Sitting amongst the suitcases and handbags in the baggage car, his thoughts swirling darkly, Lex struggled to regain control over his maelstrom of emotions. Alone at last, he bitterly cursed Applejack and Rainbow Dash for pushing him this far. He cursed Sonata and her inscrutable nature, even more opaque than most ponies. And he cursed himself, as he had done so many times before, for whatever was wrong with him that he couldn't simply understand how to get along with others the way that everypony else did.
You're right to hate yourself, came the voiceless words that Lex had come to expect whenever his misery was at its peak. You're defective. You've always been defective. You sneer at that thing that calls itself Soft Mane, but at least its deformities are obvious.
The hate-filled look that Lex gave his shadow would have sent anypony else running. In that moment, he would have given much to be able to permanently destroy that thing.
But you can't, can you? Which means you have no hope at all of defeating Luna and Celestia if they decide to fight you rather than giving up Equestria without a fight. And why would they? You can't even get along with a single mare, even when her friends tell you how.
"Their advice was useless!" snarled Lex, finally goaded into responding. He knew it was a mistake, knew that responding would only galvanize that thing into taunting him further, but at the moment he didn't care. "Just telling me what to do doesn't help me understand why I should do it!"
And a course of action is only worth undertaking if you understand every aspect of it? it scoffed. You can't presume that their advice is given in good faith, and is the correct thing to do, without dissecting it utterly?
"Of course I can't! Without knowing why it works that way, I can't make any adjustments that may be necessary when implementing their advice! Without those adjustments, even if they were right about what to do this time, that won't help me understand what I should do next time!"
A memory came to him as he said that, remembering back when he had been a colt of just a few years. There had been a pegasus filly in his class that he'd liked, and he'd asked his parents for advice on how to talk to her. His father had told him to ask questions about whatever topic she brought up, to show interest in what she thought was interesting. His mother had told him to make sure to smile when speaking to her.
He'd done both of those things the very next day, when she'd been talking about how her father had been injured while at work. For some reason, his grinning widely while asking about the nature and extent of her father's injuries had repulsed her, and he'd overheard her talking about "that creepy weirdo" with her friends at lunch. He'd been heartbroken, and when he'd angrilly confronted his parents later, they had told him that he needed to modify his responses to fit the situation. It was his first memory of understanding that some sort of unspoken nuance undergirded every social situation...nuance that steadfastly refused to make itself known to him.
So then you'll keep up your line of experiments, even though your methodology has yet to produce a single success. How much do you need to prove your own failures to yourself before you'll accept them?
"I refuse to admit failure! I will find an answer, no matter how long it takes!" There was simply no other acceptable alternative. To admit defeat would be to admit that every interaction he'd have with everypony else for the rest of his life would be a study in chaos; a guessing-game that didn't follow any sort of cause-and-effect relationships that he could determine.
Such a scenario was one that Lex refused to consider, because that kind of chaos was too terrifying to contemplate. Interacting with any system blindly ran the risk of complete disaster, something that he'd learned the hard way more than once when interacting with magic. And if that was true with regards to magical systems, it was certainly true with regards to social systems as well.
After all, mused Lex, much calmer now that he had reaffirmed the rightness of his chosen course of action, friendship is magic.
The train pulled smoothly into the station. The ponies aboard departed, unaware or uncaring of the crash that had claimed lives not too long prior. Twilight and her friends were among them, most pleased to be there. Blue and Yellow looked around with lost eyes, staying close to their new friends.
Blue asked, "How can so many ponies live in one place? There can't be enough mines in one place to work."
Twilight shook her head down at Blue, "There are many professions besides mining to choose from. Some of them make clothing, like I'm wearing. Some write books, others pray to gods and others protect other ponies. There are countless ways to prove your worth and earn your keep."
Blue looked confused a moment, before she pointed at herself, "What could I do?"
Yellow spoke, "We can mine. We're good at it, and we'll survive."
Blue gave her mother a frown, "What if I don't want to mine? What if I wanna do one of those other things?"
Applejack moved up into the conversation, "Then ya'll have to learn how to do something new, simple as that. This here's the city to do it in."
Yellow seemed uncertain of the idea, lapsing into a thoughtful mood as she hiked forward.
Lex slowly made his way out of the train, ignoring the surprised porter that opened the baggage car door. Looking around, he spotted the remainder of the group. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he approached them.
Rainbow looked around, hovering a short distance from the ground, "So where exactly are we going?"
Spike pointed up at the castle, "I guess we should start there."
Sonata shook her head, "The nice queen's not there, so I don't think we'll get much done. We should totally just take it into our own hooves. We have money, and we actually care."
Soft Mane nodded in agreement with this, "We do have that. Let's ask around and see if there's somewhere we can get Yellow back to doing what she wants."
"We shouldn't be so quick to discount the government," interjected Lex. "There's more to it than just the queen. I'm sure there must be some official that can offer assistance."
Twilight nodded in agreement with Lex, "We should at least try. Just be ready in case it doesn't go as smoothly as we'd like." The group moved out as one, advancing through the city in the direction of the castle. One of the guards recognized them at the gate.
She smiled, "The liberators return! What can I do for you?"
Twilight perked up. This seemed like a good start. She gestured at Blue and Yellow, "These poor things were victims of slavery. We've rescued them and were wondering if there was some governmental program to help them get back on their hooves."
The guard frowned thoughtfully, "We have an orphanage?"
Yellow shook her head a little, "What is that?"
"It's unacceptable, is what it is," Lex interrupted. "These two are parent and child, they don't need an orphanage. What they need is housing assistance and employment-training to help them transition to being productive members of society." He didn't bother trying to hide his impatience as he continued, "since it's unlikely that a castle guard such as yourself would know anything about that, you can make yourself useful by telling us what officials in charge of those areas we should speak to."
The guard peered at Blue and Yellow, "Huh, sorry..." She shrugged, "They both looked like foals to me. There are some good schools in the area. You could try appealing to them?"
The other guard, a stallion, trotted over, "We don't have an official in charge of that. I mean, really, it's up to a parent to make sure their child is trained properly."
Twilight stomped a hoof agitatedly, "And when their parents were locked up in a mine?"
Neither guard had much answer.
Sonata lifted her shoulders, "It's up to us or nothing's gonna happen at all."
"That is unacceptable," snapped Lex, still speaking to the guards. "How can there not be an official in charge of the well-being of the citizenry? Somepony has to be charged with maintaining the public welfare, and I want to know who that is!"
The two looked at each other a moment, then one raised a hoof, "There's the overseer of health? Would she work? They don't look ill or poisoned."
Spike put a claw over his face, "Dude, c'mon. I don't think they know."
Twilight suddenly brightened, "Oh! It's so obvious. The temples would be in charge of general welfare. We should try at Luminace's library and see if they can't help."
"No!" hissed Lex, stamping a hoof. "I refuse to believe that Queen Iliana forged a civilized society out of nothing only to abandon the job halfway through! The idea that the downtrodden have nothing but religious charities to rely on is not only ludicrous, it's an insult to what this empire stands for!"
Looking over the guards, who were regarding him blankly, Lex could feel the composure that he'd so recently repaired being tested again. "I demand an audience with Queen Iliana herself regarding this state of affairs!"
Twilight shrugged, "Their priests can literally banish sickness with a touch or mend injuries as easily. Why wouldn't they be in charge of general welfare? Besides, I think you're bothering them."
The guards were becoming a little irritable at Lex's demands. The mare shook her head, "The Queen is not in attendance, nor are you on any list of hers. We've answered your questions, now off with you!"
The stallion nodded in agreement, "Harassing us won't get you anywhere, and Queen Iliana doesn't rule from here anyway. If you want an appointment with the mayor, we'll add you to the queue."
Lex refused to relent. "Neither healing nor treatment is going to banish unemployment or hunger. These two," he swept a hoof towards Blue and Yellow, who were almost cowering in the face of Lex's anger, "aren't afflicted with injuries or sickness, Twilight! And as for you two drill-dulled military morons..."
He regarded them with open loathing, and the stallion was about to reach for his weapon when Lex continued, "Add me to the queue to see the mayor. I will see to it that this issue is addressed."
With that, he turned his back to the both of them and started to walk away, fuming.
Twilight gestured for the others to follow, and they proceeded away from the castle. Twilight tried to direct them towards the temple, "We should still try. The worst they'll tell us is that they can't help, and it's worth the trip at least."
You know Lex make's a good point.
Honestly, I'd take them to Equestria and give them to Cadence. There're mines up there and Caddie would make sure they're safe.
Aw, Lex. Interpersonal relationships do follow rules... that are extremely complicated and truly involve an incomprehensibly (and I mean that in it's most literal and extreme interpretation: you cannot actually keep track of all the variables that go into a situation that affects interpersonal relationships. it is simply impossible. Not that you can do that for anything if you think of it broadly anyway) large number of variables. So much so that you'll never be able to understand every rule or be able to gather every bit of evidence to act with the same kind of confidence than when you interact with a limited system.
It's still the same thing as all science. Just much more complicated because the systems (ie: the entirety of what makes up a person, every synapse, cell, hormone, memory, magical facet, and all the various states all of those could be in) you are dealing with are more complicated.
... So, you're going to have a hard time coming up with a model that doesn't have an element that, because it involves factors you cannot glean, is unexpected, and thus effectively random and chaotic.
Ironically, the example he uses earlier about the pegasus filly he liked is pretty close to an example of him turning off his brain, and falling back on not using logic. It should be pretty clear that acting excited about the death of her father would be offensive, but his reliance on following the rules presented, rather than making extrapolations based on either his previous experience or his own mental state shot him in the foot.
... Not that I'm gonna blame him for it. It's a very realistic way for a nervous child to try to cope with the unknown.
... And what's this business about taking control of Equestria from Celestia and Luna?
if typo's start coming in colors they will be easier to see. ^_^
I hate to say it, but Sombra has a point. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Of course, in social situations, the level of context sensitivity means that the same actions can lead to different results, but Lex's problem is on the methodological level. Ponies are not perfectly ordered, predictable systems, nor are their societies. Nor should they be. Some level of chaos has to be expected in both society and magic. (All magic is change. Even abjuration is a change made to either reverse a previous change or prevent future ones.)
And there's a key difference between friendship and magic that Lex has neglected to consider: social interaction is much more forgiving of mistakes than magical experimentation. No one ever got turned into a watermelon just by talking to someone. Because of it, maybe, but through the conversation itself.
In any case, just because magic can't solve unemployment doesn't mean that the magicians can't lend a hand. And really, if there's already an established infrastructure willing and able to help with certain aspects of society, why not incorporate it into the civic structure? It reduces redundancy and fosters goodwill between secular and religious authorities. A system of government that tries to cover every conceivable facet of its citizens' lives is going to be horribly bloated, ripe for corruption, inefficiency, and bureaucratic intrusiveness. No one can be blamed for failing to conceive of the inconceivable; what matters when it comes up is who can deal with it and how.
Of course, at this point, I'm wondering if Lex has some issues with how the gods are running things. It would certainly go along with his desire to conquer Equestria.
I found only one tube of typo on the palette:
Queue.
5785286 The story was *why* he wants to use logic. It was explaining that he tried to fall back on the rules people gave him, and it made things worse.
5785394 The problem is that they don't even know what to ask for or whether there is already a solution, so Lex's immediate reaction is to yell at people and call them idiots instead of even bothering the gather data.
5785573
Hm. My previous comment doesn't make this clear, I guess:
I understand that it was building out why he acts the way he does. In fact, this gets me to like Lex, and invests me more in his character. The reasons for why he thinks the way he does are now believable, sympathetic, and compelling, instead of unknown or that he is just a curmudgeon.
It just also compelled me to disagree with him on an intellectual level and leave a comment about that, and that came out first.
In my opinion, I think that Lex is starting to get a bit annoying with how he yells at everyone and only thinks of himself. It surprises me that the group would put up with it for so long.
Lex's evil head voice is making a lot of sense, that can't be good.
Wow, Lex is genuine sociopath. People usually use the term as an epithet, but I think he fits even the strictest definition.
Colored typos, coming up!
smoothly into
victims
queue
5785286 Spoilers: Lex is a villain who has been plotting to conquer Equestria for the last thousand years because he doesn't think the princesses care enough about science.
5785997 Just to avoid confusion among readers, this is albedo's guess, rather than being a literal spoiler.
5786010 Yup. (Although that's just what you'd say if it was a literal spoiler.)
5785972 My nightmares are reality! Fixed and thanks.
Lex, these poor ponies need tending in more than just a physical way. If their wounded spirits aren't cared for, how can they ever make a new life for themselves?
As long as ya don't have a pony named Green Envy,you should be good.
5786391 My plans... ruined.
Yup, Lex is one of the class of, intelligent, literal minded, but parents are just at that point where they interact enough to make him want to make them proud, but too busy to interact with him constantly all day, every day.
Apparently children who dont learn to speak too good, hear 3 million words less in their formative years, than thosewho learn to speak well. children who never hear words, never learn to speak. Watson needs a database, to be classed as an excelent game player, of 150 Terabytes. Which human coder compression gets down to 12 terabytes. Im sure neural nets compress it far further.
thats still an awful lot of interaction you need, to learn to be human, and its not much good if certain external world neurons are broken so that actions dont register as being important or having any relavence.
He asked to be put on the mayor list, but still in the same style of behaviour he was using. Disconnected.
A lot of behaviour, if you can remember what teh functions are and how to apply them, can be represented by Meyer Briggs psych profile, and the prisoners dilema. With 2 modifications. the first is everyone is in for it for themselves. Most important though. Everyone lies and will violently defend their right for that lying to be secret. Result of predicting the output of a social interaction following these simple rules? better than 99%.
5785262 But then, Lashtada would be even more linked to Equestria instead of Everglow, and that's not what she's trying to do.
My impression of Lex so far is pretty bad.
So far it sounds like he's pretty clever, but that's the only thing I can say that's positive about him.
For one thing, he's either a self delusional hypocrite, or he's a blithering idiot. He claims to espouse scientific advancement and the rule of logic, but he actively avoids any possible scientific approach to anything he doesn't understand, and he invariably ignores logic and reacts emotionally to every situation.
My guess is that he got use to being faster coming up with an answer as a child, so he thought he was smarter than everyone else (this is far from the case, there are three aspects of intelligence: intellect, or how fast you process information, knowledge, the amount of information you posses, and comprehension, the ability to connect bits of information together to see the answer). Then he decided that because he was smarter, others were wrong when they disagreed with him. This likely led to personality problems that no one took the time to correct, so he continued to think he was always right when no one bothered to argue with him.
I would really love to see Twilight sit him down and explain empirical thinking to this guy. He may actually learn something if he bothers to pay attention.
5786831 I agree with this assessment as it gives accurate cause for my dislike of the character, not as a part of the plot or as part of the story, but as a person.
5785286
Ehh, I wouldn't say it's impossible, I'd just say it'd take a pretty strong societal pressure to figure it out, plus a couple hundred years of dedicated study to make any serious headway. He's not going to make a huge dent in the problem all on his own in one lifetime. It sounds like what he wants is a comprehensive theory of psychology and sociology, after all.
That, and not everyone has that intuitive understanding of how to deal with emotions, both in themselves and in other people. The common reaction that "It should be obvious", doesn't help the sort of person for whom it isn't obvious. Emotional intelligence is something learned, mostly through experience, not something you're necessarily born with. Lex needs the experience, but he seems to be one of those who hates acting when he doesn't know what it is that he's doing. Framing it as 'conducting experiments' is a safer way to venture into the mysterious unknown.
5786400 whos the third?
7053315 Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie. Take your pick. Lucky for Silver, Purple Smart is a fan nickname.
So I’m guessing this is actually Sombra, and if so good job making him a rally sympathetic villain. He’s the type of person who clearly has a defined view of what the world should be and anything, meaning everything, that deviates drives him mad. He sees that ponies are all one big machine and believes he is the best person to run said machine is himself, and does seem to legitimately want what’s best for them and keeps them as safe as possible, but he’s incapable of getting the fact that ponies have their own wills and that no two ponies are the same
9390205 I'm quite thrilled that you're finding Lex to be a compelling character (I wrote his scenes in collaboration with David)! If you like how he's presented, you'll be quite pleased to know that he turns up in the sequel story, before eventually going off on his own adventure (this latter adventure being over on my page, rather than here).