PICTURE NAME: “last date”  
short story associated
 
one day on hearts and hooves day Strange Quark fired up a simulator in his home for what many diferent alternate futures held for him and his wife on hearts and hooves day… one of them was particularly sad and unsettling, he witnessed the death of not just him and his wife but of every living being in the galaxy. he was somewhat relieved to know he spent the last moments with his wife in that timeline… curious to know what happened to result in their seemingly sudden demise he played back the simulation of the entire day’s notable events, what he heard broke his heart.
 
S.Q: well there doesnt seem to be any winning this war by standard means… flood outbreaks have consumed 32 equestrian planets across the galaxy just in the last 3 day at a rate of 10 planets completely lost per day and each one is closer to equus,
 
Q.C.: just hope this array works honey… I dont want us or our kids being infected by those monsters… are you sure this is the only answer?
 
S.Q: yes, this is the only option we have left, if we dont fire the halo array the flood will consume everything. we have already provided sperm and egg samples for eventual repopulation and have catalogued them for storage on the ark… our children have also provided some of their genetic material I mean our son Charm Quark and our daughter top Quark are each 13 and Firefly is 15, Mantis is 25… and we have all gotten our consciousness backed up in neural implants so after the array fires to us we would just be still awake just paralyzed as our nervous system disintegrates, the monitors assigned to us will download the information and we will live on in the domain until we can reconstruct a physical form to inhabit.
 
Q.C.: and how long would that take? to regain physical form I mean…
 
S.Q: by my estimates the retrieval of our biological neural patterns should take about 250 years because the builder sentinels will have to reconstruct our nervous system from scratch and rebuild our brain to the cellular level.
 
Q.C: after the array fires is there any chance of another outbreak?
 
S.Q: honey let’s not focus too much on the future and just enjoy our last moments before the array fires.
 
Strange Quark watched the simulation as the lights on the outside of the ring brightened to be visible from the ground and a faint light appeared as the ring began collecting vacuum energy. he watched as the simulated version of him and his wife both turned to look at the ring in geostationary orbit
 
S.Q: they’ve begun the firing sequence… not too long before we win this war
 
Q.C: babe… kiss me like you really mean it.
 
Strange Quark watched as his simulated counterpart kissed his wife passionately, tongues exploring each other’s mouths and hers going a bit down his throat as the ring initiated the final activation sequence. the two of them held the kiss bathed in the blinding blue glow as the ring fired, the energy ball dispersing in a pulse moving close to the speed of light as the ring poured more energy into it, the two simulated lovers spasmed a little still kissing as the after echoes of the now faster than light pulse hit them, then the ground shook as the pulse hit, the two lovers closed their eyes as their nervous systems disintegrated along with every other beings nervous system on equus and in a 25 thousand light year range, the other rings fired in sync as the overlapping waves magnified each other to cleanse the entire galaxy… they had just won the war and died in each other’s hooves by their own creation.
 
as Strange Quark watched the simulation unfold, the two simulated lovers falling limp in each other’s hooves he shed a few tears as his wife walked in and asked what he was watching… Strange Quark replayed the simulation alongside his wife… after the simulation they both decided they needed some time alone to discuss the events in the simulation and their next night out.