Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[O. Hinds]

Correction on the NCO ranks in the NCR's armed forces:

(from higher to lower ranks)
- Major
- Master Sergeant
- Chief Sergeant
- 1st Sergeant
- 2nd Sergeant

I'll have to think a bit about how the different ranks are graphically represented. I don't want to just straight up copy the stuff of the US or French armed forces.

Well, if you can't think of something original and still want to not copy American or France... There's always the inspiration for much else about the NCR. :)

[Harmony Ltd.]

Interesting.

I'll have a deeper look into that later, once I'll have time and access to a scanner / drawing material.

[O. Hinds]

Regarding raider children:
Possibility 3 is, I think, highly unlikely; I'd say that it's a combination of 1, 2, and raiders with more mundane cutie marks simply not having them mentioned.

I've already given some thought to what it's like to grow up a raider, by the way, when working on Rose Eye.  Short version: not pleasant.  I imagine that the details might vary from raider group to raider group, with some being more psychotic and less organized than others (relatively, of course, since raiders can't get too sane and organized without ceasing to be raiders) and children simply being impossible in the worst groups, but Rose Eye's (I can never seem to remember the name she was born with, so I'll just keep calling her Rose Eye) was disciplined to the point where "foal" was not necessarily synonymous with "snack and entertainment".  A big part of Rose Eye's foalhood, which was pretty standard for her band, consisted of staying out of the way, maneuvering the others to fight each other instead of her, exerting whatever power she had whenever she could, and trying to get as strong as possible.  The band's philosophy of life, for those who had something so complex, could basically be summed up as "The world is shit, always has been, and always will be, so do whatever you want; there's no other right but might."  The adults casually abused the children and tended to just laugh if the foals killed one of them instead, and the strong children tore the weaker ones apart, often literally.  It was unheard of for any foal who survived to adulthood to be something other than a raider, and Rose Eye, if not for Red Eye's intervention, probably would have ended up just a particularly powerful one.

Possibly Razorblade's group of raiders was less harsh, but I still expect that she could likely be a great pony someday; for a pony to grow up in such an environment and be sane and socialized enough to behave the way we saw in Chapel, they must be exceptional.

Raiders almost universally have cutie marks that reflect their lifestyle, which suggests one of these options:
1) Almost all raiders became raiders as children;
2) Non-raider ponies who eventually become raiders tend to have marks that reflect some darkness of spirit even at an early age; or
3) Ponies who become raiders undergo a change to their cutie mark.

[O. Hinds]

...Hm. And now I'm wondering if Razorblade might not get involved with the Moojave. Not many people are going to both be sane enough for such a job and have that sort of insight into Rose Eye's foalhood.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Who's that Razorblade filly, again?

[O. Hinds]

From P-21's class in Chapel.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I've been thinking a bit about Sasha (the hellhound Horrigan-expy),and more particularly about how I would tend to characterize her, and how she would be used by the NCR.

On the later bit, I was wondering about just how heavily the NCR would drum up propaganda about having this super badass super-soldier at its service.

On the former bit, I'm just wondering just how... humane she would be, so to speak.

The conjunction of the two is, I was thinking about this giantess, a walking megaspell, regularly visiting the orphanage where the orphans of NCR soldiers are sent and future NCR-Commissars are raised, to inspire them and also as a way for Sasha to stay somewhat sane (read: having an outlet for her loyalty other than through combat)

I dunno. Since the idea of that character spontaneously sprang up in my mind a few weeks ago, it's been stuck at the back of my head almost constantly.


(also, the last thing you'll ever see)

[O. Hinds]

Huh. Odd parallel with Rose Eye there. Could be interesting to explore it if they ever meet.

[O. Hinds]

Oh, the Alliance, by the way, probably isn't too afraid of Sasha; however tough she is, she's unlikely to survive a bombardment of balefire artillery, tank shells, and/or air-to-surface missiles. Even the Alliance would hate to face her in close combat, though, and considering the number of other opponents of the NCR who have weapons heavier than AM rifles (or even have many good AM rifles)...

[O. Hinds]

Quite interesting and potentially useful?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Interesting indeed. What kind of ideas does this give you?

Border tensions between the Miliozi and the NCR? Or something else?

[O. Hinds]

I don't know. There's a lot of stuff in it. It hasn't given me any specific ideas yet, but I feel like we ought to be able to extract something from it.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The NCR, the Miliozi and the Rose Banner battling for influence in the Moojave?

IIRC the area is pretty dry, right? Maybe there's some more-or-less subtle struggles to control the various oasis, wells, and other strategically important spots in the region. With the locals in the middle of that just wanting to be left alone.


In the Northern Territories? I'm not sure. We still need to work more on defining them and their identities. But it's a bit hard considering they depend for a large part on what will become of Hoofington at the end of PH, and that's still quite a number of chapters away.


Hmmm... The big unknown is the East, the big stretch of land beyond the central mountain range, that is controlled by neither the NCR nor the Alliance ; an area which the former is already treating like its backyard when it comes to security affairs, and which the later ought to get involved in if only to contain the expansion of the former.



Well, let's keep that article in the back of our collective minds, and we'll take advantage of it one way or another when the time is right.

[O. Hinds]

Aye.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I was wondering... How common were Artificial Intelligences in Equestria before the bombs fell? I get the ipression it's even more widespread than in the original Fallout.

We know even your average run-of-the-steelmill Mr. Gutsy has a pony-level of intelligence (or are at least able to pass a turing test of that level... AIs are hard to describe...), and it seems like most everything was on its way to become as automated as possible.


This made me think that, at the pace at which things were automated, given a few more decades, it's possible Equestria would have become completely automated and self-run by a network of artificial intelligences.

Exhibit A: Hoofington

Exhibit B: The SPP

Exhibit C (from this thread): Elusive

Exhibit D (from this thread): Stalliongrad's Underground Manufacturing City



Thinking of it, this open up interesting possibilities in the setting, not just this thread, but for FoE stories in general.

Imagine the wasteland tales of a lost Golden Age, free of labor, and the horror stories of a people alienated from its own world by its own creations.

[Harmony Ltd.]

You may find the following interesting, Hinds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_%28missile%29

[O. Hinds]

I was wondering... How common were Artificial Intelligences in Equestria before the bombs fell? I get the ipression it's even more widespread than in the original Fallout.

We know even your average run-of-the-steelmill Mr. Gutsy has a pony-level of intelligence (or are at least able to pass a turing test of that level... AIs are hard to describe...), and it seems like most everything was on its way to become as automated as possible.


This made me think that, at the pace at which things were automated, given a few more decades, it's possible Equestria would have become completely automated and self-run by a network of artificial intelligences.

Exhibit A: Hoofington

Exhibit B: The SPP

Exhibit C (from this thread): Elusive

Exhibit D (from this thread): Stalliongrad's Underground Manufacturing City



Thinking of it, this open up interesting possibilities in the setting, not just this thread, but for FoE stories in general.

Imagine the wasteland tales of a lost Golden Age, free of labor, and the horror stories of a people alienated from its own world by its own creations.

Well, I'm not sure about including the SPP here, but then the decision to have it run by a pony instead of an AI was a deliberate design choice that actually involved cutting some connections.

Elusive, also, probably doesn't feature much in the legends, or at least not those based purely on the past (rumors may have drifted in from outside the Wasteland and gotten mixed in, though); though APE tried to publicize their systems, I imagine them as having the (mostly true) reputation of "Jack of all trades, master of none". And, to fair to the detractors, Elusive did go completely rogue within months of being fully powered up; it was little more than luck that he went Zeroth Law Rebellion rather than "All you meatbags are cramping my style".

But, yeah, it's an interesting point. I recently finished rereading Blindsight, so of course I'm thinking of it. :)

You may find the following interesting, Hinds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_%28missile%29

Oh, yes! Thanks!

[Harmony Ltd.]

The SPP is included not because of the AI aspect, but the automation one, the weather being manipulated by machine instead of ponies.

Basically, I was thinking that given ten or twenty more years, Equestria might have been able to run itself without any input from ponies. Even more so if the Tokomare went online at full capacity... (hint: death of all biological life from the enervation generated).

I mean, just look at what Equestria achieved in just 20 years, going from steam locomotive to moon rockets, and from mechanical analog calculators to sentient AIs.

[O. Hinds]

Aye. :D

Which of course leads to either an existential crisis ("If we are completely unnecessary and indeed increasingly irrelevant... what do we do?") or a rather less drawn-out sort of crisis ("Help, the robots are revo--ARGH!").

[O. Hinds]

It turns out that Merkava's are about half a meter wider than the Alliance/Equestrian loading gauge. Do you think it would be better so say that Miliozi armor is narrow enough to fit or to use special cars to transport the armored vehicles on their sides (I've already got a self-contained (meaning that it's still drive-on-drive-off, no cranes required) design in mind)?

[O. Hinds]

Another bit of stuff: I'm thinking of calling Elusive's architecture "aeppelfealu", though I'm not sure how to justify it in-universe. Don't know; it's the best idea I've had so far.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I've got the impression the latest chapter kind of touch upon what I was saying above about the rate at which Equestria was adopting cyber-technologies, in a "what could have been" kind of way.

Also, status update on Discord. Good. We'll see how it goes...

[O. Hinds]

Hm, good point.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Regarding the tanks and traincar problem, let's think laterally about this:

Would the Pax Roamana and later the Miliozi have conceived tanks that they needed to put sideway in order to transport them by rails (with all the problems it entails regarding fuel and ammunition storage inside the tanks), or would have they sought to conceive vehicles which wouldn't have had this problem in the first place?

Maybe the vehicle could be made to be half a meter narrower, but I doubt it'd be all "thinner armour". The internal arrangement would have to be re-thought. The end result could even end up being longer or higher, in order to keep a similar internal space which could allow to keep the same amount of equipment inside.

As for thinner armour in itself, let's ask ourselves a simple question: how believable would it be, given all we know of the setting, to have the Zebra be able to manufacture armour "plating" five to ten time as resistant as what there is on the Merkava, relative to its thickness?

And if they knew how to make such resistant materials taking so little space, and possibly so little weight, wouldn't they start considering armouring everything with it - including their own soldiers?

You're the expert on stripes, on you to see that.


As for the thing about architecture, I don't get the reference.

[O. Hinds]

Regarding the tanks and traincar problem, let's think laterally about this:

Would the Pax Roamana and later the Miliozi have conceived tanks that they needed to put sideway in order to transport them by rails (with all the problems it entails regarding fuel and ammunition storage inside the tanks), or would have they sought to conceive vehicles which wouldn't have had this problem in the first place?

Maybe the vehicle could be made to be half a meter narrower, but I doubt it'd be all "thinner armour". The internal arrangement would have to be re-thought. The end result could even end up being longer or higher, in order to keep a similar internal space which could allow to keep the same amount of equipment inside.

As for thinner armour in itself, let's ask ourselves a simple question: how believable would it be, given all we know of the setting, to have the Zebra be able to manufacture armour "plating" five to ten time as resistant as what there is on the Merkava, relative to its thickness?

And if they knew how to make such resistant materials taking so little space, and possibly so little weight, wouldn't they start considering armouring everything with it - including their own soldiers?

You're the expert on stripes, on you to see that.

Yes, good points. I'm just somewhat wary of making them too powerful, a sue civilization, as it were. But with the PR's history of alchemical engineering and the Alliance's possession of Profectum... This would also quite possible make Miliozi armor air-transportable.
You really think that this would be acceptable?

As for the thing about architecture, I don't get the reference.

Well, Elusive is network-based rather than maneframe-based, and there are some comparisons to be made to beowulf architecture (I may be using some incorrect terminology). It seemed naturally to try and name the architecture after horses from Beowulf, but, upon doing some research, I discovered that there aren't any named ones. I eventually found this research paper, though, which brought up aeppelfealu as apparently significant. Since Elusive was manufactured by Apple Pancake Enterprises...

[Harmony Ltd.]

I would recommend that the tanks be re-designed to be narrower, rather than to make their armour stronger.

Less headaches that way.

[O. Hinds]

So keep the armor thick and heavy and redesign the vehicles so that that's not a problem for rail transport?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Pretty much, yes.

Maybe you can make it lighter, but reasonably so.

[O. Hinds]

Good news! I think that I was reading the cylinder dimensions backwards last time (the Wikipedia page doesn't note which number is length and which diameter, but, looking a pictures, I'm pretty sure that the cylinders are longer than they are wide), and it ought to be possible to convert an A4 by widening after all! In addition, it looks like there'd be room for up to four inside cylinders. We probably don't want to use that many, but still.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Huh... Context, please? Still talking about the Merkava, or is it something else?

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