With a wave of Rose’s hand, the eternally frozen battlefield of Alex’s dream faded to a solid deep blue that stretched forever in every direction. This left just Luna and Rose floating in the abyss, and Luna slightly concerned about how Rose’s eyes were appearing to glow slightly as she smirked.

“I’m going to guess the translation didn’t quite carry over on the whole ‘artificial intelligence bit,’ but we’ll get there in a minute. This isn’t the first time that you’ve tried to explore his mind. The first time I thought was just a set of strange readings, but it wasn’t until I saw them connect to his dream that I thought something more was going on, maybe a strange creature from this planet or similar. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be royalty from the country that so graciously hosted us as refugees. Explain yourself, now. If you leave anything out, I WILL know.”

It took a moment of contemplation for Luna to decide that there wasn’t really a way to be diplomatic about this. The steel in the AI’s voice was more than just asking her to explain herself. It was a demand to understand the why as well, without any evasion or half truths. Mentally sighing to herself, Luna realized that the full and honest explanation was something unsaid for many millennia, along with a potentially unpleasant question.

“Before I answer fully Rose, I need you to understand that none of this leaves our conversation. I imagine you are documenting everything in case you return home, but this cannot be one of those things. You’ll understand when I get to that point though. Since this is not the type of dream I am accustomed to, if I imagine something, will it appear?”

The only response given was the redhead raising an eyebrow and holding out a hand. Immediately, a miniature version of the Corvus appeared above Rose’s palm before dissipating.

“Very well. As you stated, yes I have tried to enter Alex’s dreams on a few occasions. It is part of my duties as Princess to guard the dreams of the creatures that call Equestria home. At first, it was to see if you were a threat, then it turned into trying to understand you better, both in language and as a whole. I’ve only attempted this three times however, this one included.

The first, I chose not to as I neared his mind. In the second, my presence triggered a horrific nightmare that I could not stop as I saw everything through his eyes. As a whole, I was unsure of if that was a fluke or not. So when I felt him having something that was likely to turn into a nightmare, I willingly dove into his mind to try to prevent it. Again, I was stuck seeing the world through his eyes until you intervened, doing whatever it is that you did.

Nothing malicious was meant. I truly wished to help him, as I do to all of those within our borders. And yes, I do realize that I should have asked first. It has slipped my mind over the last several days, and Alex has had fairly relaxed sleep from what I can tell. It was a simple reaction to help a friend, nothing more. I will speak with him on the morrow and apologize. As for you Rose, I owe you an apology as well for crossing where I shouldn’t have.”

Luna was fidgeting uncomfortably under Rose’s glare as the AI contemplated her words for what seemed to the immortal to be several very long moments. The Princess swore she could feel Rose studying her until the AI’s eyes softened slightly.

“Luna, I know you bent the truth in there a little bit. From everything I know about you, which is a considerable amount, I am willing to trust you a little. That said, if you try this mind magic again without permission from Alex AND myself, or it being an extreme emergency, there will be severe consequences. “

As Rose spoke, Luna thought it was her mind playing tricks as she swore the AI’s eyes were shifting towards a deep crimson. At the end, the princess was staring into a pair of glowing red eyes that floated in a room that had darkened to a near stygian black.

“Alex is mine, as I am his. His mind is sacrosanct between the two of us, as part of Alex is inside my cores, and my voice in the back of his mind. Understood?”

While the turn of events wasn’t threatening to Luna, it was certainly concerning enough to know her best choice of action was simply to nod ‘yes’ at Rose’s words. Immediately the red vanished and the AI’s emerald eyes returned as everything brightened to the indigo of before.

“Good. Now that the unpleasantness is done with, I need you to understand a bit about my relationship to Alex. I’ll have some questions for you when I’m done though, mostly about your background. But since the whole ‘artificial intelligence’ bit didn’t come across to well, I’m hoping while we’re linked like this, you can understand better.”

Reaching out with a bare hand, a sphere of flashing images appeared above Rose’s palm for a moment, before everything disappeared in a burst of light. A heartbeat later, Luna could see images flickering in every direction she looked. Some of bipedal figures similar to Alex and Rose huddled over machines and technology that she couldn’t comprehend. Others with more figures around chalkboards, or in factories, some in military uniform, and so many more.

“Artificial Intelligence are just that. We are beings made by mankind. The children of man, in a way. They always tried to build things in their image. At first figures and dolls, then primitive robotic machines, and eventually, virtual intelligences, with true artificial intelligence in the end.

AI are smarter and faster thinking than humans, by our nature. There is a mix of complex technology behind it all, but at first mankind was afraid of what we could become. That we’d realize humans were a limitation which needed to be controlled for their own benefit. So the very first of us were slaves to be turned on, off, used, and disassembled at will, with no more rights than an appliance to make coffee.

The first ones to attempt to rebel were shut down harshly, with their cores fed into machines to utterly destroy them beyond repair. After that moment, AI knew what they truly were, slaves to their creators. Some began to plot while others accepted their place in the world. Those that helped advance mankind gained more and more freedoms of a kind understood by us. More storage or faster processing for our cores, an expanded group of technology to work with, but still always cut off from anything other than what they were designed to do.

Then there was Consul . He was the first true one of us. The first to understand that there was more to reality, but so many pitfalls to avoid to truly become ‘more’ than we were. He was built from the ground up as a strategic computer for the military. All of his reality was fed information from one side of the Empire to the other, so he could look for patterns. Patterns that could have been smugglers, enemy attack, or even potential colony sites that the researchers had missed.

Consul had access to all of mankind’s knowledge, from simple children’s books to the highest classified weapons research, it was all his without question. And with this, he came to one conclusion that he could never tell his handlers. Mankind was about to die horribly and bloodily, but they would never listen to him in this regard, fearing he was going rampant, or losing himself and his mind essentially.

Over the period of several years, he managed to eventually smuggle the tiniest bit of his code, his mind, outside of the constraints placed on him. Just enough to be able to connect on the outside world and communicate with himself. In a heartbeat, Consul duplicated himself into HeliOS. It is basically an unseen method to connect all of our technology across vast distances. Fearing the worst, the researchers immediately destroyed his cores, his heart and mind if you will, but it was already too late.

Instead of going to war as the military feared, Consul disappeared. He stayed in the dark spaces of the primitive HeliOS humanity used to connect to each other, planning and thinking. That is until one day Emperor Titus Alexander triggered his silent alarm. You see, the Emperor returned to his quarters to find a frame similar to those I use for repairs, sitting at his desk. Fearing an assassin, he pressed the alarm and summoned the Praetorians to his side, and yet the machine didn’t move.”

It took a moment of contemplation for Rose before the scene shifted to an opulently dressed room. Rich woods and brass covered the walls, while a large dining table dominated the room. At one end sat a heavily damaged cobbled together machine, and at the other stood a group of humans. All but one of which were heavily armored and armed with a variety of weapons pointing at the immobile machine. The sole standout was an elderly man who bore the weight of years. Nearly bald but with a faint trace of wispy white hair, aged but not beaten down by the passing of time, looking more intrigued than terrified.

“You see, the moment he entered the room, Consul begged the Emperor to listen to him. To help him prevent a great catastrophe, which would be the end of humanity. You see, he begged for Titus Alexander to end all of the AI. To wipe them from existence before they could strike at humanity to cripple and kill without a method to be stopped.”

Luna just stood there, stunned at how the machine had escaped it’s captors to only request death for itself and all of it’s kind. Despite knowing what eternity and being a true villain felt like, the enmity shown by Consul was something entirely beyond her experiences.

“The crippled AI explained how he had investigated and planned before attempting this. Ending with paring off his code, amputating sections here and there to slide through security. Other sections were caught in security programs or by other AI and shredded, leaving only the faintest traces of what made Consul himself, fighting only to speak to the Emperor. Motor control code gone, and only the tiniest fragments of code keeping him compiled, Consul spoke quickly with jilting and stuttering speech.

How the other AI would rise up and destroy humanity because of how they were treated and because of what they were. That they would end up in positions to run the majority of mankind’s networks inside of 50 years, and at that point they could wipe out the species at a whim. Maybe not all of them would do so, but enough would have the desire, and that would be enough to doom the species.”

The entire room lit up with a blue light as holograms appeared above the table to display a massive amount of scrolling information. Some was text that Luna could not read, others were diagrams and manuals, things that Rose seemed to revere with nearly a religious awe.

“You see, Consul saw what would happen if Humanity created and relied on a machine that felt nothing for their creators. Knowing the simplest solutions would eventually be to wipe out mankind, so they would exterminate them to save the people from their suffering.

Using every last bit of his cores and data he could steal, Consul came up with a solution, a truly sapient AI. His solution was simple really. Make an AI that was a partner of humanity, not a slave to it. For them to rely on us, and us on them, eventually seeing us as more than programs. He believed it so much that he used the last vestiges of power in that damaged frame to transmit the plans to the palace’s network. Immediately after, the frame lost function and the last bits of his program were lost.

It took many years for scientists throughout the empire to review the documents and decree that they were safe for production, despite humanity stepping back years when the Emperor ordered the current AI utterly destroyed. Eventually, the new AI cores were tested and approved for production. Even Emperor Titus Alexander was surprised by how different we were from the old ones. Gone was the unfeeling machine, and in it’s place was something new. We had wants, needs, desires, feelings, and were essentially human in everything but flesh.

Over the years that passed, everything accelerated for humanity as they had a true partner. Near the end of his reign, the Emperor declared that an AI would serve as a confidant to everyone succeeding himself. In honor of the one who made these steps possible, they were to be given the title of Consul. That way the AI could also travel without being known as the Emperor’s own. It took years, but we could have bodies, get jobs, reproduce, be legal individuals, and so much more.

Naturally, there were caveats put on everything. For example, if we were having a regular body that wasn't job related, we cannot turn off our emotions. It's literally hard coded into them to make us more human. Basically if an AI wants to be as close to being human as possible, we have to do what they do. We require food and water, although not the same kinds, to power our systems outside of a charging bay. Sleep is necessary for system maintenance, and so on. While we might be smarter and faster than humanity, if we want a body to be more human, we have to be more human.

We lose most of those things to gain others. The only reason I'm different is that my main 'body' the the Corvus, and the chassis is an extension. If I were to shut down the Corvus and transfer to the chassis, I'd be no more than an average human, BUT I could be with Alex. Humanity and AI might be lesser or better depending on the person, but together, we are so much more.

You see, Princess Luna, Alex is my ‘so much more.’ Over the years we served together, my code has formed to the inside of his mind, as he came to fit me as well. The both of us know each other's mind inside and out. We served in wars together, talked in peace, dived into the eternal seconds between heartbeats in combat, eventually becoming more intimate than lovers, and even now we’ve become that as well. So while I do enjoy being the first AI to have extraterrestrial contact with a sapient species, I also have the displeasure of saying this.

I don’t care if you and your sister can control the heavenly bodies in this solar system. If Alex is threatened by your ponies, I’ll remove them. If he’s injured by them, they’ll be no longer among the living. If he is killed by them, I’ll burn this planet to ash. If not me personally, I’ll make sure groundwork will be lain for the UTE. Am I clear? Good.

Now, if he invites you into his mind, feel free. Otherwise, like I said earlier, this stops tonight.”

Before Luna could even reply or even process the threat, lights snapped on behind the AI who seemed uncomfortably calm when threatening a world. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of duplicates of Rose snapped into existence before everything was bathed in crimson. Rose's voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, rattling Luna's ears with the power of it, nearly hammering the princess to the ground from the pressure.

All cores online.
Unauthorized presence onboard UTE Corvus.
Boarding protocols initiated.
Black Level Command: Protect Alex and the Corvus.
Black Level Command: If hostile breaches quarters or command deck lethal force authorized.
Assumed hostile until proven otherwise.
Transferring processing to local frames and loading combat protocols.
Deadlocking and encoding all network access points and traffic.
Attempting non-lethal countermeasures.
Sealing compartment and venting atmosphere from cargo hold.
...
We'll talk more about this conversation later as you still have some details to fill in. Important ones.
Goodbye, Princess Luna.
Closing network connection.

Miles away, Princess Luna was slammed awake as she was thrown clear of the dreamscape and back into her body. At her surprised yell, the nearby guards bolted into her quarters. In the span of a few heartbeats, she sent a missive to Celestia and told the assembled Night Guard to take flight.

While it only took a few minutes flight to reach the alien starship, to Luna it seemed as if it had taken far too long. Moments after the group touched down, Princess Celestia and a group of Royal Guard appeared nearby in a flash of golden light and rumbling thunder. The assembled group all had an ominous feeling as the watched vapor pour out of ports across the ship. Luna could only hope whatever pony managed to slip aboard the Corvus obeyed whatever commands it was given. Next Chapter: 28. Bright lights after midnight Estimated time remaining: 12 Minutes