[EDIT, Nov 14th: And it's posted. New discussion about release. Link to Friendship is Optimal.]
[EDIT, Nov 13th: I've submitted to FIMFiction, and will update with a link to its permanent home if it passes moderation. I have also removed the docs link and will make the document private once it goes live.]
Over the last year, I’ve spent a lot of my free time writing a semi-rationalist My Little Pony fanfic. Whenever I’ve mentioned this side project, I’ve received requests to alpha the story.
I present, as an open beta: Friendship is Optimal. Please do not spread that link outside of LessWrong; Google Docs is not its permanent home. I intend to put it up on fanfiction.net and submit it to Equestria Daily after incorporating any feedback. The story is complete, and I believe I've caught the majority of typographical and grammatical problems. (Though if you find some, comments are open on the doc itself.) Given the subject matter, I’m asking for the LessWrong community’s help in spotting any major logical flaws or other storytelling problems.
Cover jacket text:
Hanna, the CEO of Hofvarpnir Studios, just won the contract to write the official My Little Pony MMO. She had better hurry; a US military contractor is developing weapons based on her artificial intelligence technology, which just may destroy the world. Hana has built an A.I. Princess Celestia and given her one basic drive: to satisfy values through friendship and ponies. What will Princess Celestia do when she’s let loose upon the world, following the drives Hanna has given her?
Special thanks to my roommate (who did extensive editing and was invaluable in noticing attempts by me to anthropomorphize an AI), and to Vaniver, who along with my roommate, convinced me to delete what was just a flat out bad chapter.
I have read two chapters and I am popping over here to tell you that this is riveting. (The smoking's offputting, though.)
ETA: Spelling error: "discus" for "discuss".
ETA2: Celestia's use of Butterscotch is sketchy. The fact that David isn't noticing dings his character in my head.
ETA3: Every single time I see the phrase "friendship and ponies" now I giggle an extremely shrieky giggle.
ETA4: Grammar error: "try their best" for "try my best".
ETA5: Spacing error: "can not upload" for "cannot upload".
ETA6: Hahahahahaha Madagascar, I see what you did there :D
ETA7: Exposition exposition... maybe this part is less slow if you don't know the background.
ETA8: Spacing error, extra space between "realize" and "that".
ETA9: Advise against use of ampersand.
ETA10: Immigrate to, emigrate from. And the smile-related dialogue tags are weird.
ETA11: Bahahahaha, bits for being concerned with earth ponies.
ETA12: infinity bits :D
ETA13: Tense at beginning of chapter is confusing.
ETA14: Sigh. "Alicorn" is supposed to mean just the unicorn horn, not an entire winged unicorn / pegacorn / unisus. It's been corrupted; I guess you don't really have a good alternative on how to refer to the species with a single word, but if you're only saying it once or twice "winged unicorn" is serviceable.
ETA15: Spelling error: "he decide" for "he decided".
ETA16: "Conquer" is the verb, "conquest" the noun.
ETA17: Eeee, she's so sinister without actually deviating from her basically reasonable parameters. Very nicely balanced.
ETA18: Spelling error: "those building" for "those buildings".
ETA19: Aaaaaaaawwwwww Butterscotch
ETA20: Heheheheh, blah blah blah values friendship ponies.
ETA21: "A person who didn't like ponies" suggests that ponies are nonpeople, but they clearly seem to be people.
ETA22: "Accepted" needs a direct object.
ETA23: "Hanna wondered" followed by lots of pluperfect is weird.
ETA24: "Decorational" isn't a word; do you want "decorative"?
ETA25: "Intermediate", not "intermediary".
ETA26: Done. Well, that was splendid. Thank you for writing it :)
"Alicorn" is irrevocably MLP canon for winged unicorn.