Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Caoimhe]

Quick question: How do you all know so much about firearms and weaponry? Specifically about grenade launchers and impossible to acquire guns and the like? I've never really seen so many random people with such an intricate knowledge in one setting that wasn't specifically about that topic.

[Aonee]

This is the Internet, you can learn about anything. No really, between Google and Wikipedia, anyone with a spare hour or two can become quite learned on any subject, provided they check their sources to not look like an idiot further down the line.

[Icy Shake]

and another in which they have no competition for reasons never fully explained, giving large profits annually.

There's no evidence that there is no other source of cider. It's just that SAA cider is especially prized. Consider a bookstore on the night of the last Harry Potter book's release; there are thousands of books available, but these people have made a special trip and lined up out the door for just one. That doesn't mean J.K. Rowling is the only game in town.

I'd actually argue that that's a case of monopolistic competition, in which there is meaningful differentiation among a large number of sellers. Perhaps they do have cider competition; if so, it is apparently not of the sort which would limit their ability to raise prices, which is the issue in any case. I guess my point is: would the mile-long line shrink enough that not only would they not sell enough cider to even equal the revenue from present production, at the increased price?

SNOP

A monopoly only makes
you huge profits if you exploit it to raise prices above what they
would be with competition. Between their own generosity, the general
kindness of ponies, and probable government mandates on maximum prices
for basic staples, I doubt they're making the kinds of huge profits you
seem to expect. Things like the nigh-perfect weather make each crop
bigger and better than it would be for comparable farmers in our world,
but that doesn't translate into more money; it probably translates into
more ponies fed for the same amount. Which is great for eliminating the
large-scale hunger problems humanity deals with, but doesn't mean the
farmers are all going to be rich.

IIRC we've seen them selling
large sacks of apples for a couple bits. It takes approximately one
big-ass chest full of bits to, say, repair the barn roof. Cider season
is great for them because they can turn a two-bit sack of apples into 40
bits worth of cider and recoup the losses of the rest of the year. Then
the FlimFlams roll in and say, basically, give us 75% of your sales for
the season or we'll run you out of town.

Yes, that happened, and yes, that's a reasonable explanation. But what you are describing to me seems a great deal like what would be a regulated utility in the US; the start-up cost of making the investment in infrastructure is prohibitive, there are great returns to scale, and everyone is pretty much considered entitled to as much as they want at a "fair" price. In that case, generally speaking governments work with the provider to balance low prices/price increases with a fair return on the owners' capital. After all, what we would run into if the Apples lost the farm under your scenario is just that whoever took over would have a money-losing asset; at some point acreage would have to be taken out of production until average sale price equaled or exceeded average cost of production, or the operation would have to receive direct subsidies to compensate for inherent unprofitability.

Incidentally, they charged two bits for a mug, which I'll say is a pint, of cider. A pint of cider would require about two pounds of apples to make, which at 3.3 apples/pound means 6.6 apples per pint, or 3.3 apples per bit. I'm not sure if we've seen Applejack make a normal sale for a comparison; I'm not letting anything involving Applebloom count.

[Ketchup]

Quick question: How do you all know so much about firearms and weaponry? Specifically about grenade launchers and impossible to acquire guns and the like? I've never really seen so many random people with such an intricate knowledge in one setting that wasn't specifically about that topic.

Because it's such a fun topic to learn and discuss. And, Wikipedia makes it easy.

This is the Internet, you can learn about anything. No really, between Google and Wikipedia, anyone with a spare hour or two can become quite learned on any subject, provided they check their sources to not look like an idiot further down the line.

I've read most of Wikipedia's WW2 weaponry and armored vehicle articles ranging from the Chauchat machine gun to the Bob Semple tank. I've watched old WW2 films and identified what vehicles and weapons the troops were using. Fun.

[Rafafidi]

Quick question: How do you all know so much about firearms and weaponry? Specifically about grenade launchers and impossible to acquire guns and the like? I've never really seen so many random people with such an intricate knowledge in one setting that wasn't specifically about that topic.

The setting isn't specifically about weapons, but involve a great quantity of them. Personally, while reading and discussing this history , I spent hours searching and reading about Fallout, from the structure of the factions to the technological inventions, because I'm just nerd/geek like that.

[222222]

@Caimchecha: don't listen to those guys. We are all just extremely knowledgable about guns because we are dangerous sociopaths. It's part of being a Somberite.

[Ketchup]

Anybody ever played "The Wikipedia Game"? You get from one page to a specific one, while counting the amount of links you have to use. The random page button might be used, but the search bar cannot. I once got to Water from something absolutely obscure. Actually, I think it was Power Rangers or Care Bears or something like that.

[222222]

That sounds suspiciously like the YouTube game, played the same way. However it sounds much more informative with Wikipedia. Do you have to read any of the article? Or can you just look for links?

[Ketchup]

That sounds suspiciously like the YouTube game, played the same way. However it sounds much more informative with Wikipedia. Do you have to read any of the article? Or can you just look for links?

You don't have to read them, but that can be a personal rule. None of them except the search bar rule and the counting are really set in stone for it to be the Wikipedia Game.

[O. Hinds]

@O. Hinds
So the missile launcher can't aim more than forward or backward? What would you do if the attacker was at the side? Making the missile do a sharp curve and navigate around obstacles don't seem pratical.

Launching directly out has the problem of directing the rocket exhaust into the locomotive's innards. A workaround could be devised, but I don't think that one is necessary. If the attacker is close enough that firing straight out would be needed, then the train's motion ought to quickly put them behind. If they're further away, the missile will have time to curve in.

@O. Hinds
So the missile launcher can't aim more than forward or backward? What would you do if the attacker was at the side? Making the missile do a sharp curve and navigate around obstacles don't seem pratical.

The direction you launch a real missile doesn't matter much; at low velocities like right after launch it should be able to reverse direction almost instantly. And since the initial launch would likely be straight out to the side, up down and sideways should be just as easy as forward.

That's what I was thinking, though the initial launch is straight forward or backward rather than out to the side.

I have a possible solution to ammunition, size and accuracy concerns surrounding the battletrain. Gatling or single-barreled laser weapons have consistent accuracy, are smaller and quieter than ballistic weapons and could be hooked up to the train's main powerplant.

Or, something akin to the phaser bank used on Star Trek's Starfleet vessels, which would allow for multiple arcs of fire from a single point accurately.

Well, firstly, while I suppose that you could use these guns as ballistic weapons, that's really not what they're intended for.

As for beam weapons, yes, they'd be good, but they require gems to manufacture and a rather rarer specialized skillset to make and maintain. At the time this locomotive was designed, the EA's best source of gems was trade with hellhounds, and there were only so many they could buy that way (to say nothing of quality concerns). Combine that with the available engineers and maintenance personnel being predominately more comfortable with gemless kinetics, and it didn't seem to make sense to arm the locomotives with energy weapons. Now, they could be retrofitted in the modern era, given the growing trade with the NCR and the influx of ex-Enclave personnel, but it still makes more sense, I think, to use the energy weapons in places where they're more needed.

@Battletrain: I understand this train needs to survive the wasteland, but it is a train. It can only go places that have already been secured, plus it should be moving fairly quickly. With forward facing rockets to clear debris, it doesn't need to stop for anything, and the guns just need to hold enemies at bay long enough to outpace them. Irradiated or not, no rhino can outrun a train.

Of course, there are still the Dire Cheetahs...
But you're right, and that's the thing: this isn't a frontline, furthest-thing-on-the-border battlefield machine. It can't take or really hold land by itself, but it's not supposed to; it's just supposed to get a train from A to B through territory that hasn't definitely been thoroughly pacified yet. Clearing the way for the train, taking care of remaining dangers not near the tracks or near the tracks but not the train, or destroying anything really powerful that was somehow hiding are jobs for other things. The biggest dangers to the locomotive are the really nasty creatures, which tend to be easy to spot (of course, the ones that aren't easy to spot tend to be even nastier, but hopefully the crews building or repairing the rails will catch them even if the military forces performing the initial clearing don't), and intelligent, planning, tool-using enemies who can be deterred psychologically (IE, "You think you can rob/stop/destroy/whatever that train, boss? Look at the thing! You think I'm letting you send me at those guns? Not all of us would get out of that, and I'd need to be alive to spend the loot," and "Oh, sure, these balefire egg track mines'll derail it nicely and let us grab everything we can carry... and then they'll call in an airstrike, a team of zebra stealth commandos, and maybe some tanks and heavy robots if they really don't like us.").

[RoboRed]

And now for an off-topic moment...*ahem*

WHUT.

[FeatherDust]

@Featherdust: yes the apples lent the apples for demonstration, but how do you demonstrate cider production without allowing people to taste the cider?

Uh... think you @'d the wrong person there. I wasn't talking about apples.

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).

You're correct that this mishmash would in fact be a fourth cousin, or in other words somebody who shares one set of great-great-great-grandparents with Cupcake. It is theoretically possible that this set of g-g-g-grandparents had a pegasus background in it, and that the genes for pegasism (hah) have come down both lines intact. So yes, if all he meant was "some distant relative of Cupcake's turned out to be a pegasus and we have NO idea how that happened, so it must be in there somewhere" -- then yes, it might be legit.

That said, at that level of gene dilution, it's a lot more likely that Miss Fourth Cousin Pegasus is more closely related to the postman than that set of many-times-great-grandparents. And given Carrot Cake's rapid, nervous delivery and the bizarre way of phrasing the relationship, he wasn't delivering authentic information, but trying to bamboozle his audience.

if the dominant gene comes up on both sides, you're an earth pony (PPUU, PPUu, PpUU, PpUu).
With two ponies with the PpUu genotype, both are earth ponies. However, they have a 1/4 chance of producing a child with a uu and a 1/4 chance of producing a child with pp by a basic punnet square, leading to a total of 4/16 chance of the child being a pegasus and 3/16 chance of it being a unicorn.

I don't think you can do that -- have two dominant genes that, if both are present, express neither. In any case, I disagree with your statement that "it's not all that improbable that there hasn't been a single non-earth pony in their direct lineage since longer ago than they have records". Assuming both families are generally PpU* and assuming a relatively regular distribution of the four possible Earth Pony gene sets, these two family lines should be seeing non-earth foals on a pretty regular basis -- three quarters of the pairings have the possibility (25% or higher per birth) of a non-earth foal. Assuming each family has two children, there should be non-earth pony relatives popping up in every third family.

And frankly, if earth ponies randomly having non-earth pony babies (and other breeds similarly having earth-foals) were even as common as twinning (~10% of the population), it wouldn't be something Mr. Cake feels the need to justify! The fact that he's grasping for an explanation makes it clear that this is NOT a common event.

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

True. But that doesn't matter. Every pegasus carries the code to build the body of an earth pony, it just remains inactive because their pp genotype keeps it suppressed.

Irrelevant. I was responding to the suggestion that Fluttershy might have an actual earth pony parent. I think it's likely she has earth pony genes in her family, actually -- a grandparent or two, perhaps.

The thing you need to understand here is that you cannot program a complex structure with a single line of code, and anything spread across many lines will be blurred by mixed parentage instead of having a simple on/off switch

I don't appreciate the condescension here. I'm very aware of genetics and the concept of 'switch' genes that control other gene sets' expression. I don't think anything I've ever said has suggested that the entirety of "wings" or "horn" genetics is bundled up into a single gene, so this strawman you're arguing with has NO bearing on what I said.

It doesn't matter how complex the theoretical genetic inheritance structure you build is, because there are two big important facts at hand:
1: Nearly nobody in the Cake family's lines are anything but Earth ponies.
2: The Cakes had twins who were each throwbacks to a different breed.

If it were one child, sure, that could be anything. Sometimes you get a red haired kid in a black haired family, and so on. It happens. But to have two separate throwbacks in the same pregnancy is unbelievable. If their particular genetics were such that it's actually likely that any given Cake child will be non-earth pony, then their family lines ought to be littered with similar events. Even if the Cakes are particularly likely to have that, we should still have examples in the cousin or second-cousin realm.

[222222]

@Featherdust: I am sorry if I @ed you incorrectly, I'm on a phone which makes a lot of this stuff hard, like quoting. It's just more trouble than it's worth. And I was kind of leaning towards the other direction about the whole cake family thing, but you convinced me. Really it's Mr. Cakes delivery of the speech that sold me.

Edit: I went and checked and I meant to @ IcyShake. I think your avatars are similar.

[WavemasterRyx]

One more thing! Did you all know about this already?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HIE5xM0bxQ
I just saw it today, it's been out for months! It's really well done too.

Oh wow, I didn't know Nowacking read FoE! Her voice is almost exactly how I imagine Blackjack's, too.

Yeah, I had no idea either, I haven't been keeping up with all the FoE projects, which is how I ended up not seeing this until just now.
Surprisingly, even though I'd consider myself fairly imaginative, I never really read PH with voices for the characters... But I do think she did a very good job with it, and her voice does seem like it fits Blackjack pretty well.

>My name first
>not sure if should be surprised, honoured or upset
>decide to laugh anyway

*hugs Kipper*
I didn't mean anything by it, sir, but if you got a laugh out of it that's good.

Gah... brain can't think of counter pun after being awake for 2 days xP
-
Haha, I love Pelor as well, love the lore and domain overall, and their
clerigy... or how is that spelled again? And not sure you can suck the
life out of unliving things xP And got a pelor cleric that has way to
much in turning, speaking of PP. And on the topic of that, as I think I
mentioned: Did a Centaur recently with way to much in charge bonus
hehe.

- Give it time, I'm sure you'll net an idea.
- Yeah Pelor was the best, especially for turning, and then they tried
to ruin him in 4th Edition, so I just decided to ignore the revisions.
Centaurs with too much charge bonus are best centaurs *thumbs up* Well, aside from Centaur Man, but that's okay.

As I recall it was originally undefined and fanon
settled on red. When Ch.29 was released (with that climactic scene where
the floor collapses and BJ lifts Glory with her magic for a few
seconds), we all decided that we loved the image of Glory enveloped in
white light, then went back and retconned BJ's magic glow as white
throughout the story.

I have to agree, I think this was a nice change to make, Glory enveloped in white light is a very powerful image for that scene.

[Sindri]

And now for an off-topic moment...*ahem*

WHUT.

Lolnope.

I don't think you can do that -- have two dominant genes that, if both are present, express neither.

Sure you can. You're expressing the earth pony genes, because you are not expressing the recessive trait that suppresses them.

In any case, I disagree with your statement that "it's not all that improbable that there hasn't been a single non-earth pony in their direct lineage since longer ago than they have records". Assuming both families are generally PpU* and assuming a relatively regular distribution of the four possible Earth Pony gene sets, these two family lines should be seeing non-earth foals on a pretty regular basis -- three quarters of the pairings have the possibility (25% or higher per birth) of a non-earth foal. Assuming each family has two children, there should be non-earth pony relatives popping up in every third family.

If you cross a Pp with a Pp, you have a 25% chance of PP, 50% of Pp, and 25% of pp. If you cross a Pp with a PP, you have a 50:50 chance of PP or Pp. The pegasus genes need to stay concealed for three full generations and conclude with a Pp, right? Depending on the genotype of chosen mates, number of children per generation, etc. that could potentially give you as much as a 1/8 chance; the actual probability would require a family tree to work from, but it's almost certainly somewhere between 1/50 and 1/500.

And frankly, if earth ponies randomly having non-earth pony babies (and other breeds similarly having earth-foals) were even as common as twinning (~10% of the population), it wouldn't be something Mr. Cake feels the need to justify! The fact that he's grasping for an explanation makes it clear that this is NOT a common event.

Yes. Just like everybody feels like they have to justify the blue eyes on their kid when both supposed parents have brown. Despite the fact that it happens literally thousands of times every day, it must mean somebody was cheating!

to have two separate throwbacks in the same pregnancy is unbelievable.

No, it's unlikely. Four generations back, would I bet on this specific outcome? No. Nor would I bet that I could roll two natural 20s in a row. But when it happens I'm not going to start ranting about how it must have been a loaded die. Things less likely than this happen every day. And in fact the 1/500 or so chance here is a significantly higher probability than that of a random man being completely infertile, and while numbers for such a thing are impossible I'd consider Cup Cake cheating on him to be a great deal less likely than either.

[Sindri]

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

True. But that doesn't matter. Every pegasus carries the code to build the body of an earth pony, it just remains inactive because their pp genotype keeps it suppressed.

Irrelevant. I was responding to the suggestion that Fluttershy might have an actual earth pony parent. I think it's likely she has earth pony genes in her family, actually -- a grandparent or two, perhaps.

That suggestion was never made; under the circumstance the only reasonable interpretation I could come up with for your argument was that you thought she could not have earth pony traits without an earth pony parent. Meanwhile, an earth pony grandparent would not have any bearing on her type; in order for earth pony parents to produce both unicorn and pegasus offspring the earth pony gene must be dominant, and thus two pegasi could never give birth to an earth pony without mutation regardless of their own parentage.

I don't appreciate the condescension here.

I apologize if your feelings were hurt. But as I've stated before on many occasions, I do not argue to hurt people, or to "win," I argue to cause people to think, and if at all possible to approach the truth of a matter. To that end I love it when I am proven wrong or taught about a subject I did not previously understand, and try to do others the same courtesy. Several of your comments gave the impression that you may have been misinformed on certain aspects of genetics, and even if that impression was false there are others here who are almost certainly less knowledgeable. If you treat every infodump as a personal attack, we'll never get anywhere.

[FeatherDust]

I don't think you can do that -- have two dominant genes that, if both are present, express neither.

Sure you can. You're expressing the earth pony genes, because you are not expressing the recessive trait that suppresses them.

I don't think I understand this in the context of the discussion we were having. P causes you to express pegasus traits and suppresses unicorn and earth pony, right? And U causes you to express unicorn traits and suppresses earth and pegasus. P and U together would then have you suppressing all three traits, not suddenly expressing earth pony.

Meanwhile, an earth pony grandparent would not have any bearing on her type; in order for earth pony parents to produce both unicorn and pegasus offspring the earth pony gene must be dominant, and thus two pegasi could never give birth to an earth pony without mutation regardless of their own parentage.

Wait. Wait. What? Where's the 'earth pony gene' in all this? I thought you were theorizing that earth ponies come about when the pony has either the dominant version of both P and U, or neither.

It still means a pegasus must have pegasus children, since a pegasus could be PPuu or Ppuu or ppuu, and in any of those cases the kids are gonna end up uu, which is recessive.

Actually the big problem with this plan would be the unicorns, since they'd all be ppUU or ppUu, which means about 1/4 of unicorn pairings have a one-quarter chance of producing a pegasus kid. And that is common enough for it to be unusual but well-known.

[Snipehamster]

Much as I hate to butt in on the genetics discussion, I think it's worth pointing out that there's no reason to believe that we're working with anything resembling real life here. These are sentient, magical, multicoloured cartoon horses after all. For all we know, they might have biomagical pattern latticing (or similar psychobabble) instead of anything we might recognise as DNA.

What's important is that the show does seem to strongly imply that ponies can viably interbreed and that children aren't nescessarily guaranteed to be the same race as their parents -- unless Mr. Cake is lying or handwaving, but that's a different matter and up for interpretation. Beyond that, we don't really have grounds to speculate on the mechanisms and rules involved, leaving the details a matter of headcanon.

(Given that the first 'Maripony' orb in PH very strongly implies that Big Mac (an earth pony) got Maripony (a unicorn) pregnant, I think we can take as given that -- in PH's continuity at least -- the different pony races are fully compatible).

[Ketchup]

Well, firstly, while I suppose that you could use these guns as ballistic weapons, that's really not what they're intended for.

As for beam weapons, yes, they'd be good, but they require gems to manufacture and a rather rarer specialized skillset to make and maintain. At the time this locomotive was designed, the EA's best source of gems was trade with hellhounds, and there were only so many they could buy that way (to say nothing of quality concerns). Combine that with the available engineers and maintenance personnel being predominately more comfortable with gemless kinetics, and it didn't seem to make sense to arm the locomotives with energy weapons. Now, they could be retrofitted in the modern era, given the growing trade with the NCR and the influx of ex-Enclave personnel, but it still makes more sense, I think, to use the energy weapons in places where they're more needed.

They still use ballistics no matter where or how you fire the gun. Kinetic would have been a better term to use, though.
Your explanation on why they wouldn't be using beam weapons is plausible.

[Kippershy]

Much as I hate to butt in on the genetics discussion, I think it's worth pointing out that there's no reason to believe that we're working with anything resembling real life here. These are sentient, magical, multicoloured cartoon horses after all. For all we know, they might have biomagical pattern latticing (or similar psychobabble) instead of anything we might recognise as DNA.

What's important is that the show does seem to strongly imply that ponies can viably interbreed and that children aren't nescessarily guaranteed to be the same race as their parents -- unless Mr. Cake is lying or handwaving, but that's a different matter and up for interpretation. Beyond that, we don't really have grounds to speculate on the mechanisms and rules involved, leaving the details a matter of headcanon.

(Given that the first 'Maripony' orb in PH very strongly implies that Big Mac (an earth pony) got Maripony (a unicorn) pregnant, I think we can take as given that -- in PH's continuity at least -- the different pony races are fully compatible).

In my headcanon, they're all compatible.
why shouldn't they be?
they're all ponies at the end of the day.

to me, it's akin to a black, white and asian or something - the differences are there, but not so much that they stop reproduction because it's still the same basic genetic code.

[Caoimhe]

It's been forever since I took a class in biology but can't a mixed race human couple not produce a child with all traits of one particular race? I guess it is possible in pony canon otherwise we'd see more alicorns (unless this would explain Cadence as a rare unique circumstance, maybe all alicorn 'miracle births' gain princess status as well). I find it odd as well that something as powerful as unicorn magic could be considered a recessive trait as well but eh, cartoon for children.

[Guest]

And now for an off-topic moment...*ahem*

WHUT.

HMM? xP

[Kippershy]

It's been forever since I took a class in biology but can't a mixed race human couple not produce a child with all traits of one particular race? I guess it is possible in pony canon otherwise we'd see more alicorns (unless this would explain Cadence as a rare unique circumstance, maybe all alicorn 'miracle births' gain princess status as well). I find it odd as well that something as powerful as unicorn magic could be considered a recessive trait as well but eh, cartoon for children.

I'd say it is possible, but rare indeed. It would take some strong heritage and pure chance to do it though, I reckon.

[Somber]

Wow... um... not sure what to say... Forum's gone all kinda of wonky...

Anyway... as to arming trains... no. Just no. A modern military wouldn't put guns on industrial equipment. They would but the guns on much more mobile and easily manufactured escorts to fly overhead or roll ahead of the main train. A train is a complex enough piece of machinery without throwing in weapon systems. It's added mass and height that just isn't needed. It's more efficient to arm specific units than to turn every form of transport into a weapon.

If this is some kind of post bomb armed train, then maybe, but it would have to look appropriate. Maybe gunner's next welded to the front above a cow catcher. Gun nests on the roofs of cars. Sure, I could see that. Defense against raiders. Missiles... no. And not for clearing debris either. You fire missiles at a rockslide and you'll end up with slightly displaced rocks mixed with missile fragments. Rockslides are cleared with physical works, not rockets that magically sweep the tracks clear.

Why no targeting talismans? Zebras don't swing that way. Zebras have always been mechanical and physical. They'd use gunners rather than talismans. There should be a coal stack on that thing; what better to run a train than their abundant resource? If this is a wasteland vehicle then they probably have some sort of steam scout car to ride ahead looking for trouble and warning flares.

So sorry, Hinds. The train looks cool, but I would never see it actually being used.

[222222]

@Somber: Just for context, this train is being used to travel through the zebra wastelands after the Gardens fixed stuff and the NCR was established. It's being built by a rebuilding society with access to fairly advanced technology. I'm not disputing what you said and I mostly agree with you, but you seem slightly confused as to why this train is being built. It's defense is for irradiated wildlife and raiders. Please correct me of I'm wrong Hinds but I'm pretty sure this is the case.

[Ketchup]

It wouldn't take much to turn it into a tank, rather than a train. Stick some tracks on it and use a coal-steam powerplant to propel the thing. More practical than a vehicle limited to a track, and it wouldn't be limited to the width of the train's tracks either, possibly allowing a better firing arc for all weapons.

[222222]

@ketchup: the problem with turning it into a tank isn't that it wouldn't be able to haul cargo nearly as efficiently or quickly, which is the primary purpose of this train.

[Ketchup]

Then use self-propelled storage vehicles. It wouldn't be as fast, but you could use them to move equipment in areas where the terrain is suitable, without tracks.

[222222]

@ketchup: The purpose of a train is to move large quantities of supplies or personnel between two secured points quickly. What you are suggesting would work, and is probably the best solution for moving supplies or personnel to a non secured or tracked location. But trains move truly enormous amounts of supplies, and the number of trucks or carriages needed to move an equivalent amount of supplies would be impractical to organize or defend. A train fits a specific niche, a niche wich cannot be filled with trucks and tanks.

[Sindri]

I don't think you can do that -- have two dominant genes that, if both are present, express neither.

Sure you can. You're expressing the earth pony genes, because you are not expressing the recessive trait that suppresses them.

I don't think I understand this in the context of the discussion we were having. P causes you to express pegasus traits and suppresses unicorn and earth pony, right? And U causes you to express unicorn traits and suppresses earth and pegasus. P and U together would then have you suppressing all three traits, not suddenly expressing earth pony.

What? No, that's the opposite of what I described at great length earlier. Both the unicorn gene and the pegasus gene are recessive. You're a pegasus if you have a pp regardless of whether it's alongside UU, Uu, or uu, but PP or Pp means 'not a pegasus.'
You're a unicorn if you have uu without also having pp (uuPP or uuPp), but UU or Uu means 'not a unicorn.'
If you do not display either recessive trait, you display earth pony traits instead. Thus the "earth pony gene" is the domiant gene on both sides, but a dominant trait on one side is superseded by the recessive on on the other if present.

if(pp)
[pegasus]
else
if(uu)
[unicorn]
else
[earth pony]

PPUU = earth
PPUu = earth
PPuu = unicorn
PpUU = earth
PpUu = earth
Ppuu = unicorn
ppUU = pegasus
ppUu = pegasus
ppuu = pegasus

Much as I hate to butt in on the genetics discussion, I think it's worth pointing out that there's no reason to believe that we're working with anything resembling real life here. These are sentient, magical, multicoloured cartoon horses after all. For all we know, they might have biomagical pattern latticing (or similar psychobabble) instead of anything we might recognise as DNA.

Well, we know from Faust that different pony types can interbreed without problems, and that ponies reproduce like normal mammals. We know from the Baby Cakes episode that earth pony parents can give birth to both pegasi and unicorns. Yes, we could assume that they have rainbows in their nuclei instead of strands of DNA, or even that they're literally made of sentient marshmallow but there is no evidence whatsoever that they don't work like normal animals in that respect. Either they use a system similar enough to DNA to work the same in everything we've seen, and it's a matter of semantics, or it's all completely magical and arbitrary and there's no point in talking or even thinking about it. I like thinking.

I find it odd as well that something as powerful as unicorn magic could be considered a recessive trait as well but eh, cartoon for children.

Recessive and rare mean different things; a lot of the traits found in most of the population are technically recessive. The big distinction is really whether the trait can "hide" in a carrier who does not display it; anyone with a single allele of a dominant trait will show it, but recessive traits can skip generations and crop up in odd places.

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