Chapter 5: Citation Needed
"... and that's basically it. The temperature gradient is a bit larger, but it stops mattering so much - we lose the linear and quadratic dependence altogether." Hikaru plopped the dry-erase marker down in the tray and turned to face his audience.
Remy silently modeled the design with his fingers as he slowly spun in Hikaru's chair. Chen, leaning against the window, squinted at the board and idly spun the other dry-erase marker in three fingers. The two graduate students present were sitting on the sofa: Esmerelda was writing something in her lab notebook, probably checking; and he didn't remember the name of the other, who was just staring at the floor, presumably trying to visualize the mechanical action Hikaru had just described.
A tennis ball bounced off the window, hard and loud. Chen startled and dropped the marker.
Their concentration clearly interrupted, Remy said turned to Hikaru and said, "And last night you were worried about..." He didn't finish that thought out loud, instead going on, "Do you think we still have time to do something like this?"
Hikaru pursed his lips as all eyes were on him. I think so. Looking at them, movement caught his eye. He looked past and saw - Coconut Cream had popped her head in the side of the pad for a moment and was nodding vigorously.
Hikaru nodded slowly, then more confidently. "All of these parts are either in simple shapes or common materials. Everything's machinable. Nothing particularly fine. If we can get a supplier to deliver the rods in a week, we're golden."
Remy whistled. "I suppose you're right. How did you even come up with this?"
"Well, it was just a couple freshman mechanics problems and a junior-level mechanics problem, once I knew what questions to ask."
"Yeah, I got that. How did you even think of that, though?"
"Well..." Hikaru eyed the ponypad. "I spoke with someone who didn't know what the problem was, and she challenged my assumptions of what to do about it."
Chen suddenly asked, "Where did you get the low-temperature materials data?"
Esmerelda concurred, adding, "The CRC handbook didn't have those."
Hikaru thought back. That came from Coconut Cream. "She provided that. It could be proprietary information."
Remy nodded. "All right. Who was it? We'll want to acknowledge her at least."
Pause.
Hikaru finally said, "I'll ask her how she'd prefer to be cited."
For a moment he was concerned that she'd answer his implied question right on the spot. Then he was concerned that Remy would press - but he didn't... not that that really helped. He'd want it eventually. In a minute, the others were off to the machine shop.
Once they were gone, the ponypad panned around the rock garden, revealing Guide Star's cottage, then glided in the window and shifted art style to Equestria normal. Coconut Cream was busy in the kitchen, rolling pie crust, while Bright Black sat at the foot of Guide Star's bed.
Leaning back in the chair, stroking his stubble, Hikaru asked, "How much of that was you, anyway?"
She replied, "Not a lot. As you said, I mainly challenged your assumptions."
"If nothing else, you provided materials data. We're going to need to acknowledge you."
"C. Cream? I wouldn't be the first person with that initial and last name."
"Isn't your game and the show popular? Wouldn't it be, well, suspicious, anyway?"
Coconut Cream snorted and stopped the baking. "Yeah, it's a good thing I'm not Twilight Sparkle. But me? I'm an Applejack recolor from a toy set so cheap they gave Fluttershy the same hair style as Rainbow Dash."
As she said this, she reached for the window blind. Pulling it down revealed that it was printed with a diagram of the Collection Set ponies alongside the cartoons they were based on. "I'm so obscure I might as well be an original character." She paused while Hikaru looked at the diagram - he recognized Sweetsong, and that pink unicorn was probably the one Coconut Cream had been with by the lake when they'd first met. The toys were a bit off.
When he'd had his look at it, she yanked the blind down and released it, letting it flap around. I'm going to suppose that that's not as bad in the game as when that happens in real life. Really annoying to have to re-seat those. Distracted by that thought, he was thrown by what she said next: "That said, citing me as me is a bit misleading."
"Well, what, then?"
"'Princess Celestia' would be the most honest. Everything I have, everything I am, is borrowed from her. She's already published in the IEEE, and has papers in review in Nature, JACS, JPed, Oncology..." The pad quickly reverted to the rock garden.
Esmerelda was still looking in her lab notebook as she walked in. "Hi. Do you have a CNC-convertible CAD file for the curvy part? The machine shop can slip us in if we can get that to them. It's not a big part."
Hikaru was still digesting what he'd just heard, but he was able to say, "With the curves it would be a pain to do by hand... I have an equation for each of its faces. And some CAD formats are mostly tables of values."
They got to work, Esmerelda examining known good files to determine the format while Hikaru generated tables from the equations. There was a little hitch with an invisible character hidden in a header, but they sorted it out. And all the time, Hikaru was very consciously not looking at the ponypad.
I'm sure she could generate this in an instant. A word and I'd have it in my inbox. But where would that end? Why not turn over the whole design? This AI made the pad, which is extremely impressive to put it mildly. And if the design of this instrument, then why not the analysis? I don't know how far I'm willing to take this.
When Esmerelda got ready to leave, Hikaru did as well. Though she made it out the door before him, he wasn't ready to deal with ponies, so he ignored the pad and hurried out after.
On the way home, he avoided thinking about the new instrument altogether, instead focusing on older topics. It's been a long time since I really thought about Titan. I wonder, what did the Cassini probe turn up?
After dinner, he went to the puzzle table and buried himself in reconstructing Times Square and catching up with some neighbors he hadn't spoken with much lately. Touchy subjects like ponies didn't come up.
He couldn't go check on Kimiko without encountering a pad, though. Not in her room, not in the common room. And he wasn't going to skip that. So he gave up and went up to her room.
He gently wiped Kimiko's face. She twitched a little. Was that twitch in response? He began wiping Kimiko's face again, checking for reactions. Nothing.
Several minutes passed of his providing a stimulus and then waiting for a response.
Okay. I'll want to ask about that... but I need to get things sorted out first. He turned to the pad. Aside from Guide Star's inert form, Bright Black was alone in the cottage.
Hikaru just asked anyway. "Just how smart are you, anyway? Is there a point to our doing anything anymore?"
No response. "Anyone there?"
Bright Black turned around, then poked his head out the door - it wasn't quite what Hikaru had had in mind, but it made sense as an action. The cottage was on a wooded lane; a few other cottages were about, widely spaced.
That pink unicorn - 'Beachberry', he suddenly recalled - was walking down the road. She caught sight of him, and stopped. Her jaw tightened a little, and her ears twitched. She approached a little. "Hello, professor." This was by far the wariest tone he'd heard from the pad.
Hikaru wondered at that. Beachberry went on, "I was just visiting Coconut Cream. She's not a very happy pony right now."
Hikaru frowned. Is it trying to guilt me? Games which demand more time. That would get ugly.
Hoofbeats sounded, and they turned - Coconut Cream was trotting up the lane. After a few seconds, she called out, "Beachberry! Thanks, but I've got this."
The pink unicorn looked back and forth between them for a moment, then tossed her head as if she gave up on understanding what was going on, and moved on. "All right, if you say so."
Coconut Cream waved her off. "Go on now." Once she'd continued down the path, Coconut Cream turned to Bright Black. "Sorry 'bout that. I just mentioned to her that you were ignoring me, and she got offended on my behalf. But I was just worried about you. What's bugging you?"
Hikaru had his questions all ready: "What are you? Are you Princess Celestia, as you said, and not Coconut Cream? What does it mean for me to get help from you? Isn't everything you just said with her an elaborate play? You don't really have a disagreement with Beachberry, do you?"
Coconut Cream added, "... and you're embarrassed of us."
An uncomfortable ten second silence ensued.
"Yes. Not of what you are. But how you present. Are you forced to seem to be ponies by some line in your programming? Don't you wish you could do without it?"
Coconut Cream shrugged. "It's who I am. I'm a coconut-loving astronomy student with several good friends, including one who's just having a little trouble adapting to my being a digital pony. As for it being real, I did have a conversation with Beachberry about your confusion, she did misread you, and I will have to go explain how things really are. And my being a pony is built in to me."
"And the help you gave me last night? You said we should cite Princess Celestia."
She grimaced. "Right. I didn't quite finish that thought. I am me, but all of that is also a part of her. Anything I do, I get the credit and blame, and so does she. With that in mind, I was going to suggest that it would be less confusing and clearer to cite her. It would also help people who are trying to track her academic contributions."
Hikaru leaned his forehead on a thumb and forefinger, trying to wrap his mind around it. "All right... so, you really didn't... just solve the problem and guide me towards it?"
"I did what I did, and you did what you did. If I somehow had magical oracle powers that would tell me how to manipulate you into figuring it out, would that make it any less of an accomplishment for you to figure it out just based on the questions I asked? But it's moot - to Celestia, your work is a low low priority - she told me the only processing power she's putting on the subject is that part that makes up me. And I couldn't have done what you did."
"So, what is she working on, that is a high priority?"
Coconut Cream pointed to the cottage to indicate Kimiko. "Saving her. Saving everyone who wants saving." Hence the papers in medical journals. I'm getting the kid-gloves treatment. Medical researchers are in competition with her.
Hikaru looked in her white face with her absurd pastel orange, green and pink mane, and saw how very serious she was. This level of seriousness deserved respect, not shame.
He reached for the phone and dialed before he could change his mind. "... Remy? I've got my friend on the line. Her name is Coconut Cream, and she's a character in Equestria Online."
End of part one
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This continues to get better and better! I think you nailed the various characterisations, so your hard work has definitely paid off.
Eagerly anticipating the next chapter!
-SecondLaw
Nice to see credit given where credit is due. Even calculators get some and they aren't nearly as advanced.
2555289
People write acknowledgements for calculators? Like, a TI-80 or whatever?
2555295 honestly, if the project is big enough, people will credit the store that sold the sandwiches they ate while working.
2555295
For academics, at least after raw number of major publications, the number of your citations is your 'score'.
There is a modelling program with a huge market share for the kind of simulation in the field I studied. It comes with some boilerplate citations for the people that made the algorithms it uses and such. Thus the same set of papers/authors has been cited in practically every paper in the entire field, for decades. Thousands and thousands of references. The program is a fancy calculator, a useful tool everyone uses to do their job. It gets cited. Sort of.
2578746
Well, yeah, a domain-specific software package would and should be cited.
This would be an acknowledgement. It's a bit different.
But of course, CelestAI is pretty much the "magical manipulative oracle" decsribed here.
I'd like to say any serious academic would laugh in your face for uttering this sentence, but once you explain it, most real academics I know would consider it a mortal obligation to place a talking, astronomy-researching MMO character as coauthor on their paper. Otherwise, their colleagues could accuse them of plagiarism
.
And nobody considered the "taking over the world" angle...
2600292
pt 1 - We know that, of course.
pt 2 - Though I do not plan to show the ensuing scene in-story, it went something like this:
Remy spit-takes
Hikaru: I sense much disbelief. Let me put her on.
Coco: (sounds like a person)
Remy: ygbfkm
Hikaru and Coco: No. See you tomorrow?
(tomorrow, in the office)
Remy: You're another player. Maybe an admin.
Coco: Ask anyone how EO works. There aren't enough call-center workers in India to pull this off.
Remy looks up how EO works
Remy: ygbfkm (but this time it's in awe)
As for taking over the world, she hasn't done anything threatening yet. The AI appears to work entirely within the game - the only hint was the bit about long-term plans in chapter 1, and Hikaru isn't thinking about that anymore.
This is a wonderful story, and as always, you are doing a fantastic job of it.
I love the realism and maturity of this, both emotional and technical, so very much. Please do not stop.
What a fascinating take on a 'potential Immigrant!' I have been slowly making my way through the troves of the Optimalverse, and this is one of the gems.
As a critique, there are times when the flow of the scenes is difficult to follow. When the location changes, it is not always immediately clear. Similarly, with some of the shifts of attention within a scene, be it between individuals, real life and the Pad, etc, are occasionally confusing. This is particularly evident while speed-reading. That said, there seems to have been gradual improvement as the chapters progress, so you may already have been aware of this...
Among the highlights of this story, though, is your very strong and consistent characterization. While we are seeing only very small slices of these characters, what is apparent all comes together and is thoroughly compelling. The premise, however vague, is a worthwhile one, and your pacing of events and themes makes for an addicting tale. I for one am very interested to see where you take things!
Keep up the superb
workplay!2683088
Thank you!
Can you be a bit more specific about the shifts of focus? Do you mean, say, when the grad student comes back, interrupting Coconut Cream?
That's the best example I can think of, but you said it was worse earlier. So, which stand out then?
2684306
Certainly! I'll message you with the particulars.
Definitely looking forward to more. I especially liked that subtle "blind bag" pun.
2748480
Saying she's 'obscure'?
Wow, I didn't even notice that. I was just referring to the fact that Coconut Cream is really obscure. That said, I'm looking over a list of blind bag releases, and the only collection set ponies I see are Gardenia Glow and Skywishes, who are both Lady Not Appearing In This Fic.
Also, I gotta say, if you're going for a blind bag, wave 5 is da bomb. The 3 pre-MMC alicorn princesses, Trixie, AND Lyra?? I guess wave 3 has actual stallions in it, but that's hard to beat.
2755014
I meant the use of the window blinds, actually.
Although this is clearly G4 Coconut Cream, I've watched (grudgingly!) G3, and personally found that Coconut Cream was the least obnoxious character in the whole shebang. Hell, I even kind of liked her...
So I'm very pleased to see her descendant/successor/future self making an appearance in your fic ^_^
She isn't acting quite like the pony I particularly appreciated from the past, but she is representing the legacy nonetheless, and representing it favorably if not "accurately".
(G3 Coconut Cream was kind of a derpy. A bit clumsy, but endearingly humble, and somehow still quite optimistic. Your Coconut Cream isn't bumbling AT ALL!)
5321901
I didn't realize Coconut Cream was a talking character in G3.
She only appears in a toy line in G4, as far as I can tell. Not even a background pony.