Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[Harmony Ltd.]

Also :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_5UZfwX0ss

[Scienza]

I just wonder what the TV programs coming from Masozi would be like...

A mix between Fox News and The Military Channel, maybe ?  

I think that would probably be all television in the FoE-verse.

[O. Hinds]

I just wonder what the TV programs coming from Masozi would be like...

A mix between Fox News and The Military Channel, maybe ?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I8RdUCBwjE

 

Well, I'm not sure if the Miliozi would bother... but if they did, yeah. :) No recruitment ads, though; internally they've got their famous lack of civilians, externally they assume that anyone who actually wants to join them doesn't need an ad.

[O. Hinds]

Though, hm, now that I think of it, while there wouldn't be recruitment ads for the Miliozi, there could (even on the radio, since I'm still not sure that the Miliozi would go for television) be ones for specific parts (student in Profectum, rotodaen pilot, tanker, fisherzebra, factory worker, infantry, etc.).

[O. Hinds]

but actually watching something on them might be difficult if the NCR gets in its head to not allow the Alliance to broadcast inside its territories.

And something I just thought of about this: even if the NCR disallows Alliance broadcasts in NCR territory, there's always the possibility of the Alliance just happening to put a powerful transmitter near the border. It's not the Alliance's fault that the radio waves go out in all directions without regard for imaginary lines on maps, after all…

[Harmony Ltd.]

Though, hm, now that I think of it, while there wouldn't be recruitment ads for the Miliozi, there could (even on the radio, since I'm still not sure that the Miliozi would go for television) be ones for specific parts (student in Profectum, rotodaen pilot, tanker, fisherzebra, factory worker, infantry, etc.).

Sounds likely, yes.

but actually watching something on them might be difficult if the NCR gets in its head to not allow the Alliance to broadcast inside its territories.

And something I just thought of about this: even if the NCR disallows Alliance broadcasts in NCR territory, there's always the possibility of the Alliance just happening to put a powerful transmitter near the border. It's not the Alliance's fault that the radio waves go out in all directions without regard for imaginary lines on maps, after all…

Probably, yes. And there's probably going to be people in the NCR to advocate for jammers to be deployed, and people to oppose them on various grounds ("Why do you care ?", "We have better way to spend our resources", "The check I received in my mail tells me your idea is bad", etc...).

[O. Hinds]

Though, hm, now that I think of it, while there wouldn't be recruitment ads for the Miliozi, there could (even on the radio, since I'm still not sure that the Miliozi would go for television) be ones for specific parts (student in Profectum, rotodaen pilot, tanker, fisherzebra, factory worker, infantry, etc.).

Sounds likely, yes.

And, these being the Miliozi, many of the ads would probably be even more Starship Troopers by being targeted at foals...

but actually watching something on them might be difficult if the NCR gets in its head to not allow the Alliance to broadcast inside its territories.

And something I just thought of about this: even if the NCR disallows Alliance broadcasts in NCR territory, there's always the possibility of the Alliance just happening to put a powerful transmitter near the border.  It's not the Alliance's fault that the radio waves go out in all directions without regard for imaginary lines on maps, after all…

Probably, yes. And there's probably going to be people in the NCR to advocate for jammers to be deployed, and people to oppose them on various grounds ("Why do you care ?", "We have better way to spend our resources", "The check I received in my mail tells me your idea is bad", etc...).

Aye, the Alliance takes a diplomatic hit, but otherwise they win either way.  The NCR lets the signals through?  The NCR is now a larger market for Alliance television sets, and the people of the NCR are being fed Alliance culture, propaganda, and advertising; the Alliance also has a beachhead for getting permission to set up transmitters in NCR territory.  The NCR blocks the signals?  The NCR government is spending valuable resources to deny its citizens a "harmless" and freely-offered luxury.

[Harmony Ltd.]

And, these being the Miliozi, many of the ads would probably be even more Starship Troopers by being targeted at foals...

Non-parody : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujtp-70zQME

Parody : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6OQJxe8ic0

[O. Hinds]

And, these being the Miliozi, many of the ads would probably be even more Starship Troopers by being targeted at foals...

Non-parody : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujtp-70zQME

Parody : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6OQJxe8ic0

...Yeah, actually, probably kind of like that. Not exactly like that, since, among other things, the Miliozi don't have an America-equivalent to negatively focus on, do have the rest of the Alliance to positively focus on (though not so much as to suggest that the Miliozi wouldn't do fine on their own, of course), and need to make at least somewhat nice with their biggest potential opponent, but the tone is similar.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I feel this may be relevant, but I can't pinpoint how exactly.

[O. Hinds]

I feel this may be relevant, but I can't pinpoint how exactly.

Hm... I don't know. Given the cultures we're working with here, I find it hard to imagine that anyone would be ashamed of food production. Well, maybe the NCR's upper and upper middle class, if they really want to boast about how well they're doing, but I'm not an expert on the NCR.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I think I was more thinking of a culture clash of some sort, maybe. Or in the future, something between generations. I don't know.

Like, people from Elusive City, coming with the habit of their overly processed industrialized hygienic food, taking a trip in the NCR or something like that and witnessing how it's done there.

It could also apply between the pre- and post-Gardens periods, with people before the Gardens learning to grow food everywhere possible, like those Hmong did in the inner city ; and their later success as farmers selling their products once the land became clean again.

Like I said, I can't pinpoint how exactly I feel it's relevant. It's more of a diffuse sentiment.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I could imagine Higher-class people from the NCR deriding farmers, but yeah I have difficulties imagining them mocking farming, as most of them probably got rich by owning companies related to the NCR's food production one way or another.

Or they could be hypocrites, too, which isn't that unlikely.

[O. Hinds]

I think I was more thinking of a culture clash of some sort, maybe. Or in the future, something between generations. I don't know.

Well, there definitely would be generational differences.

Like, people from Elusive City, coming with the habit of their overly processed industrialized hygienic food, taking a trip in the NCR or something like that and witnessing how it's done there.

Hm... Maybe. Hygienic, maybe, but most of the upper surface of Elusive City is covered with useful plant life.

Though there might be that sort of reaction to raising animals for meat. Elusive City (and therefore to some extent the company in general) and the Miliozi eat a lot of seafood, but, beyond that, the Alliance eats a lot less meat than the Wastelanders. Masozi was short of farmland due to being on the Equestrian Peninusla and Elusive City due to not having, you know, any land, but the rest of the proto-Alliance never had to turn to meat-eating (Profectum didn't have cropland, but it had Science).

[Harmony Ltd.]

I'm not sure there'd be much meat produced in the NCR... I mean, who has the need to eat meat apart from the Griffins ? The dogs, maybe ? But they are a really marginal part of the population anyway.

Let's see... Brahmins : by 30 SR raising them for meat has probably become taboo ; Sheeps & goats : they're clearly sentient, and I don't doubt there's a fraction of the population that would object to them being raised for meat ; Pigs : I don't think we have any proofs from the show that they are "sentient", but we also have no reason to assume the contrary, and even then, same thing as the sheeps & goats. And Angel is proof that even the rabbits have some degree of intelligence.

You could argue a case about chickens, as in-show I'm not sure we have ever been given indication that they were more than animals, but even then, my guess is that in the end, a (growing) portion of the population would object to them being raised for meat. On the other hand, I would think people would have no objections to griffins consuming chicken eggs for proteins.


Note that all of this is leaving aside the issue of slavery.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I think I was more thinking of a culture clash of some sort, maybe. Or in the future, something between generations. I don't know.

Well, there definitely would be generational differences.

"Junior, finish what's on your plate!"
"But grannyyyy!"

[O. Hinds]

I think I was more thinking of a culture clash of some sort, maybe. Or in the future, something between generations. I don't know.

Well, there definitely would be generational differences.

"Junior, finish what's on your plate!"
"But grannyyyy!"

"Whippersnapper, when I was a filly, that meal would'a been worth a nice shotgun!"

[Harmony Ltd.]

Grandpa, in his rocking chair, starring into space

"Good people died for less than what's on your plate..."

[O. Hinds]

I'm not sure there'd be much meat produced in the NCR... I mean, who has the need to eat meat apart from the Griffins ? The dogs, maybe ? But they are a really marginal part of the population anyway.

Let's see... Brahmins : by 30 SR raising them for meat has probably become taboo ; Sheeps & goats : they're clearly sentient, and I don't doubt there's a fraction of the population that would object to them being raised for meat ; Pigs : I don't think we have any proofs from the show that they are "sentient", but we also have no reason to assume the contrary, and even then, same thing as the sheeps & goats. And Angel is proof that even the rabbits have some degree of intelligence.

You could argue a case about chickens, as in-show I'm not sure we have ever been given indication that they were more than animals, but even then, my guess is that in the end, a (growing) portion of the population would object to them being raised for meat. On the other hand, I would think people would have no objections to griffins consuming chicken eggs for proteins.


Note that all of this is leaving aside the issue of slavery.

...This, combined with the obvious taste for meat that a lot of Wastelanders have, leads one to suspect that the NCR black market might stock some certain food items from outside NCR and Alliance borders...

[O. Hinds]

Grandpa, in his rocking chair, starring into space

"Good people died for less than what's on your plate..."

"Dad!"
"Ehhh, don't give me that stuff about it being inappropriate! Why, I'd already killed about ten raiders by the time I was her age!"

[Harmony Ltd.]

Dad: "It was then, this is now ! Let's keep the past in the past, okay ?!"
Grandpa: "You say this now, but we'll see how you'll do when the Wasteland'll come back knocking at your door again."
Dad: "Daaaaad!"

Mom (shaking her head): "The same thing everytime..."

[Harmony Ltd.]

Which is an interesting way to bring in the question of just how different the views of the various generations might be, on a number of subjects.

After all, one of the reasons why I chose to set my "headcanon" in 30 SR is because it seemed like the minimal amount of time things would need to become noticeably different from what was before, for "Equestria" to really start rebuilding and the culture to offer enough of a contrast with that of the pre-SR Wasteland to give interesting story-telling opportunities.

For example, a pony in his late fifties who has grown in the Wasteland, and then had to fight in the Bitter War, and now lives in one of the various agricultural Communes of the NCR, will have a different worldview than an adolescent mare born almost half a decade after the end of the Bitter War and growing in one of the (relatively) favored neighborhoods of New-Appeloosa, Junction City or Manehatten.

[O. Hinds]

Indeed! There's a great deal of potential in that, and those two ponies are just one of the many viewpoint clashes.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The (modern) NCR itself is very diverse, in racial as well as in ethnic and social terms, yes. The fact it's built atop the ruins of the Wasteland, a place where everyone was by necessity extremely individualistic, helped reinforce the ideals of personal freedom people could have had - which then clash with the "necessary" restrictions imposed on said freedom by the government and other people in power.

Similarly, I have trouble believing that the people inhabiting Elusive City are an homogeneous, monolithic bunch. Or even the Miliozi.

Yeah, in fact I'm pretty curious about what life in Masozi or Elusive City is actually like.

[Harmony Ltd.]

And now I'm imagining the story of two kids growing up in the slums of Junction and wanting, like kids do, to escape their lives, making a promise to each other, and then growing trying to fulfill that promise.

The fact I'm listening to emotional anime music doesn't help...

[O. Hinds]

The (modern) NCR itself is very diverse, in racial as well as in ethnic and social terms, yes. The fact it's built atop the ruins of the Wasteland, a place where everyone was by necessity extremely individualistic, helped reinforce the ideals of personal freedom people could have had - which then clash with the "necessary" restrictions imposed on said freedom by the government and other people in power.

Aye, makes sense.

Similarly, I have trouble believing that the people inhabiting Elusive City are an homogeneous, monolithic bunch. Or even the Miliozi.

Yeah, in fact I'm pretty curious about what life in Masozi or Elusive City is actually like.

Hm… Well, I'll start with the easy one.

Elusive City is the cosmopolitan center of the Alliance. Even without being the Alliance's capital and the headquarters of the Elusive Company, Elusive City relies heavily on trade (and exports large amounts of oil that the rest of the Alliance relies on, though the drillship next to the Elusive is no longer the Alliance's only supply). A great many people from the Alliance and beyond pass through the city on business, and the city also gets, for the postapocalypse world, a respectable amount of tourism (like Venice, even ignoring everything else about the city, the very way it's built can attract tourists). The city's inhabitants have a general sense of superiority to the visitors (and even more of a sense of superiority to those who never come to Elusive City at all), but this isn't allowed to interfere with business.
The inhabitants of the city are mostly ponies (earth and unicorn, though there are a few pegasi) and zebras, specieswise. Elusive's social engineering has been pretty much completely successful in eliminating a class structure based on ancestry; the city is, really, rather egalitarian in general. One's position in the class system that does exist is based on one's position within the Company hierarchy, one's citizenship in the City, and Elusive's publicly available opinion of one. Since privacy from Elusive does not exist in the city (including, to an extent (which is exaggerated in the popular perception), the contents of one's head, thanks to analysis and prediction software), everyone assumes that he probably has a better assessment of your worth than you yourself do. For the same reason, crime is more or less nonexistent in the city. No crimes go unpunished and few are committed in the first place. Elusive is also always ready to talk to a citizen of the city; one has but to request of the air such a thing for a robot to roll up or the room's speakers to fire up. This makes the long-term citizens and those who've grown up in the city feel safe and tends to make everyone else rather paranoid.
So, I'd say, in general, that Elusive City is pretty diverse except where attitudes towards Elusive are concerned, because Elusive's opinion of you is your social worth and Elusive's word is somewhere between "law" and "law of physics".

Masozi… The Miliozi, for a pseudo-fascist stratocracy with institutionalized foal soldiery, are actually pretty liberal. The flipside of making your entire population part of the military is that your entire population is part of the military, and, while pretty much every Miliozi is similarly enthusiastic about the group's martial strength, there's only so much that enculturation can do. There are, after all, already a wide variety of characters in IRL militaries that do not include their entire societies. Moreover, there's a difference between the "full time military" Miliozi and the Miliozi in support roles; while all Miliozi are trained in combat from pretty much their first words and never stop training, as long as you do your job, obey all orders given to you (though those two overlap), and don't get caught committing any crimes (and you really don't want to be a member of the Miliozi caught committing crimes against them), you can pretty much do what you want in your free time (though many Miliozi decide to use their free time for additional training or work; enculturation may not be total, but it's far from ineffective). And, while you might not have as much free time as some non-Miliozi, you are given some during normal operations.

Does that answer your question? I'm afraid that I'm not really sure. I'm rather tired at the moment.

[Harmony Ltd.]

This partially answer it, yes. I guess we'd need to have some short stories set in these places to better explore their societies from the "human" angle.

[O. Hinds]

Sorry that I couldn't provide a better answer.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Nah, no problem. Like I said, that's the kind of complex thing that would be best communicated through a short story or something like that.

[Meleagridis]

And Angel is proof that even the rabbits have some degree of intelligence.

Well, any pet that gets a decent degree of screen time (save for Winona and maybe Gummy) seems to be at a Lassie-level of development. They may not be as intelligent as other animals, but in a world where there are so many clearly sentient species you have to wonder where exactly to draw the line for things like domestication and farming.

This seems like something that would be a standard in this sort of fantasy settings. An attempt at a standardized test. Pass it, and your species is clearly capable of producing animals intelligent enough to be considered equals, or at least close enough to equals to not be eaten.

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