Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[O. Hinds]

So still a bit of space between each columns.

Hm, possibly too much space for the column forest effect.  What do you think?

Yeah, I think this can even manage to look awe-some (you know, in that it provoke awe).

It certainly looks it in my head.

I'm envisioning the space between each column to be styled as a garden, with flowers, alleys, benches.

So was I.

The problem being that it's fuck-mothering huge, at least two or three times bigger than the Central-Park equivalent in the Tenpony borough. And contrary to Tenpony, the borough of Downtown Manehatten, in which the crater is situated, has better things to spend its money on than gardening such a freakishly huge place.

So it's possible that by 30 SR, not even a fourth of the columns would have been built, with the rest being a vast empty space being conquered by vegetation and homeless people.

Which is also kind of poetic in its way.  I'm imagining that there's still a small group of Followers, though, mostly ghouls, slowly and steadily working to get the columns up.

Do you think that there'd be much development encroachment on the crater, it being prime and "unused" real estate?  And would the homeless people just shelter in boxes or something, or would there be a favela?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Hm, possibly too much space for the column forest effect. What do you think?

If they're tall and imposing enough, and they're all around you as far as the eye can see (the crater being, well, a crater), I think this may only reinforce he point: if each of these columns is a monument on their own, and there's dozens of thousands of them around you, with more than a hundred thousand more planned, it only helps driving home the point of the Memorial: Never Again.

Which is also kind of poetic in its way.

This was the intended effect, yes.

I'm imagining that there's still a small group of Followers, though, mostly ghouls, slowly and steadily working to get the columns up.

I guess it'd get heavy support from the Followers, but I get the feeling it'd be an (at least nominally) independent NGO in charge of organizing, building and maintaining the memorial. If only so that tourists and non-NCR citizens could more easily give them funds (Do you think some of the ghouls in Profectum would be interested by that project? I mean, a large number of these names owe their presence there to them and their researches...).

Do you think that there'd be much development encroachment on the crater, it being prime and "unused" real estate? And would the homeless people just shelter in boxes or something, or would there be a favela?

Well, the thing to remember is that Manehatten, and more specifically the borough of Downtown Manehatten, is freaking huge: the crater, even big as it is, doesn't represent even a twentieth of the borough's area.

There's enough space around to reclaim at this point in time.

Now, on the other hand, much of this other space to reclaim has ruins in the way, ruins which are decaying and menace to fall on the heads of anyone foolish enough to stand under it. So I can see the homeless building a favela style neighborough on one of the sides of the crater.

I think the people behind the memorial would tolerate it, as long as it's understood that sooner of later these people will need to leave. So as long as the structures in the favela can be easily moved or displaced, they'd probably don't see too much problem.

Though I guess it'd only be "tolerate" in the strictest sense of the term: stay over there and don't get in our way.

Which can also get a bit poetic, when you start thinking about it...

[Harmony Ltd.]

The original inspiration for that idea:


(source)

Welcome to ImpactLand, the most cheerful place in the world!  It's the memorial cemetery for the victims of the Second Impact... each one of those rods represents one person, and has a name on it to boot.  Good record-keeping, I guess.

(note: in that setting, that means over 2 billion pickets...)

[Harmony Ltd.]

Idea: The Followers funding an equivalent of the Library of Congress in Junction City.

[O. Hinds]

If they're tall and imposing enough, and they're all around you as far as the eye can see (the crater being, well, a crater), I think this may only reinforce he point: if each of these columns is a monument on their own, and there's dozens of thousands of them around you, with more than a hundred thousand more planned, it only helps driving home the point of the Memorial: Never Again.

Hm, I can see that.

I guess it'd get heavy support from the Followers, but I get the feeling it'd be an (at least nominally) independent NGO in charge of organizing, building and maintaining the memorial. If only so that tourists and non-NCR citizens could more easily give them funds (Do you think some of the ghouls in Profectum would be interested by that project? I mean, a large number of these names owe their presence there to them and their researches...).

Hm, good idea. Some of them wouldn't be interested at all, but I think that most would. Some of those would probably still stipulate that their contribution go only towards columns for the Pax Roamana dead, but, while the cultural opinion is still that the war on the Pax Roamana's side was just and the balefire launches justified, most of the ghouls accept that they killed a lot of more or less innocent ponies.

Which can also get a bit poetic, when you start thinking about it...

Aye. And trying to use force to displace them from the site of the war memorial (which is likely underfunded in part due to the NCR's military R&D programs) might risk breaking the irony meter.

…Though I did just have a thought: the memorial might not actually be underfunded. I see two possible states. One is the one we've been discussing. The other, though, if the memorial builders are taking foreign donations, has the NCR and Elusive trying to out-magnanimous each other. That seems less interesting, but I can't at the moment think of a reason why it wouldn't happen.

Idea: The Followers funding an equivalent of the Library of Congress in Junction City.

That would make sense.

[Harmony Ltd.]

…Though I did just have a thought: the memorial might not actually be underfunded. I see two possible states. One is the one we've been discussing. The other, though, if the memorial builders are taking foreign donations, has the NCR and Elusive trying to out-magnanimous each other. That seems less interesting, but I can't at the moment think of a reason why it wouldn't happen.

Most probably a blend of both, but each side not giving as much they could, because they still have a lot of other things to spend resources on.

Though if anything, it's probably the Alliance being on top right now, if only because they have more disposable income.

On the other hand, I could the NCR contributing in a different way, for example by directing a portion of its "civic labor" [1] pool toward the project.



[1]: By a twist of language, there's no jobless people in the NCR, only people who can't find a normal job and don't want to or for some can't get into the "civic labor" gangs.

Why wouldn't you want to get into these gangs? Well, you may be fed and be offered a roof over your head for your efforts, but the pay is ridiculously low.

[O. Hinds]

That makes sense. And I suppose that it's also kind of poetic to have the war memorial become a battlefield in the economic war.

[1]: By a twist of language, there's no jobless people in the NCR, only people who can't find a normal job and don't want to or for some can't get into the "civic labor" gangs.

Why wouldn't you want to get into these gangs? Well, you may be fed and be offered a roof over your head for your efforts, but the pay is ridiculously low.

I suspect that Rose Eye might have fun with that in her propaganda.

[Harmony Ltd.]

[1]: By a twist of language, there's no jobless people in the NCR, only people who can't find a normal job and don't want to or for some can't get into the "civic labor" gangs.

Why wouldn't you want to get into these gangs? Well, you may be fed and be offered a roof over your head for your efforts, but the pay is ridiculously low.

I suspect that Rose Eye might have fun with that in her propaganda.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle back.

[O. Hinds]

[1]: By a twist of language, there's no jobless people in the NCR, only people who can't find a normal job and don't want to or for some can't get into the "civic labor" gangs.

Why wouldn't you want to get into these gangs? Well, you may be fed and be offered a roof over your head for your efforts, but the pay is ridiculously low.

I suspect that Rose Eye might have fun with that in her propaganda.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle back.

Yes. It's probably just enough of a chink for Rose Eye to leap in and claim that the NCR has at least some degree of double standard for its anti-slavery policies. She'd probably also say that, sure, the civic labor gang members are free to leave, but free to leave and do what? Free to leave and starve in a hovel somewhere.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, maybe not starve, as everyone living in the NCR get a guaranteed Three-meals-a-day, through food stamps giving them right to at least the "NCR Special" (a bowl of oatmeal broth).

But yeah, apart from that, the alternative to the the labor gangs when you can't find a job by your own means is pretty much "being a hobo".

[Harmony Ltd.]

Would it make sense for this kind of things to be present, as fixed emplacements, in the fort the Rose Banner took over, as well as in Westside?

Given the mindset that went behind the construction of these fortifications, I wouldn't be surprised.

And this would give a good explanation as to why the NCR couldn't steamroll the place too easily:

Even if it can shoot only once every six minutes, if it can shoot over 60 kilometres in distance, it's still enough to seriously hinder any attempt to lay siege at the fort.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Of course, I'm thinking of something smaller than the acual Dora guns, but still pretty big artillery pieces. Think 400mm guns, for example - Iowa-class naval gun turrets put in fixed emplacements.

Of note, these guns are known to have been equipped with atomic shells, of a yield of 15-20 Kt of TNT.

So if there remained some old unused balefire shells in the fort(s) armories...

[O. Hinds]

Oh, yeah, I was skeptical of Dora-gun-scale artillery (at most, I'd say one per fort fixed to a south-pointing firing arc and provided with balefire shells), but there'd definitely be naval-scale artillery.

[O. Hinds]

...Actually, I think that we may have been over this before, somewhere in our nearly two full threads of talk. As I recall, your proposed counter to the gun turrets was to have NCR diamond dogs/hellhounds begin tunneling from outside the guns' range and undermine Thornbush.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Yes, I remember that. But still, the fact there's those guns is what forces the NCR to have to use such unconventional tactics.

Basically, the "point" is that these forts are still very much defensible. They're not invincible, but the Rose Banner do enjoy a relatively secure position. At least until the NCR decides to Get Dangerous and brings in the Special Weapons Corp.

[O. Hinds]

Aye, Thornbush, Westside, and the Encowmpment all benefit from their locations' defensibility, though Thornbush is probably the one with the most restored military capability.

[Harmony Ltd.]

So, Stalliongrad.

For two centuries, as far as anyone knew, the place was just a number of highly radioactive craters.

Then the Gardens of Equestria.

"Currently", we're at roughly 29-30 years after the GoE got activated. This leaves ample time for people to have mounted expeditions to explore the place, even just to map the peninsula (I'm looking at you, the NCR).

So the question is:

Have the Installations been discovered yet, if yes when and what happened, and if not, why?


I mean, given the place has the raw industrial capabilities to rebuild the Wasteland in the span of a decade or two, it's a pretty important question, I think.



My guess is that it's, as of yet, still undiscovered. Stalliongrad is kinda remote, and given how radioactive the place was for two centuries, people have avoided settling near it. The only road passing near or through it is the one linking Hoofington to Neighpon. Added to that is that the Installation is buried under the craters, safe for a few discreet entrances, and it respects radio silence, making it so that unless you're specifically looking for it you can't really accidentally stumble on it.

The thing that may attract people's attention are the few mostly new spritebot patrolling the surface. Though it would take a relatively high Perception (~8) and Science (75) or reparation (75) throw to understand that there's something going on here.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Or if people have already stumbled on it, they haven't gotten out to tell the tale. Or have agreed to keep it a secret.

[O. Hinds]

After reading your first post, I was about to suggest your second post. :)
The disappearing explorers probably wouldn't even be especially remarked on; the Peninsula is still a dangerous place, after all, and the East especially so (just how much so we don't know yet, but I doubt that any potential state in Hoofington stretches that far south; that leaves the dragons in Neighpon and a possible Remnant state based in the New Oatleans region, based on my memory of what we've done so far, in terms of prominent civilization).

[Harmony Ltd.]

Porca-Porca. That archipelago in the middle of the Sea of Equestria we talked about a long while ago.

Well, I think it may be interested in trading with the Dragons.

I doubt the Gardens purged the Sea of all the nastiness the Great War filled it with, and they need food to eat. In exchange, the Porcans, as traders, can sell the food surplus of the Dragons the rest of the sea's litoral inhabitants, and acting as intermediaries get the margin to buy their own food from the dragons.


Reminder: The Porca-Porcan are literal pigs and swines, with a long history of acting as traders & merchants.

[O. Hinds]

That makes sense.

[Harmony Ltd.]

What do we have about Zanzebra? IIRC it was an important logistical base for the PR during the Great War, but what happened to it during the Days of Fire, and after that?

[O. Hinds]

I've just been assuming that it was blown off the map.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Which would make sense, given what happened to most of the PR at the time.

Equestrian megaspells OP

So I suppose the same can be said of that PR submarine pen in the Sea of Equestria?

[O. Hinds]

In Aquimania? Probably. Due to water pressure precluding deep pens without the use of pressure locks and the fact that Equestria knew the pens were there and could have deliberately targeted spells with significant ground penetration anyway...

[Harmony Ltd.]

So I'll turn the question differently:

Apart from the Dragons, Porca-Porca, and any possible power that may exist in New Oatleans and Kalcolta, have defined any significant power that is adjacent to the Sea of Equestria and which partake in trade with other powers adjacent to said sea?

And if not, what is the current state of the coastal areas of the Sea of Equestria?

If like I proposed earlier the sea isn't really welcoming to fishing activities, there may in fact be few coastal settlements; as apart from trade, fishing is probably the reason why people build communities next to the sea.

[O. Hinds]

Hm. Well, the Highlands have a coast, of course, but I don't know if they'd be interested. I don't know if Dawn Bay would have much to trade. There might be some other zebra settlements close enough to the coast to trade with (or actually on the coast and willing to put up with any fishing difficulties), but, given the location, they likely have at least a few Remnant connections; I'm not sure how that would work out. Other than that... I'm not sure.

Now that I'm thinking about it, though, I'm wondering if Neighpon might have done a significant amount of business with the Remnant. A food supply would be very important to them. The big question is what the Remnant traded the dragons in return. Maybe...
...
Actually, this could answer a question I've had for a while: Where was Red Eye getting his food (and, prior to getting the radiation engines and presumably some electrolysis rigs operational, fuel)?
What about this?
Red Eye supplies Neighpon with manufactured goods, perhaps occasional slaves, and maybe a few pretty baubles his forces recover.
The dragons supply Red Eye with food and biofuel.
The Remnant controls the area between the two and skims off the trade, half protection "money" and half actual protection money.
Hm, but that would only work once Red Eye got up and running. What would the trading environment be like before that? Perhaps the Remnant scavenged and took slaves directly? I'm not sure. The dragons would probably get some business from independent traders, but I don't know how much.
Thoughts? And have you read any of Wasteland Bouquet? It's set before the rise of Red Eye or the Hoofington Six, and the main characters are caravaners. It's also, in my opinion, pretty underappreciated.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I think that prior to Red Eye getting up to steam, the Dragons may have traded their food with the rest of the East Coast, at a high price in exchange of anything they could deem of value (gems probably being the most valued delicacy for them). I don't know if the Remnants would have traded with them, but I'm pretty sure the East Coast was far from being uninhabited prior to the current era; it was just less organised than the West Coast, with the Central Mountain Range being a pretty big obstacle to any kind of trade.

... Though thinking of it, caravans may have gone as far as the Republic of Geneighva. Which could be interesting considering the raw lust the dragons have for gems and the fact Geneighva has the stuff to produce mining equipment...

And it would be another reason as to why Geneighva still tries to cling to its neutrality these days, I guess: the Dragons are valued trade partners (hydroponics are all well and good, but sometimes you want more; and the NCR is more into quantity than quality), and the Dragons are not exactly on friendly terms with the NCR [1].


[1] : they aren't enemies either, it's just that they don't have that much common ground: they didn't suffer from the Bitter War, they used to not care much about slavery (nowadays they pay lip-service to the anti-slavery crowd, but it's only in order not to get a hurricane in their face, and because the serfs are getting agitated by foreign ideas), and they don't hold the same ideals (one claims to be an egalitarian society, while the other doesn't hide the fact it is an aristocracy).



Can't said I've read Wasteland Bouquet. I'll see if I can at least read a chapter or two.

[O. Hinds]

That makes sense. There might also have been trade farther west before Red Eye made the routes more potentially dangerous for ponies not flying his banner.

I hope that you enjoy it!

[Meleagridis]

Still catching up...

So the Dragons, as Dragons know how to do, bid their time, and prepared for the arrival of the first survivors.


When the time came, and the circumstances finally allowed for it, they proposed the recently-surfaced stable-dwellers a deal: get food, water & protection, in exchange for their work. An honest to goodness medieval servitude contract.

As beggars can hardly be choosers, the stable-dwellers accepted. From there, a strange society arose in the following decades, where a Dragon Leader, assisted by a suit of fellow dragons, lorded over ponies and other surfacers, trading food and water for gems and other shiny valuables.

Strangely enough, it worked pretty well. It helped that the Alpha was savvy enough to reign in the basest instinct of his Betas, punishing harshly any abuse on the serfs on their part, and playing each of his Betas against each others to keep them busy - lest one of them grew too confident and tried to take his place.

This is pretty neat. So a feudal whatsit rises, literally, from the ashes. Huh. Maybe this gets answered further down the page, but what kind of relationship do these guys have with each other, across species and not? The guys have always been isolationist, I imagine that wrangling them even for world-ending war involved some serious negotiations. Would they be a little... territorial? They have to share a small (for a dragon, anyways) living space, but nothing is too small to sever with a fence or a line of chalk. And their tenants, their serfs... what do they think of their providers? With all the breaks they're getting, it seems like they might be pretty protective. And if the big guys do get a little standoffish to other big guys (including marking territory) it might mean that serfs sign themselves not to dragons, but to a dragon. One lord.

They could throw all their gratitude up that way, and the big guy becomes an identity for them. They are all one big happy family, working for Soggyscales. Soggyscales' glory is our glory. Go go team Soggyscales. To hell with with the Smogbellies. Smogbelly is a dick, and so is everyone signed to Smogbelly. Tell you what, boys... when the sun goes down, let's you and me sneak into Smogbelly's land and pinch something small enough that the Alpha won't notice.

Dragon cults? I'm thinking more like... I dunno, mob families mixed with samurai.

Ponies would make dealing with other dragons a little easier, if they're airing on the side of caution. Think about how few of these snail-speed breeders (I assume, anyways) were lost in the war. Honestly, they shouldn't be risking each other in conflicts or even monstrous labour. Ponies could do things in their name. And while their out, the power hungry ponies could probably be furthering their own goals. This supposed system is ripe for abuse by enterprising individuals, who may be long dead by the time their deception is noticed.

You remember that idea I talked about a while ago, about that Memorial in the Manehattan's Balefire Crater, commemorating all the victims of war, from the Great War onward?

I had an idea, that the organization in charge of maintaining this monument may have put up an installation displaying all the names of the known victims on a screen (with the war in which they died, and if available the age and place of death), in front of some kind of garden where one picket is raised for every one hundred dead, one picket being painted in white for every one hundred known names, the others being painted in black.

The intended impact being to show at the same time how inhuman war is, in that we don't even know the name of those who were killed, while also showing that, dammit, we care and are still trying to commemorate their memories, and are actively trying to at least learn their names.

As for how the organization is learning these names, I guess it's a matter of digging up archives, finding dog-tags on corpses, and other means. There's probably a lot of volunteer work going on.

That... is pretty. If I had a talent for paper and brush I'd be on that in a heartbeat.

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