Twilight cocked her head, curious.

“AHHHHHH!” a voice echoed from within the chamber. Twilight’s eyes widened as she hurried to peer in.

“WARNING: Subjects should not be present in capsule while venting is in progress.”

“Ah! Ow! Hot! What?! How?!” the biped screamed hoarsely as it leapt out of the capsule. Twilight could only stare in disbelief as it staggered around a few steps and collapsed in front of her hooves.

“What in the world?” Twilight reared back, gobsmacked.

Author's Notes:

Gosh you guys sure know how to put on the pressure to deliver. Hope you aren't too disappointed. *gulp*

Next Chapter: What in the three rings of Tartarus is that?!

As always, my Chosen Readers, thanks for reading!

P.S. I've got a lot of work to do so the next chapter might come later...