Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Kippershy]

I've never really cared to overthink the whole Styggie stuff.
I read Horizons to relax and have fun, then think about stuff if I wanna.
So yeah, never bothered me.

[CannonFodder]

The moon seems to be the anti-particle to starmetal. Why does a proton and and an anti-proton react so violently? Because of SCIENCE that's why!
In this case however it does not seem to be a AM/M reaction but as I stated way back in the day (Six months ago) that Star Metal seems to be something akin to condensed souls. And the moon for whatever reason seems to react to liberate souls for some reason.

We don't know why star metal is soul stuff, we don't know why moon stone reacts... but we do know it does. We can speculate about the physics behind it... but to what purpose?

I just thought of how Blackjack could kill the eater. Use a moon rock.

[FeatherDust]

I just thought of how Blackjack could kill the eater. Use a moon rock.

Well, yes. I think that was the obvious conclusion the first time we found out how violently starmetal and moonrock reacted. But I don't think it's the right answer. It wouldn't be enough. You're gonna either shatter the thing and infect everywhere with starmetal or just push the rock around. I think that's where we're going though; stick a moonrock slug under it and use the blast to launch the eater right off the planet.

[Cptadder]

I just thought of how Blackjack could kill the eater. Use a moon rock.

Well, yes. I think that was the obvious conclusion the first time we found out how violently starmetal and moonrock reacted. But I don't think it's the right answer. It wouldn't be enough. You're gonna either shatter the thing and infect everywhere with starmetal or just push the rock around. I think that's where we're going though; stick a moonrock slug under it and use the blast to launch the eater right off the planet.

The problem with that is the demonstrated force. We assume the Eater is starmetal and assuming you can get a hold of a big enough chunk of moon rock the problem is the resulting force might be planet cracking big.

The back of the napkin calculations I ran when we saw the first chunk reaction was...

Something like a gram of moonstone reacting with a similar sized chunk of star metal, and produced a force I'd equate to about eight pounds of tnt (I've seen explosion sizes of many sized amounts) and the fact Blackjack was tossed back, shredded door and the like told me between three to eight pounds of tnt depending on shaping of the explosion, size it was omnidirectional I'm assuming eight pound tnt explosion

1 Gram of TNT releases 4184 J of bang
Meaning
1 Gram of Soul metal/Moonstone reaction produce the equivalent of... 3624 grams in eight pounds 4184 J per gram or 13,656,576 J of kaboom.

So assuming you had a ten pound reaction of moonstone that would be 4530 grams times 13,656,576 or... 61,864,289,280, yes that's sixty one billion plus joules of energy or to put it another way that's 14 tons of explosive force. So moonstone is a 1 pounds per 1400 pounds of explosives ratio. Meaning a ton of the stuff would be in the kilotons and the Eater is bigger than a ton, a ton is car. The eater is much bigger than a car.

[SilentCarto]

Season 3 Spoilers:

[CannonFodder]

I just thought of how Blackjack could kill the eater. Use a moon rock.

Well, yes. I think that was the obvious conclusion the first time we found out how violently starmetal and moonrock reacted. But I don't think it's the right answer. It wouldn't be enough. You're gonna either shatter the thing and infect everywhere with starmetal or just push the rock around. I think that's where we're going though; stick a moonrock slug under it and use the blast to launch the eater right off the planet.

The problem with that is the demonstrated force. We assume the Eater is starmetal and assuming you can get a hold of a big enough chunk of moon rock the problem is the resulting force might be planet cracking big.

The back of the napkin calculations I ran when we saw the first chunk reaction was...

Something like a gram of moonstone reacting with a similar sized chunk of star metal, and produced a force I'd equate to about eight pounds of tnt (I've seen explosion sizes of many sized amounts) and the fact Blackjack was tossed back, shredded door and the like told me between three to eight pounds of tnt depending on shaping of the explosion, size it was omnidirectional I'm assuming eight pound tnt explosion

1 Gram of TNT releases 4184 J of bang
Meaning
1 Gram of Soul metal/Moonstone reaction produce the equivalent of... 3624 grams in eight pounds 4184 J per gram or 13,656,576 J of kaboom.

So assuming you had a ten pound reaction of moonstone that would be 4530 grams times 13,656,576 or... 61,864,289,280, yes that's sixty one billion plus joules of energy or to put it another way that's 14 tons of explosive force. So moonstone is a 1 pounds per 1400 pounds of explosives ratio. Meaning a ton of the stuff would be in the kilotons and the Eater is bigger than a ton, a ton is car. The eater is much bigger than a car.

So it would be larger than a nuclear explosion, but probably wouldn't kill the eater?

[O. Hinds]

Zebrica (or whatver you want to call it)

I've got their proper name as "the Pax Roamana" (and yes, I know that the Pax Romana was a time period rather than an area, but I think that it works here). On a related note, I've also got Roam's native name being Roama, since "Roam" doesn't decline ("Roma" was also the Roman name for what we now call Rome (actually, though, I'm not sure what the Italians call it)).

I think that was mostly my own suppositions and extrapolations from Kkat's comments. But I'm glad to hear it's your headcanon now.

Some groups may also have adopted a low-density nomadic lifestyle instead, but I imagine that that's rarer. Even most of the Central tribes that used to live that way probably couldn't cope with the more dangerous world.

Of course, my headcanon also has the Alliance working on reconnecting and recolonizing, but there's a lot of work to do.

Yeah, me too. It irked me a tiny bit that his shadow step doesn't count as teleportation, but aside from that I thought he was okay.

When that security system was designed, batponies, to the extent that they were known to exist at all, were the personally trusted servants of Luna. Even if the designer thought of them and knew enough about how their magic worked to add it into the system, it was probably deemed to be unnecessary.

[Vergil]

Roma is what the Italians call Rome, but I think you're correct about the Latin version as well.

[Cptadder]

So it would be larger than a nuclear explosion, but probably wouldn't kill the eater?

Pound per pound it's much weaker than a nuke, a nuke is I believe roughly twenty times more energetic but we don't build two hundred ton nuclear bombs we build four ton bombs. But lets assume the eater is big, lets say empire state building big, a simple assumption that the Eater being made of star metal as a fallen star is rather big. Not ten kilometer in size big but say a few hundred meters in size. I'm counting total mass, I'm assuming some big vaguely spherical object Lavos like. Lets say that object weighs as much as something big... hmm the Empire State building is 365k tons but that's a little big.... lets round way down and say the Eater weights 50,00 metric tons. In all likelihood it could be much bigger... best ask Somber how big he imagines the eater to be/

How many grams in a metric ton? 1,000,000 Grams, man the Metric system is so much easier.... Okay one million grams times fifty thousand tons....1,000,000 x 50,000 or 50,000,000,000 that's fifty billion grams. But we are not talking tnt here we are talking Moonstone to Soulsteel conversion which is 13,656,576 per gram meaning 50 billion times that or 682,828,800,000,000,000 or 682 and change Quadrillion joules which is 163 megatons.

To put it another way that's 14.7 kilometers of 10 Psi overpressure, 10 PSI is enough for 95% causalities and total destruction of all non steel reinforced structures. Everything inside 40 kilometers would be on fire and everything inside 8 kilometers would be exposed to over 500 rems of radiation is enough for death within days assuming the blast wave does not get you. All of these are nuclear weapon effects, the Moonstone/Star metal reaction was pure blast force, but counting equivalence we can assume a two kilometer hole with a fourteen kilometer blast area.

TL:DR, if the eater is at the center of Hoofington and is detonated then most of Hoofington is gone, a bigger that 50k ton Eater means that the explosion could reach the gigaton level. As it is that big of an explosive that deep underground would at least result in massive Earth quakes. Final note, that sized eater might be to small by one or two full magnitudes meaning the explosion might be in the gigaton or Teraton range.

[Caoimhe]

If Blackjack does get alicorned, I demand she get Tactical Cadence Missled by Rampage.


Sharmour being left-hoofed is now canon.

[Vergil]

If Blackjack does get alicorned, I demand she get Tactical Cadence Missled by Rampage.


Sharmour being left-hoofed is now canon.

I am ok with this.

(Actually I'm quite a bit more than ok with this, but my friends have informed me that that is apparently my signature response)

[Caoimhe]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

[Vergil]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

I really hope this means he found something that's helping.

[O. Hinds]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

I really hope this means he found something that's helping.

Seconded. Based on what we're hearing now vs. what we were hearing before, though, it seems likely.

[Ketchup]

Fantastic news, I say. Good for him.

[CannonFodder]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

I really hope this means he found something that's helping.

Seconded. Based on what we're hearing now vs. what we were hearing before, though, it seems likely.

That's awesome news. Here's hoping Somber gets to feeling better.

Also, squee this is awesome news.

[Luminous Lead]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

I really hope this means he found something that's helping.

I'm not sure it's my place to ask, but what's been going on?


And as a note to the rest of the guys debating about how to kill the eater. Why drop the moon on the eater, when you can drop the eater on the moon?

-Enough rock to sustain the reaction (being the SOURCE of all moonrocks)
-Containment solved by the vacuum of space

[Ironmonger]

But then night time becomes wonky because you just took a chunk out of the moon.

[OneMoreDaySK]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!

EEeeeee!!!

I really hope this means he found something that's helping.

I'm not sure it's my place to ask, but what's been going on?


And as a note to the rest of the guys debating about how to kill the eater. Why drop the moon on the eater, when you can drop the eater on the moon?

-Enough rock to sustain the reaction (being the SOURCE of all moonrocks)
-Containment solved by the vacuum of space

Hi there!
As for what's been going on with Somber, He recently got a new job teaching over at Fallon, NV. He also is on some type of Antidepressants that has apparently been causing creativity-block in general, and the elections haven't been helping with stress. (Correct me if I'm wrong) So we're kinda happy that he's able to work on the recent chapter.

As for the Moon thing, that's what we've speculated Project Horizons does, had Blackjack activated it. Still, with the size of the explosion for just a fragment of moonstone and EoS being able to take down buildings/capital ships, one can only imagine the size the whole bloody thing will cause if it contacts the moon.

[Luminous Lead]

Hi there!
As for what's been going on with Somber, He recently got a new job teaching over at Fallon, NV. He also is on some type of Antidepressants that has apparently been causing creativity-block in general, and the elections haven't been helping with stress. (Correct me if I'm wrong) So we're kinda happy that he's able to work on the recent chapter.

As for the Moon thing, that's what we've speculated Project Horizons does, had Blackjack activated it. Still, with the size of the explosion for just a fragment of moonstone and EoS being able to take down buildings/capital ships, one can only imagine the size the whole bloody thing will cause if it contacts the moon.

Yeah, I've been scavenging the topic for information. Cptadder's deca-page summations have been incredibly helpful in regards to finding it. Taking meds that deliberately upset one's brain chemistry (even to help stabilize it) has got to be rough. Glad to hear he seems to be on the mend.

As for the moon, well... it's not as if Luna would miss it, right? Just make sure it doesn't land on the dark side of the moon. Last thing we need is a repeat of Majora's mask.

[WavemasterRyx]

17:00 <%Somber> 20p in on 52!
EEeeeee!!!

I
really hope this means he found something that's
helping.

Seconded. Based on what we're hearing now vs. what we
were hearing before, though, it seems likely.

Very much agreed, I do hope this means Somber is doing any better.

So beautiful. Blackjack even dyed her mane... Or
washed out her red highlights? Really hope they give Octi back to her ifwhen she retires.

The red is still there, I just made it a really soft highlight instead of the usual sharply defined streaks. Seems like it was a mistake though.

*looks left* *looks right* Whew, Adder isn't here. *nabs Ryx's drawing*
Really pretty. Gonna see what happens it one applies show-style art to it, maybe even set it as an ava-*hears Adder with a Spongebob-esque laugh* *runs*

O...kay?

I could really see that as a fitting epilogue: Blackjack accepts back Octavia after a Crusaders speech along the lines of "You did so much for us, let us just do something for you" after refusing a bunch of times.

Okay, Blackjack becoming a music pony after the dust is settled and hoofington calms down would be a pretty good epilogue.

If there does end up being a happy ending, I definitely hope something along these lines happens, it would be really nice, after everything Blackjack's been through.

That is awesome. The color of her mane (which I really
like, by the way) goes well with the instrument's.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, me too. It irked me a tiny bit that his
shadow step doesn't count as teleportation, but aside from that I
thought he was okay.

By the way, sorry I didn't comment on the
Octyjack pic yet -- I've been running behind yet again. The bow tie
makes it hard to remember that's BJ.

Well, back in second or third edition Dungeons and Dragons, there were 3 different types of special abilities that characters could have: natural, supernatual, and extraordinary, I believe. And depending on what type of ability it was, it would react differently when put under an antimagic field. So to me it's very easily possible to think of the shadow step as a different type of teleportation.
And that's okay, a lot of people have been having that problem, apparently.

[CannonFodder]

If there does end up being a happy ending, I definitely hope something along these lines happens, it would be really nice, after everything Blackjack's been through.

What's more is that with how much she's done if she actually manages to get rid of the eater of souls then nopony would dare cause any trouble in hoofington. She already has a reputation for not only being a reaper, but blowing up a battleship, a tank, a super sentinel and the prison. The enclave already are afraid of her and even though she's classified as a terrorist she is on their, "you'd have to be stupid to attack her" list. If she does somehow kill the eater then probably even ponies with raider disease would run.

What I'm getting at is with the reputation Blackjack is getting if she does survive and gets rid of the eater nopony would be stupid enough to try anything.

As for the Moon thing, that's what we've
speculated Project Horizons does, had Blackjack activated it. Still,
with the size of the explosion for just a fragment of moonstone and EoS
being able to take down buildings/capital ships, one can only imagine
the size the whole bloody thing will cause if it contacts the
moon.

Probably why Goldenblood didn't activate it.

[O. Hinds]

And as a note to the rest of the guys debating about how to kill the eater. Why drop the moon on the eater, when you can drop the eater on the moon?

-Enough rock to sustain the reaction (being the SOURCE of all moonrocks)
-Containment solved by the vacuum of space

It's not that simple. Sure, that will damage the EoS, but the explosion would thrust it away (back at the planet, probably, letting it impact again) long before it could fully react. Something would need to maintain contact.

Also, depending on what forms of energy moonstone/starmetal annihilation emits, the vacuum might do absolutely nothing. The distance would help, but, on the other hand, it would let the radiation cover a larger area. Worst case scenario, this plan flash-burns half the planet. That's probably not going to happen, but "throw it at the moon" without any extra measures taken is not a very good plan.

[Kattlarv]

@Feather: (Styg) As said before, BJ didn't want to have sex, she wanted to prove she COULD have sex with a male without killing them. In either case, he still had retarded stamina for a virgin. Plus, as said, just because you can do something for a long time I don't see as a reason to be impressed by it. Like, I can weave for hours, or make a dozen baskets an hour, not that I know shit about weaving, and the "baskets" would consist of a couple of strings more resembling a bad headband, that doesn't matter, cuz I'm still doing it for longer and producing more than that expert. Like... I don't see that as a reason for people to be impressed on me xP

@Erum: Okies.

@Tyler: I saw the book yes xP And would not really say memory orb as much as illusion magic.

@EP: (spoilers) Tbh, I avoided these forums till I had watched S3 to avoid spoilers as I found them popping up here and there.

@Canon: Yes, BJ will moon the eater to death xD

[222222]

@Kattlarv: The reason I said Blackjack just used Stygius is because Stygius didn't come in and convince Blackjack to have sex with him, he came and asked for sex yes, but that's not the reason Blackjack had sex with him. If Blackjack had decided to not sleep with Stygius, his looks and charms wouldn't have convinced her otherwise. Blackjack made a conscious decision to sleep with Stygius to help overcome her trauma. Stygius could have been any straight stallion with a sex drive. His approaches probably sped the process up, but it was going to happen eventually.  Also, you said that Blackjack changed from preferring mares to preffering stallions, which I don't think happened. I think both before and after she didn't care about gender when it came to sex, so to me sleeping with Stygius was not out of character in that regard. Remember that Stallion at Fluttershy hospital from the Society? Blackjack was checking him out. The thing about him being a champion in bed I still can't explain well to myself though, maybe it was to make him feel good because he was standing right there? Or maybe it was just nervous chatter, I don't know. 

Sorry this took so long, but real life got in the way a bit. Plus it had slipped my mind until you posted, so sorry :p

[IncoherentOrange]

Pointing out, Blackjack notes the attractiveness of a stallion (an image of a stallion, in Hoss' place) as early as chapter two.

[Meleagridis]

Old old things

So beautiful. Blackjack even dyed her mane... Or
washed out her red highlights?

The red is still there, I just made it a really soft highlight instead of the usual sharply defined streaks. Seems like it was a mistake though.

I sure don't think so. The subtly blended 'Jacktavia' colours make this my new favourite.

What if Dawn was in the same predicament as Cyclops of the X-Men. She opens her eyes and-
EDIT: I'm seriously trying to get a topic started. I'm curious what happens when she opens her eyes.

Maintaining that Dawn has died. Or been taken. Coerced. Subverted. But not normally. And the truth will be in her eyes.

That's something I've been meaning to ask you lot of writers about. How long does it take you all to writer a chapter normally?

*gets a folding chair and sits, folding hands in thought*

Solid writing? About three pages per hour, including first round of editing.
Actively working on a story? About one day per page of final product, on average, because I keep writing, rewriting, mapping things out, developing parts of the world and the characters that will probably never actually be evident, fine-tuning the rules of magic...
Critically thinking about the story? Maybe a page a week if I'm lucky. I do a lot of thinking, okay?
Total time taken to release a goddamn chapter? Let me get back to you on that in a few months. Maybe. Realistically, I'd say there's at least a 20% chance of dropping my attempts at writing altogether, and 40% on top of that of never actually uploading even if I finish something.

Hell no. No no no no no. You think almost as deep as Hinds, it seems. Cannot drop this hint and then drop the idea. I want to see what your mind creates.

YouTube link

Beautiful.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

all i hope is somber is taking the meds and he has just adapted to them better...

[FeatherDust]

TL:DR, if the eater is at the center of Hoofington and is detonated then most of Hoofington is gone, a bigger that 50k ton Eater means that the explosion could reach the gigaton level. As it is that big of an explosive that deep underground would at least result in massive Earth quakes. Final note, that sized eater might be to small by one or two full magnitudes meaning the explosion might be in the gigaton or Teraton range.

I'm not sure I get your point. Are you talking about attempting to use total annihilation to utterly destroy the EoS with moonrocks, or are you talking about the effects of trying to do what I was saying, to launch the EoS into orbit with a single huge explosion? A launch would be a big nuke-scale explosion, but I don't think it would be a literally earth-shattering kaboom even for quite a large EoS.

Anyway you don't have to do it all with one blast; if you have enough moonrock and the proper parts, you could build a cannon that shoots moonrocks and effectively construct an Orion drive* that runs on total annihilation reactions.

And really, I'm just assuming "throw it into the outer darkness" is the goal here; you could theoretically use a limited supply of moonrock to heft the Eater into the moon, but I'm afraid that really WOULD cause an earth-shattering kaboom, or at least moon-shattering (which would cause so much meteoric debris that it would be nearly as bad as another nuclear exchange). And it might not completely destroy the Eater even so.

* The Orion drive was a theoretical concept for a rocket that runs by detonating a stream of (relatively) small nuclear weapons behind a metal shield instead of combusting fuel.

[Kattlarv]

@Erump:

Spoiler:

@Inco:

Spoiler:

And hum... I don't get it, I ought to be a lot more calm than I am right now, still feeling somewhat ticked. Likely due to a friend of mine not seeming to be able to grasp why them being hypocrites, telling me to do things they refuse to do themselves could possibly make me upset. Along with why a seeming incredibly obvious lie could be seen as offensive... nor why after they say they had to "prioritize" certain things, they removed everything I cared about and saw as important, even placing a text going "unf unf unf" as high priority than said pile of things, spending more time overall on one detail for two seconds than the entire flash on three whole other objects just to name some of them... yeah gee, I wonder why I could be upset by that.

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