Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[O. Hinds]

- Does not seem to be affected by range (The Moon) or physical obstacles (The Core)

Cognitum at least thinks it's affected by range, though; that's how she deduced that Blackjack had gotten a rocket, remember?

- Is the signal affected by lightspeed-induced lag?

Possible indications on the nature of magic? Possible derived uses as long-range communication device?

Not sure about any of those at the moment.

If General Stormchaser survives Project Horizon, how likely would it be that she'd be the one leading the Volunteer Expedition during the Battle of Manehatten?

Hm. Hard to say. Hm... Reasonably likely, though, I think. Even if she's staying in Hoofington for some reason, she'd probably leave for something that big. The main question, I'd say, is whether there's some better commander available.

(1): outside of the Alliance, of course, but at this point they aren't yet relevant to the rest of the Equestrian Wasteland.

Aye. By this point in time (though, as I recall, you've still not finalised the current version of the Bitter War timeline), the Miliozi have probably already taken their slice of the Peninsula, but they stopped at the new borders. And there's not really much the NCR could have done against them if they hadn't stopped, so better to focus on the enemy that's actively attacking and that they have a reasonable, if slim, hope of defeating.

(2): of course, the NCR had Lion & Mouse, but you can't plan to fight and win a war with just two people, however formidable they might be.

Aye. It reminds me of the situation with Dea Rubrum. The entire sky navy and even the Shadowbolts were afraid of her... but she could only be in one place at a time.

Had things continued that way, the Bitters could have wiped the surface out of sheer firepower, showing up in force above every settlement and wiping them off the map one after another, relatively unimpeded.

Hm. Which could have lead to some interesting interaction with the Alliance, actually. Since that's a what-if scenario, though, I'll at the moment concentrate on what did happen.

(4): "And this, fillies and gentlecolts, is the story of how I was the catalyst for the Second End of the World."

She could get Rose Eye to write the introduction. :)

[Harmony Ltd.]

- Does not seem to be affected by range (The Moon) or physical obstacles (The Core)

Cognitum at least thinks it's affected by range, though; that's how she deduced that Blackjack had gotten a rocket, remember?

I suppose, but then again, just a short while before that, Scotch Tape was still looking through the perceptitron without having noted (at least to Blackjack) any decrease in performance.

(1): outside of the Alliance, of course, but at this point they aren't yet relevant to the rest of the Equestrian Wasteland.

Aye.  By this point in time (though, as I recall, you've still not finalised the current version of the Bitter War timeline), the Miliozi have probably already taken their slice of the Peninsula, but they stopped at the new borders.  And there's not really much the NCR could have done against them if they hadn't stopped, so better to focus on the enemy that's actively attacking and that they have a reasonable, if slim, hope of defeating.

Well, I'm not even sure the NCR would actually be aware that the Miliozi had made such a move or even existed prior to that (1); at least for a few weeks.


(1): I mean, let's be realistic: given their existence and capabilities in the context of the setting pre-SR, if their existence had been widely known, they'd probably have gotten a few mention during Littlepip's adventures; maybe she would have even attempted to recruit their help to fight against Red Eye and the Goddess.

(4): "And this, fillies and gentlecolts, is the story of how I was the catalyst for the Second End of the World."

She could get Rose Eye to write the introduction.  :)

Supposing, of course, that there's still people on the surface to write about it, while Littlepip spend an eternity with Celestia reflecting on how they both fucked up.

[O. Hinds]

I suppose, but then again, just a short while before that, Scotch Tape was still looking through the perceptitron without having noted (at least to Blackjack) any decrease in performance.

Hm. Scotch hasn't used it before, though, has she?

Well, I'm not even sure the NCR would actually be aware that the Miliozi had made such a move or even existed prior to that (1); at least for a few weeks.

Surely someone with a radio would have noticed, you know, the tanks rolling through the desert? Or the Volunteers would have mentioned that Las Pegasus left the war?

(1): I mean, let's be realistic: given their existence and capabilities in the context of the setting pre-SR, if their existence had been widely known, they'd probably have gotten a few mention during Littlepip's adventures; maybe she would have even attempted to recruit their help to fight against Red Eye and the Goddess.

Yeah, probably not widely known, and those who do know quite possibly wouldn't even think to mention them, given that one of their most notable characteristics has been not interacting with the Wasteland.

Supposing, of course, that there's still people on the surface to write about it, while Littlepip spend an eternity with Celestia reflecting on how they both fucked up.

Eh, even if the Bitters wiped the entire Peninsula (except Masozi) clean, they didn't have the forces to do the entire world.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, I'm not even sure the NCR would actually be aware that the Miliozi had made such a move or even existed prior to that (1); at least for a few weeks.

Surely someone with a radio would have noticed, you know, the tanks rolling through the desert?  Or the Volunteers would have mentioned that Las Pegasus left the war?

Well, yeah, of course. But the news would take some time to travel, from the scouts / wasteland denizens to their superiors / traders and then through the whole (still almost non-existent) hierarchy / disorganized caravans of the time period.

Even then, I only talked a week(s) delay for the info to reach them. And by then, it's a Fait Accompli, as with the info that they've stopped there and don't seem aggressive, and aren't pillaging or raping the people the people they just conquered.

[O. Hinds]

You don't think Homage would get it out more quickly than that? But, yeah, if she doesn't, that sounds like the way it would go.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, the info would have to reach her first. There's quite a lot of wiggle room there.

She may be occupied with other things in the time period leading to the Annexation.

So I suppose we have some room to decide what would be best, in meta terms.

[O. Hinds]

Good points.

Sounds like it.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Regarding my ""definitive"" timeline of the Bitter War, I'm still waiting for PH to end to get to that.

I fully expect whatever's going to happen by the end of the story is going to have me needing to re-write / refine large parts of this setting anyway.


Or I could go Alternate Universe / Timeline, like we're already pretty much doing regarding the original Fallout Equestria (I don't see any indication in the 10-year epilogue that something even close to the Bitter War has happened). But we'd need to cherry-pick what stays and what goes, and -that- is going to take some work.


Or, alternatively, we can say screw it and go pretty much comoletely original, only reusing names in their broadest strokes and putting our own spin / interpretation on the whole thing. Which, I must note, is already pretty much halfway where we are.


Still, let's wait for PH to be over before taking a final decision either way. I believe he said it should be over by May? We'll know then.

[Harmony Ltd.]

In retrospect, given how thoroughly wrecked / heavily targeted some cities were during the Days of Fire (Hoofington, Friedrichorfen, Stalliongrad, and generally cities of high strategic value for the Equestrian Wasteland; it is somewhat surprising that Manehatten only had to deal with the one lone balefire bomb.

Well, okay, it apparently was still enough to create a crater 2-3 kilometers in diameters and was succesful in killing most of the city's inhabitants, but considering the relative importance of the city as one of the largest population centers on the Peninsula during the Great War, it's intriguing that it was apparently sparred the full attention of the PR in the final days.

Though I think I can understand it from the standpoint of "we only have so many missiles, and most of them are going to be destroued before reaching their targets, so let's concentrate on the really important one.".

Maybe the PR sent a few missiles Manehatten's way, to cover for a possible failure of the infiltration team in planting the bomb; but they got intercepted before reaching their target or were only airbursts?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Reworking the demographics of the NCR to (finally) integrate Trottingham.

new numbers:

I chose these numbers for Trottingham for the following reasons:

- While it's one of the areas that was, during the Wasteland years, one of the safest due to the heavy Steel Ranger presence, it has always suffered from a chronic problem of "not enough food", forcing them to import most of their food, driving up the cost of living. Coupled with their relative geographical isolation (high food price, little in the way of trade), there is little incentive for immigration from the rest of the Wasteland (note: most of the local economy revolves around the heavy military presence on the island)
- The region was not, historically, racially diverse. Coupled with the low immigration rate (most of the immigration being linked to the military activities of the state) and most of the local population growth being due to natural growth, the state is, by a fraction of a percent, the most demographically "pony" state of the NCR.




Note: current growth trend indicates that the NCR should have over 500,000 citizens by 32 SR. Overal racial composition is expected to remain the same, although 20-years projections (including natural growth and immigration projections) tend to indicate a relative growth of the overall percentage of Griffin & Zebra over the number of Ponies (respectively 20%, 15% and 58% by 50 SR, with a total population of over 800,000 in the current States)

[Harmony Ltd.]

By the way, I'm starting to wonder how life would be for a Second-Generation Alicorn in the NCR.

Well, the question would start, really, at "do Alicorns grow mentally and physically at the same pace as a normal pony?"

[O. Hinds]

Or I could go Alternate Universe / Timeline, like we're already pretty much doing regarding the original Fallout Equestria (I don't see any indication in the 10-year epilogue that something even close to the Bitter War has happened). But we'd need to cherry-pick what stays and what goes, and -that- is going to take some work.

We're already pretty much doing broad strokes, though, aren't we?

Still, let's wait for PH to be over before taking a final decision either way. I believe he said it should be over by May? We'll know then.

Well, I hope we get it finished when he wants, but it's gotten a habit of merrily shooting past his estimated completion times.

Maybe the PR sent a few missiles Manehatten's way, to cover for a possible failure of the infiltration team in planting the bomb; but they got intercepted before reaching their target or were only airbursts?

Quite possibly. In addition, Manehattan was mostly a population center and center of the economy, as I understand it, so it could have been a lower-priority target than the military-industrial cities.


re the population numbers:
That makes sense.

Total population : 492,000

Note: current growth trend indicates that the NCR should have over 500,000 citizens by 32 SR.

Expanding out into their new territory, the Miliozi might very well be deliberately trying to keep their population of full-time dedicated soldiers (with the technically-active-duty reserve being the entire rest of the population) greater than or equal to the NCR's total population. The main problems would be increasing the food supply quickly enough and making sure that increased volume doesn't cause training standards to slip. Thoughts?

Well, the question would start, really, at "do Alicorns grow mentally and physically at the same pace as a normal pony?"

...Hm. I'd... guess it's approximately so, but that's really kind of a random guess. I don't have much data, to my knowledge. Well, pretty much all we have is the ten years later epilogue, which we might not be using much of.

[O. Hinds]

Well, I've gotten a bit of inspiration about what to do with that island.

Bitaly:

That's what I've come up with so far.  Thoughts?

[SilentCarto]

Wondering about the characterization of such a group, though.

It would have needed to survive over 200 years of:
- Raiders
- Steel Rangers
- Enclave patrols
- miscellaneous scavengers
- etc...

While sitting on one of the last remnants of functional large industrial infrastructure in Equestria.

Well, once they worked out that they're immune to (and healed by) radiation, it shouldn't be too big a stretch to fortify the place with radioactive junk from the nearby crash sites of the missiles that the dam's defenses shot down. That would do a lot to relieve the ammo issues -- the radiation alone would keep most of the rabble away. Using energy weapons would also go a long way for that, since the hydroelectric generator could recharge them. If the dam is supposed to be offline, then either they rigged a smaller version to run just the recharger, or they've kept one turbine working at low capacity to supply their local needs. Or they're armed with recharger weapons.

The ghouls have probably been evicted two or three times by invaders with enough firepower to overcome their regeneration and enough anti-radiation supplies to hold out for a while, but no one could ever hold the place. Heck, the ghouls might have gained one or two recruits from invader holdouts who couldn't or wouldn't retreat from the dam, got ghoulified, and either couldn't go home for fear of being shot or lived long enough to see their organizations (or those that hired them) fall.

The Goddess's alicorns could live there, but I don't think she would have much interest in old technology like that. She seemed more interested in recruiting ponies willing to join Unity and finding a magical solution for the gender problem. Red Eye and his loaned alicorns would be perhaps the biggest threat to them in the whole Wasteland, but possibly it's too far away and not producing enough power for him to bother with -- his radiation engines would have largely rendered a hydro dam obsolete. So maybe his need for electricity never grew great enough to justify capturing it (and stringing the power lines, and defending them,) or his infrastructure hadn't developed far enough to support repairing it yet. The ghouls might have seen a rash of alicorns sneaking inside a few years ago, who reported that the generators were largely a wreck. (But, if they were blues, maybe the ghouls never even knew it happened.)

Having them as an Equestrian version of Gun Runners is an interesting idea. I think I picture them sort of like the knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, though.

[Harmony Ltd.]

How internally united are the Miliozi? Is there internal faultlines between different factions that could be exploited?

More generally, -how- do they work? How are they organized, besides "Everything is the Army, nothing outside of the Army".

Because historically, these kind of regimes tend to be rich in internal backroom backstabbings and inter-service rivalries.

[O. Hinds]

By the way, you've not commented on my Bitaly idea yet, it looks like.

Re the Miliozi:

How does that sound?

[Harmony Ltd.]

I'll answer your post later, I'm just dropping this here while I remember:

Possible aesthetic for parts of NCR settlements?

Thought process: standardized factory-made cheap housing for everyone to have a roof over their heads. Supposed to be only temporary, but are now starting to be over two decades old in most places.

[O. Hinds]

I'll answer your post later, I'm just dropping this here while I remember:

Possible aesthetic for parts of NCR settlements?

Thought process: standardized factory-made cheap housing for everyone to have a roof over their heads. Supposed to be only temporary, but are now starting to be over two decades old in most places.

Oh, aye, that sounds and looks good.

[SilentCarto]

I'll answer your post later, I'm just dropping this here while I remember:

Possible aesthetic for parts of NCR settlements?

Thought process: standardized factory-made cheap housing for everyone to have a roof over their heads. Supposed to be only temporary, but are now starting to be over two decades old in most places.

Ugh, yikes.

The trouble with temporary housing is that it's kind of tough to replace it with permanent housing while people are trying to live there.

[Harmony Ltd.]

That's the idea behind it. That and "we have better things to spend money on right now".

@Hinds: I really want to answer, but not enough sleep for it. Maybe tomorrow...

[Harmony Ltd.]

So! Bitaly!

(note: maybe we should work on an alternative name?)

I like the concept of a racially Zebra-nation occupied throughout the Great War by Equestria. This might allow the introduction of a number of interesting things, especially if their culture was that of profiteers (ready supply of potential zebra spies).

So, is your concept for the place that it was pretty much completely depopulated, or at least so thoroughly wrecked by the days of fire that even two centuries laters and with the benefit of being isolated from the continent, they still haven't managed to get back on their hooves?

Or maybe it's something else you have in mind?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Random rambling ahead.


Was thinking about a hypothetical, undefined future where the NCR or a successor-state might want to build its own take on the Air-Ship concept.

First thought was a combined one. One of the earliest things I established in this thread was that the NCR knows how to build levitation / gravity manipulation talismans. I also thought back on how Ditzy was able to disable the Enclave's cloud-borne ships with a rainboom.

So, potentially, these ships would be primarily lifted via whole arrays of levitation talismans; using clouds only as a power-saving measure while they hover in place.

Then I thought about how to power those talismans, as I believe they're bound to suck a lot Spark-energy (which by the way asks the question of how hoverbots and Mr. Gutsy are still able to operate after 200 years...). Red Eye came back to mind, and more specifically his radiation engines. Depending on how weight-efficient they are, they could be used as power sources for Air-Ships.

After that, I realized that these things are able to ignore the gravity field of Equus altogether. Unbound by the laws of aerodynamic, nothing stops us from going high. Really high.

So let's make them completely air-tight.

And, hey, they have an almost infinite energy source, so why not use the various talismans and literal magic at our disposal to give them also infinite life support?


And that's basically how I organically mapped how the NCR could gets its first Spaceships.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Re the mystery of the still hovering hoverbots...

The Stalliongrad Complex was, and still is, powered by "Reactors", which might be "radiation engines" by another name.

This would suggest that the underlying principle had been mastered by Great War Equestria.

Then, it's only a relatively minor leap in logic to suppose that something akin to Fallout's Microfusion Cells (the ones powering power armors, not those used by guns) are what's been put in these robots.

Or maybe the magical equivalent of solar panels?

[O. Hinds]

(note: maybe we should work on an alternative name?)

Any ideas?

Glad you like it.

So, is your concept for the place that it was pretty much completely depopulated, or at least so thoroughly wrecked by the days of fire that even two centuries laters and with the benefit of being isolated from the continent, they still haven't managed to get back on their hooves?

Or maybe it's something else you have in mind?

I don't have any ideas at the moment, actually. Most of the population was killed, and then... what?

re NCR spaceships:
Hm. Interesting.

re power:
Maybe. Also interesting.

Oh, and any thoughts on the Miliozi stuff you asked for? Miliozi space operations, by the way, fall under the Navy's purview.

[SilentCarto]

The Stalliongrad Complex was, and still is, powered by "Reactors", which might be "radiation engines" by another name.

I dunno, everything in FOE seems to run on spark reactors, which are effectively nuclear power plants.

I have certain theories about radiation and magic. To start, the main source of radiation is balefire, which is necromantically-enhanced dragonfire. So I theorize that radiation is little tiny bits of necromantic magic, which is inimical to life -- think of it as negative life. When someone gets irradiated, the particles of necromancy "stick" to them like magnets, each attracting and immobilizing an equal bit of life energy* and preventing it from... doing whatever it is that makes life happen. Rad-Away "rinses" the foreign magic off of the user, freeing their sequestered life energy and returning them almost instantly to health.

*I hate this term, but I'm struggling to find another.

Ghouls are what happens when the necromantic magic is not just adhered onto someone, but infused into them in some manner. An excess of necromantic energy cancels out their life, then replaces it. I think of the process as something similar to how a fossil is formed. However, in this case, speed seems to be important -- too slow and they die before the process is complete; too fast and the necromancy doesn't have time to infuse their body. Not everyone who's exposed to radiation absorbs it like that at any dose, but people in the same location tend to get ghoulified together, so there are probably some very complicated rules involved. In any case, once their body is primed to suck up necromantic energy, it will do so whenever necromancy is available, and since they're running on anti-life already, the addition of more is roughly equivalent to a healing spell.

Onward to alicorns. Alicorns are affected much as ghouls are, but they're clearly alive in a more traditional sense. I hypothesize that alicornhood allows them to absorb stray ambient magic (as opposed to deliberate, directed spells) and co-opt it for their own. They convert radiation into "clean" magic, in a sense. This is supported by their immunity to Pink Cloud -- rather than be harmed by it, they absorb it and make it their own.

So, to bring it full circle, the radiation engine. I think Red Eye got this idea after understanding how alicorns do what they do. He had his scientists create a talisman that would perform the same conversion and consume necromantic magic to emit electricity.

A spark reactor, on the other hand, performs some process that doesn't necessarily involve radioactive materials. I don't know if it's converting mass into energy, or sucking up ambient (non-necromantic) magic, or what. However, they do seem to emit radiation when damaged. I propose that a damaged spark reactor emits all kinds of magic, but most of it is safe and not noticed. It's just the anti-life part that gets important quickly.

[Icy Shake]

That raises an interesting point of potential contrast between IMP alicorns and the Sisters: are new-alicorns fully immune to pink cloud, where the princesses weren't, or would they die like Luna to the confinement-induced concentrations and the strain of extreme and prolonged magical effort? Alternatively, were the Sisters immune, and it was just the magical exertion that got Luna?

[Harmony Ltd.]

That raises an interesting point of potential contrast between IMP alicorns and the Sisters: are new-alicorns fully immune to pink cloud, where the princesses weren't, or would they die like Luna to the confinement-induced concentrations and the strain of extreme and prolonged magical effort? Alternatively, were the Sisters immune, and it was just the magical exertion that got Luna?

I had never caught up on that apparent contradiction from the original FoE.

Really good point.

[O. Hinds]

Aye, now that you mention it.

[SilentCarto]

That raises an interesting point of potential contrast between IMP alicorns and the Sisters: are new-alicorns fully immune to pink cloud, where the princesses weren't, or would they die like Luna to the confinement-induced concentrations and the strain of extreme and prolonged magical effort? Alternatively, were the Sisters immune, and it was just the magical exertion that got Luna?

It's an excellent question. The whole point of the pink cloud was to assassinate Celestia and Luna, so they're certainly not immune. But then IMP alicorns are implicitly something different in the first place -- created through SCIENCE! rather than through enlightenment, or however C and L came to be.

IMP alicorns clearly use standard unicorn magic and don't have access to this vague but apparently powerful resource of "alicorn magic" that was such a big deal in the Tirek storyline. I propose, therefore, that natural alicorns have access to some kind of metaphysical power supply or reserve which Twilight was unable to replicate, so she replaced it with an ability to recharge from ambient energy. It still gives them the ability to cast more magic faster without courting burnout.

In regards to whether IMP alicorns are fully immune to Cloud, the answer seems to be no. Flask (my name for the crazy alicorn under the MAS) was unable to approach Mouse in order to cast the spell on her, thus her use of the spell-in-a-box. However, Nightseer was hanging around inside the palace, which was noted as a hazardously confined space, without apparent ill effects.

The Cloud doesn't work like radiation. It doesn't cling, it just burns on contact and stops as soon as contact is lost. So suppose that it's not as "eager" to be absorbed, which means the alicorns can only eke out a small amount of energy from cloud particles that hit "just right". That energy is enough to counteract the burning, and perhaps even to give them a nice trickle recharge, but if they enter solid Pink, the damage will still exceed their ability to regenerate.

[O. Hinds]

Hm.  Nice thoughts, I think.

By the way, while it's still pretty nebulous, the current idea for this universe is that Celestia and Luna were star-spirit-remnant-soul-things who descended from their respective celestial bodies and took on new, ponylike bodies to fight Discord, then stayed to rule Equestria afterwards.

Also, bit of bad news: I discovered some propagated typos in the rough timeline.  They've now been fixed, as far as I can tell, but pervious versions may not be accurate.

Corrected Rough Timeline:

You may notice that, by a curious coincidence, the correction revealed that the bombs fell in 1812PR.  I'm naturally thinking of the famously cannon-containing overture.

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