Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Sindri]

Incidentally, the old Fallout games are now on Steam. Base price is $10 each but for the next two hours they're 2/3 off or you can get both and that "Tactics" thing all for 6.79

[Ketchup]

The Quakecon sale. Yeah. Err, no. Just a daily sale.

[222222]

@Flim & Flam: I may have been a bit harsh on the apples and a bit too lenient with Dlim & Flam, but I still believe that the Apples abused a monopoly, and that the brothers opened business negotiations before becoming competitors. They made an offer, and the Apples should have counter offered at a more reasonable rate. That's how these things work. If the apples were insulted, then they are letting emotion get in the way of business and practicality. Also, at one point the Apples stole and destroyed cider produced by the brothers, because it was produced with apple family apples that had been freely given to the brothers. That should be illegal. Admittedly, the brothers did let the family get help in the competition so I can't really say the family cheated. On the other hoof, if the Apples business is so precarious it depends on cider season, they are in no position to have a cider selling rights contest, which further leads me to believe that they are a bad business which only stays afloat due to its monopoly of the apple market. Finally, I am totally biased because of how wicked awesome cool I think the Flim Flam brothers are, and would defend their honor to the death against any of you scallywags

[Ketchup]

That was a short venture. I had 1 hp left and I had just killed the radscorpions. I was poisoned, so I went to Razlo to get some antidote. He's supposed to heal you while he makes it, so I wasn't worried. I died from the damned poison while time compressed.

[FeatherDust]

This means that, given the right pedigree and a little luck, an earth pony can give birth to a pegasus or a unicorn, or both as we saw with the Cakes. It also means that with a relatively simple and common mutation, say one instance in 100,000 or 10,000,000 births, that pair of simple genetic on/off switches might not work right. You might get a unicorn with some traits displayed from their pegasus code, or an earth pony with a nubby little horn.


In my mind, until evidence to the contrary or a more likely theory is presented, Cadence is a unicorn with partial display of pegasus genes.

However, true Alicorns are something beyond this simple genetic system, possibly a much rarer and more pervasive mutation but more likely something truly divine

I'd hold all Cadence theories until s3's Crystal Ponies story is told, since apparently Cadence is their princess or something. She may actually be semi-immortal or some such thing.

On the Cakes: they are not a reliable source of information. Mr. Cake was clearly being dishonest with tha story about relatives, and anyway the pegasus was not blood related if you work through it.

I take the Occam's Razor view: the simplest explanation is likely correct. The simplest explanation here is that Mr. Cake isn't the twins' father. Doesn't necessarily imply infidelity per se - my headcanon is Mr Cake is infertile and they had to find a surrogate father. Or two. Little party going on there, maybe. He would still be embarrassed to admit that, thus the lies. (As fraternal twins, the kids could each have a different genetic father.) It's easier to swallow that than that one or both of the kids are one in a million mutants or recipients of unreasonably distant genetic code. Throwbacks can happen, but two throwbacks with different throwback phenotypes? That's not reasonable.

[Sindri]

If I am remember correctly, we already have two examples of this. Pinkie and Fluttershy.
Pinkie was going to be a pegasus. Somewhere along the line she turned into an earth pony, though. Despite this she still seems more comfortable in the air. She bounces everywhere and builds flying machines. She even occasionally just hangs in the air, though that is more likely due to the strange magic she has access to.
Fluttershy was thus turned into a pegasus. One that is afraid of flying and performs duties that I believe are otherwise intended for earth ponies.
So yeah... it's definitely possible to get some genes mixed up.

An argument could definitely be made for Fluttershy; she's a weak flyer and has the connection with the earth and animals that's much more common in earth ponies, so there's a possibility that she's a winged earth pony, but I think it's more probable that she's just weird. For analogy, there are a lot more people who are physically one sex and mentally the opposite gender than there are people with full or partial sets of both genitalia.

As for Pinkie... I dunno. She's either a psioic reality warper, or she's actually a half-dozen changelings pretending to be a single pony. Something as simple as this mutation can't explain a fifth of what she does.

[Sindri]

I take the Occam's Razor view: the simplest explanation is likely correct. The simplest explanation here is that Mr. Cake isn't the twins' father. Doesn't necessarily imply infidelity per se - my headcanon is Mr Cake is infertile and they had to find a surrogate father. Or two. Little party going on there, maybe. He would still be embarrassed to admit that, thus the lies. (As fraternal twins, the kids could each have a different genetic father.) It's easier to swallow that than that one or both of the kids are one in a million mutants or recipients of unreasonably distant genetic code. Throwbacks can happen, but two throwbacks with different throwback phenotypes? That's not reasonable.

Even if you're correct about him not being the father, for which there is absolutely no evidence, that's still a full-blooded unicorn and pegasus being born to an earth pony mother. And there doesn't need to be another stallion involved or any sort of mutation; if the triggers for the pegasus and unicorn dna are both recessive both parents could easily be heterozygous, giving every conception by them a 1/4 chance of being (unicorn or pegasus, depending on which takes precedence) and a 3/16 chance of being the other. Just like two brown-eyed humans can give birth to a blue-eyed child. His naming of relatives who were unicorns and pegasi isn't claiming that the children are direct descendants of those relatives, it's giving evidence for the Cakes likely being heterozygous instead of coming from lines which contained only earth ponies.

[FeatherDust]

An argument could definitely be made for Fluttershy; she's a weak flyer and has the connection with the earth and animals that's much more common in earth ponies, so there's a possibility that she's a winged earth pony, but I think it's more probable that she's just weird.

Fluttershy never saw the ground before she was in flight school. Ergo, both her parents are pegasi.

[FeatherDust]

Even if you're correct about him not being the father, for which there is absolutely no evidence, that's still a full-blooded unicorn and pegasus being born to an earth pony mother.

Well, I hope my discussion of how very unlikely Cake's claim is, and his own obvious discomfort, will serve as evidence that he's not. Anyway I never claimed crossbreeds don't exist, so I'm not sure what this is meant to prove.

And there doesn't need to be another stallion involved or any sort of mutation; if the triggers for the pegasus and unicorn dna are both recessive both parents could easily be heterozygous, giving every conception by them a 1/4 chance of being (unicorn or pegasus, depending on which takes precedence) and a 3/16 chance of being the other.

Doesn't work. Try to write up an inheritance whereby both parents express earth pony but the kids are one of each other.

You can't. Suppose mr cake is half unicorn and mrs cake is half pegasus. Eu and Ep. The kids could be EE pure earth, Eu like dad, Ep like mom, or up and express as one of the two other breeds.

In any case, if they had any closer relatives to claim, Mr Cake would have. He fell back on a lame excuse, and that means there WERE no better ones.

[222222]

@Featherdust: I agree that there was something fishy about Mr. Cake's answer, but I don't think we should jump to the conclusion there was another stallion involved, although that certainly seems most likely. I just think that this being a children's show about magic, there is probably an answer that does not involve Mrs. Cake getting knocked up by another stallion. Someone said maybe Mr. Cake is infertile, which I thought sounded likely, and so maybe he went through some magical or alchemical means to get Mrs. Cake pregnant. But to be sure, my initial reaction was "aw shit Mrs. Cake been sleeping around". It's just in the context of a children's show, that seems unlikely. Plus, for something as complicated as wings or a horn plus the associated magic, it's probably not a simple two allele dominant/recessive gene, so Sindris point does work.

[Icy Shake]

@Flim & Flam: I may have been a bit harsh on the apples and a bit too lenient with Dlim & Flam, but I still believe that the Apples abused a monopoly, and that the brothers opened business negotiations before becoming competitors. They made an offer, and the Apples should have counter offered at a more reasonable rate. That's how these things work. If the apples were insulted, then they are letting emotion get in the way of business and practicality. Also, at one point the Apples stole and destroyed cider produced by the brothers, because it was produced with apple family apples that had been freely given to the brothers. That should be illegal. Admittedly, the brothers did let the family get help in the competition so I can't really say the family cheated. On the other hoof, if the Apples business is so precarious it depends on cider season, they are in no position to have a cider selling rights contest, which further leads me to believe that they are a bad business which only stays afloat due to its monopoly of the apple market. Finally, I am totally biased because of how wicked awesome cool I think the Flim Flam brothers are, and would defend their honor to the death against any of you scallywags

I've already said my piece on the monopoly matters (on which I largely side with you), but I'd like to point out that if the cider that was confiscated was made from Apple family apples, it was not the full property of Flim and Flam; the apples were explicitly lent for demonstration purposes only.

On the Cakes: they are not a reliable source of information. Mr. Cake
was clearly being dishonest with tha story about relatives, and anyway
the pegasus was not blood related if you work through it.

I take the
Occam's Razor view: the simplest explanation is likely correct. The
simplest explanation here is that Mr. Cake isn't the twins' father.
Doesn't necessarily imply infidelity per se - my headcanon is Mr Cake
is infertile and they had to find a surrogate father. Or two. Little
party going on there, maybe. He would still be embarrassed to admit
that, thus the lies. (As fraternal twins, the kids could each have a
different genetic father.) It's easier to swallow that than that one or
both of the kids are one in a million mutants or recipients of
unreasonably distant genetic code. Throwbacks can happen, but two
throwbacks with different throwback phenotypes? That's not
reasonable.

I like that headcanon.

But Cup Cake's "great-aunt's second cousin twice removed" could be, but isn't necessarily, a blood relative (albeit oddly stated; if an actual blood relative, it would more concisely be stated as Cup Cake's fourth cousin [zero times removed] or fourth cousin four times removed [her great-great-great-aunt or -uncle], I think).

[222222]

@Featherdust: yes the apples lent the apples for demonstration, but how do you demonstrate cider production without allowing people to taste the cider? The brothers weren't selling the cider, they were giving it away, arguably for demonstration purposes.

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