Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[O. Hinds]

I don't see a problem with that, assuming that neither PH nor ATR put that area under the control of another power.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Two questions:

- Do we know if telepathy / mind-reading / thought manipulation is a thing that people other than the Goddess can / could do?
- Do we know if stealth-bucks have the same long term side effects as stealth boys do in New Vegas (paranoia, schizophrenia, etc...)?

Because:
1 - Someone able to remotely read or change someone's thoughts could be very valuable on the field.
2 - If there are long term side effects to stealth bucks this may have quite an impact on the work of Special Forces, one way or the other (imagine Sasha becoming addicted to stealth bucks and going postal or some shit like that)


Also, a thought:

The NCR's military would probably hold most of its traditions from a mixed heritage of the Talon Company, the Steel / Applejack Rangers, and the Enclave (through the volunteers).

[Meleagridis]

- Do we know if stealth-bucks have the same long term side effects as stealth boys do in New Vegas (paranoia, schizophrenia, etc...)?

Only on Nightkin. Presumably, even other super mutants could use them with no ill effect. Only the Nightkin suffered mental symptoms. Which sucked, because they felt anxious if people could see them and they were some ten feet tall.
Which reminds me that I still have no reason as to why minotaurs and their condition exist.

Now pardon me, I have more backlog to read. (Unobserved posts breed like damn rabbits)

[O. Hinds]

- Do we know if telepathy / mind-reading / thought manipulation is a thing that people other than the Goddess can / could do?

Can, I don't think so. Could, well, the Goddess did it, which proves that it's possible.

- Do we know if stealth-bucks have the same long term side effects as stealth boys do in New Vegas (paranoia, schizophrenia, etc...)?

No idea, sorry. Wasn't the danger only to super mutants, though?

2 - If there are long term side effects to stealth bucks this may have quite an impact on the work of Special Forces, one way or the other (imagine Sasha becoming addicted to stealth bucks and going postal or some shit like that)

It would have some similar implications for some PR and Alliance forces.

The NCR's military would probably hold most of its traditions from a mixed heritage of the Talon Company, the Steel / Applejack Rangers, and the Enclave (through the volunteers).

Rather an eclectic mix.

Only on Nightkin. Presumably, even other super mutants could use them with no ill effect. Only the Nightkin suffered mental symptoms. Which sucked, because they felt anxious if people could see them and they were some ten feet tall.

Only on nightkin? Okay then; that answers that.

Which reminds me that I still have no reason as to why minotaurs and their condition exist.

Now pardon me, I have more backlog to read. (Unobserved posts breed like damn rabbits)

Yay, Meleagridis is back!

[Harmony Ltd.]

I was under the impression the condition had presented itself only on nightkins because they were the only ones to have made such an heavy & prolonged use of the thing. Did I get that wrong? Is it something in the nightkins' mutated phisiology that predispose them to the condition?

[Meleagridis]

I was under the impression the condition had presented itself only on nightkins because they were the only ones to have made such an heavy & prolonged use of the thing. Did I get that wrong? Is it something in the nightkins' mutated phisiology that predispose them to the condition?

I remember Dr. Henry in Jacobstown talking about the stealth boys being harmless to humans, but I don't trust my memory. So I checked the wiki... which has two different answers, it's worse for super mutants and it only affects super mutant Nightkin. But I kept googling and it turns out that, this once, my memory was right. Doc Henry, at least, has no evidence to suggest stealth boys have any effects on humans. Seeing as he is specifically researching the effects of stealth boy use, I'd trust his word.

Which reminds me that I still have no reason as to why minotaurs and their condition exist.

Now pardon me, I have more backlog to read. (Unobserved posts breed like damn rabbits)

Yay, Meleagridis is back!

  
Forgive me if I talk like I missed something earlier, because I probably have. I'm not even going to try and tackle the monster backlog here until I've caught up in the discussion thread.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Do you think it would be reasonable to say some creatures have adverse reactions to stealth bucks, to the effects described above (addiction, paranoia, schizophrenia, hallucinations, ...); such as Alicorns, Hellhounds, and other highly mutated intelligent creatures?

[O. Hinds]

Why not? We don't know exactly how the magic works anyway.

[Meleagridis]

Did the alicorns keep their colour-coded powers after Unity broke? If they did, then that kind of takes them out of the running. A third of them know invisibility naturally, and a few greens would be able to spread that to all the rest.

...

After Unity, how many would actually be okay with mental hand-holding with greens? Would there be interspecies racism towards them for the shattered fragments of Unity they represent? They can join together minds and are themselves still creepily connected and hive-mindish. I don't remember if they were the only ones that sided with Red Eye, but if I recall correctly they were certainly the spokesmen for the post-Unity alicorn (the exact moment I'm remembering was the Everfree scuffle with Littlepip's gang).

[O. Hinds]

To be honest, I've not been thinking about the alicorns very much. Most of my work has been with the Pax Roamana, who predated alicorns, the Elusive Alliance, which I doubt has gotten significant alicorn immigration, and the Rose Banner, which alicorns don't have many reasons to join or stay with over the NCR.

[O. Hinds]

There is material in the new chapter of significant interest to this thread. I of course can't at present say any more, unfortunately.

[Harmony Ltd.]

You teaser you!

[Meleagridis]

@Non-Spoiler: Graglblarglag okay fair enough.

To be honest, I've not been thinking about the alicorns very much.  Most of my work has been with the Pax Roamana, who predated alicorns, the Elusive Alliance, which I doubt has gotten significant alicorn immigration, and the Rose Banner, which alicorns don't have many reasons to join or stay with over the NCR.

Don't they? The little kids they practically babysat (if you take the Red Eye tumblr for canon and if I'm remembering correctly) And the remains of what few adults didn't hate or fear them have now struck out on their own. Abandon? Y/N

Even in Kkat's epilogue, the alicorns working on the cure don't really live with the NCR. They work with zebras. With a lifespan like they have, only those with something to prove or something to finish have any reason to bother with ponies. At this time there would likely be plenty people that remember hating and fearing Unity. Even if many others are willing to be accepting, why bother with the risk of a possible violent racist when you can stay with your own kind (and zebras) or follow the ponies that have already learned to trust you completely into a land filled with enough racial tension to dwarf your own (brahmin v. ponies)?

It would certainly spruce up the place.

[Harmony Ltd.]

On drugs, had a funny thought:

Everfree locals cultivating and selling plants from the forest with the same general properties as cannabis. But it's natural, and its effects are so innocuous compared to most drugs on the market that it's sold as prescription-free painkiller.

[O. Hinds]

@Non-Spoiler: Graglblarglag okay fair enough.

To be honest, I've not been thinking about the alicorns very much.  Most of my work has been with the Pax Roamana, who predated alicorns, the Elusive Alliance, which I doubt has gotten significant alicorn immigration, and the Rose Banner, which alicorns don't have many reasons to join or stay with over the NCR.

Don't they? The little kids they practically babysat (if you take the Red Eye tumblr for canon and if I'm remembering correctly) And the remains of what few adults didn't hate or fear them have now struck out on their own. Abandon? Y/N

Even in Kkat's epilogue, the alicorns working on the cure don't really live with the NCR. They work with zebras. With a lifespan like they have, only those with something to prove or something to finish have any reason to bother with ponies. At this time there would likely be plenty people that remember hating and fearing Unity. Even if many others are willing to be accepting, why bother with the risk of a possible violent racist when you can stay with your own kind (and zebras) or follow the ponies that have already learned to trust you completely into a land filled with enough racial tension to dwarf your own (brahmin v. ponies)?

It would certainly spruce up the place.

I've not read the Ask Red Eye tumblr much, but, hm, you may have a point there. Alicorns working with the Banner won't get the sex change magic (unless the Followers are willing to go out of their way to aid an enemy of the NCR... which, come to think of it, they might be), but there's no reason why every single alicorn has to want that.

[Harmony Ltd.]

While I'm throwing ideas...

How difficult do you think it would be for the NCR to replicate the Gardens of Equestria if they could convince Spike to let them have a look over it and had a spare Crusader-like maneframe lying around.

Because I'm thinking they wouldn't feel secure about it not being a high priority target if shit ever hit the fan, and without any kind of replacement, Equestria as a whole would be in pretty deep shit if megaspells were to start raining again.




Also, unrelated: do we know how big is the standard Hellhound? Because I'm thinking back about Sasha, and it strikes me that her being 3.45 meters tall might be a -tad- too much. Something between 2.8-3 meters might be more resonable, but still she's supposed to be larger and meaner than your run-of-the-kennel Hellhound - if only at least through the sheer amount of cybernetics and power-armor she stuffed herself with.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, and mentally running back through what I said these last few days about the NCR Army, and particularly if things like Sasha (aka The Walking Megaspell) were to make it into "official" ""canon"";

For the NCR to ruin the Rose Banner's shit would actually be pretty trivial, and wouldn't even require that much investment in terms of resources or manpower.


So why is the Rose Banner still there?

Well, for starters, contrary to gangs like the Defilers, they're actually relatively harmless as far as raiders go. At least they got the "pillaging and raping" thing under control, and actually keeps things somewhat civilized on their corner of the Wasteland.

As a consequence of this, and although they're self-declared antagonists to the NCR, the Republic can't just barge in and "streetclean" them, as the locals have come to depend on their protection to defend them from meaner, less thoughtful raiders.

Finally, while it would be relatively trivial for the NCR to assassinate Rose Eye, destroy the Fort, and mop-up the remains of the Rose-Banne;, the sheer ruthlessness and brutality required to succesfully do so would be a PR disaster at home and in the Moojave given the Rose Banner currently doesn't represent a menace against the NCR, and as far as "local warlord" goes, they're even a bit above average when it comes to the quality of life of people under their "protection".


So basically where I'm getting at is that the only thing saving Rose Eye's ass is Politics and Diplomacy, and she's probably keenly aware of that.

[O. Hinds]

While I'm throwing ideas...

How difficult do you think it would be for the NCR to replicate the Gardens of Equestria if they could convince Spike to let them have a look over it and had a spare Crusader-like maneframe lying around.

Because I'm thinking they wouldn't feel secure about it not being a high priority target if shit ever hit the fan, and without any kind of replacement, Equestria as a whole would be in pretty deep shit if megaspells were to start raining again.

Incredibly difficult, I'd say, given that the EoH are integral components.

Also, unrelated: do we know how big is the standard Hellhound? Because I'm thinking back about Sasha, and it strikes me that her being 3.45 meters tall might be a -tad- too much. Something between 2.8-3 meters might be more resonable, but still she's supposed to be larger and meaner than your run-of-the-kennel Hellhound - if only at least through the sheer amount of cybernetics and power-armor she stuffed herself with.

Hm... Well, in this image, it looks like the diamond dogs are, by a rough eye estimate, maybe 150% of Rarity's height. I seem to recall that hellhounds are larger than diamond dogs, though, so... 185cm minimum? I'm not sure.

Oh, and mentally running back through what I said these last few days about the NCR Army, and particularly if things like Sasha (aka The Walking Megaspell) were to make it into "official" ""canon"";

For the NCR to ruin the Rose Banner's shit would actually be pretty trivial, and wouldn't even require that much investment in terms of resources or manpower.


So why is the Rose Banner still there?

Well, for starters, contrary to gangs like the Defilers, they're actually relatively harmless as far as raiders go. At least they got the "pillaging and raping" thing under control, and actually keeps things somewhat civilized on their corner of the Wasteland.

As a consequence of this, and although they're self-declared antagonists to the NCR, the Republic can't just barge in and "streetclean" them, as the locals have come to depend on their protection to defend them from meaner, less thoughtful raiders.

Finally, while it would be relatively trivial for the NCR to assassinate Rose Eye, destroy the Fort, and mop-up the remains of the Rose-Banne;, the sheer ruthlessness and brutality required to succesfully do so would be a PR disaster at home and in the Moojave given the Rose Banner currently doesn't represent a menace against the NCR, and as far as "local warlord" goes, they're even a bit above average when it comes to the quality of life of people under their "protection".


So basically where I'm getting at is that the only thing saving Rose Eye's ass is Politics and Diplomacy, and she's probably keenly aware of that.

Oh, she's not just keenly aware of it; it's basically the cornerstone of her strategy. She's aware that, while the NCR couldn't quite walk over the Banner without a scratch, an actual effort on the part of the NCR to destroy the Banner would be pretty much certain to result in a decidedly non-pyrric victory for the Republic. The solution is simply to make sure that the NCR doesn't make that effort, mostly through making sure that the military victory would be a loss in other ways. Why, in addition to what the Banner does for the Moojave locals, NCR travelers in the Moojave are generally safer than they'd be in much of the rest of the Peninsula, so long as they don't actually stray into the Banner's lands (and they're unlikely to accidentally swim the river or sneak across the bridge). Much as the Banner may want to attack the NCR, they're smart enough not to; the same cannot be said for the entrails-as-design-accents raiders still endemic in many areas outside the NCR's control.

[O. Hinds]

Rose Eye's NCR-pleasing policy is a mix of things she'd do even if the NCR didn't exist (her treatment of foals, for example), things primarily intended to make it more difficult for the NCR to go after the Banner, and things primarily intended to show LittlePip that a Red-Eye-Based system of government and morality can be just as good as and better than hers.

[O. Hinds]

I've just hit another bit in the new chapter of potentially particular interest to us. There's a lot of stuff we can work with, but we may also have to more some of the chapter's contents outside the broad strokes of PH. We'll see.

[Harmony Ltd.]

In term of size, that's what I have in mind when I think of Hellhounds:

http://mistermech.deviantart.com/art/The-Great-Debate-301362575

[Harmony Ltd.]

Also, it dawns on me that the notions and concepts of security might be quite different from what we know, in a world where a third of the population can fly, another third of the population can potentially teleport at will where they want, and the remaining third is strong enough to buck doors out of their hinges without breaking a sweat.

There's probably less physical obstacles like doors, walls and fences, and more armed guards trained to detect spies and infiltrators, with orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

[Harmony Ltd.]

RE the gardens of equestria:

The EoH can't be replicated, but the rest of the system probably can. And it's not as if the Elements would be kept in the same place as the Gardens anyway (the most obvious choice to hide/guard them would be the SPP hub, but it may be a -bit- too obvious...).

So, what would be needed would be to program another Maneframe, build a new megaspell casting chamber, and adapt the spellcasting procedure to take into account the fact that the spellcasting facility isn't in the same geographical place.

See other obstacles?

[Harmony Ltd.]

There's probably less physical obstacles like doors, walls and fences, and more armed guards trained to detect spies and infiltrators, with orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

By the way this would give a good in-universe explanation as to the prominence of automated security systems like sentry turrets, sentinel bots and other "active" protection systems, beyond "that's how Fallout did it" and "it was a dystopian future Equestria with an oppressive police state".

Given Equestria was already starting to stretch its "man"power to the limit trying to sustain the war effort during the Great War, it make some kind of sense that they would have wanted to automate as many jobs as possible to free people to do other, more productive things. Security being one of those things.


And "nowadays", the NCR would be in the same position, with its relatively limited population. So at least where guarding stuff is concerned, there would also be a push to automate security systems. The obvious problem being that the NCR's current "most likely enemy" is an IA with a notorious propensity to hack into every systems it can get its cyber-tentacles on. So the most likely thing is that only low-priority defense areas would be guarded by automated systems, to free people to guard more high-priority areas.

[Icy Shake]

RE the gardens of equestria:

The EoH can't be replicated, but the rest of the system probably can. And it's not as if the Elements would be kept in the same place as the Gardens anyway (the most obvious choice to hide/guard them would be the SPP hub, but it may be a -bit- too obvious...).

So, what would be needed would be to program another Maneframe, build a new megaspell casting chamber, and adapt the spellcasting procedure to take into account the fact that the spellcasting facility isn't in the same geographical place.

See other obstacles?

Mostly just those, but it depends also on how much you want to keep it under wraps. Presumably you'd want to keep it a secret, since it sounds like the point is to have a backup to the existing one which is already in an extremely defensible location. The added difficulty there is that the economy and population are probably smaller than wartime Equestria, so it's a comparatively bigger undertaking. Taking for granted that it's something that can be managed, that still makes it harder to do covertly, especially if you aren't in a situation with scores of contractors and covert projects, money and supplies sloshing around with stunningly bad oversight, and suppliers pushed to the limit constantly—independently of just the one project—in a fully mobilized economy.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Yeah. One way to keep it under wrap to some extent would be for the NCR to engage in a secret pact with at least Geneighva, which has the means to build most of the required stuff; and have the various actual stuff be bought under false designation by a number of facade corporations, and assembled back.


Hmmm... Ideally, to better cover up this, the Gardens backup would be built in something like a new Stable for official military business, so people wouldn't find it -too- strange to see Geneighvan contractors roaming around. It could even be sold as a research center of some sort to explain why the Twilight Society is getting so involved in the project.

Of course, that would be the second level of cover-up. The first level would probably be the stable being built in relative secrecy in a somewhat unhinabitated place, like the Everfree, in the local equivalent of Area 51 (the downed Thunderhead and the ruins of the Cathedral). That way it would be easier to discard any rumors as conspiracy theories.



By the way, I'm thinking that in the future, that place could in fact turn into the NCR's answer to the Alliance's Profectum.

[Harmony Ltd.]

As for the resources needed to build a new Crusader Maneframe, I wonder just how much it would represent in term of resources.

I was under the impression those maneframes were, all things considered, relatively compact (like, say, room sized and not like the Magi from Evangelion which takes the same kind of space as a 10-stories tall building), and the biggest resource hog was the sheer complexity of the thing, and the time and tooling necessary to build its spare parts and assemble them.

Like, they don't require any kind of unobtainium to be built or maintained, they're just freakingly complex relatively to what was the state of the art of Equestrian cybernetics at the time. Plus, it was a computer specialy designed to be able to interact with the arcane in such a way as to be able to cast spells, which makes it, if not unique in the setting (pipbucks, dude: they run on literal magic), orders of magnitude more complex than your run of the mill maneframe.

[O. Hinds]

In term of size, that's what I have in mind when I think of Hellhounds:

http://mistermech.deviantart.com/art/The-Great-Debate-301362575

Ah. Big.

Also, it dawns on me that the notions and concepts of security might be quite different from what we know, in a world where a third of the population can fly, another third of the population can potentially teleport at will where they want, and the remaining third is strong enough to buck doors out of their hinges without breaking a sweat.

There's probably less physical obstacles like doors, walls and fences, and more armed guards trained to detect spies and infiltrators, with orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

That makes sense, though there's still a role for secure doors and the like.

RE the gardens of equestria:

The EoH can't be replicated, but the rest of the system probably can. And it's not as if the Elements would be kept in the same place as the Gardens anyway (the most obvious choice to hide/guard them would be the SPP hub, but it may be a -bit- too obvious...).

So, what would be needed would be to program another Maneframe, build a new megaspell casting chamber, and adapt the spellcasting procedure to take into account the fact that the spellcasting facility isn't in the same geographical place.

See other obstacles?

Hm. …Not that I can think of at the moment.

By the way this would give a good in-universe explanation as to the prominence of automated security systems like sentry turrets, sentinel bots and other "active" protection systems, beyond "that's how Fallout did it" and "it was a dystopian future Equestria with an oppressive police state".

Given Equestria was already starting to stretch its "man"power to the limit trying to sustain the war effort during the Great War, it make some kind of sense that they would have wanted to automate as many jobs as possible to free people to do other, more productive things. Security being one of those things.


And "nowadays", the NCR would be in the same position, with its relatively limited population. So at least where guarding stuff is concerned, there would also be a push to automate security systems. The obvious problem being that the NCR's current "most likely enemy" is an IA with a notorious propensity to hack into every systems it can get its cyber-tentacles on. So the most likely thing is that only low-priority defense areas would be guarded by automated systems, to free people to guard more high-priority areas.

Good points.

Yeah. One way to keep it under wrap to some extent would be for the NCR to engage in a secret pact with at least Geneighva, which has the means to build most of the required stuff; and have the various actual stuff be bought under false designation by a number of facade corporations, and assembled back.


Hmmm... Ideally, to better cover up this, the Gardens backup would be built in something like a new Stable for official military business, so people wouldn't find it -too- strange to see Geneighvan contractors roaming around. It could even be sold as a research center of some sort to explain why the Twilight Society is getting so involved in the project.

Of course, that would be the second level of cover-up. The first level would probably be the stable being built in relative secrecy in a somewhat unhinabitated place, like the Everfree, in the local equivalent of Area 51 (the downed Thunderhead and the ruins of the Cathedral). That way it would be easier to discard any rumors as conspiracy theories.

That sounds like it would work.

By the way, I'm thinking that in the future, that place could in fact turn into the NCR's answer to the Alliance's Profectum.

Well, it's got a long way to go, but Profectum was once just a mesa in the middle of the desert.

[Meleagridis]

Who would fund it? The primary purpose of the Gardens is done, and the original still remains in an isolated cave guarded by a dragon. Certainly it would be worth the resources, but the resources required would be immense. What faction would possibly care enough to help construct or hide this thing when the same manpower or dosh could go to some agricultural or military application that benefits themselves directly? Anyone who actually cares enough about the world at large never seems to have enough at their disposal to help. Least that's how it so often is in Fallout.

Oh, or a Unity cult. If anyone still cared to carry out the Goddess' insane plan of irradiating everything, it would be easier to be a vital part of construction of a new Garden than infiltrating Spike's cave. Even if they had to pretend to be nice for a while.

[Harmony Ltd.]

hey. hehehe. Hehe muhahaha!

Yes. And who are mostly inhabiting the state of Everfree? Childrens of the Cathedral, who makes immenses amounts of cash reselling the natural riches of the Everfree to the rest of the NCR and the world at large.

The same Childrens who still believe that Red Eye is alive, sleeping under the Cathedral and awaiting his time to descend again among the world of the Mortals.

And if someone wanted to exploit that for his own plans...


As for the motivation to build the thing, it probably wouldn't be a current plan, but in 20-40 years, the situation might have evolved enough for the NCR to want to ensure it would still be able to survive a megaspell exchange and thus defeat CARE/MAD. The project could be sold to the NCR as an hidden ace up its sleeves for the Strategic Arsenal.

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