Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Somber]

No no.  It's quite fair.  One thing to bear in mind is I am a complete idiot with terrible memory.  The other is I am male, and regardless to how I might wish otherwise, it's how I was brought up, live, and am wired.  I have to go out on a mea culpa and admit that I didn't pay as much attention to Kim as I should have; mostly due to an over saturation of TMI.  So I either completely missed her complaints (idiot) or I forgot them.

Let me do a little analysis....

Male antagonists: Deus, Sanguine, Lighthooves, Ahuizotl, Lancer, The Legate, Steel Rain...

Female antagonists: Dawn, Cognitum, Caprice, Professor Zodiac... Charm?

Hrm... I definitely see an imbalance in the number and importance.  I can also see a difference in the way that I use them too.  My male antagonists are generally "More".  More powerful, more intelligent, more in control.  My female antagonists are all "Less".  Dawn is less in control than Steel Rain.  The Legate and Deus are more powerful than Dawn and Caprice.  In fact, four on the second list are virtually helpless while all the male antagonists are more or less physically capable.  So yes, I can definitely see a case for misogyny in regards to my antagonists... and that is purely accidental.  When I thought up these characters and their roles, I didn't really pay much attention to their gender.  It wasn't an aspect of their character as antagonists with the exception of Dawn, who is an anti-Blackjack.  Wow.

If I may go further though, I think that if you look at supporting characters, the reverse is true.  From Glory, Rampage, Lacunae, Scotch, and Boo to Scoodle, Bottlecap, Triage, Dusty Trails, Charity, Xanthe, Dazzle, Bluebelle, Velvet, Grace, Silver Spoon, and others; there are more helpful and good female supports than male ones.  So am I misogynistic for saying women are more good and helpful then men, falling into the fairer sex trope?  I really don't know.  I do seem to step in it a bit, and for that I apologize.  I seriously thought that I was trying to be fairly respectable towards women in the story, but I can see how it can be otherwise.

Ah well.

[CD]

I mean, when they returned to the stable, a lot of the males LIKED their situation.
(to be honest, I think it's just that they learned to and it's some sort of victims-loving-their-abusers thing, but this was still one of Kim's objections)

I believe P-21's coltfriend wanted to escape Stable 99 to gain his freedom and that another unicorn sex slave in Flank continued to hold his grudge against mares when he and P-21 conspired to take Blackjack prisoner. That stallions accept their lot in life universally is kind of undermined by that. Also, by the time P-21 tried to convince the other stallions to claim their freedom, the food supply was already contaminated by the disease and would have made them wary of trusting a non-carnivore. Their opinions were probably not very reliable at this point if they simply wanted P-21 to get off their back.

Psychoshy rebuffed that she had that relationship with Sanguine. Their kiss was either "platonic", or it's not even in the fic anymore.

I'm not very quick to accept Psychoshy's denial as honest. She could simply have been ashamed of the fact, or generally one fucked-up pony (a reaper? with the word psycho in their name? say it ain't so!). But even if I accept there was nothing unwholesome about their guardian/daughter relationship, the point still stands that Sanguine is very creepy, manipulative and merciless ghoul.

As stated before, they can't even rape, now. The one group of female rapists in the wasteland, the filly flashers, were retconned into a bunch of rape victims pulling together to support each other, their one male "victim" more than happy to be a part of the whole ordeal.

I'm afraid I'm not quite following you here. How is not raping males misogynist? I'm actually somewhat glad for the wasteland stallions on this one.

Also, I don't want to put words in your mouth given the subject matter, but I hope you are not saying females cannot rape males. And although the Filly Flashers' reputation may have been exaggerated by their detractors, I think even Blackjack's party didn't fully buy into the explaination it's all very consensual. Their prisoner may have stayed of his own free will, but he could also have fallen under a spell of Stockholm syndrome.

This shouldn't be an argument of whether the story is misandrist or misogynist. It should be an argument of whether PH is sexist or not at all. Sexism in one was does not negate sexism in another.

I agree that one evil doesn't justify the other. Measuring the two against eachother however I believe misandry is the greater crime presented inside the story's universe.

Oh, so you think you can just dismiss everything I could ever say on this matter? Rather arrogant, don't you think? :P

I'm sorry, but I just believe that the cases of misogyny in the story are the perceptions of readers who have their own opinions on sexuality, gender roles and characterization. What bothers you isn't necessarily going to bother me. Maybe that makes me insensitive to a female/feminist perspective, and while I don't think of myself as prejudiced against most sexualities, I'm just not a woman raised in an environment where these issues were important. I'm a guy born to parents of the sixties generation to whom equal rights for women are a fact and not given much though anymore.
But at the same time, there are some very misandrist situations in the story that are fact, not perception, and that gives them a lot more weight in my opinion. I'm not saying these shouldn't exist in the story, but at the same time I do not feel that I must take the perception of misogyny from readers as serious as in-universe cases of misandry.

One deciding to describe the quality of sex based on the male's pleasure (writing her own off as a sort of footnote) when it had previously only ever mattered to her what her own pleasure was. The other when a mare who overreacts to nearly any slight decided an attack against a penis was so grave she entirely ignored an attack against herself.

A case in point to my position, I do not believe readers' opinions on sexual gratification of women quite measures up to the systematic rape and murder of males in Stable 99. Maybe you feel it isn't empowering to women, but I'm of the opinion that the pleasure of a sex partner is important in a relationship from both genders, and Stygius didn't appear to be an inconsiderate chauvinist, so why shouldn't Blackjack and Psychoshy return the favour? Maybe you say that it's inconsistent with their character, but frankly, Blackjack was the unwitting rapist of P-21 and Stable 99's male population and I don't feel bad that she's changed. As for Psychoshy, I think it's a promising sign that she's grown to care about someone other than herself and her creepy father figure and puts her own reputation secondary to a significant other, male or otherwise.

[CD]

Oh, and I realize this all seems like an attack on PH, but I really don't want it to be. They're just observations.

Seconded

[Caoimhe]

I'm too lazy to quote and I hate the use the "AS AN EXPERT ON THIS TOPIC" card, but as a lesbian, I think the depiction of Glory is fine and the swaying notion and biological urge thing (while exaggerated, because talking horses) is fairly accurate to how these things are, especially when trying to understand a lover's motivations and inner workings.

The Styg stuff is in the context of Blackjack's mindset at the time and is a very powerful exploration of sex used for power and comfort. The focus on Styg's experience I owe to Somber being a dude. Writing the opposite gender's sexual experience is incredibly difficult.

It's important to remember that almost everyone in the story is fucked in the head in some way which is good for explaining odd situations and explaining why certain characters act the way they do. It's not a direct corollary to the modern world.

Kim is kinda looking for things that aren't there and aren't meant to be there in my opinion.

[Somber]

Comes with the author being fucked in the head.

[Katarn]

Ain't we all here a little loony?  

[Caoimhe]

Comes with the author being fucked in the head.

 
That's why I love ya, darling and the way you explore these themes. It's what hooked me to begin with.

[Kippershy]

Kim is kinda looking for things that aren't there and aren't meant to be there in my opinion.

I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with this. Not trying to blag on Kim, but she really, absolutely does read too far into things that really aren't there. My guess would be because she's autistic (IIRC) she sees the patterns that no-one else picks up on.
I don't think that she tries to do it, but it's something she has to deal with all the same and thus it makes she see's these as glaring issues when for anyone else, it really isn't something to focus on.
We're reading Project Horizons for the overall qualities, not the small issues here and there.

[Kippershy]

I personally don't see why anyone is up in arms about it at all though, myself.

[Guest]

I don't think anyone is "up in arms" about it. The whole discussion seemed fairly civil to me.

[Kippershy]

Well, it is civil, but of such interest then, would be better words.

[Icy Shake]

Eh, I get why people are interested in it, but that's also about why I'd rather not touch it with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole right now.

Anyway, trouble sleeping lately—not Somber bad (hope you can sleep soon, by the way), but I'm still pretty sleepy right now—so I'll just toss this up.

Chapter 15 Edits:

Other Edits:

[Vergil]

Comes with the author being fucked in the head.

 
That's why I love ya, darling and the way you explore these themes. It's what hooked me to begin with.

 This except moreso when I'm not drunk

[SilentCarto]

 Funny you should mention the alicorn that helped rescue Littlepip. After giving it a lot of thought I came up with that if Blackjack is somehow involved with Littlepip's rescue, I may just have to call it out.

And only way I can accept that it's Lacunae is if it's stated, repeatedly, that Twilight was the one in control of Lacunae's action in saving her. But it can't just be Lacunae pretending to be Twilight because that would just make Littlepip playing Pinkie's last message to Twilight really sad and pointless since it's not actually Twilight.

I don't quite understand your beef. It's stated in the original story that the alicorn is being controlled by Twilight, but that Twi's soul can't exist for long in a foreign body, and it fades. I'm just proposing that the body Twi is using is Lacunae/Psalm's, presumably with her cooperation.

Whatever you do, DON'T have Lacunae involved. Let it be a different alicorn.

I don't understand your objection at all. She's already got like half of Twi in her head due to the Goddess's rejection of everything Twi stands for. If Twi were to take over any given alicorn body, it would be this one.

I could understand your objection if, say, BJ had to show up to go help Xenith plant the bomb, as if she couldn't handle it herself. That would obviously be taking the initiative away from Kkat's original plan. But there's nothing "special" about Lacunae, as alicorns go, except for her status as emotional dump. She's not superpowered or anything. We just happen to know her.

Edit: Wait, did you think that the alicorn that saved Pip was superpowered in some way? Because she wasn't. She was just supercharged by soaking up radiation from a fresh balefire crater for over 48 hours. Same as Ditzy, but moreso. And same as the Fillydelphia Alicorn, but less so.

I want to add that I'm getting pretty tired of seeing you tell Somber what to write and what not to write. It's overbearing to imply that you know better than an author -- any author -- how their story should go, and it's incredibly rude to tell her she can't possibly do it well.

And when I had that plan for Lacunae, it makes writing things really hard.

YAY! Do it do it do it!

If Lacunae mentally dies and then someone begins controlling her body before teleporting off without saying a word to Blackjack... if you put it so she has Twilights C.M...
THEN I'll accept it. THEN I'll be okay with it without making any fuss at all (promise!).
But if Blackjack somehow says to her: "OH, go save Pip!"?

Like I say, it can be done, but it needs to happen OFF SCREEN. For the love of god, please let it be implied and not proven.

Wait... HUH? Why in the smeg would Blackjack have to tell her to do that? I had always assumed this would be Twilight hijacking Lac's body. The actual rescue would be offscreen, naturally -- BJ has important things to do during those 48+ hours. Really, this just gets Lac out of the way for a while.

Lac doesn't need to die, though. Just scoot over and let Twi get in the driver's seat.

Not interested in drama or taking sides, so I'll keep this post short, but I agree completely with Kippershy here. Lacunae shouldn't be the one to save Pip. In fact, I don't think there's any good reason for BJ to wind up at Maripony at all.

Why is everyone assuming that Lacunae is surgically fused to Blackjack's hip? Who said anything about Blackjack being there?

[SilentCarto]

Now, think about this: you're a mare who's just been able to conceive a child with the mare you love.  Perhaps its through freaky Zebra alchemy, perhaps some MoP shenanigans.  You're daughter comes out a healthy, red-striped zony.  You've spent all your civilian life making candies, specifically peppermints.  What would you name your new red-and-white striped daughter?  Maybe "Peppermint"? 

And when the world is ending, what would you do to protect your young foal, who's maybe five or six?  What would you do if you knew that your lover had put her super regeneration talisman in you to save your life?

What I think is that Rampage is Twist and Shujaa's magical lesbian spawn who then got the Phoenix talisman put in her by Twist when during the final bombing.

Probably not. I thought that at first too, or maybe even Doof's kid, but there's no indication that Twist ever had a daughter. Here's the more likely identity of Peppermint:

“Nothing’s going to happen.  This is just a wild goose chase with hazard pay.  There’s no way the first legion would defect,” Shujaa replied evenly.
“Then this is probably a trap,” the pale mare countered.  “So if anything should happen...”
“I know.  I know.  I’ll take care of your pet,” the zebra said with a smirk.
“She is not a pet!” Twist retorted.
“I stand corrected.  Your feral beast.”
“You’re impossible,” Twist sighed and then shook her head.
“And you’re adorable.  Now hurry up, glare, and say something intimidating before I kiss you and make you blush,” the zebra breathed.
-- Twist's memory, ch. 50

[Caoimhe]

Fuck, did I get spoiled on a future chapter for reading this conversation? Re: Pippers/Lacunae

[RoboRed]

Possibly. More like wild speculation.

[thatguyvex]

Comes with the author being fucked in the head.

Imagination doesn't stem from sane, rational thought. Never met a creative person who wasn't a little bit mad. Just don't let it overwhelm you.

Wait... HUH? Why in the smeg would Blackjack have to tell her to do that? I had always assumed this would be Twilight hijacking Lac's body. The actual rescue would be offscreen, naturally -- BJ has important things to do during those 48+ hours. Really, this just gets Lac out of the way for a while.

Lac doesn't need to die, though. Just scoot over and let Twi get in the driver's seat.

Pretty much my thoughts too. I see that scene playing out as Twilight using Lacunae to rescue Pip, probably because Lac's got more practice teleporting than most alicorns, or its just that the link to the Goddess gets severed with the rest of the alicorns early because the Goddess is cutting them off to protect them from any backlash that might happen when she dies, but keeps the line open with Lac in an attempt to transfer herself into Lac. Twilight interferes and takes control instead, and then goes back to see if Pip survived. Blackjack doesn't really have to do anything in that regard.

[StoneSlinger88]

Wasn't Rarity able to teleport a very far distance in FOE? I seem to recall her sending Fluttershy to the Everfree Forest from Canterlot.

[SilentCarto]

Teleporting is like sprinting.  It's insanely useful in short distances, but completely and totally useless for long distance travel cause of the exponential cooldown and the exponential amount of energy needed.
...
Tl;dr; of Tl:dr; Teleporting that far would just kill everyone.

Twilight long-range-teleported three ponies, one baby dragon, and one phoenix egg from the slopes of the Dragon Migration volcano to the outskirts of Ponyville in one jump. While running.

Celestia implicitly teleported from Canterlot to Ponyville to dispel Twilight's Want It, Need It spell, and explicitly teleported directly from Twilight's balcony back to Canterlot.

You have no idea how teleportation works, what its limitations are, or how it scales with range. The only facts we have are that Twilight could perform this feat at a cost of momentary exhaustion in Dragon Quest, and Celestia could do it without apparent effort in Lesson Zero. I'll concede that there may be a requirement of familiarity with the target area, but Maripony should be as familiar to an alicorn as Ponyville is to Twilight.

Am I a terrible human being for still having never beaten that?

You're a step up from me. I've never played Orcarina of Time.

Then you are a terrible human being.

[Guest]

Now, think about this: you're a mare who's just been able to conceive a child with the mare you love.  Perhaps its through freaky Zebra alchemy, perhaps some MoP shenanigans.  You're daughter comes out a healthy, red-striped zony.  You've spent all your civilian life making candies, specifically peppermints.  What would you name your new red-and-white striped daughter?  Maybe "Peppermint"? 

And when the world is ending, what would you do to protect your young foal, who's maybe five or six?  What would you do if you knew that your lover had put her super regeneration talisman in you to save your life?

What I think is that Rampage is Twist and Shujaa's magical lesbian spawn who then got the Phoenix talisman put in her by Twist when during the final bombing.

Probably not. I thought that at first too, or maybe even Doof's kid, but there's no indication that Twist ever had a daughter. Here's the more likely identity of Peppermint:

“Nothing’s going to happen.  This is just a wild goose chase with hazard pay.  There’s no way the first legion would defect,” Shujaa replied evenly.
“Then this is probably a trap,” the pale mare countered.  “So if anything should happen...”
“I know.  I know.  I’ll take care of your pet,” the zebra said with a smirk.
“She is not a pet!” Twist retorted.
“I stand corrected.  Your feral beast.”
“You’re impossible,” Twist sighed and then shook her head.
“And you’re adorable.  Now hurry up, glare, and say something intimidating before I kiss you and make you blush,” the zebra breathed.
-- Twist's memory, ch. 50

Maybe Twist adopted another proditor's child? It seems like it could fit with that memory.

[SilentCarto]

Maybe Twist adopted another proditor's child? It seems like it could fit with that memory.

Well, it's possible, but again, I think it's unlikely to refer to a child as a "pet" and "feral beast". I think everyone's getting a little too hung up on the literal implications of names -- Opalescence isn't opalescent, after all.

[Guest]

I don't know. I can imagine someone referring to a child that isn't their own like that. Children can be difficult to handle hell my friend's step dad would joke around like that about his step son all the time.

[O. Hinds]

Eh, I get why people are interested in it, but that's also about why I'd rather not touch it with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole right now.

Anyway, trouble sleeping lately—not Somber bad (hope you can sleep soon, by the way), but I'm still pretty sleepy right now—so I'll just toss this up.

Chapter 15 Edits:

Other Edits:

Ah, thank you as always.

Also, wow; I'd completely forgotten about Rampage's mother figure doctor.

[Evilgidgit]

I went on Google to look up what Cognitum's name means and I found moon crater called Mare Cognitum. Is it a coincidence that they share the same name?

And also, reading Chapter 53 (yeah, I'm jumping all over) I noticed Goldenblood was very, very interested in the moonstones. This lead to a kind of big theory. Is it possible he actually did get tons and tons of moonstone, and used Marigold's space trip as an excuse to get the stuff, and then framed her as a coverup to smuggle the moonstone into the O.I.A.? Maybe Project Horizons was designed to blow up Equestria and the zebra homeland in case, just in theory, that the Tokomare's power went berserk, and he was willing to combine starmetal and the moonstones to wipe the core off the map, even if it meant wiping out Equestria in the process.

But the reason why?

The Tokomare is described as a potentially powerful machine but also a monster from space - so what if Mr. Horse went through with his crazy idea to download his mind into the Tokomare to control "her". However, while it worked, Horse ended up becoming one with whatever is inside it and became the mind of the Tokomare - or a machine hidden within the Core, AKA, Cognitum.

As for Redoubt, either Goldenblood took the O.I.A. from the aristocrats as a last laugh and intended to send perhaps some loved ones like Fluttershy and Dr. Trottenheimer there before nuking Equestria with Project Horizons. Or it was Horse who came up with the idea for the new world order and initiated Project Partypooper via Garnet via Psalm to take out everyone to cover his tracks, and then somehow get his mind into Redoubt and be held as the new god or something. I was gonna say someone convinced Fluttershy to give the megaspells to the zebras as part of a big conspiracy to kick off Horse's plans, but it is likely she did of her own choices.

Of course this could all be absolute gobityguk, but I'd thought I would give my own two cents.

[Icy Shake]

Teleporting is like sprinting.  It's insanely useful in short distances, but completely and totally useless for long distance travel cause of the exponential cooldown and the exponential amount of energy needed.
...
Tl;dr; of Tl:dr; Teleporting that far would just kill everyone.

Twilight long-range-teleported three ponies, one baby dragon, and one phoenix egg from the slopes of the Dragon Migration volcano to the outskirts of Ponyville in one jump. While running.

Celestia implicitly teleported from Canterlot to Ponyville to dispel Twilight's Want It, Need It spell, and explicitly teleported directly from Twilight's balcony back to Canterlot.

You have no idea how teleportation works, what its limitations are, or how it scales with range. The only facts we have are that Twilight could perform this feat at a cost of momentary exhaustion in Dragon Quest, and Celestia could do it without apparent effort in Lesson Zero. I'll concede that there may be a requirement of familiarity with the target area, but Maripony should be as familiar to an alicorn as Ponyville is to Twilight.

Now, there's a definite mathematical relationship between the difficulty of teleportation and both mass and distance: quadratic in each case.

The alicorn sighed.  “Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to teleport a pony such a distance?”  The young mare gave her a dry look, and the purple alicorn huffed softly.  “The energy needed is the product of the square of the amount of mass to be transported, the square of the distance to be covered, Fireflash's constant, and the inverse of the amount of radiation I've absorbed.”

So soaking up a ton of radiation and restricting the targets will help a great deal, but distance can still be a real problem.

“Lacunae, pretend for a minute that I don’t know anything about alicorns, mathematics, teleportation, or arcane science.  Can you teleport us all across the river?”
“I could, but only one at a time; that would take all day, and I would be exhausted after each.  That would leave us woefully exposed.”
“You teleported the bucks to safety in 99,” Scotch Tape pointed out, “And the guns.”
“That was a distance of no more than fifty feet, and afterwards I was so exhausted I could do no magic for almost two whole days.”

Now, I'd say that generously, the distance they were talking about for the river was probably on the order of a few miles, almost surely less than ten. Still being generous, say that Lacunae going alone cuts the mass in half in comparison to taking one other pony. I just don't think that adds up with an estimation of a Maripony-Hoofington distance of maybe 200 miles based on Hinds's map.

Personally, I'm inclined to think that neither Dragon Quest nor Secret of my Excess really fit in the canon referenced by FoE and PH. Both are simply inconsistent with Celestia having a dragon work for her for centuries.

As for Lesson Zero, I think it's been pretty well established that the vat alicorns are far less powerful than either of the Sisters (and (speculatively) that the denominator may scale with something related to the sun/moon & stars rather than radiation, in their cases). So, what they can do probably represents more of a ceiling of what neo-alicorns could accomplish than a point estimate.

[SilentCarto]

I went on Google to look up what Cognitum's name means and I found moon crater called Mare Cognitum. Is it a coincidence that they share the same name?

That would be a mare, not a crater.  
Edit: Okay, it's a mare that formed in a basin that might have been a large crater.

Anyway, I sort of doubt it has particular significance, outside of maybe Somber looking at a moon map for inspiration. Their moon is not our moon, and "cognitum" means roughly "the knower", if I'm getting my Latin right. So I wouldn't be shocked to see an AI with that name, even if there wasn't a lunar mare with that name.

And also, reading Chapter 53 (yeah, I'm jumping all over) I noticed Goldenblood was very, very interested in the moonstones. This lead to a kind of big theory. Is it possible he actually did get tons and tons of moonstone, and used Marigold's space trip as an excuse to get the stuff, and then framed her as a coverup to smuggle the moonstone into the O.I.A.? Maybe Project Horizons was designed to blow up Equestria and the zebra homeland in case, just in theory, that the Tokomare's power went berserk, and he was willing to combine starmetal and the moonstones to wipe the core off the map, even if it meant wiping out Equestria in the process.

I sort of doubt that Marigold's rocket could have collected ten thousand metric tons of moon rock. Moving material on that scale would require a full-on mining operation, not just a one-mare exploration mission with one rocket.

In fact, that's exactly what Trottenheimer said:
"Besides, where would you get that much moonstone?  Unless you’re planning on making a couple hundred trips to the moon, you’d never get that much together."

Although, if my guess about the Redoubt* holds true, they might have been able to run such a mining operation after all, right under everyone's noses...


*My guess is that the Redoubt is actually a lunar super-Stable, and the entry at Black Pony Mountain where Psalm met Garnet is merely a teleporter that connects to it. Mining out a moonbase might have actually served a double purpose of collecting the required moonrock supply for Project Horizons and providing somewhere safe to go when it went off.

What if Mr. Horse went through with his crazy idea to download his mind into the Tokomare to control "her". However, while it worked, Horse ended up becoming one with whatever is inside it and became the mind of the Tokomare - or a machine hidden within the Core, AKA, Cognitum.

Well, for one thing, the Eater of Souls is explicitly male.

The hooves holding me tightened, and off to the side I heard another note rise.  It accompanied a star glowing with a fierce blue-white corona.  A pony… no.  An alicorn, proud and regal and glorious.  He spread his wings wide and sang his note loud and gloriously across the heavens.  He drove back those shadows beyond and all things that dwelled within.

I don't think Cog is one and the same as the Tokomare. The Tokomare is just a device. Cog is probably using it as a power source, but I'm pretty sure we saw the creation of Cognitum when Horse got the mind-copy helmet on Luna for an instant. I think it's either a soulless machine version of Luna herself, a corrupted, incomplete copy, or some kind of weird Nightmare Moon-like personality.

[cb5]

Teleporting is like sprinting.  It's insanely useful in short distances, but completely and totally useless for long distance travel cause of the exponential cooldown and the exponential amount of energy needed.
...
Tl;dr; of Tl:dr; Teleporting that far would just kill everyone.

Twilight long-range-teleported three ponies, one baby dragon, and one phoenix egg from the slopes of the Dragon Migration volcano to the outskirts of Ponyville in one jump. While running.

Celestia implicitly teleported from Canterlot to Ponyville to dispel Twilight's Want It, Need It spell, and explicitly teleported directly from Twilight's balcony back to Canterlot.

You have no idea how teleportation works, what its limitations are, or how it scales with range. The only facts we have are that Twilight could perform this feat at a cost of momentary exhaustion in Dragon Quest, and Celestia could do it without apparent effort in Lesson Zero. I'll concede that there may be a requirement of familiarity with the target area, but Maripony should be as familiar to an alicorn as Ponyville is to Twilight.

 Not saying it couldn't happen, rather if someone had the ability to teleport and offered to teleport me across the country saying, "oh I know what I am doing trust me", my reaction would be, "fuck that, I'm walking".  Simply put, it's not that I doubt a pony could THEORETICALLY do it, rather no way in the world would I trust someone enough for that.

Problems with teleporting across the country:
What happens is someone or something is in the exact spot of your target location?
What happens if there's not enough energy to make the full teleport?  By that I mean what happens to a pony's atoms if there isn't enough juice to recombine them?
What happens if the target location's coordinates' are incorrect?
What happens if the teleport is interrupted?

Simply put if I was in Equestria no amount of bits would ever convince me to teleport with someone.

If you don't get what I am getting at go watch stargate sg-1, the episode where a gou'ld spaceship crashes into the stargate and interrupts Daniel's transit, now imagine it without a buffer; or harry potter's last movie of the series where the apparation is interrupted and Ron is splinched.

The reason why I would never in a million years let myself be teleported is you could end up like, "The Fly", or have your head teleport inside a solid object, or teleport into space, or have only part of you teleport, or have your insides blendered, or teleport with your hand inside your head, or be reduced to a liquid, or something reminiscent of "The Choir", or simply fail to recombine on the other end.


It's not that it's impossible, rather if I was offered the opportunity to teleport to the other side of the country no way in hell would you ever get me too.

[SilentCarto]

Now, there's a definite mathematical relationship between the difficulty of teleportation and both mass and distance: quadratic in each case.
...
So soaking up a ton of radiation and restricting the targets will help a great deal, but distance can still be a real problem.

Conceded. However, the first knowledge we have of the alicorn at Maripony is some two days after the bomb -- ample time for TwiLac to go roll in some radioactive waste to charge up for the teleportation, and any exhaustion on the other end would be rapidly cured by the massive radiation field.

So why not go into another alicorn who was closer? Well, Twilight did have a specific bond to Lacunae, both in terms of having part of herself in Lacunae already, and in being Lac's only link to the Unity while she was in the Hoof in order to insulate the Unity from the Enervation.

Problems with teleporting across the country:

All right, Doctor McCoy, you made your point. You forgot to mention Transporter Psychosis, by the way.

Your personal objections to being teleported, however, aren't really relevant to the question of whether or not Lacunae could quickly reach Maripony. And once again, you know nothing about the targeting parameters of pony teleportation. Given what we've seen Twilight do, I tend to think the spell has some sort of failsafe that prevents the user from teleporting into other objects, incompletely teleporting, or whatever. Something certainly caused Twilight's first teleport attempt in Dragon Quest to fail, and it failed by not happening at all.

[Icy Shake]

So why not go into another alicorn who was closer? Well, Twilight did have a specific bond to Lacunae, both in terms of having part of herself in Lacunae already, and in being Lac's only link to the Unity while she was in the Hoof in order to insulate the Unity from the Enervation.

Oh, I entirely suspect that there's going to be some kind of Twilight/Lacunae resolution, probably with Lac at Maripony. In addition to the infrastructural/logistical reasons you state for Twilight to ride Lacunae, there's just been too much buildup between the two (in what were, in my opinion, some of the best parts of Project Horizons since Blackjack's first death), and in my opinion between Twilight and Blackjack, for there not to be. But as time passes, getting there could become a real burden—though less so, as you say, if the relevant point is more focused on t+2—and in any case there are other means of getting there than teleportation.

[Sponsored content]