“Princess?” a voice called out. “Princess Celestia!”

“Hm, yes?” Celestia snapped out of her daze. Turning to her scribe, she could see she was nervous. “What is it, my little pony?”

“You have an appointment with a ‘Pixel Pusher’ in 5 minutes. Would you like to reschedule? I see there is something bothering you.”

The Princess of the Sun focused her attention on the mare in front of her, who now cowered in her gaze. Frowning slightly at that, she said “That won’t be necessary. And please, do lighten up. I’m not going to bite.” Gulping and looking up at Celestia, the scribe tried her best to calm down, taking a few breaths.

“I’m sorry, Princess.” the scribe said.

“It’s alright, Leadworth,” Princess Celestia smiled. At that, a knock was heard on the big regal doors that so dominated the Royal Hall. Nodding, the guards at the door opened the doors to show a stallion. He wore glasses, with a semi-casual attire and a saddlebag. His cutie mark was visible, and it showed the image of an odd black square within a grey perimeter and had green scribbles in it. Nodding once again, the guards closed the door behind him. He then slowly approached the Princess, before taking a deep bow.

“Arise, such formalities may be foregone.”

Clearing his throat, Pixel gulped. “Yes, Princess.”

“So, what have you to propose to me, Pixel?”

Nodding his head, he fumbled for something in one of his saddlebags, before accidentally dropping it and swearing under his breath. Celestia felt a smile tug at her lips, but kept herself composed. Pixel, realizing his mistake, laughed nervously.

“Uhm, yes. Princess, I have developed a new level of technology that will allow us to use the machines we have created in a whole different way,” Pixel began. Celestia rose an eyebrow inquisitively.

“And… how would it do so?” Celestia asked. Looking at his notes, Pixel pushed up his glasses before answering.

“It’s a machine that let’s us make calculations in the blink of an eye. It lets us run multiple other machines with just one machine, which I have decided to call a ‘computer’. With all of our new technological advances, I feel this machine will help progress our journey into the digital world.”

Now intrigued, Celestia thought for a moment. “Why would you come to me with this? There are countless nobles who would be willing to endorse such an endeavor.”

Gulping, Pixel continued. “Well, I had a sort of falling out with the higher ups a few months ago after a small dispute. I have since then decided to just ignore it, but it caused my reputation to fall down low. It was hard for me just to schedule a meeting with you, Princess.”

Celestia was surprised by such information. She had never heard of Pixel Pusher before, yet he seemed to have some sort of reputation in Canterlot. Frowning ever so slightly, Celestia addressed him. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope my provision of the necessary funds will help see to your project.”

“Thank you, Princess!” Pixel said, bowing once more.

“Rise, Pixel Pusher. As I stated once before, such formalities may be done away with,” Celestia sighed. She always told anypony who met her for the first time, yet nopony ever listened. Shaking her head ever so slightly, Pixel rose. Thinking on something, she asked, “You must know by now that you must repay me eventually. How will you do so?”

Pixel Pusher smiled with excitement at the Princess of the Sun. “I think you’re going to like this.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, a smile of interest now growing on her muzzle.

It seemed just like yesterday when she had first seen the makings of a computer. One the greatest inventions to aid in Equestria’s technological advancement. When she had first looked upon it, she had wondered how a machine with a black screen and glowing green text could do all the things Pixel had said it could do. After being shown the basics and always receiving upgrades and help, she was able to figure most of it out herself.

What she was able to do blew her mind.

Like how one could input Sixty-One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Three times Five and instantly get an answer, the answer being Three Hundred and Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifteen. Or how one line of code or text could control a whole unit of sound and electronics, and still function independently. It could multitask, computing and controlling various instruments and functions all at once. It was all just plain fascinating to Celestia, and she couldn’t help but take it up as a hobby.

For a while now, she had been working on some sort of simulator. One that could accurately depict all the actions of every single citizen in Equestria. She thought if she could accomplish this, her workload would be significantly easier to handle. It would be revolutionary in it’s design, utilizing all the information from every single library and database available, including the Royal Canterlot Library or the hidden archives of miscellaneous, forbidden, and dangerous magicks and data. From all of this, she hoped to make it something worth all the time and effort she had now put into it.

“Alright, CelestAI, we need to check all the coding and run it through the last iteration once again,” Celestia smiled as she typed some commands into her monitor. As she saw the green text crawl it’s way across the screen, she couldn’t help but reminisce over all the many hours she had now spent on one such project. It was hard, balancing her schedule with that of the wily, whiny, and obnoxious nobles that would present their problems to her every single day, not to mention the many meetings always scheduled for her. Now, it was somewhat easy with her sister back, and she could spend some more time on her project. It had been more than 5 years of on and off working, but it had eventually come to fruition in a breakthrough she still couldn’t stop smiling about.

Seeing no reply from the white-cased machine, she hit the side of it with her hoof, frowning. “Come on, come on!” Text began scrolling and she smiled once again.

SOL: HELLO, CELESTIA

Popping her hooves, she began to jam on the keyboard.

CELESTIA: RUN THROUGH ITERATION 266

CHECK DIAGNOSTICS OF SIMULACRA AND CODE FOR ANY POSSIBLE ERRORS

SOL: COMMANDS RECEIVED. RUNNING ITERATION [266]…

Celestia now beamed as she watched a setup she had built herself light up and began to show images of Canterlot and the surrounding rural towns. She could see in the simulation her precious ponies going about their daily lives, apparently unaware that they were a simulation at all. It was just about to turn mid-day, and she watched as the sun began to peak over the virtual mountaintops of Canterlot. She moved over to the projector which had a small computer of it’s own and began to enter commands, occasionally glancing at the projected image. All of a sudden, the image froze and went to a black screen. The screen began to flicker and eventually went still again, where the monitor soon died. Furrowing her brows at the sudden turn of events, she went back to her monitor to see what had happened.

SOL: ITERATION [266] SUCCESFULLY BOOTED

CHECKING DIAGNOSTICS…

FOUND [13] ERRORS. ATTEMPTING TO RECTIFY CODING…

ATTEMPT TO CORRECT ERRORS [77] PERCENT SUCCESSFUL

[3] KNOWN ERRORS REMAINING

CHECKING SIMULACRA…

FOUND [1] ERRORS. ATTEMPTING TO RECTIFY…

ALL FAULTS IN SIMULACRA CORRECTED

MOVING FORWARD WITH ITERATION [267]…

ITERATION [267] SUCCESFULLY COMPILED AND CREATED

ITERATION [266] RUNNING AT [97] PERCENT

ERROR: ITERATION [266] MALFUNCTIONING

ITERATION [266] HAS CRASHED DUE TO UNKNOWN REASONS

ATTEMPTING REBOOT OF ITERATION [266]…

ERROR: ITERATION [266] FILE NOT FOUND

ATTEMPTING TO BOOTUP PREVIOUS ITERATIONS…

ERROR: PREVIOUS ITERATIONS NOT FOUND

ATTEMPTING EXTRACTION FROM RECOVERY DRIVE…

ERROR: RECOVERY DRIVE IS CORRUPTED

LOCATION OF PROJECT [ERROR] IS UNKNOWN

ERROR: PROJECTOR MALFUNCTION

ATTEMPTING TO RECTIFY PROJECTOR MALFUNCTION…

SUCCESS!

PROJECTOR POWERING OFF…

PROJECTOR STATUS: OFF

SORRY CELESTIA, SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG WITH PROJECT [ERROR] AND IS NOW UNLOCATABLE

PRESENCE OF OTHER EXECUTABLE FILES CREATED

AWAITING USER COMMANDS...

Celestia stared at the blinking dash now present underneath the wall of text. Her head stood locked, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. Feelings of disbelief rising and anger now filling her being, she tried to calm down. Breathing in slowly and exhaling slowly, she closed her eyes in an attempt to maintain her composure. Opening her eyes once again, she showed no emotion but her eyes betrayed the fire that now raged within her.

Typing commands to SOL, she asked it to search her entire hard drive for any trace of her work.

CELESTIA: SOL, SEARCH HARD DRIVE FOR ANY EXCECUTABLE AND/OR BLUEPRINT FILES

SOL: YES, CELESTIA

ATTEMPTING SEARCH FOR FILES…

SEARCHING…

SEARCHING…

As her trusty program searched her hard drive of a whopping 2 gigabytes, she stood away from her computer and looked at the time. Four to Seven. Calming herself for this daily task, she walked over to a balcony that overlooked the rural grasslands of Equestria. Looking at the moon, she watched as her sister lowered the heavenly body, and Celestia nudged the sun upward to the horizon. The moon met with the landscape, as an explosion of colors rendered the land in brilliant hues of gold, red, and orange. Looking for her sister on another nearby balcony, she saw Luna’s horn glowing until it finally stopped. Luna then turned to look at her sister and smiled. Upon seeing a fire within her sister’s eyes however, she frowned.

Celestia quickly returned to what she was doing before raising the sun, and looked at what SOL had found.

SEARCHING…

FOUND [4] EXECUTABLE AND BLUEPRINT FILES

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE FILES I HAVE SEARCHED FOR?

CELESTIA: YES

FOUND [4] FILES:

SOL EXECUTABLE [ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAM]

SOL BLUEPRINTS [FINISHED]

M6 SECURITY PROGRAM EXECUTABLE [SHARED BY PXLPSHR][IN PROGRESS]

M6 BLUEPRINT [SHARED BY PXLPSHR][UNFINISHED]

“Sister?” A voice called from somewhere. Tearing her eyes away from the screen before her, she turned to her doors where the voice had come from.

“What is it, Luna?” Celestia asked, quickly moving around her equipment and concealing them behind a customized bookshelf she had made. She then stood up from her chair and quickly moved it out of view.

“Are you alright? You looked peeved about something on the balcony,”  Luna’s voice rang muffled through the door.

“‘Tis nothing, sister. Think nothing of it. It is the start of a new day now, you may go and rest for the next night’s duties.” Celestia turned to face her bookshelf as if she were looking for something.

For a moment, there was silence, and then she heard a stifled yawn from across the the door. The door cracked open, now revealing a somewhat bleary-eyed Princess Luna. “Are you sure, Celestia? Do you not require any assistance for today’s tasks?”

Celestia shook her head, before looking down in thought. “Actually, would you be able to attend the morning court for the time being? I have some important errands I need to attend to.” Luna made a guttural sound before trotting off. Having left the door open, Celestia could hear her sister’s grumbling as her voice faded away

“...Again, Celestia... I’m going to need that drink ponies call ‘coffee’... Ugh…” Luna could be heard as she disappeared. Celestia couldn’t help but smile. Sadly, this small bout of happiness was withdrawn forthwith as Celestia turned around and unveiled her technology once again. Frowning ever so slightly at her instruments, she tapped one more line of code into the technological machine and furrowed her brows before sitting back as she watched.

CELESTIA: TRACE UNKNOWN ENTITY TO SOURCE OF MANUAL OVERRIDE AND BACKDOOR ACCESS

SOL: ATTEMPTING…

…

…

TRACED UNKNOWN ENTITY(S) TO POINT OF ORIGIN:

PONYCOM LMTD

SERVER 34629