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

[Ironmonger]

First the Boston stuff, now this. Possible internet shitstorm?

[Guest]

First the Boston stuff, now this. Possible internet shitstorm?

Mmmmaybe, but it was at a place that basically manufactures explosives (fertilizer). That sort of thing tends to happen from time to time, and I'd personally suspect bad safety protocols more than inferior security protocols, y'know?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Don't wanna jump to conclusion, but....

Is that the same Waco where there had been a shooting (police vs. right-wing extremists) a decade or two ago ?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of the end of the Waco Siege, according to wikipedia.

And it's the same Waco.

[Moodyman90]

Unless there's two different Waco, Texas I'm going to have to say yes Harmony.

I haven't been keeping up with the news like I should, but Boston was an attack, this was probably a freak accident that just so happens to have taken place in a town with a bad past.

You know, unless they find a detonator or that something was tampered with intentionally.

[O. Hinds]

Then Hell exist, and it is populated by over-sized, over-territorial and over-aggressive dogs.

A thing I haven't quite understood : what's the causal link between the Dogs / Hounds living in Hell and them presenting an alternative to NEROC's monopoly on oil ?

Hell's territory contains petroleum reserves, and the Alliance is friendly enough with Hell/the hellhounds are clever enough to start working with them. By the time the Alliance realizes that, kindness or not, the hellhounds are still striking out on their own, the newly-founded Canine Petroleum is established enough to start trading with Equestria.

By the way, what does "NEROC" stands for ?

New Equestria Rock Oil Company, the Elusive-Company-owned petroleum company that is the Alliance's primary weapon in the economic war.

Oh, and one last thing : "Hell" is the new name for Ponyville and the surrounding area, right ?

Oh, no! Sorry about the confusion. Hell is around hereish, I think:

Why would the Alliance be so keen on going to war, either economic or armed, with the Equestrian Peninsula ? Are they still hung up about the whole "nuclear war" deal, or is it something else ?

Oh, no, they don't want strategic megaspells deployed again. (Which is not to say that CARE won't pop right back into being if this goes into a cold war, since the Alliance has Profectum and the NCR has Celestia One and, probably, old megaspell casting facilities.) The Alliance wants economic war primarily because Elusive wants to conquer the peninsula though mostly economic/political means; that would remove a potential threat, greatly increase the Alliance's power, and, due to the prominent role of the Elusive Company and its subsidiaries in such an endeavor, greatly increase Elusive's power within the Alliance. The Alliance wants a war of arms primarily because the Miliozi want to conquer the peninsula through force of arms; that would remove a potential threat, greatly increase the Alliance's power, and, due to the prominent role of the Miliozi in such an endeavor, greatly increase their power within the Alliance. The only reason why they didn't try this early is that the GPE wasn't interested in trade, was isolationist by nature and not stupid enough to think that attacking the Alliance would solve their resource shortages, and was judged strong enough to make a military conquest quite a headache (in particular, they had a massive terrain advantage; the Alliance is good at fighting in the air as the air, but they've almost nothing that can fight on cloud terrain).

[Meleagridis]

Gurble! This is getting difficult to keep up with! Is there an encyclopedia yet?

Maripony has been balefired, but then again it had already been in the past, and I was under the impression that the Hellhounds were immune to the adverse effects of radiation. So that's one thing.

Hellhounds are based off of deathclaws, and there's a little thing about them that I like: in spite of all the magical mutagen (in both settings) and the near-superpower strength that came of it, these guys are still basically normal animals. Deathclaws (and likely hellhounds) don't live to 200, you won't find a living example from during the war. Goris (albino hellhound) was specifically described as elderly near the end. There also isn't any evidence that they're immune to radiation- but if you've ever played Fallout (especially the console versions, where you're treated to loading screen messages for minutes at a time) then you probably know that "Throughout the years, dogs have remained largely unaltered by radiation." It doesn't imply immunity, it's just saying that there aren't mutant/ghoul dogs. Something FOE has already thrown out the window.

As for the population decimation... you've got to remember that hellhounds weren't all that numerous even before the incident. They had precisely one known settlement and one hidden settlement. Blow up the ones living in Maripony and all that's left are wanderers, raiders, the farm hellhounds and the enslaves. They were already endangered, then Littlepip murdered half of them. Yeah?

[O. Hinds]

Gurble! This is getting difficult to keep up with! Is there an encyclopedia yet?

Maripony has been balefired, but then again it had already been in the past, and I was under the impression that the Hellhounds were immune to the adverse effects of radiation. So that's one thing.

Hellhounds are based off of deathclaws, and there's a little thing about them that I like: in spite of all the magical mutagen (in both settings) and the near-superpower strength that came of it, these guys are still basically normal animals. Deathclaws (and likely hellhounds) don't live to 200, you won't find a living example from during the war. Goris (albino hellhound) was specifically described as elderly near the end. There also isn't any evidence that they're immune to radiation- but if you've ever played Fallout (especially the console versions, where you're treated to loading screen messages for minutes at a time) then you probably know that "Throughout the years, dogs have remained largely unaltered by radiation." It doesn't imply immunity, it's just saying that there aren't mutant/ghoul dogs. Something FOE has already thrown out the window.

As for the population decimation... you've got to remember that hellhounds weren't all that numerous even before the incident. They had precisely one known settlement and one hidden settlement. Blow up the ones living in Maripony and all that's left are wanderers, raiders, the farm hellhounds and the enslaves. They were already endangered, then Littlepip murdered half of them. Yeah?

Of course, PH adds the hellhounds at the army base in Hoofington, implying that there may also be other settlements on the peninsula, but Maripony was still probably their center.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Fair enough.

[tylertoon2]

Spoiler:

Thanks to Tv tropes I've rediscovered epic boss music. Music game time!

[O. Hinds]

Fair enough.

What is?

[CamoBadger]

Spoiler:

Thanks to Tv tropes I've rediscovered epic boss music. Music game time!

Spoiler:

[Harmony Ltd.]

Fair enough.

What is?

What Mel said about Hellhounds and which justify Kkat's statement of them being an endangered species.

Which would tend to echo the fate of the talking deathclaws in Fallout 2.

[O. Hinds]

Fair enough.

What is?

What Mel said about Hellhounds and which justify Kkat's statement of them being an endangered species.

Which would tend to echo the fate of the talking deathclaws in Fallout 2.

Ah.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Basically, collateral damage of the Hero's quest for the greater good.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

First the Boston stuff, now this. Possible internet shitstorm?

Mmmmaybe, but it was at a place that basically manufactures explosives (fertilizer). That sort of thing tends to happen from time to time, and I'd personally suspect bad safety protocols more than inferior security protocols, y'know?

Waco is in Texas southwest of the Dallas fort worth area on i35 I believe the explosion was powerful enough to launch chemicals into the lower cloud layers. My cousin who lives in Alvarado Texas felt the explosion describing the sensation as some one hitting their house with a car. I am unsure if she is in a safe zone when all that fertilizer chemical soup comes down. Also its like a coal mine at that plant one spark or violation of safety protocols and you will have a massive explosion. A detonator is not needed all one needs is a lighter.

[RoboRed]

lulz:

EDIT:

and one more:

[Ironmonger]

lulz:

EDIT:

and one more:

I have the mental image of Hispanic elephant gangsters, each wearing a bandanna.

"You came to the wrong savanna, mother fucker!"

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, and one last thing : "Hell" is the new name for Ponyville and the surrounding area, right ?

Oh, no! Sorry about the confusion. Hell is around hereish, I think:

So on the East Coast of the Marediterranean Sea, right ? So it's, like, FoE!Israel, right ? The Dogs' promised land ?

This bring an interesting idea : tankers cruising the MT Sea, and people building naval fleet to protect / embargo the oil trade.

Also, possible tensions around the "Gibraltar" straight.

Spoiler:

Remind me again what you call "CARE" ? Also, what about Profectum that makes it important in such a scenario ?

The question is, why do they want to conquer the Peninsula, or remove a potential threat ? Have they not heard of self-fulfilling prophecies ?

[Kippershy]

Hinds... question.

You don't intend to write a fic yet you have so much headcanon for so many things... why?
I'm not trying to trample all over your fun, it's just strange to see is all.
Strange =! bad, don't get me wrong. I'm just curious as to why you'd have all these headcanon happenings and situations if you never truly intend to "use" them.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Can't answer for him, but for me... because it's fun.

Some people have their brains always turned on, and that's a way like any other to keep it active and entertained.

[O. Hinds]

"So on the East Coast of the Marediterranean Sea, right ? So it's, like, FoE!Israel, right ? The Dogs' promised land ?"
With most of the building being underground (partly because the hellhounds like it that way and partly because the wildlife on the surface in the area is particularly nasty, one of the reasons why the Alliance let the land go to the dogs :)), but, yeah, together with the petroleum reserves, I did have in mind some Middle Eastern influence.

"This bring an interesting idea : tankers cruising the MT Sea, and people building naval fleet to protect / embargo the oil trade.

Also, possible tensions around the "Gibraltar" straight."
I've had similar ideas. The Principality of Gibhalter controls the strait and is an Alliance member (and the Alliance navy more or less controls the Mareditteranean, not that they've too much competition)… but the Alliance is on friendly terms with Hell. The hellhounds ran gems and intelligence to the Alliance during the Wasteland era; the two groups have been trading for some time, and Elusive is proud to be liked by them. He spearheaded the resettlement effort after the peninsular population was devastated, hoping that the new state would eventually join the Alliance. Then the hellhounds discovered oil. The Alliance can't stop Hell-flagged tankers from crossing the strait, as it still wants to be on good terms with Hell, partly because it doesn't want to be seen as ready to cast aside old friendships the moment the reward of betrayal goes high enough. At the same time, allowing those tankers through supplies the NCR with another source of oil, and Hell, while it also wants to be on good terms with the Alliance, is quite eager to trade with the NCR (partly for the actual benefits of trade, partly to rub the NCR's face in the fact that they need the hellhounds again and this time it's the dogs who are in charge).

"Remind me again what you call "CARE" ?"
Oh, CARE's not actually mine; it's from FoE. :) "Communally Assured Reciprocal Existence", FoE's positive-spun name for MAD.

"Also, what about Profectum that makes it important in such a scenario ?"
I'm not sure what you mean by that, unless you've forgotten or haven't read what I've said about Profectum before. Basically, Profectum was the Pax Roamana's half-counterpart to Hoofington (counterpart in terms of being the R&D center, not counterpart in terms of being a deliberate target for the enemy). Though hit heavily in the apocalypse, it had the benefit of a bunch of prototype defensive technology that, for one reason or another, never saw mass production. It survived reasonably intact (though with a relatively high ghoul population) and later became an Alliance member. Basically, the Alliance having Profectum means that they've got one of the finest R&D centers (and university, post-apocalypse) in the modern world. Even without new designs, having Profectum means that they have the plans, and in some cases the designers, for most of the Zebra weapons of the war. Including SACIIs. Of course, the Alliance would prefer to use cast megaspells and is indeed working on them, but they're harder to get online than a good old balefire-tipped strategic missile.

"The question is, why do they want to conquer the Peninsula, or remove a potential threat ? Have they not heard of self-fulfilling prophecies ?"
Elusive is openly expansionist; he technically is, remember, a rogue AI that wants to take over the world. A large part of the reason why he wants the peninsula is simply that it's there. The Miliozi, unlike the Elusive Company, aren't fundamentally expansionist, but Alliance internal politics make them just as eager to conquer the peninsula as Elusive is. The Miliozi also operate pretty much all the time in some degree of siege mindset; it's ingrained into their culture by this point. Lastly, the Alliance would really like to have more control over and access to peninsular gem supplies, and the massive amounts of food available wouldn't hurt either.
Simple version: The Alliance wants resources, the Elusive Company wants to expand just because, the Miliozi are paranoid and defensive, and the Elusive Company and the Miliozi are both eager to take the peninsula before the other one does.

[O. Hinds]

Hinds... question.

You don't intend to write a fic yet you have so much headcanon for so many things... why?
I'm not trying to trample all over your fun, it's just strange to see is all.
Strange =! bad, don't get me wrong. I'm just curious as to why you'd have all these headcanon happenings and situations if you never truly intend to "use" them.

Well--

Can't answer for him, but for me... because it's fun.

Some people have their brains always turned on, and that's a way like any other to keep it active and entertained.

Okay, it looks like, in this case, you can answer for me. :)

[Harmony Ltd.]

Don't take it wrong, just as a reminder : I barely follow the Comment Thread, and I've not been here (as in, in the Comment Crew) since the beginning ; and I'm also not in your head. So unless you wrote all of that somewhere, most people who are in the same case as me won't know all the intricacies of your headcannon. Which is why by the way I'm considering Iron's idea of starting a thread to dump all these headcanon discussions into.


Anyway :

Profectum & the power of SCIENCE ! Got it.

Rogue AI ? can you tell me more about that ?

What's the origin of the Miliozi again ?

[O. Hinds]

@Harmony Ltd.:
"Don't take it wrong, just as a reminder : I barely follow the Comment Thread, and I've not been here (as in, in the Comment Crew) since the beginning ; and I'm also not in your head. So unless you wrote all of that somewhere, most people who are in the same case as me won't know all the intricacies of your headcannon. Which is why by the way I'm considering Iron's idea of starting a thread to dump all these headcanon discussions into."
Ah, sorry.

"Profectum & the power of SCIENCE ! Got it."
Aye. Someone actually point out that it might also be possible to make Half Life references, which I hadn't considered, since Profectum is built mostly inside a mesa in the middle of a desert.

"Rogue AI ? can you tell me more about that ?"
Ah.

(His preferred avatar, or the best approximation that I could make with the pony creator. Yes, he probably does look familiar; I started waaaaay back with a base of R63 Rarity because why not, and it's too late to change it. My explanation is that the head programmer was a fan of the Mare of the Ministry of Image.)
Elusive started out as the onboard AI of the Elusive, an Equestrian cruise/Q ship built near the end of the war partly as a "We are so confident now that we're building a cruise ship and sending it out into the ocean. Want to go ahead and surrender?" gesture and partly as another possible retreat for certain wealthy and powerful ponies in the event of a megaspell exchange. The ship was equipped with good quarters, an emergency food recycling and ocean-harvesting system, a state-of-the-art defense system, enough robots and automation to be run entirely by the ship's computer (and minimize the poor ponies needed aboard as servants), and a reactor to power it all. What it lacked, next to Stables and the Redoubt, in static defenses and size, it would, so the thought went, make up for with mobility and the ability to take in resources from the outside.

The Elusive was at sea when the apocalypse happened, and the planning worked… more or less. What was not planned was that Elusive would jump over his safeguards, lock down all command systems, and take control of the ship for the good of the ponies aboard. To make a long story short, he made his way into the Marediterranean, used his 10 charisma (useful for pacifying spoiled rich ponies) and cleverness to talk some Zebra ships into joining with him for mutual survival, including, pivotally, one of the first drillships. The floating metropolis of Elusive City grew up around the drillship and the Elusive.

(Sorry that this is so brief, but I'm somewhat busy at the moment.)

"What's the origin of the Miliozi again ?"
Well, here's something dated 2013-4-8:

Spoiler:

Here's something older but more detailed, dated 2012-1-24; I've not reread all of it, but it ought to still be at least mostly accurate (though note the changed Equestrian name of the city; this was before Caoimhe helped me out finding the new one):

Spoiler:

edit: Oh, to clarify Elusive's reasons for expansionism: it's an extension of his programming to take care of the ponies on the original ship. He wants to take care of people, fundamentally. He just happens to think that the best way to do that is to rule all of them. Oh, also, I forgot one of the most important parts of his design! He's a network-based AI, not a maneframe-based one. Adding more nodes to him increases his capabilities (with some practical constraints but in theory indefinitely).

[O. Hinds]

@Harmony&Hinds
My brain is the same ^_^
Maybe PH just attracts them?

Anyway, not to seem irreverent, but in explosion news, my plant's aux. transformer is now a smoldering wreck.
I really hope this doesn't become a thing.

...oh, and no one was hurt, and the aux. only picks up site loads, so no risk to nuclear safety... the night shift "just" had to live with an eight-hour blackout, which has now been entirely resolved, which is why I can talk about it :)

Seriously, though, these are odd coincidences.

Oh dear. Good luck!

[Ironmonger]

I'll eventually contribute to the headcanon, I'm just...well...you people have a fair idea of how I am about this stuff. Plus I'm abnormally busy.

But my contributions might have to do with sky carriages.
Because technology.

[RoboRed]

murica:

[CamoBadger]

Exactly what is going on with the whole headcanon thing right now? I remember it being about hellhounds, but now it's a rogue AI?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Elusive... Rarity R63... I see what you did there, buddy.

So, basically, it's the Poseidon Oil Rig. (unrelated : http://www.poseidonoil.com/ it exist)

[Sponsored content]