I Can Have a Dark Side IC (Closed)

An artificial intelligence? Like a robot? At least it seemed innocent enough. Though appearances of robots weren't exactly accurate reasons for friendship.

“Bakewell Tart” She introduced herself, once an opening allowed her to. "I was a cook for Stable 113."

It wasn’t that she trusted the AI. Her trust regarding Stable technology was actually quite the complicated relationship. On one hoof, Bakewell wouldn’t even have been born without their life preserving technology. And she had been supplied with many, many comfortable years of living while everybody outside the stable struggled for their livelihood. On the other hoof, Pace or whatever existed. Her friends and family had been saved from the balefire bombs only to be used as some sort of lab rats. Stable technology had given Bakewell a lot, but it had also taken a lot of what it had given back roughly and traumatically. The mare didn’t want the AI to have her name, but recognized that giving the giant intelligence probably in control of the entire stable a reason to think she was hiding something was a very bad idea.

During all of this, Bakewell nudged her way closer to the ponies in her team, trying to distance herself as much as possible from Cross. She was fine to let him talk for now. But she didn’t trust the mean unicorn to not do or say something stupid, and didn’t want to be bundled into anything he said. She tried very, very hard to pretend she had absolutely no idea who the yellow unicorn was by trying to not show signs that she even realized he existed.

Instead she tried to focus her attention on keeping an eye on Rad, who was instantly super friendly with the thing.

Scrap followed suit after Bakey introduced herself to the AI, calling out.

"I'm Scrap Parts."

He was still a bit suspicious of the projection, even though it blatantly stated that she didn't pose any specific danger to the group, he was too skeptical to trust the word of an ai, especially one in a seemingly empty stable. He also noted that Bakey was scootching a little closer to him and the others, and scootched over next to her.

Bone shook his head. "Fucking pre-war tech, why's it got to be so damned chatty." The griffin stepped forward. "Yeah you'll want to remember me, names bone head, bones for short. And if our names give us visitor access then that must mean we can get a map of your metal hole in the ground." Bone glanced around to the ponies wearing pip bucks. "Don't suppose you can send them right to them fancy leg computers?"

Violet glanced over her shoulder as the door closed behind him, merely raising an eyebrow at the sight. To say that this happening didn’t surprise her would be a major understatement.

“...Well, I guess we’re going to have to add ‘Find a way to open the door’ to the list of th-GAH!”

She was suddenly blinded by the lightshow above, the magically-charged light overloading her vision much like what happens if somepony shined a flashlight in a normal pony’s eyes.

Her vision started to recover as the hologram began to fully corporealized, appearing to her as little more than a blob of vaguely alicorn-shaped magic. She blinked as it started talking, the hologram’s appearance something that actually surprised her, unlike the door.

“Huh.” she simply said as she blinked. “Well...This is a thing.”

The AI seemed nice and all, but then again that really didn’t mean anything. It’s been sitting all alone in this empty stable, who knows what it did or what it’s capable of doing. They’d have to be cautious at the very least.

“I’m Violet Star.” she informed the AI with an even voice, her glowing eye’s stare not leaving the hologram.

Spectrum listened to Cyber and Ambers introduction smiling and introducing herself as well, a cheery upbeat voice, having been quiet not recognizing many faces she had been shy, but being paired with a familiar face, and being in a smaller group than a crowd. She did worry a bit when the door closed but from experience she knew struggling with it would bring them nowhere, for example how the griffin was reacting. But spectrum was more focused on the familiar figure standing in front of them.

She remembered the old stories, a white alicorn, with a pastel colored rainbow hued mane, a beautiful princess adorned with beautiful jewelry. but this one wasn't fitting of that description, a white mane turned ashen, the main while a rainbow of color, was all wrong. So she just assumed it was just blamed it on her imagination, old filly stories running rampant in her head.

"Hello! My name is Shooting Spectrum! but you can just call me Spec" she fluttered over to the Alicorn a big smile on her face as it was rare to see somepony as upbeat as she was. Giggling as Rad tripped over his own words.

Marcus felt himself blush in embarrassment. Of course she was an AI. What were the chances of an actual Alicorn popping in front of them?

Marcus gave an embarrassed chuckle as he rose from hos bow and addressed the AI.

"I am called, Marcus, umri wa akili (old mind). I am honored to have met you." Smiling, he continued. "I look forward to becoming your 'friend' as well!"

This AI seemed like it was friendly enough and seemed more than willing to offer its aid while only asking for their names. That didn't seem like too much to give at all! And if he could get on it's good side, much like Rad had, then he was sure things would go very smoothly indeed.

Xeshir still kept her eyes locked on the electronic Alicorn as she maintained her martial art position, muttering "Stella maledicunt mihi centum mortes per ignem..." before it finally clicked. The thing hadn´t attacked anyone, didn´t have any weapons and seemed awfully friendly.

Oh, and it was hugging Rad, so it kinda narrowed it down to the "Stupidly Friendly" category.

The zebra dropped her martial art pose and tried to avoid eye contact with the Alicorn. "Uh...My name is Xeshir." She said.

Dash blinked in surprise at the sight of the Alicorn AI. He had heard stories about all sorts of crazy pre-war technology inside these Stables. But an AI with an apparent personality and in the shape of an Alicorn was unprecedented. His father had told him a little about AIs, not enough to really know how to work with one on a technical level, at least. He looked on with the others as they all began introducing themselves to it. Dash found a block of time for himself to make an introduction as well, and he took it. It wouldn't hurt after all.

"My name is Galactic Dash.... Er... No relation to the Ministry Mare."

When his turn came around, Lucky stated his name as clearly as he could before taking another drink and replacing the container in his coat. A concerning thought then crossed his mind.

To the projection he asked, "What exactly happened to the other occupants of this stable? You said they were 'boring'... How so?"

Nova eventually finished her long, loud yawn. As far as a yawn goes, it was a rather pleasant one that let her simply relax for a few moments longer. Nova then heard everyone else stating their names, looking towards the 'alicorn' that was in front of them. Nova looked at it skeptically a while longer, not exactly happy about having to give the thing her name. Still, Nova thought of a way she could at least get through this and keep something to herself.

"The name's Nova." She answered with a slight smirk, purposefully missing out the second half.

Nova quickly hid the smirk as she looked around again, wondering what everyone was thinking. Were they seriously planning on trusting something so... out of place?

"Muh name's Cuppa Beans." Cuppa said with a cautious smile, giving a little bow of greeting as she looked around at the others, wondering how they were all reacting to this. Not even needing to look Xeshir's way as she heard her spouting something in some language she didn't understand.

As every pony... and griffon... gave their names, the Alicorn smiled and nodded at every name, though visibly seeming surprised by the griffon. But her gaze moved to each and every pony that gave their name as she smiled at them all.

"Bada Boom" The large buck with Arc's group started, giving a respectful nod to the glowing AI.

"I'm Amber Core..." A nervous Amber managed to say whilst attempting to hide behind the rather thin Cyber Star.

"My name's Clean Cut."

"And I'm Cyber Star."

And then Rad posed a question the Alicorn hadn't thought about, causing her to pause and just look at him for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. "Umm.... I don't know, I guess if you break what I am down into their first letters, I'd be called Masami or something.... But that kind of sounds weird... How about you just call me Ami? I will explain hard light to you later, Rad, it's a bit complex." The AI slowly deduced an answer for Rad, during which she heard Lucky's question and then floated down to ground level.

"I don't 100% know what happened to the residents of the Stable, but I know they're boring because they never wanted to talk to me unless it was about weird sciencey stuff." She began, frowning a little. "After the latest project some of the ponies started arguing more than usual and they started breaking into fights for no reason. No matter what anypony else did to check them, nothing came up as abnormal. Then some ponies just vanished altogether. Before I knew it everypony was gone and I've been here keeping the place nice and clean... I swear my chronometer is malfunctioning though, as it says it's been over 200 years since I was set up here." She said with a saddened tone of voice.

Marcus stepped back a little as "Ami" finished speaking. The aggression after the latest projectt and supposedly unexplained disappearances already did not bode well. That was something that needed to be addressed.

"Forgive me, Ami. I am confused at what project would create such uchokozi (aggression) within the Stable. I am also confused at how all within the Stable disappeared. Would you not know, with how closely you claim to have watched them?"

Bakewell remained silent. The fact that a Stable had turned ponies against each other with fatal results that sounded way too similar to the events of her own stable, though not exactly like it. The thoughts made her body tense up slightly with anger before she managed to mentally cool herself down. She wasn’t going to let herself get worked up enough to say something bad and get the lot of them drugged or something. That said, she also wasn’t likely to give this “Alicorn”, which was apparently a big dose of Stable technology, any more information than directly required to give. Let the thing think that it hadn’t been two hundred years. It was probably just playing innocent anyway.

The doubts Bakewell had about the alicorn and her slightly fueled anger at Stable-tec meant that she really, really wanted to shove her hoof into one of the unfamiliar zebras’ mouth when he basically accused Ami of lying.

Ami looked at Marcus as he made his enquiry about her claim. "The ponies working on the project effectively cut my reach out of the room they were using so I couldn't see in there. And the first disappearances weren't actual disappearances, if you're understanding me." She explained briefly, then seeming saddened by the mention of how closely she watched them and how she couldn't possibly have not seen what happened.

"Well...." She fidgeted slightly, genuinely seeming distraught by his questioning. "I wanted to go over it with a broad brush, so to save anypony the mental image.... But if I must explain myself... Well, one of the staff, Dr.Neighomi, he regularly checked on the containment chamber for my matrix core to ensure everything was going as per usual. He'd shown up on time for one of the routine checkups, then everything went dark. Eventually, I don't really know how long, I was started up again by a failsafe for when there was no detectable life left in the Stable, perhaps to try and contact Stable-Tec of the Ministry to request more staff. And all I saw everywhere I could go were dead unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies and zebra. Not a single one was left, that last project chamber was sealed shut and there was blood in almost every corner of the facility itself. I don't know how long it has actually been, but I've not been able to contact Stable-Tec nor any ministry hub and I've still not been able to finish fully cleaning the stains of blood from some areas....." Ami explained forlornly, looking down at her hooves and awaiting anypony's reaction to what she said.

Radiant Waves was suddenly looking a fair bit less confident than before. Granted all the ponies who'd been waiting on the arrivals seemed worried, rightfully so considering the previous happenings.

Then her gaze slowly drifted towards Bone Head. "Unfortunately I cannot give everypony the maps for the Stable, after that incident my matrix core has degraded slightly, so certain data is damaged and inaccessible to me. You can still get it from administration as the Stable's main data maneframe has all the information I have, but far more securely stored. Though I would rather you all stay up here, as a Stable-Tec mandate has forbidden all persons of visitor-status from going any further than the first floor, where all accommodation and general-living facilities are." Now Ami waited for any other inquiries, or worries, they may have over this Stable.

Rad had listened to what Ami said, it sounded terrible. "You were switched off while it happened? Does that mean everythin' was switched off? Nothin' you could check to see what happened or anythin'? Not that you'd wanna see that I guess..." Rad tried to comprehend just what could have happened, but came up with nothing. "Oh... And it uhh... Kinda has been 200 years. Outside that door is all exploded and stuff from a war 200 years ago, there's nothin' left... Well... Not nothin' but... Nothin', if ya know what I mean." Rad gave a shrug at the alicorn, he knew what he meant at least.

He looked at the alicorn, an idea forming. "Alllsooo... If i'm in that Stable I can say for sure i'll be tempted to try get to the other levels, I just love explorin' things! So I won't be able to help it... So could you maybe give me access to the rest of the vault? If I promise not to mess with anythin'? You can trust me right? We're friends now!" He gave Ami a smile, and hoped she would agree.

Bone head face taloned. "Damn it rad." He mentally screamed. It was just an AI, it had protocols and subroutines it had to fallow, you coulden't just get it to go against it's programming by asking nicely. The griffin produced a bottle of beer from one of the pouches in his armor and decided to fallow in lucky's example. "it was going to be a long day."

So a computer then. Should... make things easier. Means stuff is still working, if anything, the reactor should at least have some life in it left. And with luck it won't be thirty minutes from meltdown, though Arc as he grunted and pulled himself back onto his hooves, placing the weapon on his back again.

So they were locked in with this thing. How nice. There was little to question whom closed the door, either it was the computer, or someone behind it. Well, so far it seemed friendly, and Rad was more than sufficient distraction for it. Arc needed to think, and for that, this place was too loud, chaotic and generally getting on his nerves.

He grumbled and looked at Nova. "I need some time alone to think this situation through. Going to look around for a quiet room. Kitchen should do just fine. First room to the right, there's a hallway down there."

Arc trotted past the alicorn, wide berth around Rad Boom and the rest of the group talking to her. "By the way, I'm Arc Weld, Masami," Arc threw out at the hologram, stopping to look at her. Then he left the entrance airlock and headed for the kitchen.

Scrap remained quiet as he stood next to Bakey, listening to the projection as it detailed the events that had portrayed. While saddened by hearing that all the ponies that had inhabited the stable were dead, he couldn't really be surprised by it. The only other two stables he knew about had met similar ends, and the only one he had been in asides this one looked like it had been decorated in the latest raider fashions, what with the gore everywhere.

Trying to keep everything from being utterly depressing, he focused a little bit on the fact that he was right about going to administration first, and as macabre as it may be, that since everypony who had inhabited the stable was dead, they wouldn't really have to worry about stuff popping out at them.

Dash listened to Ami talk about the condition of the stable prior to her apparent shutdown. Immediately, report that all the stable personnel had died didn't sit well with him. There could be any number of reasons why that could have happened. Dying underground wasn't all that high on Dash's list of priorities, either. Though, at least it wasn't underwater. Dash shivered at the mere memory of that underwater city-stable.

Before that whole experience in Harmony, Dash had never once even considered the possibility of drowning. But that night in the swirling ocean, his feathers too wet for him to gain flight, and the water splashin in his face and preventing him from breathing. Dash had to confess to himself that he had never before been more afraid. However, this situation he felt he could handle. For now, he remained quiet, absorbing the information he was given. He'd formulate any strategy and back up strategies he'd have with it.

The alicorn continued her frown as Rad suggested maybe finding something that had recorded what happened. "I would rather not, it might be a bit- What?" Train of thought crashing as Rad gave the plain and simple truth, the AI just looked at him in shock. "Are you serious? The megaspells went off?" Just starting to ask, she then shook her head and looked around at the others.

"Uh... Feel free to go looking around the first floor, may I suggest a bath for some of you? Considering what happened, no pony is going to mind you using the baths and showers. And it must be a... state outside... I don't mean it in any offensive way." She began, then sitting in one spot and frowning thoughtfully whilst the ponies who were leading this venture mostly looked over at Amber, due to her rather messy appearance.

"Fine... I'll go wash." She mumbled, clearly picking up their intention when they looked at her, slowly walking off towards the residential quarters, where all the bathing facilities were.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to, Rad. I mean I can't contact Stable-Tec nor the ministry to get permission to let you go anywhere other than this floor. I don't even need to bother stopping anyone from doing it though, it's not like anypony outside this Stable is going to tell me off for letting anypony explore... I'll just be wandering about."

Now that everypony was free to do what they wanted, Cuppa looked around at the others. "Ah think ah'm gonna go wash up, muh bath only jus' works, so a nice, fully-workin' bath would be nice. Ah'll see ya'll when I'm done?" She said as she trotted off towards the residential area.

"Oh, Bakewell, You said you used to be a cook for Stable 113, yes?" The alicorn suddenly said, looking at her with a very faint smile. "Could you help me in the kitchen? I still want to bake cakes for everypony at least, I know it'll take a while, so you could help me start it all and then I'll just fetch you when they're finished?" She asked softly. "The Pantry has been very well preserved, so we should have plenty of ingredients to work with if you want to help." The least that could be said was that the alicorn had an optimistic look on her face as she asked Bakewell to help. Then gasping.

"Does anyone else want to help with baking some cakes with me?" It seemed that, like a normal pony, the AI was trying to distract itself from having to think about other problems, such as what actually happened during the blackout.
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Radiant Waves looked at Cross for a moment, seemingly trying to think. "I'm not so sure about all this now. I don't even know if that AI is mentally stable..." She quietly said, a visible frown on her face.

(Do what you want and go where you want, just remember, you're going to need a map to know where you're going, so I'll post those when someone retrieves them :3)

Bakewell noticeably stiffened when the Stable-tech asked her to go off with her to the kitchen alone. Be it paranoia or just plain baseless assumption, Bake still was not convinced that the AI wasn’t really trying to murder them all.

“Uh… Um… That is…” She floundered around. As much as she wanted to, the cook suspected that saying no wasn’t really a valid option. How had Ammi known that Bake was a coo- Oh. Because the mare had told her like a stupid idiot. Great.


“Scrap does! Scrap wants to cook, too!” Bake exclaimed when the alicorn asked for additional help, snatching the buck’s tail in her teeth and attempting to drag Scrap forward along with her. Her husband was smart with technology; she’d at least have somepony trustworthy to keep her safe should the AI try anything.

…though, should Cuppa come back un-murdered, Scrap could really use a wash too, his tail wasn’t the best tasting thing ever.

Actually, she probably needed a wash just as much as, if not worse than, her husband. Maybe they would be able to get one before needing to escape.

Xeshir looked rather uneasy at the AI. Sure, she was begin very nice, but she seemed to be avoiding the topic of the apocalypse that had happened and the end of civilization as she knew it...Then again, a working shower was something worth dieing for, so she would take the risk.

"I will go to the baths too." She said as she trotted after Cuppa, having no idea where they would be located. After they were far enough she whispered to her. "You think that AI may snap or something?" She didn´t know how robots and the such worked, but that AI seemed very...Pony, and seemed to think like one. Then she realized she was going to take a bath. With a group of mares. Wet. Mares.

The zebra suddenly smiled widely, but didn´t say anything.

Violet had been silent as the others talked to the AI. She certainly seemed nice enough, and when the truth about what happened to Equestria was revealed her action seemed real enough. She decided she’d give the AI the benefit of a doubt for now. It was completely possible that she really was just a nice AI and had no intention to kill all organics or something.

That didn’t mean she’d let down her guard completely, but for now she was going to assume the AI wasn’t trying to trick them. Of course that didn’t discount the possibility that she might snap in someway, she didn’t seem to be the most emotionally stable sort at the moment.

“I can help too Bakey!” she said to the mare as she dragged Scrap into baking some cakes. “With the three of us, and Ami over here, we can get them made in no time!”

The filly wasn’t in as deeply in need of a bath as the others, having just taken a fairly extensive one a little over a week ago after her sewer adventure. Which doesn’t mean she didn’t need on, just not as bad. She could probably wait until everyone else was done before she grabbed one.

The kitchen was rather basic, but large enough for at least ten ponies to be in here without getting in one another's way too much. There was a large door that lead to the pantry, easily figured due to the large "PANTRY" sign over the door itself.

Along the edges of each wall were counters which had large ovens spread out in regular intervals, allowing for space between each oven to be used as preparation areas. In the centre was a solid block that had more counters with cooking rings built under slide-away panels for when they were needed or not. Also notable were a large variety of kitchen knives and utensils magnetized to certain blocks on the walls for when needed. Crockery and kitchen ware were tucked away in cupboards and there were large basins to wash everything up in.

All of it mostly had a rather metallic presence to it, if only due to it being the theme of most stables. But at least the walls were a nice, light shade of blue.
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The residential area, where all the living facilities were was split off into large sections. This initial section was the recreation quarters, which looked seldom used in the time it existed.

A door lead off to the dormitories, which would just be found to be a plentiful amount of small rooms that had simply a bed and nothing more. It was aptly labelled as "Dormitories".

Another one lead to the bathrooms, upon entry one would find a large communal bath and shower area along with some separate baths and showers which were blocked from sight by some opaque glass doors, the whole room smelling and looking very clean with still a plentiful supply of soap and other such toiletries.

Though obviously the bathing and actual toilet areas were separate, as there was a door in this room that simply said "toilets". A sign above the initial door dictating the room to be the bathrooms.

The good thing about the bathrooms was that there was a less metallic presence around it, as the walls were seemingly tiled.

Some of the baths accompanying the communal one were built into the floor and seemed to be made from stone and were easily large enough for a pony to relax in without worry.

As Cuppa and Xeshir were entering the bathrooms, Cuppa gave a shrug at what she was asked. "Ah know 'bout magic, but that ain't somethin' ah could tell ya 'bout. Way more advanced than anythin' ah can do."

Currently the only occupants of the bathrooms were the two mares and Amber Core, who was already in one of the isolated showers cleaning herself off. The main things notifying them of her presence were her overalls unceremoniously in a heap just outside the door and the sound of running water.

Cuppa looked at the larger, communal bath and then at the smaller ones. The larger one was already filled with hot water, steam slowly rising from the surface whilst all the smaller ones still needed to be filled, though that would only take a quick turn of a tap. She didn't seem to have any issues with disrobing and settling herself into the large bath. "Ah'd have t' say, judgin' by how she took tha' news, she ain't happy right now, but she dun wanna bother anypony with her concerns."

Finally a quiet place. Arc trotted into the room and looked around. Then he listened. Dear goddesses. Even the background hum is correct. Finally, a calm place to think. Arc slowly inhaled and exhaled. Time to plot how to get out of here.

But first... His eyes trailed at the sets of knives on the wall, clearly held there by something. Whatever it was, his mind declared it wanted to know how the cutlery held there. He trotted over to the counter and wrapped his magic around one knife. It went off easily, like it was suspended in a very viscous liquid.

Magnets! Arc mentally squeed.

The mind of the engineer got fully distracted by the way the knife always returned on its place when he let go of it. His mind got filled with pure glee from something so mundane as a magnet and a piece of a metal.