Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Guest]

If I remember correctly destruction of the brain kills canterlot ghouls. Can't remember if BJ was capable of making the visor shot on steel rangers. I'm pretty sure pip could shoot out enclave visors and that was a much much more mobile target then steel hooves.

[Kippershy]

...I kind of want PH to shift into total alternate timeline mode and have BJ kill Littlepip. No clue what would happen next, but wouldn't that be a hell of a twist?

Yeah, just to be clear, Blackjack definitely doesn't end up encountering Littlepip. This is all what-if space.

I have my sources and I can confirm this. Littlepip never actually sees Blackjack and as far as I'm aware, vice versa.

[Guest]

There's no window for BJ and Littlepip to encounter eachother. At least in no way that pip ever sees or hears her, another memory wipe... Well I don't think anyone can suspend their disbelief that much. Not quite sure why you'd need a source to confirm that.

[Kippershy]

Just because I wanted to be sure.

[Guest]

Also on BJ versus Pip's group. I'd have to give it to BJ. The goddess knows how Pip's group fights and would certainly supply her with that knowledge along with materials well suited for taking them out.

[O. Hinds]

swicked's chapter 57 commentary:

And nice seeing this, too.  :)

“Blue Belle snorted” <-- supposed to be one word, right?

Ah, thank you.

“nor forment others to do the same.”
Forment?

Thank you again.  Oddly, none of my spellcheckers object to this.

[Kippershy]

Also on BJ versus Pip's group. I'd have to give it to BJ. The goddess knows how Pip's group fights and would certainly supply her with that knowledge along with materials well suited for taking them out.

Why would Blackjack's group... actually, ...no, yeah, why would Blackjack's group be willing to stand off against Pip?
They met her before, in their own canon, and they would know that they're not the type of ponies they should be fighting against.
Wouldn't they instead be seeing it as "Blackjack has gone crazy, better try stop her."?

[Guest]

Didn't say BJ's group versus Pip's. Said BJ versus Pip's group.

[Derpmind]

Pip couldn't simply pin BJ down with TK and call it a fight. BJ would be able to use her horn while immobilized, and could therefore make Pip loose her TK grip.

Remember the last time BJ got shot in the head? BJ vs. Calamity is not a contest. Calamity would either one-shot BJ or force her into cover. And as a pegasus, getting to long range is not a problem for him.

By standing out in the open, Steelhooves drew fire away from the rest of the group. As a suprise super-ghoul in a can, no-one expects him to be so stupidly durable. Steelhooves vs. Rampage would be a very smash-heavy fight.

Why would Blackjack's group... actually, ...no, yeah, why would Blackjack's group be willing to stand off against Pip?
They met her before, in their own canon, and they would know that they're not the type of ponies they should be fighting against.
Wouldn't they instead be seeing it as "Blackjack has gone crazy, better try stop her."?

This is the age old 'who would win in a contest?' where we pit two unlikely opponents together and speculate on how it would go. Just because it's extremely ludicrous that Darth Vader and Captain Picard would have a gardening contest doesn't make it any less of a fun discussion. (If you're into gardening.)

[Guest]

I think he was saying the context of the fight didn't make sense.

[Guest]

I can't remember how the connection works. Is it direct or is it through Lacunae?

If it's the former I can't think of a reason the goddess would send Lac with her. As far as supporting BJ goes any purple Alicorn would do they all look the same and generally have the same abilities. Unless she wants lac to use a gun now and doesn't want to sully another Alicorn by having them use one.

Besides I think the prescense of any Alicorn would be suspicious considering where they are.

No I'd think she'd send her alone. Get her as close to them as possible, try to get them to lower their guard then strike.

[Somber]

The Goddess has reduced Lacunae to simply a signal repeater.  She can get into Blackjack directly now and program her to fight Littlepip however she needs to.  The Goddess wants BJ to fight a certain way... like... mmm... say...

Yellow River?

[Kippershy]

The Goddess has reduced Lacunae to simply a signal repeater.  She can get into Blackjack directly now and program her to fight Littlepip however she needs to.  The Goddess wants BJ to fight a certain way... like... mmm... say...

Yellow River?

Question is, is BLACKJACK in control or the Goddess?
And is Blackjack actually willing to go like that again? Is she even capable now? Remember, her new cybernetics are meant to be a lot heavier and less agile for one, and last time she did it, it was because she was crazy.
I don't think there could be a repeat of such an occurrence now. Not with how it's all changed.

[Guest]

Wasn't her dress torn though? I remember something like that happening. Velvet gave her a replacement but I'm decently sure she only wears it on special occasions.

[Kippershy]

Hmmm, I suppose you're right. It makes sense with how Blackjack has been getting impulses, I just assumed because of how alicorns act that they were under constant control rather than simply being told how to act.

[thatguyvex]

Kippershy wrote:Steelhooves doesn't dodge because he doesn't need to dodge.

Yeah, except for that one time  

@thatguyvex
Also: Calamity wouldn't necessarily immediately pull out his anti-machine rifle. Blackjack's legs look metal, as does her spine. The rest of her does not look like she has armor plating, nor entirely synthetic organs, so I think he might not necessarily KNOW that the rest of his guns couldn't hurt her.

*snrk* Okay, you made me chuckle a bit at Steelhooves extremely anti-climatic demise. Freakin' Hellhounds.

Anyway, yes, Blackjack could decapitate Steelhooves with her awesome space sword, but its a shot she wouldn't immediately know to go for until she realized he was a Canterlot ghoul. While she could probably dodge most of Steelhooves assault, she'd still take damage that'd slow her down later against the others in Littlepips group.

As for Calamity, I just kind of operate under the belief that he's intelligent enough to realizing using his biggest gun on the crazy cyberpony is the right move. Better to do overkill than underkill. There's also little doubt in my mind that he's the better shot at long range. I don't recall Blackjack ever demonstrating remarkable sniping skills; again the poor sniper she took out in the Society, that was a burst of four TK bullets, Blackjack herself calling the one that took the sniper out as "lucky". I don't think TK bullets can be relied upon at long range.

Also, not sure if there's any actual indication in the story that TK bullets are faster to cast than telekinesis. Both seem to have pretty instantaneous results.

So much of this hypothetical fight revolves around who decides to strike first. Admittedly Blackjack has the advantage there, if only a slight one, because she'll be in pure Goddess compelled slaughter mode.

Now, Littlepip doesn't remember Blackjack, right? She had those memories extracted as I recall. All Littlepip would have is her E.F.S telling her Blackjack is hostile. Blackjack does show up on E.F.S right? Or am I forgetting some cybernetic upgrade that stealths her to E.F.S? Or is it a Goddess thing? Can the Goddess interfere with E.F.S?

[Harmony Ltd.]

(Didn't BJ lose her freaky starmetal sword a few chapters ago, or did I miss something ?)

[thatguyvex]

(Didn't BJ lose her freaky starmetal sword a few chapters ago, or did I miss something ?)

It's entirely possibly she did and I just didn't notice. So much happens in the chapters its often easy for me to miss things like that. Though at this point I think we're talking pure hypothetical battle here, where what equipment or even circumstances the characters fight under is up to debate.

[Kippershy]

Hell, at this point in the story I can't even remember much of the beginning of the story.
Tallying it all up I realise I remember more than I thought, but I still don't remember a hell of a lot, I don't think.
Unless the wordcount really is simply inflated by detail and descriptions rather than events that are memorable and such.
...which is possible.

[FeatherDust]

Yes, BJ lost Duty, Sacrifice, Vigilance, and the sword back in ch51 when she fled the skyport.

[Ketchup]

Yes, BJ lost Duty, Sacrifice, Vigilance, and the sword back in ch51 when she fled the skyport.

But they were given back by the Enclave soldiers that accompanied her afterwards, IIRC.

[Guest]

Yeah. She definitely used the sword in the legate fight.

[Derpmind]

Hell, at this point in the story I can't even remember much of the beginning of the story.
Tallying it all up I realise I remember more than I thought, but I still don't remember a hell of a lot, I don't think.
Unless the wordcount really is simply inflated by detail and descriptions rather than events that are memorable and such.
...which is possible.

Re-reading earlier PH chapters is always fun, both because each chapter is a big can of awesome, and you get to see the stupefyingly-effective foreshadowing of everything. I'd recommend re-reading PH to everyone, either from the first chapter or just any chapter at random.

[Derpmind]

I keep summaries. If I were to try and reread PH, ya'll'd prob'ly not see me again fer at least a month.

Trying to reread all of PH is way too crazy. I just meant going back to a few old chapters is fun.

[SilentCarto]

The ship finds a nice 1000m or so asteroid, attaches a thruster, and uses the asteroid's alumium oxide as fuel to push it towards Jupiter.  This becomes our Tug Boat.

Are you proposing to crack the aluminum oxide to make rocket fuel? Or just accelerate it through a coilgun or ion drive for reaction mass?

Now, once it's in orbit of jupiter, there's the question of where you get the power to move anything since there's no free lunch in space and the energy has to come from somewhere.  So I'm thinking that the magnetic field of Jupiter could be used to power an ion engine.  This is probably the softest part of the idea, but I know the magnetic field of Jupiter is crazy strong so maybe it's a maybe.

Extracting energy from a magnetic field is tricky. You can use an electrodynamic tether, but in that case you're actually converting your own orbital energy into electricity. Great if you want to descend, I guess. Electrodynamic tethers are more commonly proposed for propulsion, parlaying solar power into orbital altitude.

Normally, a planet's magnetic field just acts like the stator of an electric motor. You can't generate energy from a static field. But Jupiter has flux tubes that you might be able to exploit. It would take millions of miles of wire and some serious infrastructure, but as I understand it, you'd basically be looking for flux tubes carrying cold plasma from the region of Io. When they reach Jupiter, they reconnect to its magnetic field and generate Jupiter's auroras, releasing the plasma into its magnetotail. So the trick would be to position your wires to facilitate that connection and siphon power from the discharge. This would probably be the job of an unmanned satellite, though, which would then transmit the power to your tug via microwave or laser or whatever.

So, thoughts, or am I simply mad?

Seems semi-feasible, but Venus needs to blow off a heck of a lot of atmosphere too, preferably the sulfur part. The spin-up impacts should help with that, but you might want to do some deliberate atmo-stripping. A sunshade at Venus-Sun L1 wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

The other problem is Venus's core. While spinning up the planet and giving it the stabilizing influence of a moon is a great idea, it won't help the magnetic situation. The magnetic engine isn't rotation, but convection. Thanks to the impact that formed the Moon, Earth has a double-dose of iron core, with bonus radioactives generating heat. That gives us a nice, big hydrodynamic engine to generate a magnetic field.

Venus just doesn't have the ball for it.  

IIRC, the voyager probes still needed a few years to go from Earth to Jupiter. I don't even know how many orders of magnitude above that of the voyager probes Europa's mass is, but I'll hazard a guess and say that it's a shitload of zeroes there. Humm...

Well... it's easier to go down than up. The Voyagers had to slingshot around everyone and their mother to get up enough orbital velocity to reach the outer solar system, and while "up" and "down" are theoretically equivalent in terms of delta-v, you can often pull "stupid planet tricks" like aerobraking and electrodynamic tethering to shed energy on the way down.

I'm not sure I know of any that would work in this case, granted, but aside from that, in the years since the Voyagers launched we've developed more efficient routes through the solar system. The "Interplanetary Transport Network" exploits Lagrange points and orbital mechanics to "nudge" objects from one place to another. It's slow on human timescales, as in years or decades to get from place to place, but you can get from almost any Lagrange point to any other for practically no energy if you give yourself the right nudge at the right time. So you really only need to go as far as Sun-Jupiter L1 and you've got a free ride to Venus.

Alright Hinds, if you know a better way to relocate Europa to Venus, let me hear it.  ::Grins::

Mining Europa's ocean for deuterium to run a fusion rocket would probably be more efficient, for certain values of "efficient". A D-T or D-D fusion rocket should have an exhaust velocity of like four to ten times that of an ion drive, according to Atomic Rockets. Combined with a clever route exploiting the ITN, that should help you not burn off all that water before you arrive.

[SilentCarto]

Kay, so, I was playing Fallout: New Vegas and I came across a kid at the 188 trading post named "The Forecaster".
Was there ever a FoE or PH chapter named "Cloudy with a chance of friendship"? Because, if not, there darn well should be.

That would be awesome! Heck, that could be a whole fic.

Sex champion Glory

...
...
I have no words. XD

We can know when Blackjack is secretly attracted to someone because she tells us so.

I don't think BJ has been secretly attracted to anyone in her entire life.

G will try to make use of Security and StableDweller's past history together (which she doesn't know that Lil'Pip has removed)

Oh, dude. I forgot about that. Good call!

If I remember correctly, (which I might not,) IMP can be used to make alicorns without the needing the goddess.

That's correct, but the dosage has to be exact. Too little, and you get Pip. Too much, and you get those Hospital Horrors. The Goddess apparently mediates the process to ensure exactly the right level of mutation -- which is actually something I'd been wondering about since FOE, since she just dragged all the Maripony survivors into that mess, but we later see Flask playing God/Dog in the MAS basement rather than being part of the Master-esque mess in the Goddess's chamber.

If I may be so bold, what specifically is the problem with Stygius? Are they little things I can fix easily or is it the whole damned character?

I really hate the way people throw around the word "Mary Sue". A Sue is a character in a derivative work who outshines the core cast, and... well, being that Styg never interacted with the Mane Six... not a Sue.

That said... I can see where people get off using the term. He's got some of the earmarks of a "special snowflake" -- unusual appearance, unique superpowers, royal origins. I didn't hate him, personally, and I didn't mind the one-night stand from a story perspective, but he did just sort of waltz in, do his thing, hang around for one adventure, and waltz out with a long-term antagonist in tow.

None of those is a killer in and of itself, it's just sort of the whole package all together. I don't think there's any help for it at this point, honestly -- just take it as a lesson learned. I'd say just let it go, bring him in for whatever dungeon delve or cavalry rescue he's needed for, and do what you can to make him a person and not just a deus ex machina.

Edit: *facehoof* Sorry, that came out wrong. I don't mean to imply that he's a walking deus ex machina right now. What I mean is, I don't want to see you cut him short shrift because you're afraid of people disliking him. Having him walk in with his cavalry rescue, save the day, then walk off again with minimal interaction would only rub salt in the fire.

Uh.

Throw gasoline on the wound?
 

[O. Hinds]

You can use an electrodynamic tether, but in that case you're actually converting your own orbital energy into electricity. Great if you want to descend, I guess.

Ah, yes, good point. I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize that.

Electrodynamic tethers are more commonly proposed for propulsion, parlaying solar power into orbital altitude.

Ooh, I hadn't head about that! Neat!

The rest of your post there is also quite interesting.

[FeatherDust]

Yes, BJ lost Duty, Sacrifice, Vigilance, and the sword back in ch51 when she fled the skyport.

But they were given back by the Enclave soldiers that accompanied her afterwards, IIRC.

Augh, that's right! Lightning Dancer gave it all back the very next chapter during the Deus and Dawn battle. I forgot and my search didn't find it because none if the weapons' names were used, just "my weapons".

Anyway, so yeah, that was the space sword BJ used to trisect the crown.

[Luminous Lead]

Just because it's extremely ludicrous that Darth Vader and Captain Picard would have a gardening contest doesn't make it any less of a fun discussion. (If you're into gardening.)

Well, to lessen the advantages that their respective universe's wonder technologies could bring, let's say they're stuck with ancient farming equipment.

On one side, Darth Vader would have the upper hand as to actually making the garden grow, due to his natural affinity with the force.  He could probably get the plants quite large, but they'd probably end up twisted and evil, reflective of himself.
Picard, with his diplomatic nature and attention to detail could probably design a pleasant and soothing garden and treat it with care.  Since plants respond well to patient care they'd grow up healthy and beautiful, but would probably get cannibalized by Vader's garden once that got rowdy and broke containment.

The Goddess has reduced Lacunae to simply a signal repeater.  She can get into Blackjack directly now and program her to fight Littlepip however she needs to.  The Goddess wants BJ to fight a certain way... like... mmm... say...

Yellow River?

Trix is going to try using Star Jack?

That doesn't bode well for any of the parties involved!

[Luminous Lead]

At least it won't be Glory-getting-dashite-branded-jack.
Or totally-jacked-jack.
The jack that downed all the drugs in her bags, had everything go red, then came to with a table through a pane of bulletproof glass and the floor, walls and ceiling uniformly covered in sticky red paste.

 Yeah, Stampede Jack was also bad news.  I think the "everything went red" part was a reference to how your vision goes red in Fallout 3 when you use Psycho.  Psycho even comes in an injection system like Stampede.

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