My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm an alicorn princess in the land of Equestria, and I've made a terrible mistake.
Five months ago, I created the Borealis Institute. Its purpose, to perfect through science what magic cannot be relied upon to accomplish. A scant few weeks ago, we began our experiments with cloning. Owing to my high resiliency, I volunteered to be the initial template for equine experimentation.
Twelve minutes ago, the first clone came off the assembly line. And just by looking at her, I know we have done our jobs too well.
Because she says that her name is Twilight Sparkle, and that I am the rogue clone.
Story concept and art come to us courtesy of Pedro Hander. Check them out.
Chapters (1)
Now I just have this image of a bunch of dead twilight sparkles in a shallow concrete ditch like in Resident evil.
:V
My theory is that the 'Subject Six' Twilight is the clone.
It seems to make sense, and it would answer the majority of the questions this story creates. Although it is uncertain thanks to the mind games this story plays.
7550560 I'm inclined to believe so as well, but 'Twilight' is also uncharacteristically callous toward 'Subject Six'. As the Princess of Friendship, this is extremely unlike her, even taking the circumstances into account. As a result, I'm not 100% sure.
So many questions, so few answers.
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7550560
Clearly they're both fake Twilights and the real one's somewhere else.
7550620 Sounds plausible...
Okay, this was creepy. Spine tingling even.
Damn
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7550580
7550620 And what if the experiment have gone wrong and the two of them have magic ? Just one of them have a temporary magic loss. It's possible too.
7550830 I look forward to seeing your version.
Well, let's take the entire story at face value and assume the situation is exactly what "subject six" assumes it is. In that case, Twilight Sparkle has been breeding intelligent, fully individualized and mentally complete clones of herself for use in unethical medical experiments for weeks, possibly longer.
I'd say she got what she had coming to her, one way or the other.
Woah, trippy. I feel weird just thinking about the implications.
7550849 And I look forward to writing it.
Great story dude, really cool. Loved the way you described the laboratories, and of course, the knots in my brain.
7551090 Glad you enjoyed.
This is what having a sense of self and "realness" gets you. I gave up on that shit a long time ago.
Why does it seem so important to be the original? A perfect clone of me with all of my memories and thought processes would be just as valid of a me as I would be, for a given value of "Me" and "I".
7551243
"Life" is often defined as continuity of memory, continuity of consciousness and continuity of substance. Lose one or more of these and the ongoing physical process in your brain that's properly speaking "you" at this moment doesn't exist anymore. That's, by most definitions, death. It's like blowing out a candle and then lighting a different one. Indistinguishable in every practical sense, but the original flame is still gone.
Considering that any number of identical clones of you can exist simultaneously, it's kind of easy to see why they aren't subjectively you, as in, the individual person I'm talking to right now.
7551292
If you have a program on one computer, and you copy it onto another computer before deleting the original, then for all intents and purposes the program is still "Alive".
7551306 Much as it pains me to shatter the illusion, people don't work like computers.
7551306
See, that's exactly the thing: information can be copied, erased and changed. It cannot be moved. If you make a copy, then you have two programs. To have just one again, the original needs to be destroyed, which is what happens when you "move" data on a computer. In other words, a clone of you is only "you" if you put a bullet through your head afterwards. It's a new consciousness. With identical memories, granted, but still physically and subjectively separate from you.
Most people consider their individual consciousness the important part about what makes the difference between being alive and being dead, but if you don't, then that's also fine, I guess. It does give you some conceptual problems when you have, as mentioned, multiple copies of yourself running around, though. You can't be more than one person at the same time, it's kind of part of the definition.
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People's brains do, as they are literally just hyper-complex chemical computers.
Unless you're religious, in which case there are souls and stuff like that to consider.
7551323
Of course there can't be two of the same minds going around, even if you did split them, their change in experiences at that moment change who they are.
Such as if I were to split into two people right now, one would be on the right and one on the left. Our experiences will have split because of this.
I'm sure you've heard of how 98% of tissue in the body is regenerated every year? Well, your brain makes up some of that, so a lot of yous are dead now.
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Not all at once and never with your consciousness actually stopping at any point during the process, though. Your mind always keeps running. What you mean is more like cutting out your brain, writing your memories into a new one, and then putting it back in there. It's a qualitative difference.
Which, again, is fine if that's your definition of identity. Even in computational terms that's a new process running on new hardware, though. The original one has already ceased to exist. Speaking as a compsci graduate there. I'm willing to agree to disagree on the philosophical aspect of it, but computers I know.
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And the human brain is something that I know. It may not be my science (which is physics) but I do enjoy reading all about it whenever I can.
I think somehow we argued about different things, my point was that there's no point or importance to whatever was the original.
I do agree with you on if it's a slower process then it's fine, that's why I'd be fine with having my brain's neurons slowly replaced with exact mechanical replicas that will not have Alzheimers or some other age-related disease.
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I suppose me may have been. I was talking about it in the "could I download my mind into a computer to become immortal? No." sense and such. If you were just talking about how much it matters to the story, then sorry for the misunderstanding. I would agree with that. For the clone, it makes no difference. Neither one is more "real" than the other.
And yeah, I'd go for that, too.
I honestly didn't like this. I felt like it took too long to get to the point, which wasn't very interesting to begin with because both descriptions spoiled it and it's a very cliched scenario. I think I was supposed to be curious as to which one was real and which was fake, but it really didn't work out. Neither character speaks or acts like Twilight Sparkle. The narrator is too panicky and the 'clone' sounds like GLaDOS. This line especially sounds like it was taken straight from Portal.
I can tell that you were going for 'unsettling identity crisis', but the confusing and under-explained jargon, combined with the OOC just completely shattered any delusions of that. The OOC especially is what really hurts this story. If both characters acted like Twilight Sparkle then you would have really gotten what you were going for. As it stands, it just doesn't accomplish what it sets out to do.
7551549 Your input is appreciated, and your various complaints will be very carefully considered.
7551549
I'm telling ya, they're both clones. Like, this is a legit theory.
Not bad, my good sir. Nay, a fantastic job. This was quite an excellent addition to your ever-expanding library of amazing works.
There's hubris, and then there's stupidity. The premise, while indeed horrific, relies too much on Twilight being made to hold an idiot ball.
Why would Twilight use herself as a test subject when there should be plenty of lab assistants that could volunteer as guinea pigs? She should've known, as a project leader, that this could happen. Her identity is valuable, and she should go to any lengths to protect it.
Secondly, why would she put the input vat and output vats in the same room, and not have the outputs placed in a sealed chamber behind multiple layers of security? There should be no chance of a mix-up, because there should be no way for the clones to leave. They should be completely cordoned off from the rest of the facility, incapable of mingling with the staff. I mean, it's possible that this actually is the case, and they're both clones, and the real Twilight is watching from afar. Nothing would forestall that particularly chilling conclusion.
Upvoted because I liked the tension in the prose. Just needed to rant a little.
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It wouldn't make a difference because the real horror doesn't come from the conclusion to begin with but from the premise, which is that there's a government-sponsored facility at all that's using intelligent clones for medical experiments that would make Mengele proud.
Interesting.
It's basically a fanfic about technicolor horses, but makes us asking question we haven't considered before; or, at least not in that intensity (see the previous comments).
I for myself found this story incredibly deep.
And, if science continues like it does, we will have to ask this kind of question in real live soon; maybe even in our lifetime.
7550552 So a prequel to a zombie movie then?
This was freaky dude, I like it. Also, i'm only two days late reading this time. Do I get a cookie?
7556307 If you'd like.
Oh boy. This was a freaky short story. Nicely done, I'd like to see a sequel. Does the clone attempt any acts of defiance against Equestria, seeing Twilight is a princess, and a clone of her can get away with lots of things like sabotaging the two sisters. This also reminded me of "The Russian Sleep Experiment" just by the title of the experiment. All in all, great job!
Chirst, if you're going to clone someclone, make sure they are mentally stable. Know yourself. Fun story.
Right. Well. If the cloning was being used in unethical medical experiments where the cloned subjects were then subsequently killed, then there'd be no reason for those clipboards to be around. Which mean the talky Twilight is most likely not the original Twilight. And improbably better at lying (and using illusion spells) off the cuff than the show Twilight. And murderous for basically no reason. Eh.
I guess this doesn't feel like horror to me because while our viewpoint Twilight Sparkle seems like she's the character we know the other Twilight really doesn't feel like Twilight Sparkle at all. I think it would have worked better if they both seemed like the same character and there was enough reasoning given to the reader for their differing actions.
7566852 I claim defective cloning.
7566871
That's what a clone would say...
Glad I finally got around to this one. Pretty interesting and gave me my own theories about what is what. Though I have to say this must be quite the future Twilight, wherever she is right now, to have such a direct and smug overtone to the point it replicated this efficiently. I swear, most people here have come to the conclusion that the older Twi gets the more curt she becomes. I can see it I suppose though.
7556307 one week later Oh geez, that reminds me… I’m—on average—two weeks late to every newly published fic regardless of author. Well, life’s quite busy for me especially at this time of year, but that’s more of an excuse than anything as I procrastinate on my reading list in my free time.
Anyway, I liked it. Subject Six’s staunch denial of her cloneliness and the slow suspense made the story unsettling to read, but in a good way.
7550580 A possible explanation is that this story takes place far into the future, as events may happen that causes Twilight’s personality to change. Even with that, however, her callousness is interesting.
My first thought: There's no way Twilight would be that callused towards her own clones. She'd be more likely to make a team of herselves to act as her research team.
My second thought: the Twilight that killed Subject six was not the original Twilight. It's one of the first batch of clones that went wrong and killed the original Twilight.
7575920 Your third thought: The real Twilight is still alive, far away, and conducting a social experiment. And the perpetual cycle of horrors that her clones are inflicting on each order makes her cry herself to sleep every night.
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So she has the power to stop her clones, but is letting them do this for her experiment even though it upsets her?
7575984 Some of the greatest scientific advancements in all of history were made by madmen and monsters. We've seen countless AU where the brilliant superpower that is Twilight Sparkle went insane, and was basically only stopped by the few things she couldn't control.
An infinite, self-contained loop of infinite evil Twilight Sparkles with no outside enemy is essentially just a factory of constant scientific advancement. If clones are ruled as non-pony, there is no government that could ever exist that wouldn't convince Twilight to go through with this.
I was expecting more of an existential crisis sort of thing but this is pretty dang good the way you wrote it so I ain't complaining.
Also that ending totally took me by surprise. I was worried about whether or not the clone had just killed Twilight. But based on one of your comments in these reviews (the one about the third thought), I think it's kinda fine.
I'm guessing that the original Twilight's been killed and replaced, and that the clone that replaced her has been making more clones to steal their magic to ensure her own survival once she leaves and ponies no doubt try to hunt her down. I can't see Twilight treating clones of herself this way.
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This is really good, but I'm not sure that was properly communicated to the audience.
8121498 It's kind of built to be vague.
I feel like that’s either a joke of some sort, or a disturbing glimpse into a version of Equestria where sheep believe in servitude and clones are considered expendable enough to use for brief and meaningless experiments...
Disturbing is probably how I’d describe this. Sadly, I was expecting something slightly different from the description...