Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[SilentCarto]

I thought CMFIS came from the "Pony Psychology" fanfic series.

Am I the only one who mentally pronounces that "simfiss"?

I'm pretty sure the term was being tossed around as early as Sonic Rainboom, due to the rapid-fire examples in Swarm of the Century, Suited for Success, and Sonic Rainboom. I first saw it in the comments on EqD, but I admittedly didn't read Pony Psychology.

Hmm. I wonder if Littlepip ever had a subtle case of CMFIS when she couldn't find something or someone. Then again, CMFIS seems to be triggered by trying too hard while thinking, "I'm supposed to be good at this!" Pip didn't understand her own cutie mark until nearly the end of the story, though...

If Blackjack had a bout of CMFIS... could we even tell?

[Cptadder]

[

If Blackjack had a bout of CMFIS... could we even tell?

If she was a compulsive gambler maybe, but then while she likes cards and I assume is good at them, she not exactly betting her Whiskey crown on the outcome of a game of cards nor did she try and raise the funds via gambling.

[RoboRed]

I've always thought that BJ's cutie mark was more of a "fighting/beating the odds" sort of thing.

[Meleagridis]

The significance of BJ's butt mark is probably pretty heavy. I don't remember hearing her story yet- has she told anyone exactly how she got it? All I remember was the story about the filly getting caught between stable doors, I do not think that was it.

[RoboRed]

Something like that, I think.

[Guest]

The significance of BJ's butt mark is probably pretty heavy. I don't remember hearing her story yet- has she told anyone exactly how she got it? All I remember was the story about the filly getting caught between stable doors, I do not think that was it.

She was gambling, another filly got chopped in two by a malfunctioning door as she exited the game, and then Blackjack had an adorableness sigil on her posterior. I'm not at all sure she really knows what her "special talent" is, but I do expect that she doesn't think about it.

[CamoBadger]

The significance of BJ's butt mark is probably pretty heavy. I don't remember hearing her story yet- has she told anyone exactly how she got it? All I remember was the story about the filly getting caught between stable doors, I do not think that was it.

She was gambling, another filly got chopped in two by a malfunctioning door as she exited the game, and then Blackjack had an adorableness sigil on her posterior. I'm not at all sure she really knows what her "special talent" is, but I do expect that she doesn't think about it.

She gambles with the lives of others?
(I'm probably terrible for saying this... )

[RoboRed]

Hmm...an interesting notion...

[Meleagridis]

She was gambling, another filly got chopped in two by a malfunctioning door as she exited the game, and then Blackjack had an adorableness sigil on her posterior. I'm not at all sure she really knows what her "special talent" is, but I do expect that she doesn't think about it.

Do you remember which chapter?

[Guest]

She was gambling, another filly got chopped in two by a malfunctioning door as she exited the game, and then Blackjack had an adorableness sigil on her posterior. I'm not at all sure she really knows what her "special talent" is, but I do expect that she doesn't think about it.

Do you remember which chapter?

Found it - it's chapter fifteen ("Flank"), right at the beginning. I also found a quote of BJ's about her cutie mark, after Priest's death: "I felt such an absolute loathing just then. Not of myself, oddly enough, but of my cutie mark. An ace and a queen. What did that mean? That I was three cards short of a winning hand? That I was better off with card tricks? Was that my special talent? I should have a cutie mark of a dead pony… no… a dead filly torn in two. That would sum me up perfectly. ...Actually, no, this worked: even my cutie mark was a complete failure. I didn’t deserve it. It was all wrong for me and I hated it."

[Paper Airplane]

I think that she just didn't spend very much time on those subjects. Rape is only briefly mentioned in FO:E, it's not that she acted like females can't raep, she just avoided the subject. On the other hand, there's a LOT of raep in PH, it plays a crucial role in the story, so Somber goes more in depth with it.

[hawkeye92]

Personally I think the Zebras would have used a mixture of weapons. My reasoning being that if the two countries are large cruise missiles might not have the range to hit everywhere in Equestria, especially if the equestrians pushed the zebras a long way back.

Also, it would be easier to shoot down a cruise missile flying thousands of miles with interceptor missiles than it would to hit a ballistic missile with half decent (and probably magical) penetration aids. The zebras were good at technology, in some cases more than Equestria so their development isn't really in question. As for the stars, to be honest it fits in with the doom raining from the stars ideal, especially as they're used as a MAD weapon it's a self fufilling prophecy.

The cloud obscuring targets- I thought the pegasi cities are mobile to a limited extent. I also figure chances are an orbital warhead without a great deal of space experience would have to be thorougly pre programmed and unable to adjust their in flight trajectory and with the clouds any infiltrators on the ground would lose track of the cities' positions and the interference generated by the clouds ionizing could jam long range communications to the launchpads even if they had flying scouts.

Also ballistic missiles are better running on rule of cool which in a world working mostly on magic and with a really shaky grasp on reality factors relatively highly.

[O. Hinds]

@O. Hinds
Glad I could help! I once did a short story (of sorts) that had the main character dabbling in pseudo-scientific alchemy... 'twas fun! Decreasing the pKa of the citric acid in your orange juice and throwing it on a belligerent person. Anyway, let's see... you might consider an aerosol for the chill-potion, especially if weight is a concern. Expense would depend entirely on the alchemy going into it, I imagine - if it could be mass produced with relative ease, then it wouldn't be an issue, but if you start going with any sort of "reacts-with-air" effects or whatever, then you'd probably need to manufacture it in a vacuum or something... or maybe it could be made to react not with the atmosphere, but with helium (or some other gas that's better suited and isn't naturally in the atmosphere of the equisphere - I figured helium because it's clearly not too rare in Equestria, or else Pinkie Pie would have caused a terrible shortage by now), which would be the gas used to aerosolize the potion as well.

Honestly, in terms of chemical complexity, I doubt that such a potion would be as difficult to brew up as one that transmogrifies the body into growing bat wings... though that might operate on a soul-string level or something, what with the way consciousness is physically represented in PH. Anyway, I'm rambling. Good luck with this, and with the missiles! Relevant.

The bat wings were fetishes, actually, and apparently ones that could be somewhat varied in construction. More interesting ideas, though.

Oh, and the helium shortage (because, yes, there really is a helium shortage, and despite it being a bigger problem than oil, practically no one is even mentioning it...) is another rant in itself.

You are correct that the cloud cover defense* works fine for stopping cruise missiles but works horribly for ballistic missiles as well as the simple problem that ballistic missiles are hordes more complicated to design test and build. More importantly think about the time from Megaspell creation to weaponisation to designing and testing of the warheads and their use. If you've read up about the early American and Russian space missions you know about the fact that both sides blew up lots of rockets on the launch pad before being able to get reliable missiles. Hell the Germans had a 28% success rate on the V2s. IE for every four missiles produced roughly one worked right when they got it to the launcher facility (Comes from poor quality control and slave labor work forces). And of those that worked correctly less than half hit their targets due to either being shot down, having a mechanical problem mid flight or wandering off course.

*RE cloud cover defense
Cruise missiles work by all sorts of fancy gadgets that at the end of the day boil down to two things. One a navigation system work tells the guidance systems WE ARE HERE every .01 seconds and a guidance system to nudge the missile to make sure it's following the stored route. Cloud cover complicates the navigation issue and the second thing you've forgot about the cloud cover thing. Pegasus systems move, not much but if your trying to hit a city that can move and the only way to correct the targeting systems is to get a scout up there or sneak a targeting talisman in. Depending on how targeting talismans work the cloud cover could further complicate the usefulness of those talismans if the cloud cover acts like interference.

Cruise missiles work by all sorts of fancy gadgets that at the end of the day boil down to two things. One a navigation system work tells the guidance systems WE ARE HERE every .01 seconds and a guidance system to nudge the missile to make sure it's following the stored route. Cloud cover complicates the navigation issue and the second thing you've forgot about the cloud cover thing. Pegasus systems move, not much but if your trying to hit a city that can move and the only way to correct the targeting systems is to get a scout up there or sneak a targeting talisman in. Depending on how targeting talismans work the cloud cover could further complicate the usefulness of those talismans if the cloud cover acts like interference.

This. The cloud cover isn't so much to stop missiles as to confound ground-based observers while they move their cities away from the pre-targeted locations.

Right; the cloud cover works by obscuring the settlements' current location which, due to their mobility, and far from guaranteed to be their mapped locations.

The cloud obscuring targets- I thought the pegasi cities are mobile to a limited extent. I also figure chances are an orbital warhead without a great deal of space experience would have to be thorougly pre programmed and unable to adjust their in flight trajectory and with the clouds any infiltrators on the ground would lose track of the cities' positions and the interference generated by the clouds ionizing could jam long range communications to the launchpads even if they had flying scouts.

Why? Just copy a targeting system from a combat robot, hook it up to some thrusters/fins, and tell it to aim for cloud cities.

On a separate but related target, I've been speculating on the best way to dig the 3x3x15m (lxwxd) pits for the launchers. It would probably vary with the exact characteristics of the ground, but I'm currently trying to decide between specialized robots (design(s) unfinalized) and a rather interesting species related to diamond dogs (design also unfinalized, though I've a better idea of them than of the robots), possibly with the assistance of domesticated molerats. Or some combination, perhaps?

Why dig silos for the launchers unless you intend to make them ballistic missiles? A simple cliff side rail tunnel setup works great for Cruise missiles, have them on train launch cars that can be pulled in to be re-armed or worked on then pushed out to be fired.

Rail launchers are far too vulnerable to Equestrian attack, and railroad launchers wouldn't be able to handle the needed volume.

Heck, you could even have a robot controlling the launchers, and have it have an apparatus to dig its own holes lickety-split.

Interesting idea; I suppose that having a mobile subterranean control robot would have advantages…
The automated triggering of firing reminds me too much of the Soviet Doomsday Ship, but… for highest-alert, it sounds like not a bad idea! I'm not sure what metrics it would use for determining that Equestria was firing, but I assume that such metrics exist

I don't think Zebra's would trust Robots enough to hand over their bale-fire arsenal to them. Remember this is Fallout, robots can be hacked by talking at them let alone what happens if you get a dedicated hacker inside the building.

Hm… That's a point… Not sure about this now, but it was a new idea anyway.

Incidentally, are you at all familiar with the V-3? It's not nearly so famous as the other two Vergeltungswaffen designs, possibly because it was destroyed before it became operational, but I believe that it's thought that it would have worked quite well if completed (well, for a given value of "well"; the thing could flatten London, but making any significant change to what the guns were aimed at would have required entirely rebuilding them). Interestingly, I ended up developing the staged-gun concept independently for another project of mine.

The V-3 (The A-9 to be exact) could have reached America but the guidance systems of the day mean it had a ninety mile average deviation when it got there. Never mind during testing they only got the first two stages working and never mind the warhead at that distance was anemic. In fact it ties into another thing I mentioned earlier, without balefire(Nukes) ballistic missiles are a horribly inefficient uses of resources compared to conventional bombers. The cost of delivering a conventional warhead at that distance is such you could building two B-52's and pay their crews ten year salaries out of the cost.

Ah, no, I was referring to this V-3. I wasn't previously aware of the A-9, actually; it looks interesting.

Okay, what do you lot think of this two-robot system?
Both robots are built on the same platform and designed to be flown in by rotodyne, though the cement may need to be flown in separately. Robot #1 is equipped with scoop arms for soft-material digging and the removal of rock debris and hydraulic hammer and explosive-planting-and-borehole-drilling arms for getting through rock. It digs a rough and larger-than-necessary hole, then moves on to dig another one while Robot #2 moves in. Robot #2 is equipped with suction-hose arms to clear water seeping in, scoop arms for making use of the materials left by Robot #1, form assembly arms, concrete-pouring arms, and concrete-planing arms making use of enchantments to quickly cure the base cement. Robot #2 lays a level base of concrete at the appropriate depth, assembles on top of it a frame of light, cheap, stamped-metal panels, and then fills in the area around the frame with concrete and excavation rubble. The frame ensures that the hole stays in the proper shape while the capsule is being flown in and also includes grooves to allow any fluids under the capsule to flow out as it's lowered.

Would not work unless they are digging a rather large and flag hole. Conventional digging involves a great big drill bit along with high pressure water to cool the spinning drill head and a suction system to get the waste water out of the hole as the drill itself brings up the rocks and derbies. Even in bedrock your going to have lots of dust and dirt from broken rock if nothing else.

Robot 2 sounds workable but Robot 1 would be unable to dig down for any decent distance before being unable to remove debris fast enough to ensure good dig speed. It might make a decent tunneling machine however if there were Zebras on standby to help it with the digging debris with a portable conveyer belt to pull the waste out of the work area quickly.

Please elaborate on the problem you see; fifteen meters isn't that far for a robot arm with a scoop to reach down, is it?

By the way, could we take a tally of the supporters of the Cruise Exclusive and Mixture/Ballistic Exclusive PHCC members? I'm worried about what Somber will decide to do... you know that she wanted the missile stuck in Hightower to be based on a Minuteman?!

...huh. I've got a mixed reaction on this.

My personal opinon: from the mention of the fins and such, I'd just assumed it was supposed to be a cruise missile. ICBMs typically don't need fins for stability, and dump any aerodynamic components on the way up anyway. Only the last stage and warhead take a ballistic path. And anyway, I don't really see how a missile falling from orbit could manage to land intact in the first place. It should be a pile of radioactive debris. Plus it went in through the wall rather than the roof, which suggests a low trajectory.

However, I've got a strong "hands off" reaction to telling Somber what to write. If she says it's a ballistic missile, it's a ballistic missile.

You've just listed good reasons for it to be cruise, though; why would you not object to ballistic?

Incidentally, are you at all familiar with the V-3?

Yup! In fact, before the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein had some plans called "Project Babylon" for a series of superguns that may have included a staged cannon that could put projectiles on suborbital trajectories to pretty much anywhere on Earth.

Aye. The designer, I forget his name, was sort of the Von Braun of artillery. He wanted to use the gun to launch satellites into orbit and Saddam was just a convenient source of funding. Unfortunately for the designer, no one else was nearly interested enough in his tech to overlook the superweapon he was building, and he died in an "accident" before the gun could be completed.

Why not both? Stygius will turn out to have studied the Equestrian space program extensively, because the Batcave has a large library of books that go into great detail about Project Horizons' early days and the pony-crewed spaceship. He will reveal that it is his ultimate dream to travel to the moon (which is of course sacred to his people, what with Luna and all).

…This is quite a neat idea, I think.

Personally I think the Zebras would have used a mixture of weapons. My reasoning being that if the two countries are large cruise missiles might not have the range to hit everywhere in Equestria, especially if the equestrians pushed the zebras a long way back.

See the previous arguments about cost, development difficulty, etc. Also, with Zebra tech, range isn't really a problem; I only gave the SACIIs as short a range as I did due to Twilight's "within minutes" statement requiring them to be close anyway.

Also, it would be easier to shoot down a cruise missile flying thousands of miles with interceptor missiles than it would to hit a ballistic missile with half decent (and probably magical) penetration aids. The zebras were good at technology, in some cases more than Equestria so their development isn't really in question. As for the stars, to be honest it fits in with the doom raining from the stars ideal, especially as they're used as a MAD weapon it's a self fufilling prophecy.

But Equestria didn't have good interceptor missiles, I think; what they did have was beam weapons, as mentioned above.
Re the stars, maybe, but consider: They're fighting the Maiden of the Stars. Who's to say that the stars wouldn't somehow disable the missiles in defense of Luna?

Also ballistic missiles are better running on rule of cool which in a world working mostly on magic and with a really shaky grasp on reality factors relatively highly.

One, whether cruise or ballistic missiles are cooler is highly subjective, I think. Two, Rule of Cool is no more valid a justification here than it is anywhere else. Faulty engineering with a facade of coolness is just as deeply ruinous to a story as exposed bad engineering; the damage is just harder to see.


re space programs:
Anyone else here tremendously excited about the work REL is doing?

[Guest]

Heh, daily check, how is everyone today?

[MrMagma]

I'm fine. Bit tired, but fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?

[Guest]

I'm fine. Bit tired, but fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?

No problem, I'm fine today a little tired too. I like asking others it makes me feel good.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Heh, daily check, how is everyone today?

Still sore. P90X!
Rereading PH again.

[MrMagma]

I'm fine. Bit tired, but fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?

No problem, I'm fine today a little tired too. I like asking others it makes me feel good.

That's good. I don't usually ask others too often, 'cause I usually got a poopy answer, which ended up making me feel poopy. And no-one likes feeling poopy.

[Kattlarv]

@Ketchup: (Gecko) Just watch in awe as it licks it's eyeballs!

(Stallions) I'd actually laugh so hard if a male was shown doing something as such in the show xD

@Sindri: (Gecko) Yes, yes! Praise my reptile of immense brain capacity! xD I actually have enough people willing to accept my gecko as their lord and saviour to make a religion with it. If I was bored enough and wanted the tax break. But would require constant tending to, so eh. But thanks.

(Door) You think Ms Twilight Sparkle would allow somepony else to decide what door to put in her super secret room? THE Twilight Sparkle, the one that double checks if she triple checked the check-list?

(Styg) I can use it as evidence for being self centred in sex ;P Since as said, he got off 4+ times and BJ once. And he as said, didn't do anything at all to make her get off. I can forgive him the first 1-2 times, but to keep doing it again and again? Like we've discussed, I'd really want to know how bad sex ed the batponies seem to have, or if he really is that easily distracted/narrow minded at sex. And I am too woozy to make proper things now. But yeah, I've went on about that one a bit much, you know my PoV on it. Tbh, I have to say I was a bit surprised he even managed to get her off at the third time, (unless she "helped herself) seeing how her erection probably went limp in between go's. Then again, they never really stated how long it was between each go, just that he gave her a few seconds of oral, then went full "simple" penetration. And I know there's females that are apparently sensitive enough to get off on that alone, but again, then we are going with that damn "for just that occasion" or "for plot convince". (that, or it's just me that less sensitive.)

(Ratio) Exactly, just my point to that. If going with "show standards" it'd either be very equal, or more females. Now we are in a wasteland of that civilization. Why are people using "our" worlds standards for the genders? And I wasn't accusing you of doing that, I was just kind of "confirming" or something like that.

@Icy: (Styg) I will just hit that argument down with a stick. Here's why: You are going with BJ's PoV on this, Styg didn't know this as she didn't tell him.
To make another bad example, say for example a hypothetical us had sex, and all I knew was that you tried to deal with some trauma, and during sex, as soon as I got off, I'd just pull off and slump down, satisfied, since I came, that's all that mattered. After some resting, hey, I have another go in me *intermission* oh wait, I came again, okay, we stop now. I'm not missing anything am I? lets see, two people in this bed... no, I got off, that's all right? Yeah, seems right." point I tried to oddly make here is that even if YOU are okay with just getting through it, that doesn't make my behaviour okay. Even if he'd have known she was okay with not getting off at all. It is a "I don't need to care about your pleasure or satisfaction? Sweet, I'll just think about myself then!" and even if he was a virgin, the thought never seemed to occur to him during the entire time, like attempted to poke at a few sentences back. Point being, you are using BJ being "okay with it" as an excuse for Styg to not care.

@Rafa: (BJ) While I can technically see it, I don't think Somber would want to pull a Mass Effect ending on it.

@Silent: (Doors) The doors were only mentioned as doors, no lock was mentioned. So Somber doesn't say there was a lock, just that they were wooden doors laced with amethyst.

Again, are you saying Twilight wouldn't do this? This is Twilight, it's like saying BJ would be chill with skipping taking that bottle of wild pegasus/booze since her inventory was full. She'd MAKE it fit. The whole "laced with amethyst" seems like they were special made, since there was two of them, and from what I recall, other rooms just had one door, and they weren't of such wooden material..

As for the hub, thanks for that, makes it a bit easier to picture, still a kickass weapon. And from what I remember canon wise, the alicorns can't fire out through their shields... or could they? I just recall them being unable to support more than one spell at a time, using flanking and whatnot as a tactic. All I really recall is that hydra fight where one teleports inside it's head. Granted that a hydra would be able to crush their shields, but I don't recall them having them up as they attacked it.

@Robo: (Kick) As from what I know, it hurts as much as getting hit in the folds, and that fucking hurts, so I'd respectfully decline that offer if made.

@Waffle: (Rapists) Pretty much everywhere Pip went, there was mares being, or been raped. A majority of the male raiders/slavers had indications that they raped females. (starting early in the start with "I'll let you sample the goods" (or something), every raider camp either had a bloody cot where females had been raped till they bleed, or some newly raped mare was running for her life/was captured when Pip arrived, several mentions of it in the story, none of males being raped by females, to where the slaver pair in fillydelphia was all; male: "I will go rape the newcomers, cuz I am male." female: "kay, you do that, I is female, so I will just stand here and watch. Cuz I can't do that, it'd be wrong/impossible." going with said female questioning why he wouldn't do it when Pip "persuaded" him to not, until she got a called shot to the lips. (@Sindri) Well, excuse me for getting overly into the topic and going descriptive! xD

@Everypony: (MN7) I take it as he was born as a slave and was raised before he got to Fillydelphia? Otherwise he'd been taken into the school.
Also, just because I am me: Spoiler me this (since I don't have the willpower to read and follow another story for at least quite a while.): Does Murky get raped, or is there mention of it?

(Skimming a bit since I need to get up early to be one day at a technically fake job place.)

@OAC: She didn't get chopped in half, her internal organ and mostly skeletal structure got wasted and crushed. She stumbled for help while the other sat on their asses, then collapsed and died.

@Kipper: Just random, but I am unsure: Did we conclude our TMI chit-chat, or did I manage to miss your reply?

@Night: Can complain, can complain, yourself? Having one of my regular TMI problems, otherwise not much different from normal.

[hawkeye92]

Development time and cost is largely irrelevant in FO:E because you have walking armoured battle robots, lasers, power armour and all sorts of crazy stuff that despite years of trying, we haven't cracked yet. But Nuclear missiles have been in plentiful supply for a long time.

If you can get all the other stuff going from scratch to high levels of sophistication in such a relatively short time, its a fair bet ballistic missiles aren't too difficult.

In this particular case, rule of cool shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. To be honest, ballistic missiles are relatively sane compared to the other stuff that gets thrown around and accepted without a doubt.

[O. Hinds]

Development time and cost is largely irrelevant in FO:E because you have walking armoured battle robots, lasers, power armour and all sorts of crazy stuff that despite years of trying, we haven't cracked yet. But Nuclear missiles have been in plentiful supply for a long time.

If you can get all the other stuff going from scratch to high levels of sophistication in such a relatively short time, its a fair bet ballistic missiles aren't too difficult.

In this particular case, rule of cool shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. To be honest, ballistic missiles are relatively sane compared to the other stuff that gets thrown around and accepted without a doubt.

How can development time and cost be irrelevant?
Those make sense in the setting.
As for the "relatively short time", the war went on for twenty years, and war spurs relevant technological development. A ballistic missile program, though, would have maybe two years to develop a bunch of brand-new technology.

[Derpmind]

I really think that if the Hatches incident lead immediately to Blackjack gaining her Cutie Mark, then she would have directly stated so. The first line of Ch. Fifteen, "Once upon a time, when I was just a filly, my flank was blank, and then one day it wasn’t anymore." indicates that she gained her Cutie mark on the same day, but I don't think we have the entire story yet.

About MN7, the next chapter comes out in three days, so I say we should totally go for it. The worst that can happen is that there isn't much discussion about it. Also, we can definitely give the link to the author on his Tumblr if the thread goes along well. There's still the big problem that most of y'all haven't read though chapter 7 yet, so either hurry up and find the time to read it, or we can't discuss much since it's all spoilers. Ch.8 is supposed to be a big-deal chapter BTW, so hopefully it will be fun to discuss.

[Rafafidi]

"Cruise/Balistic"

I said before and I'll say again:
Zebra Shagohod
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs31/f/2008/225/c/9/The_Shagohod_by_KaitoKiddo1412.jpg
Match with the tech level and combat tactics of the zebras.
A stationary launcher would be a easy target to the pegasuses.

[Cptadder]

Development time and cost is largely irrelevant in
FO:E because you have walking armoured battle robots, lasers, power
armour and all sorts of crazy stuff that despite years of trying, we
haven't cracked yet. But Nuclear missiles have been in plentiful supply
for a long time.

We don't have walking armoured battle robots because of the bastard that is pounds per square inch.
We have battle robots! Not yet armed with lasers
We have lasers!
We have power armor Well not armor but it is power

We don't have a small able power supply that spark battaries allows otherwise we could have everything. All those fun future advancements are waiting on a power source light enough to move itself and move power armor/robots/or power man portable lasers. Lithium batteries just don't cut it for soldier who wants jumpjets.

Why? Just copy a targeting system from a combat robot, hook it up to some thrusters/fins, and tell it to aim for cloud cities.

How far are you going to let your missiles wander? A ten mile radius? Twenty? Fifty? Because I'm guessing Cloud cities when faced with balefire annihilation are going to stay as mobile as possible. Not to mention Littlepip got jumped within minutes of clearing the clouds, as an entirely winged society flying CAP patrols great distances should be easy for Pegasus, and since the armor has EFS, you quickly see the problems of trying to get your scouts in close enough to find and target one of the Cloud cities. Before the megaspells however I'm guessing keeping the cities mobile was a much lower priority, and after two hundred years in the wasteland, moving them seemed pointless.

Rail launchers are far too vulnerable to Equestrian attack, and railroad launchers wouldn't be able to handle the needed volume.

Multiple locations then, launching cruise missiles from the equivalent of wooden crates is quite possible. There are Chinese and Soviet designs designed to be fired from the equivalent of pickup trucks. And from the described size of the balefire bomb in FOE main story some of those designs could mount a warhead that size and that's without fancy weight reduction magic getting involved.
OAN:How many balefire bombs were you imaging the Zebra's threw at the Ponies?

Hm… That's a point… Not sure about this now, but it was a new idea anyway.

The Zebra's don't have any history with Skynet or Cylons but considering the hackablility of computers, were I the Zebra General I'd have the scientist who suggested making the balefire missiles totally computer controlled be thrown in the nearest Volcano.

Ah, no, I was referring to this V-3. I wasn't previously aware of the A-9, actually; it looks interesting.

Super guns are always fun but by their nature when you build them... you kinda tell who you intend to shoot with them. If it's big enough to fire outside your country you have size the gun to your targets.

Please elaborate on the problem you see; fifteen meters isn't that far for a robot arm with a scoop to reach down, is it?

Depending on soil composition anything from four meters to twenty meters can be dug as your describing, after that the drill not only digs the hole but provides reinforcement so you don't get the sides collapsing down into the hole. You can still have your Robot you just need to add some sort of expansion system to keep the sides intact.

Or you can handwave it away as they only dug in good tough soil areas and keep the Robot. FYI silos typically start at 40 meters deep and go up from there once you add in servicing areas. If you mentioned only needing to dig fifteen meters deep somewhere and I missed that I'm sorry.



Final note
I am pretty sure the time between Megaspells be turned over to the Zebras to weaponisation, to bombs fall everyone dies (it was a Tuesday) was less than a year. Unless the Zebra's had an existing ballistic missile program churning out a weapon and getting it tested and mounted enough to end the world could not be done in under a year without massive corner cutting on earth. Maybe the Zebra's had a Timelord on their side so they had the four or five years that such a project required here on Earth. However if you had a cruise missile program already up and running and being used to fire stuff at the enemy then it would be quite possible to hang a balefire bomb in the nosecone (Especially if you start development specifically to weaponize an existing warhead with the same weight and physical dimensions).

The big problem is that you can not test ballistic missiles in private, by their nature and how high they travel they are giant "We are testing weaponry" signs while Ballistic missiles can and have been tested inside the country of origin. One of the early tests for Tomahawk missiles was flying an inert warhead between states then doubling back twice before failing inside a quarter mile wide patch of farmland in Arizona. You can keep such tests hidden to an extent over your own nation. For ballistic missiles in order to test accuracy, handling or re-entry you kinda have to fire a full up thing at a target even if the target is an empty patch of ocean you just can not hide that test.
On Earth
Again Zebra magics trump my logic if Zebra magic is quoted, but here at least such a thing is impossible.

[SilentCarto]

The significance of BJ's butt mark is probably pretty heavy. I don't remember hearing her story yet- has she told anyone exactly how she got it? All I remember was the story about the filly getting caught between stable doors, I do not think that was it.

That was it, in fact. Part of me thinks that she got her mark the first time she saw death. The Ace of Spades is sometimes called "the Death card", so one might read her cutie mark as "queen of death".

@Silent: (Doors) The doors were only mentioned as doors, no lock was mentioned. So Somber doesn't say there was a lock, just that they were wooden doors laced with amethyst.

Again, are you saying Twilight wouldn't do this? This is Twilight, it's like saying BJ would be chill with skipping taking that bottle of wild pegasus/booze since her inventory was full. She'd MAKE it fit. The whole "laced with amethyst" seems like they were special made, since there was two of them, and from what I recall, other rooms just had one door, and they weren't of such wooden material..

Yeah, god knows Somber always mentions exactly what hardware is on every single door they come to. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The rest of what you said... doesn't make any sense. It supports my point. Twilight's office door was ornate and decorated with a golden unicorn. The test door was plain light wood. That suggests the test door was retrofitted from a standard door!

As for the hub, thanks for that, makes it a bit easier to picture, still a kickass weapon. And from what I remember canon wise, the alicorns can't fire out through their shields... or could they? I just recall them being unable to support more than one spell at a time, using flanking and whatnot as a tactic. All I really recall is that hydra fight where one teleports inside it's head. Granted that a hydra would be able to crush their shields, but I don't recall them having them up as they attacked it.

The giant black alicorn [behemoth] spread her wings and pointed her horn. A point of light flickered in the front of her shield then spiraled to create an opening. I realized with dismay and amazement that even if I had my magic, it would be useless. This alicorn’s shield was so powerful even she couldn’t cast a spell through it.
Implying that normal alicorns can. It wouldn't be a surprise if all alicorns had to open their shield to cast.

As for the hydra...
One of the hydra heads sucked in a deep breath and blasted out some sort of gas, enveloping one of the Goddess’ magically shielded children. The purple alicorn’s shield seemed to protect her.
They used their shields as necessary during the fight. Again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Kkat's failure to specifically mention their shields doesn't mean they didn't have them up.

I'd like to note that I'm not magically remembering this stuff. I don't have a memory good enough to recall 600,000 words of text. What I do have is a copy of FOE and a search function.

[Sindri]

Where did Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome ever first pop up anyways? I've been trying to figure that out...

The earliest reference I've found or heard of is this reddit thread a little over a year ago.

TvTropes collects information, but doesn't create it, and I'm pretty sure the pony psychology fanfics came later; it's been mentioned variously as a joke or a legitimate psychological disorder in dozens if not hundreds of fics since the origin.

[O. Hinds]

"Cruise/Balistic"

I said before and I'll say again:
Zebra Shagohod
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs31/f/2008/225/c/9/The_Shagohod_by_KaitoKiddo1412.jpg
Match with the tech level and combat tactics of the zebras.
A stationary launcher would be a easy target to the pegasuses.

A nice idea, but again, the problem is volume. As for a stationary launcher being an easy target, that's tackled by one: having air defense anyway and two: lots and lots of decoys.

How far are you going to let your missiles wander? A ten mile radius? Twenty? Fifty? Because I'm guessing Cloud cities when faced with balefire annihilation are going to stay as mobile as possible. Not to mention Littlepip got jumped within minutes of clearing the clouds, as an entirely winged society flying CAP patrols great distances should be easy for Pegasus, and since the armor has EFS, you quickly see the problems of trying to get your scouts in close enough to find and target one of the Cloud cities. Before the megaspells however I'm guessing keeping the cities mobile was a much lower priority, and after two hundred years in the wasteland, moving them seemed pointless.

Ballistic missiles told to target cloud cites could still have a pretty wide coverage area, I think. The FR's don't have the view that ballistic missiles would have, though, so for suitably sure targeting they (hopefully) need planted beacons or ground observers.

Rail launchers are far too vulnerable to Equestrian attack, and railroad launchers wouldn't be able to handle the needed volume.

Multiple locations then, launching cruise missiles from the equivalent of wooden crates is quite possible. There are Chinese and Soviet designs designed to be fired from the equivalent of pickup trucks. And from the described size of the balefire bomb in FOE main story some of those designs could mount a warhead that size and that's without fancy weight reduction magic getting involved.
OAN:How many balefire bombs were you imaging the Zebra's threw at the Ponies?

You could put the capsules on mobile launchers, sure, but I don't know where you'd find room to move around at least a thousand or so of them. (Though mobile launchers would allow cutbacks on the number of decoy capsules, I suppose.)

Please elaborate on the problem you see; fifteen meters isn't that far for a robot arm with a scoop to reach down, is it?

Depending on soil composition anything from four meters to twenty meters can be dug as your describing, after that the drill not only digs the hole but provides reinforcement so you don't get the sides collapsing down into the hole. You can still have your Robot you just need to add some sort of expansion system to keep the sides intact.

Or you can handwave it away as they only dug in good tough soil areas and keep the Robot. FYI silos typically start at 40 meters deep and go up from there once you add in servicing areas. If you mentioned only needing to dig fifteen meters deep somewhere and I missed that I'm sorry.

Multiple places, including on the missile's page. To summarize for people who don't want to bother reading that: the SACII launches from a self-contained (with the exception of the antenna) capsule three meters by three meters by fifteen meters tall. The launch site construction consists of "dig hole, drop capsule in hole, tell capsule where it is, erect and connect radio antenna, done". The capsule design also makes constructing decoys pretty easy; just make a capsule with the appropriate dimensions, stick some weights in in the right places, throw on a dummy data port, and mix it in with the other capsules being sent out for installation.

Final note
I am pretty sure the time between Megaspells be turned over to the Zebras to weaponisation, to bombs fall everyone dies (it was a Tuesday) was less than a year. Unless the Zebra's had an existing ballistic missile program churning out a weapon and getting it tested and mounted enough to end the world could not be done in under a year without massive corner cutting on earth. Maybe the Zebra's had a Timelord on their side so they had the four or five years that such a project required here on Earth. However if you had a cruise missile program already up and running and being used to fire stuff at the enemy then it would be quite possible to hang a balefire bomb in the nosecone (Especially if you start development specifically to weaponize an existing warhead with the same weight and physical dimensions).

The big problem is that you can not test ballistic missiles in private, by their nature and how high they travel they are giant "We are testing weaponry" signs while Ballistic missiles can and have been tested inside the country of origin. One of the early tests for Tomahawk missiles was flying an inert warhead between states then doubling back twice before failing inside a quarter mile wide patch of farmland in Arizona. You can keep such tests hidden to an extent over your own nation. For ballistic missiles in order to test accuracy, handling or re-entry you kinda have to fire a full up thing at a target even if the target is an empty patch of ocean you just can not hide that test.
On Earth
Again Zebra magics trump my logic if Zebra magic is quoted, but here at least such a thing is impossible.

It was three years, according to my information, but yeah. And expanding on your second point: we had a few close passes with ballistic missile test launches during the Cold War, if I remember correctly; during an actual hot war, testing ballistic missiles would risk Equestria, which, of course, already had a fully functional WMD system, mistaking it for an attack and retaliating.

[Ketchup]

I"m gonna get back to reading it, too.

[Guest]

I"m gonna get back to reading it, too.

Read my child............ READ

[WavemasterRyx]

Ah... still working on drawings...
I'm going to stay out of this missile debate, because I don't really care for Overanalysis is Magic.

So it's late, but I'll still post my reading list, for if anyone's actually interested (not necessarily in this order, and I'm probably forgetting a few):

"MVP" Priority Reading Queue:

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