Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Kippershy]

Perception 8 then argues that no, rather than being experienced with some kind of experienced veteran whose seen some shit and thus had something to weaken them, they're a small frame as it is. They rely on their keen perception to avoid being active prey by being out of the danger zone before they're even noticed.

Charisma 7 speaks to me of a smooth talking, good looking, somewhat intelligent person. Rather than getting into fights in the first place, this person is highly likely to talk their way out of them. They might offer something they have -- be it material or information, or they might offer their help to whomever may threaten them.

Intelligence 7 only confirms the previous thought about the charisma being reliant on intelligence too. Though they're very likeable by pure nature, they also have the intellect to come up with logical plans and again, will use this ability to avoid fights rather then win them.
"Why take down Goliath when you can simply skirt around him? There's a hidden path here and it'll mean that he wont see me, so it seems a good idea, as long as I'm quiet I wont get noticed!"

Who are they? Well, most likely, some form of merchant or in a job where speaking plays a large role. They're not the hardened merc and they never will be, but they're fine with that because that's not who they want to be anyway, even if they may have the occasional fantasy of being the saviour of all ponykind.

Ponies of note who these stats remind me of, would be P-21 (lowered strength & endurance from busted leg, heightened perception from living in a hostile environment all his life, his natural charisma is pretty strong -- perhaps why the Overmare chose him as her play toy in the first place, he's damn intelligent and understands a lot of things -- even if he doesn't talk in depth about them, agility 6 would suit his stealth capabilities, even with his busted leg. Luck 5 because while he WAS lucky to make it out of the Stable alive, he was unlucky in getting a harsh ride all the way through. Really, he gets moments of high and low luck in equal measure.)

Your guesses were very close on Kipper, minus the strength/endurance/agility to how I pictured them. How would your analysis change if I added two factors "This pony is a Pegasus" "This pony has no clue how to pick locks"

As for your analysis -- you hit the nail on the head, pretty much. Even to the wrestler part, something I was (and still am) considering making him in his free time. Would suit him just fine.

Naturally he'd be a heel, can't be a face with that level of Charisma. Even the Ultimate Warrior had at least a five in that and he was fucking insane.

Sorry, can't think of anyone. Calamity doesn't fit the bill at all, Glory -might- but I'm not entirely sure on that one -- don't know any other pegasus ponies of note.

As for my character... you know, the strange thing is - despite his very low charisma, he's a leader.
A much respected leader, too. (within his own group.)
Though, his culture is completely different to that of ponies or even humans, a culture which respects strength and endurance above all else - where the biggest are the best, and thus, his leadership.

[Somber]

I love that Mech drawing. Wish I could see it not chopped off. I can't wait till you get to the fourth and final form of Blackjack.

In other news, if everything keeps going, we'll hopefully be brushing 51 next week. Hopefully. I'm going to make it shorter than usual to make things easier on my awesome editors.

Oh! Whomever sent me a 'friendship is madness' tee shirt with ponythulu on it, thank you! ::wears it now!::

[Caoimhe]

:0 final form

Also right click and copy the URL of the pic ad open it in a new tab.

[Stringtheory]

*snip*

Your guesses were very close on Kipper, minus the strength/endurance/agility to how I pictured them. How would your analysis change if I added two factors "This pony is a Pegasus" "This pony has no clue how to pick locks"

Sorry, can't think of anyone. Calamity doesn't fit the bill at all, Glory -might- but I'm not entirely sure on that one -- don't know any other pegasus ponies of note.

here's the answer:

Spoiler:

[Caoimhe]

I stalled on chapter 2 of Murky since I got loaded down on fics from people on IRC (where the authors of Heros, Starlight, etc demanded I read theirs all at once :0 ). I hope to continue all soon!

[Kippershy]

Dear phone... next time, please do not break.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7qKISH4p94

[Vergil]

I love that Mech drawing. Wish I could see it not chopped off. I can't wait till you get to the fourth and final form of Blackjack.

Oh dear god why do you have to do this now I won't be able to stop thinking about it

[Cptadder]

*snip
I am all for choices; everyone should have choices. Again, I'll admit, I have a nasty habit of judging people, and it's a flaw I should try to rectify if I want to be someone others would consider a good person.

...You can call me Inco or Orange, you know. I don't want to be a stranger. That way, you can't misspell my name, either. I used to be called Plague on Starcraft 1, and people would call me Plauge. Funny story, Starcraft 1 was where I learned to practice good grammar out of habit.

First off you had time to type during Starcraft? I was trying to get my actions per minute up to a solid one per second, not world class but respectable and here you are throwing your APM into the can by typing things. Second, flaws are fine as long as you admit them, because then your able to correct for them if it's unjustified or ration around the issue. Third, Orange it is.

Hm… Maybe. On the other hoof, it seems not all that unlikely that the Zebras already have some sort of radar-guided AAA. They could extrapolate. This would increase the time it took Equestria to implement the system, though...

If they had Radar guided AA then could have built something like the 20mm Oerlikon stationary or a Russian Zsu, an American Linebacker or an old fashion WWII Bofors equipped Duster. A dozen ZSU could keep the sky clear of any hordes of Pegasuses in any kind of clear air. And the Duster is murder on anything not in power armor.

Hm… And the SS itself could have a similar effect, assuming that Equestria didn't manage to kill it when it was vulnerable. After all, you may know that only bases A, B, and C have the weapons at the moment, but your opponent, even if they do know that you only have three (and that's not a given), is still never going to be quite sure that the base they're planning to attack isn't one of the three lucky ones. And given the building movement of pegasi resentment of the war already…
It's still a rather big gamble, but it's now one that I could see the ZHC maybe making.

Even better, Decoy's are cheaper than real SS's and refitted planes are even cheaper. It just has to look like the SS after all even if it can duplicate the feats to have sixty decoys out there at airbase E,F,G,H and so on while the SS is kept as mobile as possible so it can be where needed.

There is a lot of that, though the ability for Equestria to move massive amounts of supplies and troops by air to unimproved landing areas gives them an advantage not had by Napoleon or Hitler. That said, trying to fly a convoy of supply ships over terrain that your troops haven't even set foot in is just asking for a battery of concealed, remote-controlled, and disposable SAMs to fire at you.

Hitler could move massive amounts of troops with Ju-52's what he could not move was tanks or their equipment or supplies. The Ponies would be in a similar boat, able to turn up with 50,000 naked ponies in under twelve hours but ammo food and other supplies taking much longer. The average horse eats two pounds of food per every hundred pounds of animal. Thus most horses need about twenty pounds of food per day. Heavy work conditions impose a 50% increase. Lets say most ponies are between 200 to 300 pounds with Earth ponies getting up to 400 pounds and Pegasus mares down around 150 pounds (Muscle is heavy and equines have lots of it). So 50,000 ponies at 250 pound average puts us at 125,000 pounds of food per day in garrison conditions which climbs to 200,000 pounds per day in campaign conditions with lots of marching. Meaning that your ponies not counting equipment need at least a weeks food at 1.4 million pounds plus the army itself at 1.2 million pounds of transport. And again that assumes ponies that are naked without power armor or weaponry of any kind. Assuming standard ratios that's 35% weight in additional gear but that's humans not ponies so lets assume the average pony soldier is humping 40% of his or her weight in war fighting material and gear not counting power armored pones or.... 100 pounds of gear per pony.

Adding gear in adds another 500,000 pounds of movement requirements.
So two air mobile pony divisions would require at least one and a half million pounds of transport capacity assuming four trips plus a buffer. By comparison a WWII C-47 had a 6000 pound payload max so thats.... 250 fully loaded C47's worth of transport which is... roughly right considering we used over 900 of the things during D-day to transport to transport 15,000 soldiers behind the lines. However their C-47s were tied down transport stuff like jeeps and guns which each required a plane to themselves due to their weight. Plus they had dropped with a week and a half of supplies not just seven days.

And I just spent forty minutes digging up my facts and details to ensure I had an accurate bit of napkin calculation of how many sky chariots were required to airdrop 50,000 ponies ready for battle behind Zebra lines.

By the way, have you seen the end of war zocs on my larger map (alpha version in my DA Scraps)? I'm wondering if you think that they make sense.

I have not please link that

*snip*

Your guesses were very close on Kipper, minus the strength/endurance/agility to how I pictured them. How would your analysis change if I added two factors "This pony is a Pegasus" "This pony has no clue how to pick locks"

Sorry, can't think of anyone. Calamity doesn't fit the bill at all, Glory -might- but I'm not entirely sure on that one -- don't know any other pegasus ponies of note.

here's the answer:

Spoiler:

Nope it's not that Pegasus, he's has much lower endurance and it's not a known character or anyone's OC. I'm going to post something tomorrow that will involve them however.

[Cptadder]

I stalled on chapter 2 of Murky since I got loaded down on fics from people on IRC (where the authors of Heros, Starlight, etc demanded I read theirs all at once :0 ). I hope to continue all soon!

I'm stuck on Murky every time I start reading the universe intervenes and I MUST go an do something else, right around chapter 8 I think it was. It'd start reading now but with my luck this week my apartment would catch fire the instant I opened the story.

Dear phone... next time, please do not break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7qKISH4p94

Oh why did you start punching the glass, that violate so many safety regs I don't know if to express sympathy or write you a thousand dollar hazards pratices ticket.

I love that Mech drawing. Wish I could see it not chopped off. I can't wait till you get to the fourth and final form of Blackjack.

Oh dear god why do you have to do this now I won't be able to stop thinking about it

This isn’t even my final form!
Sorry could not resist.

[OneMoreDaySK]

@Somber
She's gonna go super saiyan? Or avatar style possessed by OP character.
At this point she doesn't have that many spare parts to lose. Her body's been mutied up, then augmented. The only path that I see is her somehow getting original body back, which is nigh impossible, or she get's integrated into some kind of cyber system, like a giant mech. Gundam Blackjack?

@Kip
What did you do? Well, just wash it with soap and water. Antibiotic OTC and Bandage would probably come in handy as well. Rubbing Alcohol and Hydrogen Peroxide turns out to slow healing to a ridiculous rate.

[IncoherentOrange]

*snip
I am all for choices; everyone should have choices. Again, I'll admit, I have a nasty habit of judging people, and it's a flaw I should try to rectify if I want to be someone others would consider a good person.

...You can call me Inco or Orange, you know. I don't want to be a stranger. That way, you can't misspell my name, either. I used to be called Plague on Starcraft 1, and people would call me Plauge. Funny story, Starcraft 1 was where I learned to practice good grammar out of habit.

First off you had time to type during Starcraft? I was trying to get my actions per minute up to a solid one per second, not world class but respectable and here you are throwing your APM into the can by typing things. Second, flaws are fine as long as you admit them, because then your able to correct for them if it's unjustified or ration around the issue. Third, Orange it is.

I only played UMS; I was too young (lesee here... uh, I started playing when I was four or five, got Battle.Net access at ten or so) and too inexperienced to be competitive TvB or such things. You see, at that point I was more gameplay-oriented in mindset, if that makes sense, not statistics- or strategy-oriented. I moved at my own pace during campaign, used defenses, didn't expand quickly, enjoyed crushing my hapless computer-controlled foes with massive force. I just didn't think competitively and didn't want the game to become numbers. So it never did for me, and instead, I played scenarios that were less competitive and more raw fun. I played a little bit of SCII ladder, but my strategy didn't work so well, and I ended up in Wood League no matter how hard I tried. I also enjoy team play, but I'm always the weakest link, and a party will almost always defeat a random team.
I just idea'd. How many of us have Starcraft II?

[Vergil]

I love that Mech
drawing. Wish I could see it not chopped off. I can't wait till you
get to the fourth and final form of Blackjack.

Oh dear god why do you have to do this now I won't be able to stop thinking about it

This isn’t even my final form!
Sorry could not resist.

"Who here's tired of my third form?"
"Me"
"Me"
"Me"
"ALRIGHTY THEN, final form it is!"

@Somber
She's gonna go super saiyan? Or avatar style possessed by OP character.
At this point she doesn't have that many spare parts to lose. Her body's been mutied up, then augmented. The only path that I see is her somehow getting original body back, which is nigh impossible, or she get's integrated into some kind of cyber system, like a giant mech. Gundam Blackjack?

Well...there's always further alicornization (is that a word?)

[Caoimhe]

I stalled on chapter 2 of Murky since I got loaded down on fics from people on IRC (where the authors of Heros, Starlight, etc demanded I read theirs all at once :0 ). I hope to continue all soon!

Starlight, now? What's that about?
I haven't had time to read any fics in weeks -_-

Starlight is made by voltrathxp and has alicorns. That's all I really know (I haven't started it yet, I have like 3 fics in queue :X )

[Vergil]

@vergil
I'm going to tentitively bank on filly Blackjack, as I like to be an outlier and it'd be funny ^_^

I am ok with this.

[Caoimhe]

Blackjack will turn into a MALE alicorn and will have to face her biggest question: How bucks fly with...that...thing.

[O. Hinds]

Hm… Maybe. On the other hoof, it seems not all that unlikely that the Zebras already have some sort of radar-guided AAA. They could extrapolate. This would increase the time it took Equestria to implement the system, though...

If they had Radar guided AA then could have built something like the 20mm Oerlikon stationary or a Russian Zsu, an American Linebacker or an old fashion WWII Bofors equipped Duster. A dozen ZSU could keep the sky clear of any hordes of Pegasuses in any kind of clear air. And the Duster is murder on anything not in power armor.

Good point.

Hm… And the SS itself could have a similar effect, assuming that Equestria didn't manage to kill it when it was vulnerable. After all, you may know that only bases A, B, and C have the weapons at the moment, but your opponent, even if they do know that you only have three (and that's not a given), is still never going to be quite sure that the base they're planning to attack isn't one of the three lucky ones. And given the building movement of pegasi resentment of the war already…
It's still a rather big gamble, but it's now one that I could see the ZHC maybe making.

Even better, Decoy's are cheaper than real SS's and refitted planes are even cheaper. It just has to look like the SS after all even if it can duplicate the feats to have sixty decoys out there at airbase E,F,G,H and so on while the SS is kept as mobile as possible so it can be where needed.

Yesssssss, you're right! The XF84-H was quite an expensive plane for humans, but the parts that were hardest for us (engine, supersonic props, etc.) are much cheaper for the Zebras with their alchemical engineering. Stick some robots in the cockpits, use some shaped glass or something as the external "gems" in the decoys' rainboom systems, give the decoys matching paintjobs, and tell the SS's pilot to fly below her usual skill when taking off and landing, and it would probably be quite difficult to tell the fakes from the real thing right up until one of the planes starts getting the pre-rainboom glow around its nose… and by then it's probably too late. Even better, equip multiple airbases with decoys and shuttle them around, and Equestria will have a time even figuring out where the SS is at any given time. If the decoy robots get good enough, the decoys can even act as slightly-below-par but still dangerous extra fighters.

Mind you, this is still quite expensive and would still likely set Equestria on a course towards PD, but… it's sounding pretty good.

There is a lot of that, though the ability for Equestria to move massive amounts of supplies and troops by air to unimproved landing areas gives them an advantage not had by Napoleon or Hitler. That said, trying to fly a convoy of supply ships over terrain that your troops haven't even set foot in is just asking for a battery of concealed, remote-controlled, and disposable SAMs to fire at you.

Hitler could move massive amounts of troops with Ju-52's what he could not move was tanks or their equipment or supplies. The Ponies would be in a similar boat, able to turn up with 50,000 naked ponies in under twelve hours but ammo food and other supplies taking much longer. The average horse eats two pounds of food per every hundred pounds of animal. Thus most horses need about twenty pounds of food per day. Heavy work conditions impose a 50% increase. Lets say most ponies are between 200 to 300 pounds with Earth ponies getting up to 400 pounds and Pegasus mares down around 150 pounds (Muscle is heavy and equines have lots of it). So 50,000 ponies at 250 pound average puts us at 125,000 pounds of food per day in garrison conditions which climbs to 200,000 pounds per day in campaign conditions with lots of marching. Meaning that your ponies not counting equipment need at least a weeks food at 1.4 million pounds plus the army itself at 1.2 million pounds of transport. And again that assumes ponies that are naked without power armor or weaponry of any kind. Assuming standard ratios that's 35% weight in additional gear but that's humans not ponies so lets assume the average pony soldier is humping 40% of his or her weight in war fighting material and gear not counting power armored pones or.... 100 pounds of gear per pony.

Adding gear in adds another 500,000 pounds of movement requirements.
So two air mobile pony divisions would require at least one and a half million pounds of transport capacity assuming four trips plus a buffer. By comparison a WWII C-47 had a 6000 pound payload max so thats.... 250 fully loaded C47's worth of transport which is... roughly right considering we used over 900 of the things during D-day to transport to transport 15,000 soldiers behind the lines. However their C-47s were tied down transport stuff like jeeps and guns which each required a plane to themselves due to their weight. Plus they had dropped with a week and a half of supplies not just seven days.

And I just spent forty minutes digging up my facts and details to ensure I had an accurate bit of napkin calculation of how many sky chariots were required to airdrop 50,000 ponies ready for battle behind Zebra lines.

We have so many awesome people in this thread.

Anyway, I was actually thinking that they could use the Raptors for transport in addition to heavy skywagons, but it occurs to me that we have no idea what a Raptor's spare lift capacity actually is.

By the way, have you seen the end of war zocs on my larger map (alpha version in my DA Scraps)? I'm wondering if you think that they make sense.

I have not please link that

http://reese8.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps#/d54hfla
You'll have to download it and open it with something that can view Photoshop layers. Though, if you don't have that, I suppose that I could try turning on the relevant layers, screenshotting, and then uploading the picture(s) here.



Well… Congratulations to us! I believe that you have convinced me that the point I was originally supporting was actually more or less right after all, but in the process we have had quite a nice educational and thoughtful experience!

Now, the question is, how far along was the SS program when the war ended? I think that that could probably be relatively freely set to what we want, though, so long as there's no contradiction with the observed evidence (ie, it can't be so far along that the devastating new Zebra superplane would have been mentioned in FoE (and the something like the SS would have definitely made Equestria stand up and take notice that, yeah, maybe those funny little explosion-powered metal flying machines are things that they ought to be paying attention to after all), and Equestria, even if it had started work by the end of the war, obviously never fully developed and implemented the PD).

[Stringtheory]

How many of us have Starcraft II?

I have it, just played the campaign though, never got into multiplayer

[Cptadder]

"Who here's tired of my third form?"
"Me"
"Me"
"Me"
"ALRIGHTY THEN, final form it is!"

I prefer the second form

@Somber
She's gonna go super saiyan? Or avatar style possessed by OP character.
At this point she doesn't have that many spare parts to lose. Her body's been mutied up, then augmented. The only path that I see is her somehow getting original body back, which is nigh impossible, or she get's integrated into some kind of cyber system, like a giant mech. Gundam Blackjack?

Well...there's always further alicornization (is that a word?)[/quote]
I'm going with more inhumanity... poninanty? She's has a strong chance of either going Alicorny or my guess, being reduced to a Ghost in the Machine. A big theme of Blackjacks recently is exactly how alive she is. Getting her head blown off and ending up inside a computer would be right on her list on the road down to whine town.

[Guest]

@OP Mixed Racial Heritage "My Little Human" Fanfic OC
Hey, it's Hiro Protagonist! I love that guy. Snow Crash may not be a "good" book, exactly... I'm honestly not sure, I loved it but it's hard to tell with stories that over the top... but! It's a damn entertaining one. Ballsy, too - any book with main characters named Hiro Protagonist and Yours Truly is not making apologies for its insanity.

@Music
Hmm, for me, it's mostly classic folk/rock, some hard rock, industrial/electronic stuff, most types of extreme metal (not the -core stuff, though, except for grindcore sometimes), darker ambient stuff, post-rock, some NWOBHM, some prog rock, minimalist stuff, some punk, and occasional movie soundtracks (LotR, Moon). So... I like noises, stringed instruments, pianos (technically stringed I guess), and drums. Good vocals are important, too, but I can appreciate growls, shrieks, screams, and shouts if they're done well. Generally okay with other sorts of music as long as I'm not being forced to listen to it (thanks, crappy gangster rap for 3 hours in intro to drawing). Oh and poorly-thought-out production is irritating. Low fidelity production is fine if there's a point to it.

@Coffee
Black coffee and then tea to wash the taste away. That's how I do it.

@What? Blackjack is evolving!
Getting Go Fish again somehow (AKA Fillyjack) would be adorable! But it does seem like Alicornication is the more likely evolution at this point, or a full metal pony. Alternate theory: Blackjack becomes a cyberghoul. That would be pretty sad. :(

[Caoimhe]

Please maintain your ladybits and brain, BJ. :(

I'm terrified for what could happen, always the sign of a good story.

[Stringtheory]

@OP Mixed Racial Heritage "My Little Human" Fanfic OC
Hey, it's Hiro Protagonist! I love that guy. Snow Crash may not be a "good" book, exactly... I'm honestly not sure, I loved it but it's hard to tell with stories that over the top... but! It's a damn entertaining one. Ballsy, too - any book with main characters named Hiro Protagonist and Yours Truly is not making apologies for its insanity.

yeah, that story was awesome, even if it did make very little sense...

[Ironmonger]

Gundam Blackjack

Gunjack.

[Kippershy]

Dear phone... next time, please do not break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7qKISH4p94

Oh why did you start punching the glass, that violate so many safety regs I don't know if to express sympathy or write you a thousand dollar hazards pratices ticket.

What else am I meant to do when my phone breaks? Apart from chewing on it, bending it and then punching it apart, that is...

*snip*

Your
guesses were very close on Kipper, minus the strength/endurance/agility
to how I pictured them. How would your analysis change if I added two
factors "This pony is a Pegasus" "This pony has no clue how to pick
locks"

Sorry, can't think of anyone. Calamity doesn't fit
the bill at all, Glory -might- but I'm not entirely sure on that one --
don't know any other pegasus ponies of note.

here's the answer:

Spoiler:

Nope
it's not that Pegasus, he's has much lower endurance and it's not a
known character or anyone's OC. I'm going to post something tomorrow
that will involve them however.

How the fuck am I meant to answer this one if none of us know the character then? *shakes fist at you* Don't do that shit yo.

[Ironmonger]

This for no reason whatsoever.

[Cptadder]

How the fuck am I meant to answer this one if none of us know the character then? *shakes fist at you* Don't do that shit yo.

The question was not guess who it is but instead theorize what kind of person/pony this is based on the posted SPECIAL skills.

[Cptadder]

Yesssssss, you're right! The XF84-H was quite an expensive plane for humans, but the parts that were hardest for us (engine, supersonic props, etc.) are much cheaper for the Zebras with their alchemical engineering. Stick some robots in the cockpits, use some shaped glass or something as the external "gems" in the decoys' rainboom systems, give the decoys matching paintjobs, and tell the SS's pilot to fly below her usual skill when taking off and landing, and it would probably be quite difficult to tell the fakes from the real thing right up until one of the planes starts getting the pre-rainboom glow around its nose… and by then it's probably too late. Even better, equip multiple airbases with decoys and shuttle them around, and Equestria will have a time even figuring out where the SS is at any given time. If the decoy robots get good enough, the decoys can even act as slightly-below-par but still dangerous extra fighters.

Mind you, this is still quite expensive and would still likely set Equestria on a course towards PD, but… it's sounding pretty good.

It's not a three month job that's for sure. Your looking at least a seven month dev cycle even if the very first solution works. Until then your going to get very aggressive forward Pegasus pickets.

Anyway, I was actually thinking that they could use the Raptors for transport in addition to heavy skywagons, but it occurs to me that we have no idea what a Raptor's spare lift capacity actually is.

Do we have exact dimensions on Raptors? I could give you an estimate if you can give me something within a foot or two of being accurate. However my reading of the Raptor that was blown up by Littlepip that they are something the size of an airliner and mostly designed for offensive and Pegasus flight operations not providing troop transport to anything but Pegasus troops.

Besides sky chariots are just boxes with anti-grav spell matrixes and a harness for the Pegasus to pull, that's all you need in a transport. We got a description in FoE of a transport convoy where Derpy went down on the outskirts of Cloudsdale and the description was identical to the civilian models sans the big windows and room for an extra harnessed Pegasus or three.

Well… Congratulations to us! I believe that you have convinced me that the point I was originally supporting was actually more or less right after all, but in the process we have had quite a nice educational and thoughtful experience!

Ironic, I convinced you it was implausible then we spent a week creating a method by which it could exist and in the process added another three pages to the thread just in that discussion.

Now, the question is, how far along was the SS program when the war ended? I think that that could probably be relatively freely set to what we want, though, so long as there's no contradiction with the observed evidence (ie, it can't be so far along that the devastating new Zebra superplane would have been mentioned in FoE (and the something like the SS would have definitely made Equestria stand up and take notice that, yeah, maybe those funny little explosion-powered metal flying machines are things that they ought to be paying attention to after all), and Equestria, even if it had started work by the end of the war, obviously never fully developed and implemented the PD).

It's clear it can't have existed in combat form for more than a year, a year is more than enough time for Thunderheads and Raptors to be coated in anti-air defenses rather than relying on carrying Pegesus to deal with Griffons while the Raptors dealt with the dragons.

It's also clear our minimum time is not zero as one does not build a new plane over night and I'm guessing two months before the bombs fell is about when the decision was made to initiate a first strike. It takes time to get a Balefire bomb from wherever the Zebras built them to Equestria in order to be blown up in the cities. And something tells me the Zebras fear the Little horn agent considering the rare usage of such a virulent magical weapon. Something tells me the day they decided to nuke Equestria in a first strike is the day they got started on building a Megaspell Littlehorn Agent bomb.

Here is another data point, did the Zebras adapt the method the SPP towers use to generate Rain booms or develop their own method? That might give us a minimum time (X number of months before the day the bombs fell). If we assume the Zebras took SPP tower generator plans and copied them for a plane design we have a earlier form of the plane date.

We also have hard limits, two months before the war ended back to three years ago because the SPP towers were started towards the end of the war and completed I believe with several months to spare but shelved as a post war project because of the distrust of the Crusader mane-frame.

So lets put together as many data points as possible to get an accurate range of dates then chose your date.

[O. Hinds]

Anyway, I was actually thinking that they could use the Raptors for transport in addition to heavy skywagons, but it occurs to me that we have no idea what a Raptor's spare lift capacity actually is.

Do we have exact dimensions on Raptors? I could give you an estimate if you can give me something within a foot or two of being accurate. However my reading of the Raptor that was blown up by Littlepip that they are something the size of an airliner and mostly designed for offensive and Pegasus flight operations not providing troop transport to anything but Pegasus troops.

Besides sky chariots are just boxes with anti-grav spell matrixes and a harness for the Pegasus to pull, that's all you need in a transport. We got a description in FoE of a transport convoy where Derpy went down on the outskirts of Cloudsdale and the description was identical to the civilian models sans the big windows and room for an extra harnessed Pegasus or three.

I seem to remember them being rather larger than airliners, but yeah. However, those large hangar bays could likely be used for a variety of missions if the ships have the lifting capacity; the ones we saw were outfitted for pegasus-to-ground combat, but, well, what else would the GPE have fitted them for at that time?

While skywagon transport convoys have their place, a Raptor could carry the load in great security and without tiring the ponies pulling. I'm not sure which would be faster, though...

Now, the question is, how far along was the SS program when the war ended? I think that that could probably be relatively freely set to what we want, though, so long as there's no contradiction with the observed evidence (ie, it can't be so far along that the devastating new Zebra superplane would have been mentioned in FoE (and the something like the SS would have definitely made Equestria stand up and take notice that, yeah, maybe those funny little explosion-powered metal flying machines are things that they ought to be paying attention to after all), and Equestria, even if it had started work by the end of the war, obviously never fully developed and implemented the PD).

It's clear it can't have existed in combat form for more than a year, a year is more than enough time for Thunderheads and Raptors to be coated in anti-air defenses rather than relying on carrying Pegesus to deal with Griffons while the Raptors dealt with the dragons.

It's also clear our minimum time is not zero as one does not build a new plane over night and I'm guessing two months before the bombs fell is about when the decision was made to initiate a first strike. It takes time to get a Balefire bomb from wherever the Zebras built them to Equestria in order to be blown up in the cities. And something tells me the Zebras fear the Little horn agent considering the rare usage of such a virulent magical weapon. Something tells me the day they decided to nuke Equestria in a first strike is the day they got started on building a Megaspell Littlehorn Agent bomb.

Here is another data point, did the Zebras adapt the method the SPP towers use to generate Rain booms or develop their own method? That might give us a minimum time (X number of months before the day the bombs fell). If we assume the Zebras took SPP tower generator plans and copied them for a plane design we have a earlier form of the plane date.

We also have hard limits, two months before the war ended back to three years ago because the SPP towers were started towards the end of the war and completed I believe with several months to spare but shelved as a post war project because of the distrust of the Crusader mane-frame.

So lets put together as many data points as possible to get an accurate range of dates then chose your date.

Hm… Well, the effectiveness of the decoys would be wasted if the plane was first deployed during the Final Assault (mimicry of something much more dangerous doesn't work if the target doesn't know about the much more dangerous thing).

Regarding the SPP tower thing: That seems to make sense. It is, after all, a design rather far out there for the Zebras; given their lack of abundant unicorns, pegasi, and gems and their possession of lots of good spies, it seems not that unlikely that they stole information at some point and adapted/built upon it.

What do you mean that we have a hard upper limit of two months before the war ended?

[SilentCarto]

ummm I think you would want to put him as more like socially inept, not borderline retarded

Like a person with Aspergers syndrome or a horribly FUGLy face... Quasimoto perhaps?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/raucsvGU0Y0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This made my brain cogs think and then words came out. Then I had to go to work. Then I finished the last few paragraphs. Damn thing almost made me late.

...okay, I'm ready for chapter 2 now...

Ahh, It's good to know the Doctor is still around setting things right in history. Ten seconds later hoofington is a peaceful paradise with the Eater Destroyed.

Heh! I can just imagine the conversations.
Cyberjack: "Okay, I've seen all the memory orbs. Shoot Folly right there."
Mutantjack: "Here, you haven't been tainted up yet, you shoot it."
Stockjack: "I don't want floppy legs like you! Make Cyberjack do it."
CJ: "What?! I have a ------- in my head because of that shit!"
SJ: "A what?"
CJ: "A -------... Oh, fuck you, -------! *sigh* a bunch of tumors."

See, this is one of the common things I see when somebody proposes a bizarre character. They try to justify themself and nitpick any contrary argument to death. "Oh, no, no, this comment doesn't apply to MY OC because..."

And honestly I'm not trying to get down on you -- but don't dismiss what you're hearing. You're talking to people who will (hopefully) be part of your audience. You're getting a sample ahead of time here.

If you haven't read Murky Number Seven, go read it RIGHT NOW, it's amazing

The only bad thing about MN7 is that his chapters need chapters.

Gundam Blackjack?

Blackjack will turn into a MALE alicorn and will have to face her biggest question: How bucks fly with...that...thing.

They don't! They use their wings.

[Cptadder]

I seem to remember them being rather larger than airliners, but yeah. However, those large hangar bays could likely be used for a variety of missions if the ships have the lifting capacity; the ones we saw were outfitted for pegasus-to-ground combat, but, well, what else would the GPE have fitted them for at that time?

True enough, but... the thing is about the Raptors... more to come

While skywagon transport convoys have their place, a Raptor could carry the load in great security and without tiring the ponies pulling. I'm not sure which would be faster, though...

Transports need to be cheap as possible and plentiful. There is always room for assault transports and I could see some sort of Modular airship but the Raptor looks like a purpose built air superiority and Pegasus carrier. It's not designed to be multipurpose from the descriptions of the interior including drop bays, dedicated drop points for sky tanks. And interior layout designed for the ease of use and quick release of Pegasus soldiers. The Thunderhead interior was described with non-fliers in mind, but the amount of cloud tech says only Pegasus need apply on the Raptors.

Hm… Well, the effectiveness of the decoys would be wasted if the plane was first deployed during the Final Assault (mimicry of something much more dangerous doesn't work if the target doesn't know about the much more dangerous thing).

Regarding the SPP tower thing: That seems to make sense. It is, after all, a design rather far out there for the Zebras; given their lack of abundant unicorns, pegasi, and gems and their possession of lots of good spies, it seems not that unlikely that they stole information at some point and adapted/built upon it.

What do you mean that we have a hard upper limit of two months before the war ended?

Okay in reverse order, once the order is made to use the SS it makes no sense to hold it back when one way or another the war is about to be used. If it was not quite ready 59 days before the bombs fly then any General worth his stars (Or Cesar worth his dressing ) would hold it back to be used as a surprise weapon on the big day. So it needs to have been tested successfully and used in combat (Regardless of results) at least once before then.

Looking back over FoE and the SPP towers first complete construction and test firing two to four years before the bombs fell and construction being completed eighteen months after the project was started. The Zebra's don't have to wait until the SPP towers are completed construction after all, they have from the day the first SPP is installed, completed and test fired at a minimum. Keeping something like a forty story tower that shoots rainbow explosions twenty miles across is not exactly easy for Operation Security. So figure Zebras see the towers, find out there's a way to produce Rainbooms, then the Thunderheads strike a nasty blow and the General Staff orders them to steal a Rainboom generator to copy along with the plans and if possible a designer or two. Figure four months to plan the operation, execute it and return to Zebra territory. So we are at three years and eight months to one year and eight months before the end. So lets keep with our nine month development time, so the plane is possibly ready one year and eleven months to nine months before the bombs fall.

With me so far?
Now do we factor in an extra few months(Say another ninety days, three months) for the Zebras to take the Rainbom generator apart and put it back together again. Then write up a report of what they found and Zesserschmitt to see it and come to the conclusion he can knock the Pegesus back on their heels with a new plane the SS.

Sound fair?

So my initial timeline based on the SPP creation to the mission to steal a generator, plans and kidnap a designer (If possible only a generator and the plans are required) plus three months to take the generator apart and make a Zebra duplication is a total of six months of pre-development time plus nine months of development and testing time. So we are looking at with my stated time of two to four years minus dev and pre-development time gives us a time frame of...

...something I've messed up my math okay lemme restart that.

SPP started 24 to 48 months before the bombs fall
Four to six months for the Zebras to steal a Rainboom generator from the SPP project and aquire the plans needed for duplication
Two to four months for the Zebras to tear their new generator apart and Zesserschmitt to get his idea (Or whatever the designer was named) for the SS and get it approved
Nine months to a year for SS to go from concept on paper to a flying plane with a Rainboom generator

So we are looking at between four+two+nine=fifteen months at the low end and six plus four plus twelve=twenty two months at the high end to go from SPP first test to plane on the tarmak ready for it's first combat test.

In our timeline that leaves as little as two months before the end of the war to as much as thirty three months.
Follow the math better?

[WavemasterRyx]

I love that Mech drawing. Wish I could see it not chopped off. I can't wait till you get to the fourth and final form of Blackjack.

In other news, if everything keeps going, we'll hopefully be brushing 51 next week. Hopefully. I'm going to make it shorter than usual to make things easier on my awesome editors.

Oh! Whomever sent me a 'friendship is madness' tee shirt with ponythulu on it, thank you! ::wears it now!::

I do hope everything is going well for you, sir, thank you for the update.
*hugs Somber gently*


Oh, and for anyone that hasn't seen it, I did a small picture for Meleagridis (it's his avatar right now) of Cerberus and the Stealth Suit.

Spoiler:

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/31980398702

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