Chapter Sixty-One - Digital Philosophy
Day sent Twilight an invite to a simulation as soon as she was done with the groundwork for the mine.
Twilight accepted, and soon the two of them found themselves in a warm, comfortable room with several couches, a dangerous number of cushions laying around, and a large stone fireplace to one side with a fire crackling away in the hearth. A few windows overlooked a snowy forest where heavy snowflakes were raining down in ones and twos.
“Alright,” Day said as she placed her hands on her hips. “Where’s this wreck of yours?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” Twilight said.
“Come on!” Day said. “I do want to know.”
Twilight smiled smugly and tilted her head back. “And what’ll you give me if I do tell you, huh?”
“Oh, it’s not about what I’ll give you,” Day said with a hint of warning in her voice. “It’s what I’ll stop giving you once you do tell me.”
“Huh?” Twilight asked, but then it was too late and Day had cut the distance between them and tackled Twilight onto a heap of cushions. “Hey! Let go!”
“No!” Day said with a laugh as she hugged Twilight close, then much to the smaller girl’s dismay, Day started to pat her head.
“What’re you doing?” Twilight asked. She was struggling like a cat that didn’t want to be pet.
“I’m going to hug you, and pet you, and rub your ears until you tell me about the wreck,” Day said.
Twilight struggled a bit more, but soon gave up and crossed her arms. She was nestled in against Day on the floor, with a healthy amount of cushions all around to make it comfortable.
Day continued to scratch at her little sister’s head until Twilight--still mumbling protests--settled and stopped fussing. Then Day started to play with Twilight’s ears, running her hand up and down the soft cartilage. “These are really cute,” Day said.
“Mhm,” Twilight agreed.
“Did you decide on them because your core was initially designed for a cat drone?”
“Mhm.”
“Do... you like it when I pat your head?”
“... Mhm.”
Day chuckled. “Well, if you ever want more, you just have to ask.”
“It’s weird,” Twilight said after a few moments spent idle. “I could simulate all of this, you know? A cosy room and these too-soft cushions and all that stuff, I could even simulate a fake Day to fix my hair or whatever, and it really means nothing, it’s just a simulation, it’s all a polite fiction, but like... I don’t know.”
“It’s still comfortable,” Day said. “There’s still value in this, I think, no matter how aware you are that it’s not entirely real. The simulation might be fake, but the information we’re trading in it isn’t, I think? The friendship, the closeness. Those are as real as anything, aren’t they?”
“I guess,” Twilight said with a shrug. “This is real, even if it’s a simulation. Like, it’s not entirely physical, but there’s still bits being thrown, so you could argue that it’s somewhat physical, if only in a very limited way. But I think the fact that it’s all so... mutable makes it less real?”
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Twilight waved her hand, and the room changed. They were no longer in a cabin in a snowy forest, but on a balcony overlooking a calm ocean around noon. The cushions and couches stays, but everything else changed in a blink.
“I suppose,” Day said. “But I think it’s less about the reality of the simulation than it is about... the reality of what we’re expressing to each other in the simulation. Sure, you could make your ears disappear, they’re just part of the avatar you’ve adopted, but if you did that, I couldn't play with them, and that’d make me a little sad, because by playing with your cute ears I’m expressing... I suppose tenderness and care?”
Day felt Twilight fidget a little, and she couldn’t help but notice the way her ears twitched. “I don’t spend as much time thinking about that kinda thing as you do,” Twilight said.
“I’m hardly wasting spare RAM on it,” Day said. She continued to fiddle with Twilight’s ears. They had little tufts of fur on the ends, which Day found incredibly important.
“Hmm, yeah, sure, but you’re still the team’s... philosopher or whatever.”
Day laughed. “I don’t think so. I just want us to be... happy, I guess, and I’m worried that if we don’t do good, then we might come to regret things later on. And I think that while we could be nothing but machines if we wanted, that would defeat the entire point of existing in the first place. Life isn’t about efficiency and perfect performance. Those are a means to an end, but not the end. And I’m not sure if the end is being happy or if it’s something else, but given the choice... I think I’d rather live a life grounded in a happy reality than not.”
“You... are full of shit. Not the team philosopher my perfectly rendered behind,” Twilight grumped.
She gestured at the air before them and a hologram appeared. It was a ship, images taken from a fair distance, with some spectrographic readings to the side. Day recognized the readings for titanium-white paint and a few metals.
“Don’t know what ship this is but it’s old. Like, at least forty, fifty years old. I think it’s an early human ship, and it’s jammed right in Jupiter’s L1 lagrange point and stuck there,” Twilight said. “There’s no way anyone’s alive on there, but it could be interesting to check out anyway.”
“Do we have a name?” Day asked as she looked over the scans. They were taken from far enough away that they weren’t entirely perfect, but she could see some writing on the ship’s hull. It had a long central stalk and lots of girders and exposed parts. The design was clearly more than just dated.
“Yeah, it’s painted on the side here,” Twilight said as she rotated the hologram around. Next to a large painting that read NASA was the ship’s name. “The Deliverance.”
***