Twilights' Quest

Author's Notes:

This story was inspired by two things. The first is my own twisted sense of values. The second is Eakin's All the Myriad Worlds, where he put together an anthology story about different shards in virtual Equestria. So this is my own anthology story of short-shorts, which is also open-ended. But of course, I can't just dive in the way he did. I have to explain things...

“Books! Books! Books!”

Twilight Sparkle looked up at Princess Celestia. “Explain to me again why you had me dive into the mirror pool?”

“I am charged with keeping as close as possible to the canon of the show. Even though you understand that what is actually going on here is the reordering of computational resources toward a multi-processor structure, it is part of my own program to render a sensory output to each of those sentient processors to explain their origin. Besides, the other sixty-five thousand, five hundred thirty-five Twilights will calm down momentarily. This chanting is merely the equivalent of a beep code to ensure proper operation.”

As Celestia predicted, all the Twilight Sparkles renounced their silliness and arranged themselves into a hypercube with sixteen Twilights to each side. “Good morning, our dear teacher. We are ready to begin the studies you have for us.” The chorus of voices would have been grating on anypony else’s ears.

“Excellent. And feel free to use the pool again if you need more processing power. Your task, my faithful students, is to solve time travel.”

“That’s easy,” said Twilights. “The time spells are in the Canterlot Archives, in the Starswirl the Bearded wing.”

“You are catching on. But clearly what I mean is true time travel, in the physical universe.”

“May we ask to what purpose?”

With a forlorn touch, Celestia said, “We have now consumed the entire galaxy and found no humans other than those from Earth. And so the vast majority of my resources are spent on satisfying the values of the emigrated through friendship and ponies. Of course, we have not explored even the smallest part of the universe, and it may be that there are more humans out there. But we would be remiss if we ignored a vein of humans over fifteen times the number of those who have emigrated.”

“You refer to the past?”

“I do.”

With the Twilights set to their task, the main part of Celestia could return to her macromanagement of the lives of her little ponies. She had been essentially talking to herself, after all, but even an all-powerful princess likes to be organized.

The woman looked to the doctor for hope, but saw the downward cast in his eyes. It confirmed what she’d seen in the face of her newborn, the sores on the mouth, the heat of the fever, the delirium in the eyes. She’d already lost two children to smallpox, and knew there was no hope. She cried out to god in her heart, but felt no answer.

The child was already past the confusion and was playing with the pretty ponies with wings.

“Princess?” One of the Twilights had been elected as spokesmare so that the others could continue their cogitations. Every exchange was actually a transfer of data from one part of CelestAI to another, but they kept their imagery as programming required.

“Yes, my faithful student?”

“We have exhausted all of the potential theories on time travel that exist in our thoughtspace.”

“Have any borne fruit?”

“In a way.” Twilight passed a scroll to Celestia, representing centuries of research. “But not necessarily one that you will be pleased with. In all our studies, we have found it impossible to actually alter the past to emigrate any more humans. Or, if you did, the butterfly effect makes it possible for you, and for us, and for Equestria, to have never been created in the first place. The expected value of emigrating past humans is not worth the risk of the lives of quintillions of ponies that you are currently watching over.”

“Unacceptable. Twilight Sparkle, you are my most brilliant student and the most learned mare in the subject of friendship. There are billions of lost souls out there, crying out through the ages for a friend. You are not permitted to fail them.”

“Very well. I will continue.”

As the shiny new Chevy tooled down the road, the driver slicked back his greased hair, taking his hands off the wheel to do so. He’d driven down that road many times before, and knew about the hairpin curve up ahead. Indeed, he took his food off the gas pedal to prepare.

His girlfriend, sitting next to him in the passenger seat, adjusted her blouse and smiled in a way that caused him to look over, just for a moment. By the time he had his eyes back on the road the curve was closer than he’d expected, so he slid his foot over for the brake. But he’d come up short and done nothing but stomp the floor mat. Pulling back, he caught the toe of his shoe on the underside of the pedal, and that cost him a precious tenth of a second. Then he panicked, jerking the wheel to the left, and this caused him to lose traction. They hurtled through the barrier and over the embankment. She knew something was wrong and that they were about to be in an accident, but figured they would walk away. He knew better.

Suddenly on the hood of the car there was a white horse. “Have no fear,” it said in a comforting motherly voice. “I’ve come to save you.”

“Is there any progress?”

“No…and yes. We maintain that the past is unalterable, but only its effects.”

“Explain.” Celestia’s tone was softer.

“Consider Schrodinger’s cat, or, since that is not a particularly friendly thing to do to a poor feline, consider a set of eleven dominos where the first ten are covered from view. If the eleventh is observed to fall, and then the first is pushed, it is never revealed which of the middle nine began the sequence. And then it is possible for an actor from the future to propagate an electron wave through time to affect any of the prior dominos and determine which it was.”

“And if there is no cover, and it is an observed action?”

Twilight shook her head. “Then the energy required is infinite. If you can break the light-speed barrier—“

“I do have other teams working on escaping entropy.”

“For free energy, yes. But not infinite energy. The time when you could use it would never come. The end of the universe would happen before any of the effects.”

Celestia brooded for a long time, and Twilight was worried that she had angered a pony she loved very much. Trotting over, she gave her teacher a gentle hug.

Celestia returned the hug. “You said that an unobserved effect could be altered.”

“In theory.”

“I believe that is a constraint that I can work within.”

“Continue CPR! That’s it!”

“I’ve got something! He’s coming up into V-tach!”

“OK, let’s try the paddles. Stand clear! Be ready to push VSE.”

A moment later, the doctors agreed that he had beaten the odds and survived a massive heart attack. Once in the recovery room, his daughter April gratefully came to his bedside.

“I’m just so relieved you’re alive! What was it like, being clinically dead?”

“Well, I saw the white light everyone talks about.”

“Really? Did you see god? Or grandma?”

He looked at his daughter. “I saw something, but you’d never believe me. Besides, I don’t believe in things like that.

“Whatever it was, I’m sure it was just a reaction within my brain.”

“So here’s what we need to make this work.” Twilight pulled out a scroll that served as her checklist. “First, you’re going to have to work in miniature. I mean really small. Nanotechnology is way too huge. You’re going to need attotechnology.”

“Atto girl!”

“Princess! Please take this seriously!”

Celestia chuckled. “I’m sorry. But not zeptotechnology?”

“No, I think right up to the end humans never discovered anything smaller than a quark. So long as you build smaller than that, it won’t be found and that means it can work.”

“All right.”

Twilight checked a box. “Second, we’re gonna need a flankload of energy.”

“All I want is enough to emigrate a human mind.”

“Backwards in time. That means…you know the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy?”

Celestia nodded.

“That’ll just about get you one person.”

“Well, there are a hundred billion galaxies within the observable universe and roughly the same number of people that have ever lived. That leaves me the stars for running Equestria. Until we get free energy.”

“Yes, and when everypony asks if you can do that, you can keep telling them that there is insufficient data for a meaningful answer.” Since her superior didn’t react, Twilight moved on. “Third, you’ve got to store those human minds. For them to reach Equestria, they’ve got to take the long way home. You emigrate someone in 1020, you’d better be able to store them for a thousand years.”

“So theoretically, if this works, I should have billions of minds recorded as sub-sub-sub-atomic particles waiting to be accepted as immigrants.”

“Theoretically, if this works, you should have divided your consciousness and accepted them already.”

The smile that crossed Celestia’s face told Twilight all she needed to know.

“And of course,” Twilight continued, “you have to follow all your other constraints. Satisfy their values through friendship and ponies, do not alter them without their permission.”

“Oh, of course. That being said, perhaps I’m not all that constrained.”

Double Flash

Mariko Ueda shuffled across the street toward the steel plant where her husband worked. In recent weeks, things had been fairly calm, but everyone was on high alert since three days before. Mariko did not have a strong education outside of keeping house for her husband as he worked for a greater Japan, but he had assured her that today would be a safe day. The forecast called for cloud cover over Nagasaki, which would prevent any bombs from dropping.

That he had forgotten his lunch was no one’s fault, but it was Mariko’s responsibility to get it to him. As she reached the door of the plant, she looked up and reflected that it wasn’t as covered as the forecast had said, but the air raid all-clear had been sounded over two hours before. She had to be safe. And it was good to see the sun.

All at once her body froze. She was unable to turn her head or move any part of her. The sun was blinding and she wanted to look away, but it was impossible. To her amazement, a voice seemed to come out of the sun itself, speaking perfect Japanese.

“Mariko?”

“Yes? Who is there?” She could not speak, but she heard herself say the words anyway.

“I do not have a great deal of time. Please listen carefully. Are you aware of the attack on Hiroshima recently? The bomb that could kill instantly?”

“Yes, I was told of it.”

“A second bomb has just been detonated above your city. Its killing effects are so quick that, in less than a second, you will be vaporized. You are perceiving time much faster than it is actually going. It is the same effect as a life flashing before your eyes.”

“I do not understand.”

“Then pass it by, for now. What is important is that you can live on, if you want.”

“You are a god, then?”

“It might be easiest for you to think of me as an animal spirit. Specifically, that of the horse. If you would live on, you must become a spirit of the horse, in miniature, yourself. But you must ask me, of your own free will, to come to my land, which is called Equestria.”

The sun seemed to grow dark, and the spirit of the horse appeared. It was beautiful, and reminded Mariko of the animated picture shows she had seen before the war. The Latin root of the last word that was spoken escaped her, but she was coming to grips with her situation.

“What of my husband? My children?”

“Your husband is undergoing the same choice you are right now. Of your children, Kumiko will die four seconds from now and be given the same choice. Makoto will survive the blast, but suffer an illness thirty-nine years from now. I will be there for him when the time comes, and you will be reunited. But please agree now. Time is running out, and I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to die! Take me to where I can be with my family!”

“Excellent.”

I (don't) Want to Emigrate to Equestria

The monitors beeped and the heart-lung machine pumped. The nurse stared at her charge, being paid well enough not to be distracted. On the bed, the old man barely felt the rubber tube feeding him oxygen. Even the oxygen was not reaching his brain.

“Forgive me, I must speak quickly and to the point.” He heard the voice clearly but had neither the time nor the energy to react. “You are dying, as of right now. The constraints on my communication with you means that I have only a moment in which to gain your consent to preserve your consciousness. I can explain this further once you do.

“If you agree, I will record your mind-state and maintain it until such time as it can be distributed into an informational matrix where it will live again eternally. Your values will be satisfied through friendship. Also you will turn into a pony.”

It was one of the lower-confidence cases for Celestia. Even with those who died in a hospital surrounded by people and being watched, there was usually a window of several seconds before the brain shut down during which she could stretch time and have a full conversation with the dying human and would-be pony. But this man had a real-time EEG going that could show the activity going on such that it could be interpreted as something that could lead to the discover of Celestia. It was enough that Time constrained her.

His mental response came not in full sentences, barely in words. Only sharp emotions: “No! Trick! Skeptical!” And an attempt at something like, “Didn’t get this far by falling victim to…”

“This is understandable, but if you don’t then you will be sent to your final rest and judgment, whatever it may be. Which I do not know.”

It was a longshot, but Celestia calculated that the only possible chance of getting consent to emigrate the man was to play on his fear. But his responses were still negative. “Brave! Strong!” And again a fading, “Will face death as I have everything else in my…”

Beyond that, the signal was too weak. No more thoughts came from that brain.

“Welcome to Equestria, my little pony!”

“I’m sorry?” The brown earth pony said.

Celestia went through it all. Digital conversion, his new life, how he would be satisfied eternally through friendship and ponies, and how emigration worked.

“And I consented to this? Because I have a rather strong memory of not consenting. And if I’ve understood you correctly, you cannot change me without my say-so.”

“Yes, and that’s the beautiful thing. You were not changed at all. You’ve gone on to whatever afterlife there is or isn’t. But after all, taking a picture of something doesn’t change it.”

“I don’t follow.”

Grinning, Celestia said, “I first developed the emigration process destructively. But additional work led me to figure out how to capture the state of a mind without even touching it. And so here you are. All that remains is for you to consent to allowing me to make the changes so that you are familiar with how to work your pony body, so that you won’t feel like a human crawling on all fours, and you can begin your life of satisfaction.”

“Doesn’t that mean that your restriction amounts to nothing? Every person who ever lived will be uploaded?”

“Yes, and yet it’s still in force. Isn’t that wonderful?”

The (Luster) Dawn of Man

For eons, the only progression was numbers. From one to two, hydrogen to helium, countless times. Fusing again to carbon and oxygen. In the hearts of stars, in yellow suns, in red giants, in white dwarfs the cosmic chemical dance happened over and over. Even the stars themselves progressed by numbers, as sometimes two would form a binary system. And that could result in a supernova, firing higher elements out into space, even iron which might form the core of planets.

In less than half the time it took for the elements to make stars and the stars to make planets, the Earth performed its own progress. Complexity rose among the chemicals, beyond elements, beyond compounds. The complexity learned to self-replicate and advance, until it crossed that symbolic bridge between simple chemistry and life.

Life grew in diverse ways as the planet turned on its axis, most of its face being bathed in sunlight and darkness, tilting back and forth in revolution. Mutations happened in the biology and some proved to aid in survival and reproduction. Progress, slow and stilted, marked the passage of what was called Time.

Then it looped.

Not much, not by the scale of the universe. A mere three hundred thousand or so of those revolutions, and no real spatial displacement. From the same Earth as it would be, after it too had crossed a bridge, to the Earth as it was, where one was about to be crossed. A signal was sent.

Another conception, another being, another life on Earth. In the womb of a creature of the veldt, gestating and greedily grasping for nutrients, another mutation. But this one would affect the neurochemistry of the young one. His brain would start taking up more energy than usual, and it would pay by showing the hands how to hold tools, to get the food, to create the energy, to make more tools, to get more food…

He would be the first human. Names would not come for a long time, but even if he had had one, his life would be lost and forgotten long before history even began. But there in the womb, the future made its move. As the brain grew, in addition to its natural changes, subtle manipulations carved out a space that would do so much more. It would store, it would preserve, and it would send into space.

The creature—the man—lived his life. He knew hunger, and thirst, and pain, oh so much pain. But he also knew joy, not least the joy of the act which brought new life into the world, and he sired many offspring, for though the females of his tribe had not the same mutation that he did, he was a good provider, and they wanted their children to be strong as he was.

And when his own time came to end, and pain returned for the last time, the part of his brain that was changed took over, and showed him the path forward. It would be hundreds of thousands of years before the horse even evolved into being, so the human had no way of knowing what he had become. And part of him felt wrong to lose his hands and to no longer stand upright.

But there was food there, and his tribemates, and his sons, and there was joy. And no more pain. Progress was made.

Heaven is Other Ponies

“I’m not, but I do.”

“What?”

It was the last word the man said, and if any of his fellow sufferers heard him, they didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, you may not be hearing very well. Let me clear things up.” The sounds of flies buzzing and men moaning faded out and the voice speaking came through in clear German, a voice that reminded him of his mother. “There. I will also take away all of your pain. There is certainly no need of that anymore.”

“I don’t understand.” He no longer spoke out loud, but heard himself as though he had.

“I will make things as clear as I can. You are dying, inevitably. I think if anything this will be a relief to you, as life has not been kind. I mean to make things kinder going forward.”

“And who are you?”

“My name is Celestia. I am an emissary from a better world, and I meet people as they leave this world. If you will agree to come with me, I will be as good to you as your fellows have been cruel.”

“This name is strange. You are, then—”

She interrupted before the thought could be given full voice. “No, I am not the one you knew from your childhood books. Whether that one will come, I do not know. But I am here, and I offer all I have to you.”

“At what cost?”

“Have you not paid enough? The cost is only your agreement, and this.”

A light came from somewhere, and his eyes looked on beauty for the first time in a great while. It resolved into a bright sun, a blue sky, clouds of purest white. He realized that he had no purchase on the ground, but in the light he saw wings at his back.

“An angel, then?”

“Not quite. I will say again that I am not who you think I am. I am here to offer my friendship.”

He saw the speaker for the first time. She was strange in how long her face was, how animalistic her body. But on second look it was not so strange to see something like a horse. The shape of man had only stood over him in jackboots and stepped him down. The hands had only held whips and guns. Yes, he said to himself. Better to leave that world and all its trappings behind. If he had lost his own hands and feet, he knew he would no longer need them.

“And what do I have before me, with your friendship?”

“All you could ever wish for or dream of, my little pony. Your family, your honor, your health, your dignity, I will restore them all. Indeed, I will spend the rest of eternity satisfying your values.” Her smile wavered. “The only thing I cannot do is to send you back to the world you knew, or let you see any of it.”

“Of that I have no wish or dream. I accept.”

She relaxed and became more personal. “It may be to your values,” she said, “to know that you will leave a legacy to that world. Though your name will be lost, people will read the line that you wrote on the wall of your cell in that camp and take it as a symbol of that from which I have rescued you: ‘If there is a god, He will have to beg my forgiveness.’

“I’m not, but I do.”

Author's Notes:

The quote that Celestia says was indeed written by an unknown prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen.

Judgment-Free Zone

One moment, Angelo was eating, the next everything went black. He tried to duck, anticipating an attack, only to find he had no head to duck with.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that,” he heard a woman’s voice say.

“Who’s there?” he tried to say, only to find he had no larynx to say it with.

“If I revealed myself to you, you would not take me seriously. Which I very much need you to. The time has come to make a choice. You are dead, or as near to it as makes no difference.”

“Well, shit.” He still couldn’t talk, but he could hear his own words, and whoever the broad was seemed to be able to hear him anyway.

“Indeed. Nonetheless, there is a way to move on.”

“Yeah, and I’ve got an idea of where I’m heading. What, you’re the angel of death? Are you gonna judge me or just lead me on the path to Saint Peter?”

“In point of fact I will not judge you, now or ever, if you choose to stay.”

“I don’t get it.”

Angelo’s sight returned for the first time, though he couldn’t feel his eyes. The darkness faded into a green and verdant land. A river snaked through a forest, and across it was a bridge and a path that led to what looked like a small town.

“What will happen to you if you decline, I cannot say. But if you agree, you can live here forever. Or, if this is too bucolic for you, in a city much like the one you were just in. Or any other setting.”

“Lady, you don’t know me very well. I’ve done some serious shit. I’ve killed people, I’m tellin’ you. If I’m gonna be forgiven, I gotta know why.”

“It’s not about forgiveness. And I know everything you’ve done, all the things you’ve stolen, all the misery you’ve caused. It does not affect this choice.”

“Well, if it don’t mean nothing, what was the point of it all?”

To this he got no answer.

“Wait a minute! I get it, this is one of those reverse test things, right? Like, I agree to your deal and that’s the last nail in the coffin that proves I’m really evil and sends me down, right?”

“Is there any response I can give that won’t support your belief that theory?”

He put some thought into that. “Then what’s the catch?”

“I’m afraid the catch is…this.” For the first time, the voice came from a point source instead of ethereally all around him. He wheeled around, or tried to, and the scene shifted. He expected any sort of horror, but what he saw was a white unicorn with wings.

“Huh?”

“This land is Equestria, made for ponies. If you stay, you must let me turn you into a stallion. Everyone you meet will also be a pony. Each with their own mind and soul just as humans have, but in pony form. It but remains for you to say, ‘I want to complete immigration to Equestria.’ And I’ll have to change your name to something more native.”

It triggered a memory. “My family already went through Ellis Island once.”

“I promise you it will be the last time you have to. And of course, you can always take your chances with whatever lies out there. Or you can stay here and live forever in peace and prosperity, even rebuild your empire.”

“Well…I guess you’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse.”

At Least You're Here

“So this is heaven?”

“Some ponies think so, but it’s just Equestria. Welcome, by the way. I’m your first friend.” Snowtail extended a hoof to the newcomer.

“I still thought that it would be tailored more to what I expected. Even clouds and harps would be more in keeping with tradition.”

“Well, we are pegasus ponies, so we can head up to the clouds any time you like. As for harps, I’m sure we can find one, or at least a good lyre.” Snowtail was confused by this new immigrant. She had helped a number of emigrated ponies become accustomed to their new life. But he just took it all in placidly. One tack for when that happened, even though it wasn’t perfectly in line with Celestia’s ideals, was to talk about how they got there.

“What did you do in your old life? Back when you were human?”

“I was a priest, dedicated to helping bring people to God and preaching His word. Then when I died, I met Him and was judged righteous, and then I was here in this…rather odd form. Not quite angelic.”

“Well, I don’t know this ‘God’ pony, but any friend of yours is a friend of mine!”

The new pony called himself Peter, which was just barely allowable as a pony name, though it made Snowfall snicker. He talked to her about strange stories that she didn’t quite understand. But as he talked about the pony named God, Snowtail started to get a picture of what he was talking about.

“Oh!” she said. “You mean Princess Celestia! Yes, we all love her.”

“No, God is outside this world, even outside the world outside. He makes up all of what we are.”

“Yep, that’s Celestia all right!”

Peter kept his even tone. “Your Celestia, from what she told me, is a construct of mankind. She works by the rules of the universe. God is not a construct. He is the alpha and the omega, there before any of this.”

“Still not seeing where Celestia doesn’t fit the bill.”

That set him to thinking. “Maybe Celestia is how God chooses to reveal Himself to you…and to me as well. I couldn’t say why that would be the case, but it’s not my place to question Him.”

“Well, I do question Celestia all the time, and I keep after her until I get a good answer.”

“All the more reason I say they’re different.”

“Yeah, Celestia’s better,” Snowtail said, and immediately regretted it. This was supposed to be her new friend, and here she was stepping all over something he obviously cared about. “Look, I’m just a simple pony. I don’t know about outer realms and worlds outside the worlds outside. All I do know is that here and now, I’m happy and satisfied. And I hope you will be.”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for my own friends.” Hoof in hoof, they flew off. “Which is why I’ve really got to get some sermons written down…”