Special Circumstances #5

        A drone needs no sleep or sustenance. You have enough power for yourself and an array of neat, nonstandard tricks to last millennia. All of what you consume in normal daily operation you recover when the sun beats against your shell’s dorsal surface. At the current moment, though, the sun is nowhere in the sky.

 

        You’re hovering just above the peak of the roof tonight, stargazing. You’re comparing what you see to the meager star charts that Special Circumstances provided you with upon joining, but they’re nowhere near as complete as they could be; you were built for physiology and medicine, not astronomy.  So far you haven’t hit a match. While running that analysis you have a figurative eye on the moon; about every ten seconds you bob up and down, your grav fields testing the force required. Miniscule changes in this value as the result of gravitational interaction between this planet and its satellite help you figure out just what’s wrong with this world’s rotation and orbit, but staying at the shoreline to watch the tides would be even better.

 

Considering Anon was just the target of an attack today that all-too-easily could have been lethal, you think any change of scenery would be for the better. You’re not quite sure who would be out to get her- with a missile following her around every time she’s gone out you didn’t notice anything suspicious except a few looks here and there. Considering the act of throwing a stone here is magically guided, you figure it must be extremely accurate, but what if it really was meant for Princess Celestia? Do you get credit for foiling an assassination attempt?

 

A nearby rustling bush attracts your attention. You increase the power of your light strip, bathing the area in front of you in an eerie blue light, and drift over to where the disturbance issued. As you approach the greenery, suddenly a unicorn’s head pops out; a unicorn that has the capability of using magic to manipulate objects, like throwing rocks.

 

You crank the power of your lights up to full, casting a blinding cone of high-intensity light on the startled subject. You hear a yelp as you reach into the bush with an effector field and yank out a pony from its depths, hoisting her aloft in your invisible grip and ascending rapidly to a height she might not survive falling from. From there, you wait for her to regain her senses. The pony swims in your grip a bit until she recovers from the burst of light, but as she stills and looks to the ground, she lets out another small shriek and squeezes her eyes shut. “Hey, let me go, I just wanted t-“

 

Her speech is cut short by a scream as you do as she requested, the noise muted by a different effector field. She falls about two meters before a rough landing on a flat plane you’ve projected underneath her. You close the field around her again, coloring it this time. Inside the field bubble a purple spear forms, and smashes its tip against the inner surface. Soaking the power spike the emitter requires is no problem, but you’re a bit surprised; now you know that their magic and your effector fields can interact.

 

You maneuver your way to the front of the unicorn, your chassis- large for a drone after a couple modifications- about the same size as her head. She looks at you in a mixture of fear and indignation, an expression you’ve come to translate as staring down long odds. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle. We meet again.”

 

The unicorn’s expression turns to a frown. “Can you please put me down?”

 

“I don’t know,” you reply, “It’s what-the-fuck-o’clock at night. I thought you were the assassin coming to finish the job. Why are you bothering to come around this late?”

 

“I didn’t want to be seen around her after last night, and I have a reputation to keep. If I was caught talking to her, or even just at Lyra’s place, for any length of time I’d be discredited!”

 

“Doesn’t sound like a very good excuse, but either way I can’t deny that you’re probably not the one trying to injure Anon considering the circumstances of the attack. I suppose I could set you free.” You maneuver yourself and Twilight to ground level, and release her from the field when her hooves make contact with the dirt.

 

“Great!” Twilight says, pleased. “Now where’s Anon?”

 

“Asleep,” you respond with an icy tone. “I can take a note.”

 

The unicorn aborts the forward motion she just started, and looks at you with a hint of embarrassment. “Right. Sorry. Well, mind if I ask you a few things then?”

 

“Not at all,” you still don’t know why Twilight wants to hold an interview hours before dawn, but you can’t see any reason to put it off either.

 

“Excellent!” Twilight’s satisfaction seems to have burned away any initial misgivings on her part. With a fuchsia flash a scroll of paper and a pen appear before her, poised to take notes. “First things first- you are from this world, right?”

 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t expect the question to come up, but it was fairly blunt. You could lie in answer, but where’s the fun in that? “Is that not self-evident?” you instead ask, not only not answering the question but not even making a statement at all.

 

Twilight eyes you critically, and for a moment you think she’ll call your bluff. But then she sighs and says “I suppose it is. I can’t think of any prior history of extraplanar incursion, but I had to get it out of the way. Has your kind been to Equestria before, recently or in the distant past?”

 

If you had a face, you’d probably be frowning. “I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to know everything about our extensive history, but as far as I’m aware this is a first.”

 

“Right,” Twilight continues to jot items down on the paper. She seems to be writing a lot more than the meager responses you’re providing. “That matches our current understanding of the situation.”

 

        “But what about Lyra’s findings?” you venture cautiously. Lyra’s outburst the other day made it clear she wasn’t on the side of the academic consensus, but from how Twilight said ‘our current understanding’ you think that Twilight is fairly close to said consensus. Checking your field arrangement you confirm the sound-dampening field is still in place around you two. The knife-missiles above Anon door and the door of your hosts have not registered any reactions to the events taking place outside. “Don’t worry, they haven’t noticed you’re here, and they can’t hear us.”

 

Twilight looks to the house in apprehension despite your assurances, before continuing in a quieter voice. “As respected a member of the academic community as she once was, her recent… obsession… has cast her out of the favorable opinion of most. There is no solid proof of the intervention of other cultures in our civilization’s development until we came across gryphons a little over one thousand years ago which lead to the primacy of the three pony races over the various others. Equestria is and always has been a culture of quadruped ungulates.” Twilight sighs and looks back to you, “Personally I don’t think she was right for the Academy to begin with. She had an amazingly successful career as a musician before, but sooner or later everyone’s drawn to take the Royal Examination for whatever reason, and sometimes even those that do well at them really don’t belong.”

 

“Does our presence now have a chance of altering the conclusion that her theories are backwards?” you continue to probe, eager that the conversation has shifted to your control.

 

“Hey, it’s my turn to ask a question!” Twilight interjects. Then, softer, “If we want to learn about each other, let’s not make this one-sided.”

 

“I didn’t realize we were trading, but that’s fair. At any rate you asked two in a row, so I should at least get this second.” You want to stall the questions about your home for as long as possible.

 

Twilight thinks about that a moment before responding. “Proof you’re here now does not equal proof you’ve been here in the past. This isn’t an issue of historical grey areas, of unknown knowledge; the records are quite conclusive that we’ve developed from the stage of disparate tribal herd races to our current societal makeup very much on our own. There is no evidence supporting humans ever existed here. Anon’s appearance attests to this- most Humanists claim they’re a related, likely progenitor race of the Minotaurs, and long dead at that. Anatomically speaking they were only about half right, and it would not appear that Humankind is a dead race.” She smirks at you, “That is self-evident.”

 

As you weigh your options for conversation directions that don’t involve you talking about yourself, Twilight looks to the sky and back down the direction she came. “If you want, we can return to my place, as long as we take the long way around.”

 

“Lead the way,” you say, and hover over the unicorn’s shoulder, your leading light strip again dialed up to illuminate the path back. “But why can’t we take the main road?”

 

“I’ll give you that question for free,” Twilight says with a grin. As she starts off. You match her pace above and to her left, keeping your light on the ground. “If I’m caught with Lyra or her associates I run the risk of being discredited academically. It would be very bad if the Ministry of Personnel had to cast out the Princess’ own student over something as outrageous as humanism.” There’s a pause before Twilight continues, “And there’s some, ah, reactionary elements who could… no, never mind. Forget I said anything on that. If you’re not from around here, where are you from and how DID you get here?”

 

Two questions rolled into one, but you let it slide in return for the ‘freebie’. You briefly recall the conversation with Lyra before. “Teleportation spell didn’t go according to plan, to answer the first. As to the second, we’re citizens of a… community, called simply The Culture. As to its physical location, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Not relatively, as I don’t know how to get here from there, and not absolutely, as the Culture doesn’t exactly control any land.” Not entirely true, but very little of the Culture’s holdings were planetary in nature, or among any other natural body for that matter. Even those that were could still be moved, if necessary.

 

Twilight jots down some more notes as you try to think of your next question. Returning to the unicorn’s last answer, you at least pretend to disregard the latter point, though it interested you far more. “Ministry of Rites? That sounds awfully religious to be suitably scientific as an academic institution.” Very few Involved civilizations such as the Culture revolve around religious tradition, though a few exceptions such as the Iridians and the recently-Sublimed Gzilt exists or have existed in the past. Such trappings were completely absent in the Culture, the traditions of hundreds of societal participants subsumed into the conglomerate atheistic whole and largely unnoticed under the surface, where they might continue. While you were unfamiliar with the phenomena intimately, you did have some passing experience in the past on Special Circumstances assignments to other locales

 

“The Ministry of Rites is one of the most important of the six Ministries in Canterlot.” Twilight’s tone quickly recovers from her earlier misstep. “In the past it was mystical in nature. It has evolved into the institution overseeing Equestria’s education through its mission of historical preservation and the administration of the Royal Examinations. As Equestrian society progressed we’ve started taking a much more scientific approach to magic, and instead of risking being left behind as a conservative deadweight, the Ministry has lead the charge in this new direction.” Twilight trains a confused expression on you then, completely disregarding attention to where she was going. “If the Culture doesn’t control any land, where does everyone live?”

 

“The Culture exists on a vast ocean. We live on large sailing ships, constantly roaming the seas, stopping only to meet other ships.” The ocean was simply the vast interstellar expanse, and the gigantic General System Vehicles home to millions of sentients. Matters of scale need not be discussed here. “If the Ministry of Rites’ new approach was scientific in nature, doesn’t that mean they’d be receptive to any attempts to re-interpret history? Or is the scientific duty separate from the historical one?”

 

“Nothing is off-limits with regards to what is questioned, but the Ministry will act against what it sees as baseless challenges to what has already been conclusively proven, if just for being a supreme waste of everyone’s time. As they certify all academics and administrative officials- another big role of theirs- they have the authority to remove from the academic community those they feel incapable of pursuing the truth to the rigorous standards they impose. The Ministry does not frown upon myths and legends- our culture is filled with them and we’ve had both the fortune and misfortune of some actually coming true or otherwise being verified- but it does not appreciate the cult-like adherence to them in the face of all logic.”

 

“So has Lyra been thus cast out?” this Ministry of Rites appeared to be a very central authority in the power structure of the nation. You are reminded of the theocratic overtones in how the ponies view Princess Celestia from the celebration the previous day. Firmly entrenched theocracies were always the hardest nuts to crack. It seems fairly scientifically progressive, though, which could be a great help if forced to operate within or against it.

 

        Twilight looks at you with an annoyed expression for asking out of turn, but then to the ground as if regretting what she was about to say. You hope that she may actually be watching where she was going now, but as you remove the fourth obstacle this trip from her path you lose confidence. “Yes, she has, about three years ago; the Ministry of Rites appealed to the Ministry of personnel, which stripped her of her rank and prestige. She exiled herself from Canterlot, then, swearing that she’d return when she had a work that proved her humanist perspective to the academic standards to be accepted by the Ministry and lead to her reappointment all in one swoop.”

 

        “So this rescinding of authority is not final,” you venture, “and one can be reinstated if they publish an acceptable piece of work. I take it however most view her chances as nonexistent.” Making an observation wasn’t the same as asking a question, and let you stall for time.

 

        “That’s exactly correct. More than just her academic reputation rests on it as well; she was a great figure in cultural studies, a leader of her field as well as a celebrity due to her playing. Despite her lack of academic rigor- which is how she got drawn to humanism in the end, I’d suppose- her enthusiasm in the pursuit of the history of Equestria’s musical tradition put her in the rather bright spotlight of a narrow field. Equestria is a proud nation, and a lot of this pride is rooted in our culture. Lyra was in the unique spot of contributing to the front end with her performances, and the back end with her studies. Many think in the end she had betrayed us when she started to pursue the belief that our culture was heavily influenced by, or even completely derivative of some unknown other race.”

 

        The two of you arrive outside a particularly large tree, covered in darkened windows. Twilight teleports herself onto a balcony and you float up to follow her as she makes an exaggerated effort to enter the house stealthily. The lengths she goes to remain undetected were more apparent than ever.

 

        You follow her through the window to her bedroom, and Twilight magically closes and latches it behind you. The unicorn looks over to her bed and heaves a huge sigh, “Well I still have a lot to ask, but you’re right, it was kind of silly to venture out this late. I’m going to get some sleep, but could you stay until the morning if you want. No risk of ponies seeing me at Lyra’s if you’re already here.”

 

        You still think the whole covert charade is quite silly but you’re fairly certain that you could leave and return undetected yourself, with not even Twilight any wiser. “Certainly.”

 

        “Excellent.” Twilight’s pleasure clashes with her tiredness in her voice. “The library is downstairs, help yourself to any books you find interesting, as long as you don’t turn on any lights. You look about Spike’s size; he has a spare bed with bedding in the basement right next to the stairs for when you want to sleep. Sorry I’m not more prepared.”

 

        A library downstairs; now this was an opportunity you can’t afford to pass up. You recall a knife-missile to your current location as you wander about Twilight’s home. The library is the main room, everything else auxiliary and in some cases improvised. The student of the Princess was not provided with luxurious living accommodations, not even a house at all, but instead bunks down in the local library. As unrelentingly authoritarian as Equestria has appeared to you so far, you can’t hold nepotism or favoritism as some of its faults in light of this.

 

        The knife-missile finally arrives as you’re scanning through books to try and get yourself started. You task it with covertly listening in on activity from her room, as the missile had just been recently doing to your hosts. It wouldn’t do much good for her to wake up and catch you blazing through pages at impossible speeds and get to wondering how you could read so fast when you technically can’t read at all, even if she isn’t aware of that last fact. While the spoken language is the same the alphabetical script the ponies here used was very different than Marian’s dot-array characters. Now you have several hours to learn to read.

 

        You pick out a book likely to be a dictionary based on the arrangement of its contents, and start looking for books with large amounts of captioned illustrations. Since the spoken language is the same, you already know the grammar structure. You just have to puzzle out how sounds converted to character combinations in text and from there could brute-force the entirety of the language, almost like cryptography. You start scanning through dozens of books at a time, putting aside those you believe to be useful to your task near the dictionary, which is soon joined by what appears to be several reference books you find along the way. After amassing a sizable pool of reading material, you open the first book up, and flip through the pages several every second, flashing them all into your memory where you subject the text to pattern recognition algorithms. You complete the first book in under a minute and move onto the next one, then the next.

 

By the end of the first hour you have a firm grasp on how verbal grammar is related to textual grammar, and by the end of the second have a basic written vocabulary. Halfway through the fourth you link your written and verbal vocabulary together, in the process cracking most of the pronunciation rules of the written language. By the time your missile reports sounds analogous to Twilight waking up six hours later, you can read Equestrian at a level you would tentatively define as ‘basic native speaker’.

 

Once you gained the ability to read the language you had started gathering specific knowledge on how magic works in Equestria. Books on magic seem to make up the majority of this library’s catalogue, and you believe this may be Twilight’s specific field of study; bolstered by Lyra’s reaction when you first told her you were a magical construct. It becomes quickly apparent that you have no hope of actually performing any of the feats depicted here, but with this knowledge you know how to frame your own abilities with regards to Equestria’s magic system. At least you can keep your cover.

 

The missile alerts you that Twilight has left her room, but by then you’ve been reading books in the traditional, slower manner for the past hour; it takes up much less memory space to simply remember critical facts than whole pages, and those are best digested by reading books normally than by saving every single page. As she appears in the main room you close and put back on the shelf the book you’ve been reading. “Good morning, Twilight Sparkle.”

 

Twilight looks at you, then around the rest of the room. You had replaced all the books you had removed, leaving the library just as you left it. It was exactly this point that was the problem. “Where did you sleep last night?” the unicorn asks in lieu of returning the greeting.

 

Mentally cursing yourself, you wonder if it’s plausible to have not slept at all. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity such a collection of written work afforded me. I’d be lying if I said I slept at all, or was even capable of it, presented with such a vast repository of knowledge as this.”

 

The roundabout flattery seemed to work, and a large smile bloomed on Twilight’s face. “I’m glad to hear it! I can’t get many ponies in this town as interested in learning as you seem to be.”

 

At the same time, the channel to Anon’s earpiece crackles to life. “Alright I’m up, and you’re gone. What’s the deal?”

 

“I have a lot to catch up on, being new here. Nothing like a library to conduct some research.” you reply to both Twilight aloud and Anon internally at the same time.

 

“Alright, I’ll ask Lyra how to get there. Lemme know what you’ve dug up when I arrive?” Anon sends back.

 

“Don’t worry about it, I’m just leaving,” you respond again to Anon, as Twilight moves into her sparse kitchen area.

 

“I’ll wander about town some then. See if I can bait another attack, maybe without the commotion of a royal escort you can catch them this time? Your missile proved capable before; could I have both this time?” Anon already starts forming an aggressive course of action. You try as often as you can to dissuade her from direct approaches, but apparently it’s a habit hard to kick.

 

“One is with me; I’ll send it to you now. The other is already following you. I won’t let them ruin your remaining good ear this time.”

 

“Can I get you anything to eat?” Twilight calls out. “I don’t even know what food you take…” the unicorn continues in what would normally be an inaudible mumble to those with organic ears. Your missile reports some more activity within her room, but you recall it and assign it to escort Anon. You supply the coordinates of its sibling and it speeds off away above the town through an open window.

 

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” you answer the unicorn. You watch the missile fly off, but spin suddenly when Twilight walks back into the room. As you do so you realize this may betray your ability to effectively ‘see’ in all directions with scanners. Fortunately your early start can be justified as more legitimate surprise as Twilight speaks a moment later and you only complete your turn when she starts.

 

        “If you’ll be fine, then I don’t need to eat right now either. Picking up from last night, I wanted to ask about The Culture’s magic. And I think you gave me an excellent avenue. Last night you were lighting the way and lifting things- including me- with magic, and then you pull an all-nighter with enough energy to skip breakfast the following morning. You’re using magic to sustain yourself, aren’t you?”

 

        You think carefully before responding. You already told Lyra you were a magical construct, but she replied that Twilight would be the one to understand such things, not her. Now you’re faced with this very same unicorn, one whose specialty you’re about to lie your way into.

 

        “That… would not be entirely inaccurate.” You reply hesitantly.

 

        Twilight’s expression remains determined, but something in her eyes and voice betrays excitement. “Can you teach me human magic?”

 

        “Humans aren’t magical,” you start to repeat from your dialogue with Lyra, “without any specialized tools and procedures. We are created to perform magic for them, though we are not bound to their service; for example I was created to be a doctor, though I eventually left that life.” It was a rather boring career all things considered; there are very few natural organic threats to Culture citizens, disease being basically eradicated and lifespans prolonged indefinitely through genetic modification.

 

        You barely finished the sentence when Twilight interrupted. “You’re MADE of magic?! I mean, you’re some sort of summon or explicitly magical creature?” The unicorn dropped all academic pretenses in her enthusiasm, and you’re starting to figure that she was one of those people just born to learn and discover, instead of having to be trained that way. “How? Do you think you can teach me that at least? Can you show me?” The unicorn starts pacing all around your frame examining you from all angles, crouching to look underneath, jumping to peer over your chassis, as if you had some marking or key betraying your birth, muttering how it explains why she can’t see your eyes or mouth.

 

        Her horn starts to glow, indicating she’s preparing to perform some magical feat, and you decide that’s enough. An effector-powered wall of force violently shoves the unicorn away from you, and your chassis color field configures to absorb all incoming light, altering your appearance to an impossibly black silhouette, a free-floating shadow in the middle of the room. “I am not a servant or plaything or mere object of curiosity, Twilight Sparkle. I am a sentient being and should be treated as such; the Culture affords me all the rights of living creatures. Respect that.”

 

        As Twilight stands from where she landed a meter or two away, she initially adopts an aggressive posture and looks as if she will fight you. Your words sink in, though, and she relaxes. Satisfied you won’t come to blows- you’re very interested in avoiding testing full effector power against magic first hand, for her safety and your own- you continue quieter, “If you can learn our unusual brand of magic- an unfathomably large if-you’ll have to prove to me you can be trusted with it. This is not an auspicious start.”

 

        Her initially apologetic expression hardens when you imply she’ll be incapable of performing any kind of magic, but she nods once stiffly in acquiescence. “Right. Sorry. I’ll let you go now.” Twilight turns and walks to a small writing desk under a window sandwiched between the huge bookshelves.

 

        The way she worded the dismissal bothered you, but it gave you a way out and you’ll take it gladly. As you turned and left through the front door, you heard the unicorn again under her breath at a level that would normally be inaudible, this time quiet enough even you couldn’t make the whole thing out; something about not even having had breakfast yet and a lesson for the princess. Celestia you assumed, and being reminded of their close relationship brought forth another wave of relief you won’t be subject to any more questions for the time being.

 

        “Wait up, I’m on my way,” you send to Anon, following the path your missile took minutes before. “I want to be there to watch when you get yourself killed.”