Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Harmony Ltd.]

As I said already, the secret to a successful use of renewable is to mix different kind of power sources.

And that's why every possible source of renewable energy are explored. There's no "little gain" on that front.

[Ironmonger]

Admiral is that you on that M1A?

[O. Hinds]

I like the idea of solar power satellites, though I am admittedly a bit biased there...

Anyway, though, regarding load balancing for renewables, it seems to me that the simplest system would be having all of the large-scale (as opposed to auxiliary solar panels on a building's roof and the like) renewables producing whatever they can whenever they can and feeding it into a storage system (compressed air, hydrogen, a spinning black hole, whatever) and have that output to the grid.

[Frost]

So I finally got around to reading Wasteland Bouquet, and I can't help but wonder why nearly all FoE protagonists are homosexual/bisexual mares. It's exceedingly rare to find a stallion (or "buck", as FoE calls them, because apparently male ponies are deer) as a protagonist. Hell, it's rare to find a "buck" in FoE that's not a psychopath, a rapist, or both.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I like the idea of solar power satellites, though I am admittedly a bit biased there...

Anyway, though, regarding load balancing for renewables, it seems to me that the simplest system would be having all of the large-scale (as opposed to auxiliary solar panels on a building's roof and the like) renewables producing whatever they can whenever they can and feeding it into a storage system (compressed air, hydrogen, a spinning black hole, whatever) and have that output to the grid.

What I think would make more sense, would be for power storage banks to be plugged onto the grid, and to function independently of any power source in particular, as a dynamic buffer one way or another.

I think the scale we'd be talking about would be around those of the transformer stations you see around cities (high voltage to medium voltage). Say storage banks which could buffer in the order of magnitude of 50 megawatt-hour of energy. If you have hundreds or even thousands around, you're starting to have a comfortable buffer.

Then add the buffer each building with solar panels or integrated wind-turbines would have.

You're starting to have something workable.


On another related subject, the current front of development for hydro-power are micro-turbines of anywhere around tens to hundreds of kilowatt, designed to harvest the energy of even the littlest streams.

As an anecdote, I'm living in a mountainous region, in the French Alps (where hydro-power was invented, by the way :D ), and one of the the "agglomerations" (in truth an ensemble of villages and little towns) use the fact there's something like a 1000 meters difference between the highest and lowest point of their drinking water distribution net to produce energy through a microturbine.

[Guest]

So I finally got around to reading Wasteland Bouquet, and I can't help but wonder why nearly all FoE protagonists are homosexual/bisexual mares. It's exceedingly rare to find a stallion (or "buck", as FoE calls them, because apparently male ponies are deer) as a protagonist. Hell, it's rare to find a "buck" in FoE that's not a psychopath, a rapist, or both.

Aha! You have found Kim's main bone to pick with how most FOE stories (most stories period, really) are written: the lack of parity between the sexes when it comes to the lower limit of violence and depravity.

As for the former, it's probably because they want the main character to be similar to the main characters of the show! (I am being facetious)

[O. Hinds]

I like the idea of solar power satellites, though I am admittedly a bit biased there...

Anyway, though, regarding load balancing for renewables, it seems to me that the simplest system would be having all of the large-scale (as opposed to auxiliary solar panels on a building's roof and the like) renewables producing whatever they can whenever they can and feeding it into a storage system (compressed air, hydrogen, a spinning black hole, whatever) and have that output to the grid.

What I think would make more sense, would be for power storage banks to be plugged onto the grid, and to function independently of any power source in particular, as a dynamic buffer one way or another.

I think the scale we'd be talking about would be around those of the transformer stations you see around cities (high voltage to medium voltage). Say storage banks which could buffer in the order of magnitude of 50 megawatt-hour of energy. If you have hundreds or even thousands around, you're starting to have a comfortable buffer.

Then add the buffer each building with solar panels or integrated wind-turbines would have.

You're starting to have something workable.


On another related subject, the current front of development for hydro-power are micro-turbines of anywhere around tens to hundreds of kilowatt, designed to harvest the energy of even the littlest streams.

As an anecdote, I'm living in a mountainous region, in the French Alps (where hydro-power was invented, by the way :D ), and one of the the "agglomerations" (in truth an ensemble of villages and little towns) use the fact there's something like a 1000 meters difference between the highest and lowest point of their drinking water distribution net to produce energy through a microturbine.

That makes frequency and, particularly, phase matching a bit more difficult, but yeah.

Oh, neat!

[O. Hinds]

So I finally got around to reading Wasteland Bouquet, and I can't help but wonder why nearly all FoE protagonists are homosexual/bisexual mares. It's exceedingly rare to find a stallion (or "buck", as FoE calls them, because apparently male ponies are deer) as a protagonist.

I like to think of it as being like how so much human media stars heterosexual males.

[Frost]

So, most Equestrian females are homosexual/bisexual, is what you're saying?

[Harmony Ltd.]

That makes frequency and, particularly, phase matching a bit more difficult, but yeah.

Not intrinsically more difficult than when you plug a power inverter on your PC to avoid it shutting down during a black-out. It's just a question of scale.

[Guest]

So, most Equestrian females are homosexual/bisexual, is what you're saying?

I think it's more like that's just a common trope of the genre, or the new normal.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

[Ironmonger]

My fucking sides, oh my word! XD Harmony thanks for showing me this!

[Frost]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

That's my point. And it perplexes me. Are the authors just going overboard with the grimdark? Are they just sexist? Or is this proof that ponies are, by their nature morally inferior to humanity without the constant, iron hand of a dictator to control them?

[Stringtheory]

My fucking sides, oh my word! XD Harmony thanks for showing me this!

Yeah, that was a nice bit of nostalgia.
Such an old video :P

video is under three years old, is considered 'old' and 'nostalgic'...gotta love the internet

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

That's my point. And it perplexes me. Are the authors just going overboard with the grimdark? Are they just sexist? Or is this proof that ponies are, by their nature morally inferior to humanity without the constant, iron hand of a dictator to control them?

In the US, statistics estimate that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 man will have been victim of sexual violence at least once during their life.

Do of that what you want.

[Ketchup]

This discussion reminds me of one my English class had on the topic of To Kill a Mockingbird. The student teacher said that rape was one of the worst things to happen to a woman. It kinda rustled my jimmies, men weren't mentioned at all.

[Harmony Ltd.]

To add on what I said, in the parts of Africa, Asia, South America and other shitholes that are active warzone with actual warlords and all that shit (which most of the FoE wasteland could be modeled after), a MAJORITY of women will have been raped. I don't know what's the situation on the men side, so I will abstain from making an hypothesis on that particular case.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Could you point me toward sources that disprove that statistic so that I can update my own knowledge base on the subject, please ?

[Frost]

Also, this last Friday, a black person tried to recruit me.

[Frost]

He placed his hand on my shoulder and asked me "Excuse me, sir, do you have any interest in becoming a black person?"

[Guest]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

That's my point. And it perplexes me. Are the authors just going overboard with the grimdark? Are they just sexist? Or is this proof that ponies are, by their nature morally inferior to humanity without the constant, iron hand of a dictator to control them?

I'd guess it's a combination of things. Post-apocalyptic media almost always portrays the breakdown of society as meaning that many people will lose most of their compunctions and ethical standards, and that violence will be more common. Violence is, in ours and in most (but not all!) societies, generally viewed as male. Even people who try very hard to remove sexism from their thought processes will have issues getting around this; it's pretty well ingrained into our culture. So, when trying for a grimdark setting in which the breakdown of society and morality has been constant, authors will often show or talk about rape happening - that's realistic (even the most ardent anarchist can't reasonably deny that). However, the problem occurs when this either goes overboard (with most males being portrayed as rapists - not something I've actually seen, but I have not read many FOE stories) and when only males are being shown as rapists (the original FOE did this).

Now, I think part of the reason the latter occurs is that a lot of people have trouble actually figuring out how violent, female-on-male rape would actually work, mechanically speaking. There are drugs, there's coercion, but the extreme level of violence that authors are looking for - spontaneity and brutality - aren't present. This is absolutely not to say that either of the former aren't terrible, and it's also not to say that this level of extreme violence can't be done - just that most people lack the knowledge of how it might work. It's just not something you see in the news or media, which means most people have no exposure to it. It also occurs much less frequently, though this could easily be related to the previously-stated stuff about culture and lack of exposure. It could be like a benevolent vicious cycle, if that makes sense.

Spoiler'd for How It Might Work:

I don't think it's an attempt to portray ponies as morally incapable; this is an inadequacy across the board for darker writing. (Not to mention that there's a strong case to be made that Celestia is a benevolent [and largely hooves-off] dictator, a la Good King Wenceslas or the Greek philosopher kings. Rex justus or whatever. Honestly, though, without an actual look at the legal and governmental systems in place in Equestria, it actually often seems like the place is [in the show] a largely anarchic world united solely through culture and shared bonds, some of the latter actually being magical. This would suggest that, if anything, they are inherently morally superior because of magical systems that promote social harmony and unity [the Crystal Empire for one]. But that's getting overly analytic.)

[Cptadder]

To shortly respond to what Frost wrote and Cobalt responded to. Is rape over doing the grim-dark? Ehhh-Nope.

We see in our own society (Which Equestria is based on not having an actual pony based society to model from) that males like sex. And at a biological level men will do a lot to have sex. It's why men born poor and who become rich often end up snorting cocaine of the body of hooker despite being married. Spend enough time not having sex then your social status changes so you can have all the sex you want... you tend to over-indulge. Be it food, internet or sex if your denied something you like and suddenly get the chance to have as much of it as you like then your going to take as much of it as you can get.

Not to say every man will do this, or it's male only. It's just for the vast majority of adult male humans... we like sex with women and we don't get to have as much sex as we want. But we are talking about wanting vs doing, between "Oh man that girl is smoking" VS "Oh man that girl would look amazing in my Rape dungeon" What goes on in our head VS what actions we take are very different things.

Now then why FoE is not over-grimdarking it is simple, when society breaks down and we revert to tribalism one of the big things about tribes is that alphas get to breed. When you are at the level of daily struggle to survive and the strong are running the show lots of stuff tends to get simplified. This is not to say the instant society collapses in an area there is an epidemic of rape, but what does happen initial is the unacceptable behavior threshold gets lowered. You might not rape your own local band of survivors but what about another group which you fought and captured? Hey you want some and it's better than just killing them and taking their stuff right?

This gets back into my example of "She looks smoking" to "She would look great in the old rape dudgeon" The amount and time and effort to set up such a thing, and plan out how to transport people there without tipping off the authorities is a lot of effort. A lot more than just hitting up bars and trying the traditional way via seduction. However without order in a post collapse society the level of effort is much lower. And the potential punishments are a lot less. Make no mistake people do act differently when they know people are watching VS by themselves. The recent Steubenville rape case is an excellent example of the kind of behavior that literally would not be tolerated in 90% of the US but the right people in the right places have spent so long looking the other way that the barrier to action is almost that of a post collapse society. For those not following the news Steubenville is about a teenage female who was invited to a party, drugged and then raped repeatably as she was dragged from party to party and sex acts were preformed on her as a sort of traveling horror show. Pictures were taken, film was taken and those involved were on camera bragging about the incident in the days afterwords. The local cops tried to hush the whole thing up initially.

Let me repeat the events again in shorten form. Your at a party and the two star football players from the local high school drag a very clearly incapacitated girl into the party and invite people to feel her up, they fondle her and then drag her out again. You hear later that they were taking her from party to party doing the same thing and you write about how funny the incident was on facebook.

That's what I mean about barrier to activity, if you have enough power it lowers, if there is not enough society to restrain you it lowers. And in a situation where the only society is the one your in charge of meaning you have all the power, your whims can be indulged and history has shown that's when the wide scale rapes start.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

no iron it is not

[CamoBadger]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

That's my point. And it perplexes me. Are the authors just going overboard with the grimdark? Are they just sexist? Or is this proof that ponies are, by their nature morally inferior to humanity without the constant, iron hand of a dictator to control them?

1) Where did the 'large portion of male population are rapists' come from? I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of male ponies we've seen have never tried that.
2) I'm pretty sure the reason rape seems to show up a large amount is because following post-apocolypse logic those who may think of doing it but never do suddenly don't have those internal walls blocking them from doing it. There's hardly anything you could call 'law' in the Wasteland, morals have officially burned with the rest of the world, and with the possibility of dying at any second it's more appealing to just act on instinct rather than suppress it. And I would hardly call it sexist to have stallions trying to commit rape in these stories; sure, it's a little odd that we hardly ever see mares trying to do it, but I'm pretty certain that the statistics say that in the real world woman on man rape is hardly common (not considering that most times the man won't report it for one reason or another, so those statistics are and always will be broken). Still, I wouldn't say that writers are all sexist for having rape in their story.
3) Ponies, inferior to humans? Lol no, they are humans, just with different bodies. Don't even pretend that if we were in a similar world a bunch of humans wouldn't be acting the exact same way, because we would. Hell, we don't even need to be in a post-apocalyptic world, this shit happens every single day as is.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

thoughts fellas?

http://www.teslamotors.com/

http://vimeo.com/35280284

[Frost]

thoughts fellas?

http://www.teslamotors.com/

http://vimeo.com/35280284

Look to me to be cars of some sort.

[iLateralGX]

thoughts fellas?

http://www.teslamotors.com/

http://vimeo.com/35280284

One of my favorite cars.

I believe when me and iron were having a discussion about PH cast being cars I decided that is what P-21 would be.
It was a very rash and rushed decision now that I look back at it considering the only reason I chose that car is because it was electric and therefore silent.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Especially when IRL rape is far less about sex in itself than about proving your dominance over someone. It doesn't matter if the rapist take sexual enjoyment out of the act itself as long as she/he managed to violate her/his victim.

[CamoBadger]

Well, it seems that in the FoE verse a large proportion of the male population are rapists, so...

That's my point. And it perplexes me. Are the authors just going overboard with the grimdark? Are they just sexist? Or is this proof that ponies are, by their nature morally inferior to humanity without the constant, iron hand of a dictator to control them?

1) Where did the 'large portion of male population are rapists' come from? I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of male ponies we've seen have never tried that.
2) I'm pretty sure the reason rape seems to show up a large amount is because following post-apocolypse logic those who may think of doing it but never do suddenly don't have those internal walls blocking them from doing it. There's hardly anything you could call 'law' in the Wasteland, morals have officially burned with the rest of the world, and with the possibility of dying at any second it's more appealing to just act on instinct rather than suppress it. And I would hardly call it sexist to have stallions trying to commit rape in these stories; sure, it's a little odd that we hardly ever see mares trying to do it, but I'm pretty certain that the statistics say that in the real world woman on man rape is hardly common (not considering that most times the man won't report it for one reason or another, so those statistics are and always will be broken). Still, I wouldn't say that writers are all sexist for having rape in their story.
3) Ponies, inferior to humans? Lol no, they are humans, just with different bodies. Don't even pretend that if we were in a similar world a bunch of humans wouldn't be acting the exact same way, because we would. Hell, we don't even need to be in a post-apocalyptic world, this shit happens every single day as is.

Yeah, but that's where Kim's argument comes in. Females vastly outnumber males. They not only run the country, they run Ponyville's local government. The heroes of their world are female. The villains have been female half the time, so far. Females head up families and seem to have taken the role males traditionally take in our society... yet, somehow, that all flips on its head in an apocalypse setting, in which females never rape anyone, ever.
I remember the filly flashers originally being presented as a group of female rapists, but then Somber turned them into rape victims just banding together... and whose male "victims" were more than happy to help. Same with all the males in 99 who were not homosexual. They liked their role... they told P-21 as much when he tried to get them to leave. P-21, U-21 and P-21 dead boyfriend were the only ones that wanted out.
In the original FoE story in Fillydelphia, when Pip was being threatened by those two gang members in the slave camp, it was the female threatening that her male friend would rape her. Like the female gang member couldn't do anything to Pip, only her compatriot could. Then, when the guy decided to back off after Pip threatened to damage his member, the girl backed off, too. She could not have been more pathetic if she had tried.

That's the main problem here... the pony world shouldn't be like this.

You know, I had forgotten about those details entirely (been way too long since I've read either of those stories), so that makes my argument somewhat null.
In PH, I do remember the Flashers supposedly being rapists at one point, and honestly I liked the idea (along with pledging to never go near Hoofington. EVER), but I don't remember the point it changed them to being victims. It's probably just another detail I've forgotten, and I'm not sure I like that. Like you said, it does kinda keep up the whole 'mares are incapable of rape' thing that FoE seems to stick to. And yes, I did find it rather odd that a bunch of males working as sex slaves who are killed if they get too old WOULDN'T want to escape. I know I would be doing anything I could to get out, but once again, FoE seems to have a strange way of making every male ever obsessed with sex and not caring about anything else (not that mares aren't, we've all seen BJ's thoughts).
Now, regarding the original FoE...I don't really take that example too seriously, because I found a lot of that story to be rather...uh...idealist and sexist. You can try to argue that if you want, but when everything that the female protagonists say is right, almost all of their plans work, and they kick everyone's ass with hardly any problem, and every male seems to fail epicly (with a few exceptions from Calamity, though he does seem to fuck-up a disturbing amount) I feel safe saying it's at least a little sexist.

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