Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[CannonFodder]

Spoiler:

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/42233891985

Single most fitting piece of artwork to summarize project horizons ever! Also if that were real the glass had better be shatter proof and explosion resistant.

[Ketchup]

almost like something you'd tell an upset child that learned his/her fav character died off screen for comfort.

Quite amusing that you should phrase it that way, since my favorite character died off screen.

Spoiler:

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/42233891985

My friend who read the story chose Strawberry Lemonade as his favorite character after Steelhooves died. When she died, he was apparently hysterical.

Nice picture by the way. That star up there is probably laughing at Blackjack.

[SilentCarto]

About those Cantercorns. I may be recalling this incorrectly, but I'm fairly certain that there isn't any evidence saying they regressed to pre-Goddess identities. It is debatable that the people they became might have resembled their past selves, but I don't recall anything supporting that.

I think they just went loopy.

The ones in Zebratown specifically noted they were starting to remember their former identities now that they were cut off from the Goddess. One of them mentioned she remembered she used to be male the previous night. You also had Flask (the God/Dog alicorn in the MAS basement), who recovered her cutie mark and may well have recalled some of her former life. That said, Nightseer probably is the best analog for Lacunae, since she developed a whole new personality after being cut off from the Goddess.

I don't think the pink cloud causes anyone to be anything but dead, really... It's just poison.

Nope, it had the specific effect of blocking alicorn telepathy. Alicorns are otherwise immune to it, or at least resistant. The alicorns could safely walk around Canterlot Castle unprotected, but Flask had to get some of the Canterlot dragonlings to deliver the spell-in-a-box because she couldn't get close enough to the dragon to cast the field mouse spell directly. So presumably there exists some concentration of Pink that will harm them as well.

It was just the black book that could teach that blood magic... which begs the question, why didn't the black book want to meet the goddess? It's got its own consciousness, it wants to be used, were all the alicorns it meant so messed up it could influence them no more than to teach then a couple new spells? Because, otherwise, I'd of thought it'd want them to take it to their goddess.

The black book was locked in Rarity's desk, remember? It didn't have much of an opinion one way or the other, but Trixie specifically needed Calamity (to manipulate the cloud mechanisms) and Littlepip (to pick the lock) in order to retrieve it.

Wow, I just had a interesting thought. Imagine what would have happened if twilight and trixie's talk when the bombs fell was delayed Like if Twilight stopped five seconds to get a sparkle cola from a vending machine and instead of trixie standing above the vats it was twilight. The wasteland would be a completely different place.

That assumes it was chance that the bomb went off at that moment. I don't believe in that kind of coincidence.

The Zebras were on the verge of losing the war, and they knew it. Equestria was about to crack the secret of bypass spells, which would make their in-situ spellcasting overwhelmingly powerful on the battlefield. The Ministry of Image was experimenting with the blackest of black magic. And worst of all, Twilight's alicorn project was on the very eve of coming to fruition. They had smuggled a bomb into Maripony itself -- or more likely into the Diamond Dog tunnels beneath -- which means they had a very good idea of what and where, and it's a bit much to think they didn't also know when. The missile strike against Cloudsdale and the Manehattan bomb bracketed the first alicorn test within minutes! That's no coincidence. I have no doubt that the experiment was being observed by a cloaked zebra assassin, who was tasked to pull the trigger and destroy the entire project at the worst possible moment. And when would that be? When the test subject was walking across a flimsy catwalk. That way, the subject would be dead (supposedly) even if they could somehow manage to fill the goblet and levitate it back across the room after the bomb went off.

[Vergil]

almost like something you'd tell an upset child that learned his/her fav character died off screen for comfort.

Quite amusing that you should phrase it that way, since my favorite character died off screen.

*hugs*


And I'm sorry...

Spoiler:

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/42233891985

This is...uh...wow. Ryx, you've outdone yourself with this. This is easily my favorite image of BJ now up there with Fore Trekker's "Reaper."

I'm not sure if this is quite big enough to work as a wallpaper for my phone but I think I'll give it a shot.

[Guest]

@Ryx
Those stained glass drawings are gorgeous, well done.

[Guest]

@Ryx,
Those are amazing. Great job, Ryx.

[Caoimhe]

I can never post enough how much I love Ryxarts. :)

Anyway since I don't have anything to complain about (other than this boring Super Bowl), I'd love to eventually hear about abandoned plot ideas for PH if Somberino would ever wish to share. Eeeeeee

[CannonFodder]

That assumes it was chance that the bomb went off at that moment. I don't believe in that kind of coincidence.

The Zebras were on the verge of losing the war, and they knew it. Equestria was about to crack the secret of bypass spells, which would make their in-situ spellcasting overwhelmingly powerful on the battlefield. The Ministry of Image was experimenting with the blackest of black magic. And worst of all, Twilight's alicorn project was on the very eve of coming to fruition. They had smuggled a bomb into Maripony itself -- or more likely into the Diamond Dog tunnels beneath -- which means they had a very good idea of what and where, and it's a bit much to think they didn't also know when. The missile strike against Cloudsdale and the Manehattan bomb bracketed the first alicorn test within minutes! That's no coincidence. I have no doubt that the experiment was being observed by a cloaked zebra assassin, who was tasked to pull the trigger and destroy the entire project at the worst possible moment. And when would that be? When the test subject was walking across a flimsy catwalk. That way, the subject would be dead (supposedly) even if they could somehow manage to fill the goblet and levitate it back across the room after the bomb went off.

You're assuming it was a cloaked zebra. That theory immediately falls through the floor with basic physics. THAT close to the vats and there would be nothing left from a megaspell detonation. While the crater at maripony means they got extremely close they did not thread the needle. Maripony was designed to withstand a megaspell even if it was that close, otherwise there would be nothing left. If when the first bomb went off it had hit directly on top of maripony chances are there would be nothing left. Basically what I'm getting at is if you want to level a base capable of withstanding a nuclear strike then you drop the bomb RIGHT on top of it, not close enough, not enough to kill everyone, but RIGHT on top of the building.

[Cptadder]

There is another problem with your theory SilentCarto
FoE explicitly states it was a balefire missile that took out Maripony and we see the giant surface crater above the labs.

And a third problem
Mairpony was well known enough to be known, ala the Naval Science Labs in Washington DC or Los Alamos National Labratories. Even if they don't have a cloaked zebra brushing Twilight's mane as she sleeps it's still well known enough to end up on any kind of major service list for strategic weapons.

[BrentOGara]

...a cloaked zebra brushing Twilight's mane as she sleeps...

This is now my most disturbing thought. Perhaps I don't need to sleep tonight.

As for SilentCarto's theory, it's clear from Blackjack's dreams of Psalm that it was ponies who fired the first megaspells. Adding in what BJ learned from the computers in the nuthouse, and it's clear that Garnet and Horse were part of a group of ponies that planned and executed the end of civilization for their own petty reasons. They even used poor crazy Jetstream to deliver a megaspell targeting talisman to Roam (and not to aim a teleport spell!), with a window of activation of only a few days... indicating they had a (relatively) tight time-table, and were intent on launching the megaspells for a specific purpose at a specific time. The ponies who killed the Cakes and ransacked the Museum knew to the minute how much time was left until the spells launched.

I agree that someone didn't want Twi to successfully create Alicorns, and timed the apocalypse to prevent it, but it was Ponies, not Zebras who had their hooves on the button.

[Boing]

I agree with everything you wrote SilentCarto, but this:

Wow, I just had a interesting thought. Imagine
what would have happened if twilight and trixie's talk when the bombs
fell was delayed Like if Twilight stopped five seconds to get a sparkle
cola from a vending machine and instead of trixie standing above the
vats it was twilight. The wasteland would be a completely different
place.

That assumes it was chance that the bomb went off at that moment. I don't believe in that kind of coincidence.

Seems to me it was a complete coincidence that the missile struck at that exact moment. The zebras likely knew what tests were being done and on what day, but I think their only intent was to destroy the facility, research and everypony there. That the bomb set off a chain of events that created the goddess and who was at it's heart was fully unforseen.

Oh, and...

It was just the black book that could teach that blood
magic... which begs the question, why didn't the black book want to meet
the goddess? It's got its own consciousness, it wants to be used, were
all the alicorns it meant so messed up it could influence them no more
than to teach then a couple new spells? Because, otherwise, I'd of
thought it'd want them to take it to their goddess.

The black
book was locked in Rarity's desk, remember? It didn't have much of an
opinion one way or the other, but Trixie specifically needed Calamity
(to manipulate the cloud mechanisms) and Littlepip (to pick the lock) in
order to retrieve it.

There are other mentions of necromantic magic in both FOE and PH and the black book's time is mostly accounted. There's pink cloud, perhaps balefire, as well as others. If I remember rightly Lacunae at one point mentions that there might be another black tome in Hoofington as her reason for being there. The Starkatteri(sp?) were legendary in zebra culture and it seems to me their forbidden knowledge was increasingly used (secretly I'm sure) as the war continued and the zebras became more desperate.

Also, hello all. Nice to find a good place to discuss FOE stuff.

[WavemasterRyx]

Single most fitting piece of artwork to summarize project horizons ever! Also if that were real the glass had better be shatter proof and explosion resistant.

Heh, Well thank you Cannon! Yes, shatter proof, explosion resistant, taint proof, and it would have to taste better than the ballistics glass in Hightower. I'm certain Blackjack would want that most.

My friend who read the story chose Strawberry Lemonade
as his favorite character after Steelhooves died. When she died, he was
apparently hysterical.
Nice picture by the way. That star up there is probably laughing at Blackjack.

*nods* Yeah, SteelHooves and Strawberry Lemonade are my two favorite characters in FoE. Both their deaths hit me really hard... SteelHooves wasn't as bad because I'd been spoiled to it, and had time to prepare myself... But Strawberry... I think I cried all night and most of the next day... If you ever get a chance, please offer your friend my sympathy.
I'm very glad you liked the picture though. Who knows how the star feels, maybe it just wants to give Blackjack advice on mid-air spins!

This is...uh...wow. Ryx, you've outdone yourself with
this. This is easily my favorite image of BJ now up there with Fore
Trekker's "Reaper."
I'm not sure if this is quite big enough to work as a wallpaper for my phone but I think I'll give it a shot.

Well thank you, sir, I'm honored that you think so highly of it.
I do apologize for it not being bigger, I just have trouble working with larger canvases, but I do hope that it works out for you still.

Those stained glass drawings are gorgeous, well done.

Those are amazing. Great job, Ryx.

I can never post enough how much I love Ryxarts. :)

Thank you all, very much!

Also, hello all. Nice to find a good place to discuss FOE stuff.

Welcome to the forum, Boing.

[CannonFodder]

...a cloaked zebra brushing Twilight's mane as she sleeps...

This is now my most disturbing thought. Perhaps I don't need to sleep tonight.

As for SilentCarto's theory, it's clear from Blackjack's dreams of Psalm that it was ponies who fired the first megaspells. Adding in what BJ learned from the computers in the nuthouse, and it's clear that Garnet and Horse were part of a group of ponies that planned and executed the end of civilization for their own petty reasons. They even used poor crazy Jetstream to deliver a megaspell targeting talisman to Roam (and not to aim a teleport spell!), with a window of activation of only a few days... indicating they had a (relatively) tight time-table, and were intent on launching the megaspells for a specific purpose at a specific time. The ponies who killed the Cakes and ransacked the Museum knew to the minute how much time was left until the spells launched.

I agree that someone didn't want Twi to successfully create Alicorns, and timed the apocalypse to prevent it, but it was Ponies, not Zebras who had their hooves on the button.

And the moral of the story is, "have better security over your wmd's so that petty people of power can't just try to escape punishment". . . Seriously at least with reality most of the nukes on the black market are due to inadequate security for disposal after the collapse of the ussr, in the story they treat the megaspells as a end all solution to anything. Dying? Use a megaspell. Need widespread organ replacements for medical purposes? Use a megaspell. Need to develop super soldiers? Use a megaspell. Trying to come up with better armor? Use a megaspell. Need a powerful gun? Make it a megaspell.

They were utterly and totally dependent on megaspells for any projects. It's too bad they didn't idunno make ground to air defence megaspells. It didn't even need to fire a megaspell, just a defence to shoot incoming missiles out of the air. Idunno maybe make lasers or railguns that shoot missiles down.

[Guest]

I'm not sure how well we can analyze the arms race, apart from "they should not have gotten into an arms race." Anti-missile capabilities are well and good (they definitely had surface-to-air defenses in the Hoof; recall the shooting down of the dragon in Happyhorn), but what if the missile is invisible? Stealth talismans, and all. Then you just end up right back at the arms race - who can be one step ahead of the other guy's technologies, defensive and offensive.

[CannonFodder]

I'm not sure how well we can analyze the arms race, apart from "they should not have gotten into an arms race." Anti-missile capabilities are well and good (they definitely had surface-to-air defenses in the Hoof; recall the shooting down of the dragon in Happyhorn), but what if the missile is invisible? Stealth talismans, and all. Then you just end up right back at the arms race - who can be one step ahead of the other guy's technologies, defensive and offensive.

You couldn't hide the exhaust trail. Trying to cloak a missile is like trying to use forest camouflage on the empire state building and that's ignoring the heat from the exhaust trail. You could have to have a stealth talisman able to cloak for several hundred miles and able to hide a heat trail as well. You would need a stealth talisman the size of a missile just to cloak it.

For such a system to work you would need something like the shagohod from Metal Gear Solid 3 and a railgun to make the missile small enough for you to effectively cloak it. You think missiles cost a lot now? Imagine the cost of making enough of cloaked missiles to be effective? If all of a sudden every country in the world had anti-missile lasers and railguns trying to change out all our missiles to something that can't be seen would in all probability cost more than the entire usa gdp. It would be more effective to have a tank for every soldier.

[Guest]

You couldn't hide the exhaust trail. Trying to cloak a missile is like trying to use forest camouflage on the empire state building and that's ignoring the heat from the exhaust trail. You could have to have a stealth talisman able to cloak for several hundred miles and able to hide a heat trail as well. You would need a stealth talisman the size of a missile just to cloak it.

Oh god... I just realized that this is going to totally bring up the old ICBM vs. cruise missile debate that I could never make heads or tails of. Anyway, alchemy to make the exhaust trail disperse extremely rapidly. Hiding heat is an easy enough modification for a stealth talisman, I imagine, since they can suppress sound, and there's also nothing that says the size needs to be that much bigger for that much more power. Add in some shielding, physical and magical. Throw in countermeasures, too. All the zebras needed was one thing that the ponies hadn't managed to spy out ahead of time; if they knew they had that, they'd know their strike would work within the limited window it took Equestria to create new defenses. I think.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Reality check : there are no nukes on the "black market". Ask your nearest nuclear weapons specialist.

[CannonFodder]

Oh god... I just realized that this is going to totally bring up the old ICBM vs. cruise missile debate that I could never make heads or tails of. Anyway, alchemy to make the exhaust trail disperse extremely rapidly. Hiding heat is an easy enough modification for a stealth talisman, I imagine, since they can suppress sound, and there's also nothing that says the size needs to be that much bigger for that much more power. Add in some shielding, physical and magical. Throw in countermeasures, too. All the zebras needed was one thing that the ponies hadn't managed to spy out ahead of time; if they knew they had that, they'd know their strike would work within the limited window it took Equestria to create new defenses. I think.

However to hide the heat trail alone would need a megaspell by itself. Hiding the sound would require another megaspell by itself. Hiding the exhaust trail would require like a baker's dozen number of megaspells. Also a physical shield wouldn't work with it cause where would the force be exerted? It's just not feasible or rational.

You'd have better luck hiding new zealand.

Reality check : there are no nukes on the "black
market". Ask your nearest nuclear weapons specialist.

I know that. I'm referring to the nukes that not accounted for after the fall of the ussr.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, the question you've got to ask yourself is : did those "unaccounted for" nukes exist in the first place, or were they just a "rounding error" someone committed decades ago in order to look better in the eyes of whoever an inflated count of nuclear weapons could have pleased ?

[CannonFodder]

Well, the question you've got to ask yourself is : did those "unaccounted for" nukes exist in the first place, or were they just a "rounding error" someone committed decades ago in order to look better in the eyes of whoever an inflated count of nuclear weapons could have pleased ?

Probably both.

[Icy Shake]

Missiles could be based on flight talismans, leaving no contrails or heat.

Antigravity talismans plus something to negate air resistance would work, too, as the acceleration could take place far from Equestrian airspace.

More conventionally, they could add in alchemical talismans emitting a refrigerated anti-condensation gas, so the path is invisible and not distinguishable by heat. Discovery by sound could be minimized by flying at high altitude and carefully selecting the flight path, letting low-density air and the inverse-square law help out.

Early Chapter editing:

[Harmony Ltd.]

From wikipedia, the US alone has produced more than 70,000 nuclear weapons since the start of the Nuclear Era. However, even at the top of the Cold War, it fielded "only" around 20,000 active warhead. The difference comes from the fact that nuclear devices have a limited shelf-life and must be regularly maintained, refurbished & sometimes scrapped to re-process the nuclear material after it decayed beyond tolerances.

Compare to the USSR which by most estimates fielded three to four time the amount of active warheads than the US. Now imagine the amount of work that may have meant to maintain all this arsenal.

How hard would it be to imagine that some warheads may have effectively be dismantled without the proper paperwork being filled, or it being lost or misfiled ? Then, years after, people would look at the listing of still active nuclear warheads, and see that some are missing from the inventories. Cue panic in the relevant circles, while in fact those warheads do not exist anymore.


Now back to PH. You have the OIA. It centralized easily half of the Equestrian Warmachine bureaucracy. It managed to get nine Crusader Maneframe built when only three had been originally ordered, without any of the ministry mares knowing, and without Stable-Tec blowing the whistle.

They are everywhere, and as far as we know all inter-ministry communication passed through them.

I have no difficulty imagining that their agents could have gotten enough power to do what they did.

With such a power structure, frankly it was unavoidable that the OIA acquired such power. Luna brought it upon herself and the Kingdom to trust wolves to guard the sheeps.

[Cptadder]

How hard would it be to imagine that some warheads may have effectively be dismantled without the proper paperwork being filled, or it being lost or misfiled ? Then, years after, people would look at the listing of still active nuclear warheads, and see that some are missing from the inventories. Cue panic in the relevant circles, while in fact those warheads do not exist anymore.

Pretty hard because Nuclear weapons are the most tightly controlled items on the planet and delibratly designed to be hard to steal or thieve.

Also keep in mind balefire bombs are not nukes, more over they exited for less than five years before they were put into usage. Megaspells in general are less than eight years old.

Both those figures are best case (IE around the longest) estimates,no balefire or megapsell per Luna period so we have a ten year time frame to work with,

[FeatherDust]

One message on Charity's terminal said, "Give my love to AB. -E"

There's only two E's I know of; Emerald or Echo.

I can't see Emmy sending that message, and from Twist we know that Apple Boom was straight.

Bloom would have been Echo's CO's little sister, so they could have easily met, at Mac's funeral if nothing else.

The message us clearly from somebody in the OIA, and we now know Echo was in such a position; that's how he became EC-Echo (EC-H0?).

So... Bloombot/Dealer shipping, anyone?

[Harmony Ltd.]

How hard would it be to imagine that some warheads may have effectively be dismantled without the proper paperwork being filled, or it being lost or misfiled ? Then, years after, people would look at the listing of still active nuclear warheads, and see that some are missing from the inventories. Cue panic in the relevant circles, while in fact those warheads do not exist anymore.

Pretty hard because Nuclear weapons are the most tightly controlled items on the planet and delibratly designed to be hard to steal or thieve.

Also keep in mind balefire bombs are not nukes, more over they exited for less than five years before they were put into usage. Megaspells in general are less than eight years old.

Both those figures are best case (IE around the longest) estimates,no balefire or megapsell per Luna period so we have a ten year time frame to work with,

I know in theory such a thing shouldn't happen. But we are talking about people who were so responsible with nuclear power that for an experiment they deliberately pushed a nuclear reactor to its limits, the results of this experiment being known to the public as "Chernobyl". Even with a 0.05% chance of failure in a process, when the number of items processed is counted in hundreds of thousands, it's almost certain you'll count a few failure. And here failure mean "we miscounted the number of warheads we dismantled / put out of commission" (in one way or another).

We are also talking about ponies who were so responsible in general that they put the ichor of a Chaos God in pretty much everything, from toothpaste to soft drinks to industrial-grade detergent, without any kind of problem. And this is just an example among hundreds (hyperbole, because I don't think the backstory of FoE has been developed do much, but you get the general idea).

I know that Megaspells / Balefire bombs aren't nukes. Hell, it's a plot point in both the original FoE and PH that 200 years after the war there are still fully functional balefire bombs and megaspells lying around.

My point is, pre-holocaust Equestria was such a fucked-up place that the OIA being able to get away with what it did is perfectly logical in my opinion.

[CannonFodder]

Missiles could be based on flight talismans, leaving no contrails or heat.

Antigravity talismans plus something to negate air resistance would work, too, as the acceleration could take place far from Equestrian airspace.

More conventionally, they could add in alchemical talismans emitting a refrigerated anti-condensation gas, so the path is invisible and not distinguishable by heat. Discovery by sound could be minimized by flying at high altitude and carefully selecting the flight path, letting low-density air and the inverse-square law help out.

That line of thinking why didn't they just make magic talismans that could poof all zebras out of existence? Why didn't they make a talisman that could summon flying spaghetti monster men from mars to eat all zebras? Why didn't they make a talisman that could turn all zebras into ponies? Why didn't they make talismans that could turn all the land in zebra territory into cheese? Why didn't they make a talisman that could turn all the clouds above zebra territory into a swarm of frogs? Why didn't the ponies just make talismans that could poof coal into existence in the first place? Why didn't they make talismans that would brainwash all zebras to do their bidding? Why didn't they use talismans that could summon cthulu?

What I'm getting at is you're using a copout deus ex machina.

Now think of what I am getting at-
1)If they had the capability to make a better delivery system than just a missile then why didn't they make it?
2)If they had the capability to cloak the missile then why didn't they?
3)If they had the capability to hide the heat exhaust then why didn't they?
4)If they had the capability to teleport a megaspell across the planet then why didn't they?
5)If they had the capability to hide the heat from the missile then why didn't they?
6)If they had the capability to transport the missile solely through levitation talismans to their destination then why didn't they?
7)If they had the capability to make the missile soundless then why didn't they?
8 )If they had the capability to shield the missile until it reached their destination to prevent it from being shot down then why didn't they?
9)If they had the capability to prevent a missile from being shot down other than defensive shields then why didn't they?


Now think of it this way. The zebra that was shunned for talking to blackjack(forgot her name) said that the zebras were losing the war really badly and that their own scientists predicted that in a couple of years the vast majority of the their missiles would be shot down before reaching their destination. So they overloaded equestria's defence systems to blow equestria up. If only 10% of the missiles inbound actually make it to their destination then just fire 10x the amount of missiles and chances are at least one will make it through. What I am proposing is a system that would reduce the probability of a inbound missile reaching it's destination to 0%. If equestria had a laser defence network capable of shooting down anything and everything inbound and the zebras fired millions upon millions of missiles it would still not matter. 0,00....% is still 0,00....%. 10000 missiles times 0,00...... = 0. 100000 x 0,00.... = 0. 1000000 x 0,00.... = 0. What I'm getting at is any number times 0 equals 0. You can spend your entire life punching in any number into a calculator and multiple it by 0, the answer will always be 0.

[Guest]

Equestria did have the technology for such a laser defense network, at least in the beta stages. They were probably planning on rolling out the systems in Hoofington to other strategic locations. The zebras just launched armageddon first. Defense systems like that don't just appear at the drop of the hat, though, and the zebras evidently took advantage of that timing window.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Cannon : to echo what OAC said, why do you think the Zebra were getting so desperate in the war ? Xanthe said it herself to BlackJack : around the time the megaspells hit, the Zebra estimated that already only 10% I think of the bombs they were preparing to launch would hit, and they estimated that in a few years, this number would be dropping to 1%, and would continue to fall as time went on.

Equestria WAS developing such a missile shield, and that's why everything went to shit : The Zebra were in a mindset such that it didn't matter if they lost, as long as Equestria was turned into a pile of glowing rubble, just to ensure that Nightmare Moon wouldn't conquer the rest of the world.

For them, it was now or never.

Of course, it was Equestria that shot first. But given a few more weeks or months, it's more or less certain the Zebras would have launched an attack.

[Icy Shake]

CannonFodder: What OAC and Harmony said. Why didn't they do all these things? A combination of not having the time and not having a reason. Why even start a long distance missile program before you have something worthwhile to put in them? That means that they had about five years to get base functionality. I'm sure if they had more time they would have liked to make them more hardened against active defenses, but they didn't, so they didn't.

I wasn't saying that they could have done those at the time; perhaps I could have been clearer about that. But I think that those are some reasonable ways to go forward in an offensive/defensive arms race that could have been implemented in time. We know that antigravity and inertia reduction exist, at least on the Pony side (see sky carriages), and gas talismans have shown up on at least two occasions. The stealth suits are a known quantity, as are flight talismans. So getting them to work on a larger scale and with slightly altered functionality hardly seems like it would be that impossible a feat, given a few more years and the motivation to get by active defense; instead, we saw that the Zebras were working harder on getting past passive defenses with bypass spells, as they would be effective on the battlefield and could counter the Ponies' next move, in the city-shields. When those will stop 100%, why worry so much about getting the hit ratio up from 10% to 50 or 75%, when it may just be easier to make eight times as many missiles? And if Equestria puts out a better active defense system, then they can work to counter it, as normally happens in arms races.

So, long story short: You can't always afford to develop counter-countermeasures for countermeasures that haven't been made yet, and Equestria was already working on a 100% stop method, in the shield megaspells. And almost completed it.

[CannonFodder]

Cannon : to echo what OAC said, why do you think the Zebra were getting so desperate in the war ? Xanthe said it herself to BlackJack : around the time the megaspells hit, the Zebra estimated that already only 10% I think of the bombs they were preparing to launch would hit, and they estimated that in a few years, this number would be dropping to 1%, and would continue to fall as time went on.

Equestria WAS developing such a missile shield, and that's why everything went to shit : The Zebra were in a mindset such that it didn't matter if they lost, as long as Equestria wasn't turned to a pile of glowing rubble, just to ensure that Nightmare Moon wouldn't conquer the rest of the world.

For them, it was now or never.

Of course, it was Equestria that shot first. But given a few weeks or month more, it's more or less certain the Zebras would have launched an attack.

Equestria did have the technology for
such a laser defense network, at least in the beta stages. They were
probably planning on rolling out the systems in Hoofington to other
strategic locations. The zebras just launched armageddon first. Defense
systems like that don't just appear at the drop of the hat, though, and
the zebras evidently took advantage of that timing window.

That's exactly what I am getting at. Their technology was in the beta stages and hoofington did have defences. HOWEVER equestria was so caught up in from a military standpoint tactically stupid projects. The only one of the mane6 to actually do projects and use their ministry in a not completely stupid manner was applejack.

From a tactical standpoint it's stupid to sacrifice thousands of pony souls just to power one phoenix talisman. How were they even going to realistically mass produce enough phoenix talismans to actually matter in a war? Were they just going to cart any and all ponies in prison even if it was something like petty theft and use them for the phoenix talismans? For the phoenix talisman project to be worth it monetarily they would have to not only use every last prisoner in the prison system, but every last zebra, sick or elderly pony to make enough for it to effect the war effort.

Project Chimera yes it would be a tactical advantage and be worth the money, BUT if the general populace learned they were doing that everyone would lose their shit and call them abominations. The only way you could get away with that without having hundreds of thousands of angry protesters with pitch forks and torches outside your labs calling for your beheading is if you made the soldiers still look like ponies.

I know it's not a project, but trotteinheimer's folly is the ultimate example of "not a smart move" when it comes to weaponry.

Megaspells in general were a example of a bad idea and fluttershy was naive. . . Wait, scratch that. She knew it would have been used to make bombs and developed it any ways. That's even worse than naive.

With alicorns if it weren't for the goddess becoming a alicorn would just boost their already abilities. Like how the twins were physic. Twilight used a massive number of spells, but her calling card was teleportation which is why some alicorns could teleport. However what I'm getting at is what use from a tactical standpoint is a alicorn who's special talent is making quills and sofas?

What I'm getting at is the only one of the mane6 that had any business whatsoever being a ministry mare was applejack. She didn't make phoenix talismans that require hundreds of souls, she didn't make alicorns that require being connected to a hivemind to be of any use militarily, she didn't make megaspells thinking "oh dear those nice little weaponry manufacturers wouldn't use a overkill spell matrix to use it to kill anyone cause I wink my eyes and speak in a kind tone asking them nicely to not use it as a weapon".

Why do you think we don't use rayguns or other science fiction like weaponry in real war? If we threw enough money to develop it after a couple decades we could make all sorts of science fiction like weaponry, it's just not realistically tactical and not worth the money. We could have autonomous tanks rolling around. We could have terminators on the battlefield instead of humans. The short version is there's a difference between technologically flashy things that look cool and draw attention like jingling keys in front of a child, and then there's things that actually work.

They focused so much on quick cool looking things with flare and no real tactical advantage when they could have focused on real weaponry and would have won the war instead.

Even if the bombs didn't drop chances are twilight would have failed to make alicorns into super soldiers like she hoped. The only reason why the alicorns in fallout equestria are of any use is they are connected to the goddess. Even if the bombs didn't drop them rarity would have failed to make immortal armor able to stop everything in enough quantities to be of use. Even if the bombs didn't drop fluttershy would have failed in making a megaspell incapable of stopping death. Even if the bombs didn't drop the utter cost of the SPP would have had Rainbow answering some pretty tough questions in front of court on whether or not she misappropriated her ministries' funds and would probably have been shipped off to prison as a scape goat.

Even if the bombs didn't drop pinkie pie would be getting asked some pretty tough questions about her spying on everyone and probably be shipped off to prison as well. Celestia could have at ANY moment kicked luna off the throne, become ruler again and began peace talks. Luna knew she was the zebra equivalent of satan and knew she could have just stepped down at any moment and peace talks would have begun. Goldenblood knew what was going to happen to the very minutest detail and he didn't stop it. He was all like, "go right ahead" he was the ultimate doormat. He knew the world would end and did he do anything? Nope.

Tl:dr; They were all epic failures as leaders of the country and the only one that didn't completely mess up was applejack.

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