The Mechanical Technomancer in Equestria: Technology is Magic
Chapter 2: Chapter 1
Previous Chapter Next ChapterThe larger white demigod, who Gerhardt still didn’t know the name of, had spent a little over ten minutes speaking with the six civilians before she finally returned and led Gerhardt to the Castle and told a maid lead him to the meeting room before going off to take care of whatever business she needed to. As they walked through the castle Gerhardt noticed the maid that was leading him and all of the other servants and even the “Royal Guard”, as he learned they were called, all seemed to be avoiding him or be giving him startled or disturbed looks. This was something he had grown more then used to over the centuries. Honestly speaking, he would have found it odd if they weren’t bothered by him. Almost everyone who saw or met him for the first time tended to act this way around him as most people found the way he looked, moved, and behaved to be somewhat unsettling.
He knew he could have done something about it if he truly wanted to simply by redesigning his metal exterior to resemble a skeletal frame then by covering it with a self repairing artificial skin substitute made of silicone to make his body look like his old organic body and by altering his joints a bit and by tweaking the programming of his motor cortex slightly to make his movements look more natural. In fact, most individuals with particularly extensive augmentations typically did both of these things. He simply never bothered as he honestly just didn’t care. In fact, not only did he not care but he actually found the psychological effects his augmentations had on others to be quite beneficial most of the time. This was because, since he unsettled people they tended to avoid him unless they had an actual reason to bother him which usually allowed him to work for longer periods of time without any interruptions that were not strictly necessary.
For this reason he would have actually even gone so far as to make himself look even more unsettling to others and would have given his body several other alterations and improvements as well if he could have. Unfortunately for him he was unable to do so because of the laws around augmentations that essentially stated that an augmented individual had to closely resemble their original species and could not significantly alter their basic bodily structure by adding external parts. Despite having been a High Lord — or to be more accurate specifically because he had been a High Lord — he still had to follow the laws or he would have lost his office and would have been publicly executed, as in the punishments were far harsher on High Lords then they were for anyone else in the Human Kingdom.
Eventually the maid led him to a door in one of the castle halls and opened it revealing a smallish room containing a large circular table with ten oddly designed chairs set around it. The ancient technomancer looked down at the maid who had led him here and thanked her before choosing a chair at random and sitting down. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing he had ever sat on as the chair had very clearly not been designed with creatures like him in mind, let alone ones that were made of metal like him. Plus he was slightly too big for it as it had been designed for smaller creatures like these ponies and he was fairly large even by human standards standing at 6’5’’, though despite his height he was actually fairly thin. On average these ponies only seemed to come up to his waist, in terms of height, with the white demigod being the tallest he had seen coming up to just below his chest, not counting her horn.
Having nothing better to do at the moment, Gerhardt decided he may as well build a proof of concept for what he promised Queen Chrysalis. As such he unlatched the rolled up portable toolkit made of thick durable cloth from the back of the belt of his robes and set it on the table in front of him. It only contained a few small basic tools, but it would be sufficient for what he intended to do. He then reached into several of the pouches and satchels that also hung around the middle of his torso on the belt of his robes and pulled out several spare parts and components, various types of crystals of different sizes, small individual roles of gold, copper, and silver wire, and several small sheets of different types of metal and set them all on the table one after another.
He knew this was going to eat up a significant portion of the very limited materials he had with him but he didn’t want to risk experimenting by using his own Emotion Processing Unit to generate love for the “Changeling” to attempt feeding on to see if it was even possible, because if something went wrong and his E.P.U. was damaged it could prove to be a very bad thing. So he decided it was better to be safe than sorry and began the process of building a separate E.P.U. entirely. He didn’t have either the time nor the tools to make one the same quality as his own at the moment, so the one he was building would be far more crude and primitive but it would be sufficient for the purposes of demonstration and experimentation. In fact, it was better that it was so crude as that meant it didn’t matter as much if it was damaged in the experiment which he fully expected it to be.
He spent a little over an hour working on the device, making sure to be careful so he didn’t scratch or otherwise damage the table he was using. When he was finally finished he had what looked like a square box made of silver with a switch and dial on the top that were both made of steel, no larger than the palm of his hand. With that finished, he cleaned up and put everything away once more and set the freshly made device on his lap before continuing to wait patiently for the others to arrive. After a few minutes his mind drifted back towards the situation on earth and his current predicament.
“What am I supposed to do?" He muttered to himself uncertainly. "It's impossible for me to return to my own universe and even if it were possible it would simply be pointless as Silvanus would just send me away again or more likely would outright kill me since the kingdom is likely now officially at war with him... which is probably exactly what he wanted to gain by doing this in the first place, damn it all...”
Gerhardt sighed in a bitter mix of both frustration and resignation. The situation was out of his hands, there was nothing he could do about it anymore. As much as he hated it — and by the gods did he absolutely despise it — he just had to hope for the best. The other high lords may have been young when compared to him but they were each still very competent military leaders that were each the kingdom’s leading expert in their respective crafts at minimum and even the newest of them — the current High Lord of Aviation, Alexander Sky — was a highly accomplished war veteran and tactician who has held his office for well over fifty years at this point. If anyone could possibly lead the kingdom through this disaster it would most definitely be them and whoever replaced him as the High Lord of R&D, he was absolutely sure of it. Yet for some reason he couldn’t help but worry.
Desperate to take his mind off of this, he began humming the same gentle lullaby from his past that he had been while he was working on the anti-plague gun in his lab earlier that day. The same tune he always hummed to himself whenever he was particularly stressed or otherwise worried in an attempt to help himself calm down and relax. This time, however, the melody sounded slower and much more melancholy, more along the lines of a mournful lament or perhaps even a funeral dirge rather than a simple child’s lullaby. He continued on like, this losing himself in memories of happier times in his life so he didn’t have to think about what was happening on Earth, until his sensors finally detected four energy readings approaching the room causing him to immediately stop humming and look towards the door. Three were strangely weak demigods, one was a sort-of-but-not mage that was about as powerful as them. He recognized the unique energy signatures of Queen Chrysalis and the two demigods he had met when he had first arrived, but the third demigod was new which put him slightly on edge.
A few seconds later the door opened and the four of them walked in. The new demigod was a hybrid creature like the other two but this one was slightly larger than the one known as Cadence but was still smaller than the larger white one, and she had dark blue fur and an illusory mane and tail similar to those the largest of the three demigods had but Cadence oddly lacked for some reason. All four of them sat down at the table, the demigods all sitting next to each other while Queen Chrysalis sat on her own away from either the demigods or Gerhardt.
Gerhardt felt slightly embarrassed that he wasn’t using a more formal body or wearing a more formal uniform for this meeting seeing as he had not been expecting to act as a mediator in negotiations between two alien kingdoms today. He actually felt somewhat tempted to apologize to all of them for it before the negotiations began but after a microsecond of thought he ultimately decided against it. They did not know he had, or use to have, more than one body he could switch his brain between and both the Ponies and the “Changelings” appeared to come from cultures that were largely nudist much like the Trolls or the Ogres, so they likely didn’t care about his clothing in the least. So instead of apologizing he merely decided to get to the point and asked, “Am I correct to assume that everyone that needs to be here for these negotiations is present?”
The largest of the demigods nodded and said, “Yes, but before we begin I would like to address something Queen Chrysalis said earlier.” She looked at the Changeling. “You claimed that I hate Changelings and would never agree to negotiate with you or agree to help you. That simply is not true! If you had sent somepony to set up a meeting I would have been more than happy to discuss this with you earlier.”
Queen Chrysalis scoffed. “Oh please… Tell that to the Changelings I sent to do just that only for them to be chased out of your city or be arrested by your Royal Guard!” Chrysalis hissed back furiously.
All three of the demigods appeared shocked by this claim. “W-what?! What do you mean?! I never received any reports of any changeling diplomats being arrested!” The demigod exclaimed.
“This is merely a theory based on personal experience but perhaps your guards were falsifying their reports or simply just never informed you, or perhaps it was ordered by other high ranking or otherwise politically powerful individuals under you?” Gerhardt suggested. That kind of thing was frustratingly common in his experience and he had to deal with it more times then he even bothered to count.
The blue one scowled. “Thou may be correct, eerie metal creature. Indeed, I can think of several who I believe would be capable of such treachery!” She exclaimed, apparently outraged.
Gerhardt stared at her for a moment wondering whether she intended what she called him as an insult or a mere observation, but said nothing.
The white one sighed. “In either case this is a very serious problem that I am deeply ashamed I ever allowed to happen under my rule. I take full responsibility for this and I promise that my sister and I will begin investigating this matter as soon as this meeting is over and as soon as we find those responsible we will punish them accordingly, assuming this isn’t just a particularly bad case of miscommunication. I sincerely apologize to you and your hive. Had I known about this I would have done something about it far sooner.”
Chrysalis huffed in annoyance and glared at the two larger demigods and the room quickly descended into an awkward silence.
“R-right, um…” Cadence muttered, clearly feeling uncomfortable. “A-any ways… I also have something I would like to bring up from earlier. High Lord Gerhardt, you called me and my aunt demigods on multiple occasions, why is that?”
This caught the white and blue demigods’ attention and they both looked at him. “Yes, I wasn’t going to bring it up but I would like to know this as well.” The white demigod stated.
Gerhardt turned his head and looked straight at her. “It is because you are demigods. I have lived a very long life and in that time I have encountered all manner of divine and immortal beings from gods, to spirits, and even other demigods such as yourselves, and my body’s built in sensors indicate that both of you as well as the blue one are in fact demigods based on the semi-divine energy readings that I am detecting from all three of you. On the other hand Queen Chrysalis and the other Changelings all appear to be mortal and all of them appear to be something along the lines of mages but somehow not. It also seems that every living thing in this world has some connection to magic and not all of them are mages but are other things entirely, but as far as I am aware neither of those things should be even remotely possible.”
“On that note, all of your magic seems to lack proper control or coherency and is abnormally weak to the point it seems almost atrophied, almost as if none of you ever received proper training and have never once taken the time to maintain your magical fitness. It is honestly, quite strange to me. Now please keep in mind that I do not mean any of that as an insult, it is merely a scientific observation from an individual who is not familiar with this world or its inhabitants.”
All of them appeared greatly disturbed by this revelation. “Judging by his emotions, he’s dead serious.” Chrysalis stated, appearing slightly offended as well as disturbed.
“... None of this information is to ever leave this room, are we all agreed?” The white demigod asked, looking around at everyone at the table. Chrysalis, Cadence, and the blue demigod all muttered their agreements.
“Which parts and why?” Gerhardt inquired. “I fail to see how any of it needs to be kept secret. In fact some of that information could potentially benefit your respective societies such as the need for proper training and the need for maintaining magical fitness among your mages.”
The white demigod took a deep breath and said, “Mainly the part about the three of us being demigods but none of this should ever get out. At least not right away. I, for one, have a school where talented young unicorns go to learn how to use magic. Imagine the backlash if the public believed their Princess was either incompetent or not giving their foals a proper education!”
“Princess? I thought you were a queen or part of a council or something. Either way, I suppose I see your point. Though I would still recommend beginning to improve your education system as soon as possible and perhaps at least teaching certain trustworthy members of your respective militaries about magical fitness while continuing to keep the general populace in the dark about it, assuming there are civilian mages in your kingdoms. That way you are able to maintain an edge over any mages that go rogue and can eliminate them before they are able to do any significant damage.”
“Oh, right. You know Queen Chrysalis and Princess Cadence’s names already but I suppose you probably still don’t know who me or my sister are.” The white demigod stated, apparently only just realizing this. “I’m sorry, I’m just so used to everypony knowing us instantly that it slipped my mind. I am Princess Celestia and this is my younger sister Princess Luna, we are the diarchs of Equestria and rule the day and night respectively. My sister and I don’t really like to use the term “Queen” as we believe that would make us sound less friendly or approachable to our subjects.” The white demigod explained. “And we will take your recommendations into consideration, though for us to do anything about it you may have to provide us with some notes on how to improve our training and how to maintain magical fitness. Though, I do have to ask, why aren’t you following your own advice by not keeping us in the dark about this? Wouldn’t you want to keep that advantage yourself.”
“Ah, so you call yourselves “Princesses” as a tactic for a subtle psychological manipulation of your people. Good to know. I will keep that in mind.” Gerhardt acknowledged. The two so-called “princesses” almost seemed to choke upon hearing this while Queen Chrysalis seemed to be having to hold back laughter, even Princess Cadence had a slightly amused expression. Gerhardt didn’t understand what the issue was or what was so funny but he decided to ignore this strange behavior for the moment as he continued speaking.
“As for why I am sharing this information with you, I am used to living in a world where it is fairly common knowledge. So as long as we are not enemies then I honestly just don’t care since I have no intentions of fighting any of you or your kingdoms in the first place. Furthermore, so long as I continue to remain on peaceful terms with all of you, then by improving the quality of your soldiers training and strengthening their magic I make your respective kingdoms safer and thus I make myself safer by extension so long as I remain within the borders of one of your kingdoms. Plus, if I truly had no choice but to defend myself, I’m neither stupid nor suicidal so I would not do it by fighting either of your kingdom’s soldiers and especially not any of you yourselves head on let alone until I had an army of my own first.” He explained, intentionally avoiding going into any further detail as to what he meant by that last bit.
Fortunately for him, all four of them seemed to accept his reasoning easily enough and none of them seemed to notice his wording or simply didn’t think much of it and thus didn’t bother questioning him for the moment. Even if they had called him out on it however, he fully planned on simply playing it off as having misspoken and apologizing for it before moving on. “Now then, assuming someone gives me something to write with and either a notebook or a sizable stack of papers, I’ll see what I am able to come up with in regards to the notes you have requested once the negotiations have concluded. Speaking of the negotiations, may I suggest we cease with these meaningless pleasantries or whatever one would call this pointless conversation and actually begin? That is the entire reason why we are all here right now after all.”
“Agreed. Not that this hasn’t been… “enlightening”, so to speak, but let’s just get on with it already. To get this started, you said you had an idea to keep the hive from starving, I want to know what it is before I agree to anything.” Queen Chrysalis demanded, glaring at Gerhardt.
“Several ideas actually, but the rest only matter if my main idea doesn’t work as I am almost certain it will given the fact that you can apparently sense my own emotions.” Gerhardt explained before picking up the square metal device in his lap and setting it on the table in front of him. “I built this with what basic tools and some of what limited materials I have while waiting for all of you to arrive. It is effectively a crude and hastily slapped together version of a brain augmentation meant to replace the amygdala of an organic brain and take over its role in processing emotions, though not its role in memory as that is the job of another augmentation all together, but I am getting off topic. These augmentations are called Emotion Processing Units or E.P.U.s for short. I have one myself, which is why the fact that you can sense my emotions at all makes me so certain this will work.”
All four of them looked somewhat surprised when he explained that it was designed to replace part of a person’s brain, and Queen Chrysalis leaned closer slightly in an attempt to get a better look at it.
“Now, that being said, this one is significantly different from my own E.P.U. First and foremost, I currently lack the appropriate tools and materials and did not have enough time to make it to anywhere near the same level of quality as my own. Second, I designed it so that it can function entirely on its own without being attached to the rest of a person’s brain, which augmentations are not normally designed to do, thus why it resembles a silver box more than anything else. As such, I suppose it’s effectively a sort of “emotion generator” or a type of magic energy converter rather than an actual brain augmentation. Finally, I designed it to only “feel” one thing, that being love since that is what you claim to eat. Now, I am not totally sure which type of love Changelings feed on but since this invasion apparently took place during Princess Cadence’s wedding I could only assume it’s romantic love rather than familial or platonic love, so that is what I designed it to “feel” if that makes any difference?” He said questioningly.
“It doesn’t. Changelings can feed on all forms of love. Different types of love do taste different, with romantic love being the sweetest tasting, so the preferences of any given Changeling may vary depending on the individual. Personally, though, I have no preferences in regards to the type of love I consume.” Chrysalis stated, her eyes never leaving the little silver device sitting on the table.
“Thank you, I will have to keep that in mind while developing the finished product. Now, let’s test this. The device is currently turned off and the dial is set to zero so it is currently not producing any love. I’m going to activate it and turn it up to, let us say… twenty-five percent of its maximum capabilities to start off with, just to be safe. Then I would like for you to see if you can feed on it. However, I would request that you be careful and go slowly at first — assuming you are able to — as since you claim that draining too much love can have adverse effects on organic beings such as Ponies I am uncertain as to what effect it will have on this device, if any.”
“Fine... I’ll be careful not to break your stupid machine, just get on with it.” Chrysalis grumbled in a mix of annoyance and impatience.
“Very well.” Gerhardt acknowledged. With that he flipped the switch on the top of the device and turned the dial up to 25%.
Queen Chrysalis then opened her mouth and a stream of pinkish energy began slowly flowing into it from the device. Chrysalis’ face scrunched up slightly in displeasure as the pinkish energy entered her mouth. After a few seconds, however, the device started smoking and before anyone could react it erupted in a shower of sparks of pure magic energy, cutting off the pink energy Chrysalis was consuming. The sparks continued on for a few seconds before eventually dying down and coming to a stop.
Chrysalis shook her head in disgust. “Blech… I think it worked all up until the point it blew up but the love it creates tastes like metal and is extremely sour. Ugh…” She stated, very clearly not having enjoyed the experience.
Gerhardt picked up the now completely ruined and still smoking device off the table in front of him. Deciding speed was more important than efficiency at the moment, he decided to forgo tools and instead cast a quick telekinetic spell to undo four small screws and opened up the top panel the switch and dial were connected to. Giving the insides a quick once over he noticed several of the circuits had far too much strain placed on them causing them to overload, several crucial wires had actually melted, the magic battery had all but exploded, and the enchanted quartz crystal that served as the ambient energy collector which charged the magic battery had completely shattered and was now little more than a pile of a fine dust-like powder laying on the bottom of the silver casing. He was now very glad he hadn’t used his own E.P.U. for this experiment.
“I believe I see what went wrong... Well... The important part is that this showed that the concept can work which means we will not have to resort to growing working genetically engineered organic brains without souls in large vats, which was one of my alternative ideas. Simply building a single machine or mass producing many machines to generate love will be much faster, cheaper, more efficient, and will require less maintenance than any of the alternatives. We can work on refining the taste of the love the machine or machines produce later while I work on trying to improve the design so the machine doesn’t utterly annihilate itself every time a Changeling attempts to feed on it.” Gerhardt explained while closing the top back up and using telekinesis to screw the bolts back in before setting the destroyed device back down on the table in front of him.
“So with that now out of the way, unless I am directly spoken to or things start becoming less then civil between you, from this point onwards I will be completely silent for the remainder of this meeting.” He stated before closing his mouth and proceeding to watch them all silently.
Princess Celestia nodded and said, “Right, well moving forwards we would like for the Changelings to pay reparations for any and all damages incurred during their invasion today and for them to release any Equestrian citizens they may have imprisoned or have held hostage. We would also like to note that in return we are willing to open our borders to the Changeling Hive and will allow your subjects to enter Equestria peacefully so long as they remain undisguised and follow our laws while within our borders. We are also willing to assist you and your Hive by setting up temporary locations where our citizens could willingly donate love to the Hive until research and development into these love generator devices can be completed so long as you agree to have your subjects abide by certain rules and regulations to ensure the safety of those who choose to donate. It would be very similar in operation to a blood bank.”
“And you still have to publicly apologize for ruining my wedding after this is over.” Princess Cadence quickly added, earning an amused chuckle from Luna and a stern slightly frustrated look from Celestia.
Queen Chrysalis was silent for a moment as she considered this, completely ignoring Cadence’s demand beyond a simple roll of her eyes. “Very well, but the same applies to any Ponies crossing the border into Changeling territory. They must follow our laws or they will be arrested and will be punished accordingly. We will send reports concerning Ponies being arrested for breaking our laws within our borders to you, but you must agree to do the same for any Changelings arrested within your borders. And thank you Princess Cadence, you just gave me an idea. I also want the punishment for whoever is responsible for arresting my messengers and diplomats to be completely public and I want what they did and why they are being punished for it to be made perfectly clear to your citizens.”
Cadence winced and gave Celestia an apologetic look.
“A-are you sure? We don’t know for certain why this was happening yet and I don’t exactly like the idea of humiliating anypony like this…” Celestia said, sounding slightly nervous and uncomfortable.
Chrysalis sneered and slammed a hoof on the table. “If it weren’t for them none of this would have ever happened and my Hive wouldn’t be on the verge of starvation right now, so yes I’m absolutely bucking certain! Just be glad I’m not demanding they be executed or sent to Tartarus instead, Hive knows they deserve either one for what they did! Luckily, for us both I’m not that short sighted. Doing this instead should actually help mitigate the common pony’s fear and prejudice against me and my Changelings and improve their perception of us somewhat by showing them exactly who’s truly at fault for all of this in the first place.”
Luna raised a hoof to her mouth and cleared her throat. “Sister, I am afraid I must agree with Queen Chrysalis on this matter. Her request is far from unreasonable. Furthermore, whomever is at fault for this more than deserves such a fate for the damage they hath inflicted upon the Changeling Hive and for harming diplomatic relations between our kingdoms to such a degree.”
Celestia stared at Luna for a moment seemingly not having expected her to side with Chrysalis and sighed in resignation. “Alright... I don’t like it, but I suppose I have no choice but to agree… Now, moving on, what is your stance on the Hive becoming official allies with Equestria?”
“I’m completely bucking opposed to it!” Chrysalis hissed furiously. “I’m not stupid, Celestia! Don’t you dare think I don’t know what it means for a foreign power to become so-called “allies” with Equestria! If I agreed the hive would completely lose its independence as a country and would become part of Equestria in all but name alone! So long as I am Queen of the Changelings, I refuse to allow my Hive to ever become subservient to you imperialists! I take personal offence to the fact you would dare even ask me such a thing!”
The three demigods all looked taken aback by this. “Please calm down and try to think about this rationally. We aren’t—” Celestia attempted to say, only to be cut off by Queen Chrysalis.
“I AM thinking about this perfectly rationally! It’s happened time and time again throughout history! If I agreed to become allies with Equestria, you would demand my Hive demilitarize, if we didn’t agree you would force us into compliance by threatening us through displays of military force and using your control over the sun and moon until we would have no choice but to agree! Then you would send your Royal Guard in to patrol within our borders given that we would no longer be able to do so ourselves! Then you would start sending ponies in to immigrate into our territory under the guise of “friendship” and “wanting to learn about our culture”! Then you would start making demands about making changes to our laws to “better accommodate” the bucking ponies living in our territory! Eventually it would end up with my Hive paying Equestria taxes for the continued “protection” of your Royal Guard and even more from there! So the answer is, buck no we are not going to become allies and we never bucking will!” Chrysalis ranted, all but shouting at this point.
Gerhardt stared at her, feeling extremely confused. What on Earth did she mean by their “control over the sun and moon”? Was that supposed to be a metaphor or something? Did it have something to do with the strange tattoos, brands, or whatever the hell those strange pictures on their rumps were, which seemingly every pony he had seen thus far had? After all, he remembered Celestia’s sort of looked like a sun and Luna’s sort of looked like a crescent moon.
Luna scowled at Chrysalis. “How DAREST thou speaketh to us in such a manner! Why, I ought to teacheth thee a lesson in proper manners and respect!”
Princess Celestia gave Princess Luna a sharp look. “Sister! That’s—”
Queen Chrysalis cut her off mid sentence as she slammed her front hooves into the table with her jagged horn glowing green with magic as if she were preparing to cast a spell and retorted, “Oh yeah?! Bring it on Nightmare bitch! I beat Celestia earlier and I still have more than enough energy from the love I consumed from Shining Armor left over to take down the lesser of the two celestial sisters! I’ll gladly make you wish you were banished to the moon again for another thousand years!”
Luna looked completely shocked for a moment before her previous anger returned a hundred times over as her wings flared out in absolute fury and her own horn started glowing with blue light.
Gerhardt stood up out of his seat, his hands glowing with copper colored light as he cast an illusion spell on himself meant to invoke an intense sense of fear and intimidation in whoever looked at him. It could be countered pretty easily if one knew what it was, but fortunately all of them appeared too distracted to really notice at the moment so he estimated that it should affect all of them for a few seconds, which was all he really needed to calm things down. In an attempt to add to this effect he also made his eyes glow brighter in an attempt to look more intimidating, turned up the volume and brightness of his iolite vocalizer to make his voice louder without him having to actually shout, and in as commanding a tone as he possibly could demanded, “Stop!”
The room fell silent and all four of them were now staring at him with wide eyes… wider eyes… Seriously, how the hell were those things not falling out of their skulls? After standing there for a few more seconds just to make absolutely sure no one was going to try anything, he turned the brightness of his eyes and vocalizer and turned the volume of his voice back down to their default settings and released his hold on the illusion spell he was casting since he knew it would only be another second or two at most before someone in here countered it.
“I am cutting this off now before it has a chance to escalate any further. As the acting mediator for these negotiations, I will not tolerate anything less than perfectly civil discussion. Queen Chrysalis, such an antagonistic response was entirely uncalled for, as were the insults. A simple “no” and a polite explanation as to your reasoning would have more than sufficed. Princess Luna, Queen Chrysalis’ response does not warrant you allowing your emotions to get the better of you and letting yourself threaten her as you did, nor do her insults. Please remember that you are one of the two main leaders of your country and as such your people require you to retain a certain measure of self restraint and a level head in situations where you might otherwise become upset or angry, even if it is difficult to do so. Both of you please refrain from repeating such actions for the rest of the duration of this meeting.” With that, Gerhardt sat back down once more looking as if nothing had even happened.
The room descended into silence once again with both Luna and Chrysalis both clearly still being upset and completely refusing to look at eachother or Gerhardt. Princess Celestia had a mentally and emotionally exhausted look on her face, and Princess Cadence looked as though she was at a loss as to what to do. Eventually though it was Princess Cadence who broke the silence, once again.
Clearing her throat, clearly still uncomfortable, she asked, “Ehem… So, um… While I think Queen Chrysalis’ information may be a little… out of date, I think I might have an alternate suggestion I think might work, if I may?” She looked at Celestia who gave her a warm smile and nodded. Cadence smiled back thankfully, looked at Chrysalis and said, “If you don’t want to become allies with Equestria, how about becoming neutral unaffiliated trading partners instead? That way our kingdoms can at least maintain cordial relations with each other without having to be official allies. That would work, um... right?” She asked uncertainly, very clearly showing that she was still fairly new to dealing with international politics. So, while it was going to take time and experience for her to build up her confidence, Gerhardt could tell she had the potential to become an excellent politician, which he honestly didn’t find surprising in the least given that he assumed she had been trained for politics from birth as most members of royalty were.
Queen Chrysalis actually thought about this for a few seconds. “Perhaps… I will admit, that does sound more acceptable... We’ll have to discuss the terms of this arrangement in more detail as well as go over potential trade routes before I actually agree to anything, however.”
After that they continued on for a few hours, discussing terms, setting up trade routes, and other such things. Fortunately, from there on out there had been no further incidents that required Gerhardt to intervene. Eventually Celestia summoned a large blank document seemingly out of thin air along with a quill and inkwell and the four of them began the process of writing up a peace treaty.
The fact she had seemingly teleported something to her didn’t surprise Gerhardt in the least given that he knew she was a demigod. However, the ancient technomancer had very much so been extremely shocked to see the quill and inkwell as while he had indeed heard of such things he had honestly never seen one of either in person before as they had long since been completely replaced by pens thousands of years before even he was born. He didn’t show it visually, however, and he recovered fairly quickly, though he was still fairly certain Queen Chrysalis knew anyways given her frankly unsettling ability to sense emotions. He made a mental note to work on developing something to hide his emotions from Changelings while working on developing the love generators for them.
Granted, he had also seen the steel spears held the Ponies’ “Royal Guard” and the archaic gold armor they wore, the only enchantment on which was a minor light based illusion enchantment that made them all look exactly the same, but he had thought those were both intended to be ceremonial. After all, how could they not be merely ceremonial given the fact that the Ponies lacked the necessary physiology to use spears effectively in combat and the fact that unreinforced gold was a terrible metal to use for armor?
Seeing the quill and inkwell, however, made him wonder if he had been mistaken and this world was truly thousands of years behind his own in terms of technological development. Even if that were the case, however, it still didn’t explain why they used non-magically-reinforced gold for armor. It just didn’t make any sense to him unless the armor, if nothing else, was ceremonial rather than practical given that he knew for a fact they had steel. Having little to nothing to do with the rest of the goings on in the room, he had little else to do but think about things and thus became hung up on this unusual discrepancy for quite some time. Something so mundane as simply asking someone about it never even remotely crossed his mind as he continued to mentally speculate and theorize about the subject.
Eventually he was torn out of his train of thought when he heard Princess Celestia say his name. “Well, Mr. Gerhardt, I believe this pretty much concludes the negotiations. Although, if I’m not mistaken, you currently don’t have anywhere to stay and as of right now you’re currently unemployed seeing as you are stuck here until you can find a way to return to your own world. So, I’m curious, what are you planning to do from here on out?”
“You are correct in that I have no were to stay and am currently unemployed, however, even if it was remotely possible for me to find a way to return to my own world — and honestly I am not confident that it is — there would simply be no point. If I did somehow manage to return then Silvanus would simply banish me again or more likely would outright kill me. So I essentially have no choice but to stay here in this world for the foreseeable future. As for what I plan to do while I am here after I finish developing the love generators for the Changelings… Hm… Well, your kingdom and presumably the rest of this world seems to have fairly primitive technology compared to my own and, well… I am a technomancer so I imagine I will just start a business building, selling, and repairing my technology and will use whatever profit I make to fund my research since I have literally nothing else to do.”
“What’s a technomancer?” Princess Cadence asked curiously before anyone could say anything else.
“A technomancer is what we humans call a mage who combines magic and technology. Also, just in case it is not already plainly obvious by now, a mage is what we humans call individuals who are born with the ability to use magic.”
Celestia smiled and said, “I see... Well, Mr. Mechanica, I would like to make you an offer, if you would be willing to listen?”
Gerhardt immediately became suspicious and stared at her for a moment before replying with a simple, “I‘m listening, for now at least, but I make no guarantees that I will actually agree to anything.”
Celestia nodded understandingly and said, “I would be willing to grant you citizenship here in Equestria, as well as give you a house with a large storage shed attached to the back that you could convert into a small lab or workshop, and even offer some assistance in starting your business and in distributing your products. In return, however, I would like for your business to at least start off with somewhat of a focus on selling your medical technology to our hospitals, I would like us to be your main supplier so I would like for you to order at least 55% of your materials from the castle, I would also like you to prioritize any commissions from me or my sister and give us a 50% discount on anything we order from you.”
He considered this for a moment. “A couple things before I agree to anything. First, what if instead I order 65% of my materials from you but only for the first five or so years? Later, assuming you turn out to be a reliable and trustworthy business partner I may continue purchasing most of my materials from you. Second, I believe 50% is a bit too high of a discount. How does 35% sound to you?”
“Hmm… How about you order 60% of your materials from us for eight years and give us a 40% discount.” Princess Celestia countered.
“40% is still quite high but I suppose it is not exactly unreasonable given how much I would be receiving in return… Very well, I agree to your terms.”
She smiled at him. “Wonderful! Then I suppose that means this meeting is officially concluded. Queen Chrysalis, I will have a copy of the treaty sent to you as soon as possible. I’ll also have somepony inform you where to send the materials for Gerhardt to work with while developing these love generators for your Hive in a few days after I finalize some paperwork.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Chrysalis grumbled dismissively as she got out of her seat and began heading for the door. “Just hurry it up! I want those generators as soon as possible, and he still has to replace the limbs of the eight subjects of mine that he maimed.”
Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, and Gerhardt all got up out of their seats and were about to do the same when Celestia cleared her throat and said, “Actually, Gerhardt, please sit back down. What Chrysalis said just reminded me, you and I still have to discuss your actions regarding those Changelings earlier.” Her smile was gone and had been replaced with the same stern disapproving glare from earlier.
Gerhardt stopped, sighed in annoyance, pulled his chair back out from under the table and sat back down. When Luna and Cadence finally exited the room and the door closed behind them he said, “As far as I see it, there isn’t much to discuss. They attacked me and I acted in self defense. End of story. In fact, I was actually being quite merciful by only removing a couple limbs. I could very easily have placed unbreakable curses on them or could have simply aimed for their heads and killed them instead, but I didn’t. Plus, I am willing to replace their limbs so it's not as though they are going to be crippled for life, which is yet another thing I could have done to them but didn’t. I fail to see anything wrong with my actions.”
Celestia seemed completely unphased by this and simply retorted, “I realize they attacked you first and you had to defend yourself, but you went too far! I saw you cast that sleep spell on them after cauterizing their wounds, you could have just as easily done that to begin with instead of resorting to mutilating them!”
“Ah yes, that. Yet another thing I didn’t have to do at all.” Gerhardt scoffed dismissively. “Now, even you have to know better then that. Sleep spells are easily countered by anyone paying any attention whatsoever, even mages with atrophied magic like you or them. The only reason it worked on them when it did was because they were too distracted by their wounds to even notice me casting the spell and were in too much pain to care let alone try to stop me even if they did. Furthermore, even if they hadn't been able to counter my spell for whatever reason simply putting them to sleep would have rather ironically resulted in an even bloodier outcome and would have completely ruined my chances of avoiding making enemies with her Kingdom."
Celestia scowled at him but quirked an eyebrow curiously. "I could say the same to you. You should know better. If you craft it well enough a sleep spell should be almost impossible to counter for anyone other then a particularly skilled or powerful magic user. Now, could you please explain how you can possibly believe that putting them to sleep would have ended up being even bloodier then severing their limbs or how maiming those changelings somehow improved your chances of not making enemies?"
Gerhardt blinked at her once. "Really? Do you honestly need me to explain the obvious? Please just take a moment to think about it. It really is just simple logic, I assure you."
"It's really not!" Celestia retorted.
Gerhardt sighed in exasperation. "Very well... Since you appear to enjoy pretending that you lack the intelligence to follow logical trains of thought then I will put this into simple terms that even an idiot could understand." Continuing on he began speaking a bit slower, causing Celestia to bristle slightly. "Based on her personality and behavior I assume we can both very clearly tell that Queen Chrysalis is an arrogant bitch. Not only that, but she had every reason to fight in order to secure a food source for her hive to prevent her people from starving to death. So if I simply put her soldiers to sleep rather then killing or mutilating them in someway she would not have been intimidated enough to even bother listening to me even when I had a gun to her head, especially since I highly doubt she would have known what my gun was even capable of without witnessing it in action first." While he talked he pulled his teleportation pistol out of its holster concealed under his robes and placing it on the table in front of him, after switching on the safety, just to display the ornate gold and silver weapon he was referring to.
"Since I would not have been able to intimidate her into submission, she would have attacked me and I would have been forced to defend myself. Our resulting fight would have inevitably ended up spilling out of that building and dozens upon dozens of civilians would have been killed in the crossfire at bare minimum, and that would more then likely include those six civilians that were in the room at the time. And that is to say nothing of how many would have been hurt or seriously injured or all the property damage that would have occurred in the process. Finally, I would have been forced to either maim or kill Chrysalis along with any more of her soldiers that attempted to assist her by attacking me. That would mean I would have automatically become a very serious enemy of the Changelings as well as a major target in their eyes for harming or killing their queen and who knows how many of their soldiers. Now do you understand why simply putting those eight to sleep would have been far worse then temporarily crippling them as I did?"
Celestia was clearly horrified when he explained how many people he estimated would have died in the crossfire. When he finally finished talking she appeared to struggle for a few moments, very clearly trying (and failing) to come up with a valid counter argument. Eventually she shook her head with a huff slammed a hoof into the table in front of her and exclaimed, "No, I refuse to accept that! Violence is never the right answer, especially not violence to the extreme you took it! There had to have been a way this could have been resolved peacefully without anypony getting hurt and you're at fault for not even bothering to find it before cutting eight Changelings bucking limbs off like a bucking psychopath!"
Gerhardt rolled the glowing sapphire orbs that served as his eyes, though this was extremely difficult to see. "Oh please... You seem to believe you have the moral high ground in this argument, but I'm sorry to inform you that is simply not the case. So dispense with the petty insults, would you? First, those Changelings were not innocent civilians or anything to that effect, they were hostile soldiers who had attacked me. Losing a limb or two is just one of the many risks one takes when joining the military. They are just lucky to have not lost their lives instead as I had every right to kill them to defend myself and I probably would have if they had been even slightly larger of a threat to me."
Celestia seemed to want to object but he did not give her the chance as he continued speaking. "Second, if you truly believe that assertion than you are a naive idealistic fool because, like it or not, that is simply not how things work in real life. This isn't some fantasy world where everything is sunshine and rainbows, nothing bad ever happens to anyone, and every one can just get along and be friends at the end of the day, not in the least. In reality the world is a cold cruel pit of agony, despair, and constant struggle where hellish monsters that put your worst nightmares to shame exist lurking in the shadows and people constantly fight, suffer, and die while only those who are strong, clever, or lucky enough survive in the harsh and merciless process that is natural selection. Sometimes violence is not just the right answer but the only answer. Whether you choose to accept this or not is completely irrelevant to me."
Celestia just stared at him silently for a moment with an unreadable expression on her face. Finally she asked, "That's... a very grim outlook on life, Gerhardt. I don't think it's a very healthy way to look at things. What could have possibly happened to you in the past to make you think like this? As, if I'm not misinterpreting this, you seem to be speaking from personal experience."
"Almost a thousand years of constant war and having seen and personally experienced some of the worst atrocities ever committed by a few of the most insane and truly evil people and monsters in the history of my world. Hm..." Gerhardt paused for a second to consider an idea he just had. "I suppose it would be easier if I just show you. I'm not in my world anymore after all so it is not as though I have a reason to keep any of this classified anymore. Let us see just how long you can keep your naive pacifistic beliefs after seeing a mere fraction of the things I have experienced throughout my life from my perspective. I believe this should be a rather interesting experiment."
Celestia gave him a confused look and she seemed to be about to ask him what he meant by that when a bright copper aura surrounded his hand and he cast an optical and audio based illusion spell. Suddenly a large rectangular illusory projection almost like the screen of a computer or television appeared floating in the middle of the table between the two of them. This illusory screen began playing some of Gerhardt's worst memories one after the other in the form of videos taken from his perspective from his eyes and audio processors. Sounds of weapons fire, combat and war spells being cast, buildings collapsing, people screaming, begging, and crying, and many other horrible things filled the room as Gerhardt played the first memory he planned to share with Celestia.