Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

[Harmony Ltd.]

By the way, even though the NCR is focusing on biofuel-steam, would they still be interested enough in petroleum for CP to have a practical market?  If not, I'm not sure that Hell would be able to avoid being drawn into the Alliance.  Unless the NCR decides to increase its petroleum use definitely not at all specifically to prevent that… Hm.  Thoughts?

Well, if I understand things right, the advantage of external combustion steam engines is that you can without too many modifications have them use a different kind of liquid fuel as a source of heat. And these modifications could probably without much engineering be made to be done through the flip of a single switch for the engines (from alcohol to heating oil - the only differences AFAIK being the viscosity of the liquid, its ignition point and heating temperature, and the amount of oxygen needed for a complete combustion).

And the NCR would still be interested in acquiring petroleum to fuel its industrialization process. It will simply remain vigilant to not grow reliant on external trade for its industry to run, and be sure that its energy sources can without too many practical problems be switched from oil to something else that's locally produced in relatively short order, should it be subjected to an embargo (of course I'm not saying it won't negatively impact the NCR's industry, but the idea is simply to not do like Equestria did and have all the industry suddenly grind to a halt when the coal supply ceased).

And that's why it would be very interested in having another supplier of oil, I think.

[O. Hinds]

By the way, even though the NCR is focusing on biofuel-steam, would they still be interested enough in petroleum for CP to have a practical market?  If not, I'm not sure that Hell would be able to avoid being drawn into the Alliance.  Unless the NCR decides to increase its petroleum use definitely not at all specifically to prevent that… Hm.  Thoughts?

Well, if I understand things right, the advantage of external combustion steam engines is that you can without too many modifications have them use a different kind of liquid fuel as a source of heat. And these modifications could probably without much engineering be made to be done through the flip of a single switch for the engines (from alcohol to heating oil - the only differences AFAIK being the viscosity of the liquid, its ignition point and heating temperature, and the amount of oxygen needed for a complete combustion).

And the NCR would still be interested in acquiring petroleum to fuel its industrialization process. It will simply remain vigilant to not grow reliant on external trade for its industry to run, and be sure that its energy sources can without too many practical problems be switched from oil to something else that's locally produced in relatively short order, should it be subjected to an embargo (of course I'm not saying it won't negatively impact the NCR's industry, but the idea is simply to not do like Equestria did and have all the industry suddenly grind to a halt when the coal supply ceased).

And that's why it would be very interested in having another supplier of oil, I think.

Ah, I see. Hm... Tricky. Vehicle and power plant fuels are relatively easy switches, but industrial uses could be more difficult. Of course, having CP competing with NEROC would drive the cost of oil down, too. I'm not sure if CP is up and running yet in the present day (~30SR, for those of you just joining us), though. Maybe just starting up. I assume that Manehattan would be the major import port? This could also be a reason for the NCR to work on a navy earlier than they otherwise would; the Alliance can't directly stop the CP tankers, since they want to stay on good terms with Hell, but Alliance forces can always just happen to be too busy elsewhere to escort oil ships bound for the NCR. And since most Wastelanders have pretty much no experience at sea, this might motivate the NCR to court the Stockings ahead of the rest of their expansion north... Lots of possibilities!

[O. Hinds]

Oh, and yes, it ought not to be too difficult to make a burner can that can switch from alcohol-firing to oil-firing. I was just thinking that using fuel oil would likely be much more expensive, since it has to be imported and shipped from overseas while the alcohol is local.

[O. Hinds]

Oh, by the way, Somber mentioned that he sees the GPE as a junta rather than a democratic stratocracy.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh, by the way, Somber mentioned that he sees the GPE as a junta rather than a democratic stratocracy.

That was the impression I got from his writing, yes.

Burma In The Skies ?

Heh. Now I'm imagining the pegasi "serfs" (thanks for the distinction, Glory !  ) cultivating fields of opium in order to produce drugs to pacify the population.

Though if we go with the "theme" of the GPE, they're probably more likely to use synthetic drugs than ones that need already limited field-space to be grown.

Oh, and yes, it ought not to be too difficult to make a burner can that can switch from alcohol-firing to oil-firing. I was just thinking that using fuel oil would likely be much more expensive, since it has to be imported and shipped from overseas while the alcohol is local.

Not necessarily, if it can be shipped in enough bulk quantity. Though shipping the oil from the Manehattan oil terminals to the rest of the NCR is another matter entirely. There most likely isn't enough quantity of oil to justify the (costly in term of raw materials and labor needed) construction of pipelines, so it will most likely be shipped by rail, once the rail network is established.

[O. Hinds]

Oh, by the way, Somber mentioned that he sees the GPE as a junta rather than a democratic stratocracy.

That was the impression I got from his writing, yes.

Burma In The Skies ?

Heh. Now I'm imagining the pegasi "serfs" (thanks for the distinction, Glory !  ) cultivating fields of opium in order to produce drugs to pacify the population.

Though if we go with the "theme" of the GPE, they're probably more likely to use synthetic drugs than ones that need already limited field-space to be grown.

Both interesting, though I somewhat doubt that the GPE would actually deploy drugs like this on a large scale.

Oh, and yes, it ought not to be too difficult to make a burner can that can switch from alcohol-firing to oil-firing. I was just thinking that using fuel oil would likely be much more expensive, since it has to be imported and shipped from overseas while the alcohol is local.

Not necessarily, if it can be shipped in enough bulk quantity. Though shipping the oil from the Manehattan oil terminals to the rest of the NCR is another matter entirely. There most likely isn't enough quantity of oil to justify the (costly in term of raw materials and labor needed) construction of pipelines, so it will most likely be shipped by rail, once the rail network is established.

Then the question becomes the size and number of tankers that CP has available... Hm... Unfortunately, it might go so far as them needing to have the ships provided by the NCR; the Alliance provided Hell with quite a bit of aid, but they had no reason to provide Hell with oil tankers or extensive shipbuilding facilities.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The way I see it, by 30-40 SR, it's probable the NCR has the capacity to build ships, but only of a relatively limited size.

Things like that :



Though maybe a size or two above. But given they don't have much experience with shipbuilding, and still have to be vigilant about how they expand their relatively limited supply of steel and other metals, it's possible they'll rediscover how to make wooden sail ships, at least for their coastal fishing ships.

Also, I was thinking that given the tankers would be of relatively limited size and they would have to follow a five thousand kilometers or so route, they would would want to be able to use windpower to move around ? Maybe something like the Falls of Clyde ?



And now I'm imagining the NCR Merchant Marine using pegasi weather teams in its crews to be sure the winds are always favorable...

[Harmony Ltd.]

Interesting.

It would in effect mean that most species owe their existence to the Zebra. Could make for interesting situations...

[Harmony Ltd.]

Africa, if memory serves, has more species of just about every kind of creature, insects especially, than anywhere else on earth.

The South American rainforests would have to have a word with you.

(jocking)

But yeah, the idea could be interesting. Though if we go with what Kkat said on zebra-land, they were actually victim of their land's... "biodiversity", shall we say (though I can see why they would feel at home in the Everfree in a case like this).

...

Maybe the fact there's so many wild things roaming their lands is the consequence of an unreasoned "arms race" the Zebra would have had inancient times against the wildlife of their land ? Creating a species to hunt another species that they don't like ; then when that new species start posing them problems they create another one, worse than the original. Rinse and repeat for a few hundred years until they start understanding what they have done but then the "evil" is done and their land has become fantasy!Australia.

Though in that case letting every alchemy student create a new species would seem a bit... Well, like handing a nuke to a kid and telling him to have fun.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Makes sense.

I'd like to have Hinds' input on that one, given how deep of an impact this can have on all he has conceived so far for the Zebra.

[O. Hinds]

Though maybe a size or two above. But given they don't have much experience with shipbuilding, and still have to be vigilant about how they expand their relatively limited supply of steel and other metals, it's possible they'll rediscover how to make wooden sail ships, at least for their coastal fishing ships.

Aye, that makes sense; even the Alliance is still using partially wooden ships, after all.

I'm not entirely sure about the Stockings, actually… perhaps they might use new wooden ships outfitted with scavenged engines?

Also, I was thinking that given the tankers would be of relatively limited size and they would have to follow a five thousand kilometers or so route, they would would want to be able to use windpower to move around ? Maybe something like the Falls of Clyde ?

Aye, I'd been pondering windjammer tankers.  A good idea, I think; it'll stop them from burning up their own cargo.

And now I'm imagining the NCR Merchant Marine using pegasi weather teams in its crews to be sure the winds are always favorable...

But this I had not at all thought of!  Nice idea!



re zebra species creation:
Eh… It's certainly an interesting idea, and one that I wouldn't mind seeing explored elsewhere… I'm trying to decide if it can be fitted in here (either in this universe or in FoE in general), though…
…
Sorry, but I'm leaning towards "no".  Even ignoring my headcanon, we never hear about the Zebras deploying plagues of a brand-new species of locust against Equestrian farmland, or about long-range bomber birds with chromatophores in their feathers, or enormous tunneling beasts putting diamond dogs to shame, or giant clams that are living anti-ship mines… and that's just animals; if we expand the capability to plants, it gets even worse, to say nothing of microorganisms.  And yes, none of these things would be easy, but I cannot believe that the zebras had such a skill and never in twenty years of war applied even a fraction of their defense spending and best minds to it; even without being able to make new animals, we've IRL tried to find ways to use animals in war.  Instead, in FoE we hear about zebras making robots and enlisting the aid of preexisting species, and in PH the Brood are cyborgs.  If the zebras had been honing techniques for shaping new species on demand continuously since prehistory, why would they instead be famous for using robotics? (Yes, IRL, people had been using swords for generations and switched to guns anyway, but here the zebras could, to continue the analogy, make swords that never dull, shoot fire, and make more of themselves, while the muskets would still be just muskets.)
Again, though, it's an interesting idea; if you end up using it or having it used in a non-FoE story, please let me know.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Wouldn't it be funny if, through language evolution, New Canterlot Republic would evolve into New Centerlot Republic ?

You know, with those talk about what Canterlot really represented in the Equestrian culture, beyond the fact it was where the Princesses were.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Re weather teams : they would also be useful to disarm storms and other kind of bad weather they may encounter on their travels (regardless of whether it is a sail ship or not).

[O. Hinds]

Wouldn't it be funny if, through language evolution, New Canterlot Republic would evolve into New Centerlot Republic ?

You know, with those talk about what Canterlot really represented in the Equestrian culture, beyond the fact it was where the Princesses were.

...Eh, no offense, but it doesn't strike me as that funny.

Re weather teams : they would also be useful to disarm storms and other kind of bad weather they may encounter on their travels (regardless of whether it is a sail ship or not).

Ooh, another good point. I'm not sure if they'd actually be able to fully disarm large storms, but they could certainly help. It also sounds like dangerous work with lots of potential for drama (a far-too-small team out in a black night tempest, desperately doing whatever they can to protect the little thing of light on wood pitching on the water below).

[Harmony Ltd.]

Heh. Not funny haha but funny interesting due to what it'd mean about the culture of the Republic, how it evolved and... Yeah, whatever. *throw idea in the "discarded" heap*

[O. Hinds]

Heh. Not funny haha but funny interesting due to what it'd mean about the culture of the Republic, how it evolved and... Yeah, whatever. *throw idea in the "discarded" heap*

Sorry…

Why didn't Luna lower the moon and drown the zebra lands? Why didn't either of the pony sisters use their celestial powers to end the zebra threat forever?
Heck, for a more "delicate" touch, Luna has countless stars. She could have bombed the zebra lands in an instant and been done with it.

Well, we know that the stars are out of Luna's control, and it's quite possible that there are restrictions on what can be done with the sun and moon, too.  Equestria did, after all, think to weaponize sunfire, but they had get their R&D forces to make a megaspell for it.  Exactly how much control the Princesses had over the sun and moon was never really defined (nor was, in fact, exactly what the Princesses do to move them across the sky).  Luna might be able to mess with the tides to an extent, but that, unfortunately, is a global effect.

But yeah, in the case of the smallest fractions of the magic, I have no idea why kkat gave them alchemy and then Xenith and Zecora were the only known practitioners of it. You'd think they'd of made their soldiers all as powerful as littlepip eventually was.

Most of LittlePip's abilities did not come from alchemy.  We don't know that much (or possibly all) of what LittlePip got wasn't standard issue, as far as I can tell, and for the rest, well, not everything is cheap enough for universal deployment.
Oh, random interesting thing I stumbled across in FoE while trying to make sure that I hadn't forgotten something:

“…just found an underground research facility where ponies were attempting to apply zebra alchemical techniques to coal,” Blackwing was telling Calamity.  “It seems they were hoping to create everlasting coal.  They never succeeded, but the did manage to produce an alchemically-treated coal that burns twice as fast.  And about ten times as hot.”

They could have some other significance, but they've certainly got to have SOMETHING.

Why?

[Harmony Ltd.]

They could have some other significance, but they've certainly got to have SOMETHING.

Why?

Because otherwise it would give the ponies a real basis on which to conceive that they are actually "special" and more important than any other species on the planet, even the sentient ones.

It would be nice if it wasn't the case, and if Equestria's speciesm was just a cultural artifact and not grounded in reality.

[O. Hinds]

They could have some other significance, but they've certainly got to have SOMETHING.

Why?

Because otherwise it would give the ponies a real basis on which to conceive that they are actually "special" and more important than any other species on the planet, even the sentient ones.

It would be nice if it wasn't the case, and if Equestria's speciesm was just a cultural artifact and not grounded in reality.

Huh... this turned into a bit of a wall of text.  I blame lack of sleep (I'm crash-changing my sleep schedule to prepare for an upcoming trip).:

TL;DR: There are grounds in reality for the idea that ponies are better in some ways (even if the Hearth's Warming Eve tale was 100% fabricated, the ponies are still the ones who Celestia and Luna shaped themselves in the images of and touched down in the back yard of), but the claim that they're better innately and in all ways is pretty much completely undermined by the fact that such a naturally superior lot wouldn't have lost the war.

Also, if you like Doylist arguments, the zebras (and everyone else, if I'm understanding this correctly) being just as involved in managing the world as the ponies are changes the war from an epic tale of an underdog soldiering grimly on in the face of certain defeat by the Chosen of the Divine (and then discovering that defeat, total defeat, might not be so certain after all) to a tale of that time Personnel got into into a big row with Plant Ops.  Now, granted, an armed squabble between the various departments in charge of managing a planet could be quite an interesting story, but I don't think that it's fundamentally the same sort of story.

I seems to still be rather rambly... Hopefully this post makes sense.

[O. Hinds]

Because, in the absence of ponies, the equestrian wasteland will always be a wasteland and will return to being it should they not continue to work to restore it.

Interesting. Where do you get that idea? It's only been two hundred years (with the GPE blocking out the sun, no less), and already, due in large part to taint, we've seen creatures adapting to the Wasteland and forming new ecosystems. I'd expect that, were the sophonts taken out of the equation and the peninsula left to run for a few million years, it would fix itself quite nicely. I mean, the planet recovered from the Eater's impact, didn't it? No ponies, zebras, princesses, or anything there at the time.

It is a fantasy world so, quite frankly, they need a reason to exist. In any other world they wouldn't, but in a world of myth everything of any significance has an origin story and point to its existence.

…Ah. Sorry, then, but it looks like we have a fundamental divide here. While, according to my beliefs on the subject, the FoE universe seems different enough from ours to open up exciting things like the possible existence of actual free will, narrative causality is not among its laws of physics. (I recall a delightful story from the development of The Discworld Mapp, wherein it was related that, though the world may be borne on the backs of elephants standing on the shell of an astrochelonian, Pterry insisted that the rain shadows be accurately modeled… and that's a universe that does explicitly include narrative causality in its physics and could have gotten away with "The desert is there because the story says it should be".)

[O. Hinds]

So, long story short, it goes from a story in which neither side should have fought and the world was seriously damaged by both their passions, into one where the zebra should have just rolled over since, in their arrogance, they were threatening existence.

It is the duty of a caesar to look after their people. The gemstones supplied by Equestria were a direct and significant contribution to the safety of the people of the Caesar at the time of the start of the war. Equestria was in no danger from attacks, but it had built life-sustaining infrastructure on imported coal and was running out of reserves. The situation should have been resolved peacefully. The Zebras need their pride, to know that they're not becoming just another sort of animal that Equestrian ponies are taking care of (particularly since some ponies disagree with that), but the Princesses are already goddesses. The Caesar giving in would have been seen as a weakness of himself and his people. The Princesses are already goddesses, though, and the ponies their chosen people; they do not need a great sea of pride atop everything else. The Princesses making concessions would have been seen as the goddesses still caring about the welfare of mortals, even non-ponies, and yes, while there would have been some complaints at home, what could the complainers actually do? At worst, the Princesses just wait a century for them to die off. But no. The Princesses are, after all, like fallible mortals in mindset, and they are convinced by overconfident and badly-informed to end the game of brinksmanship not by giving in but by force. If the Caesar couldn't give in to diplomatic pressure, he certainly couldn't give in to military force, and doing so would have sent a message to the world that Equestria expects a cough in your direction to be followed by the emptying of your pockets for the good of ponykind. So fighting commenced, and surely it wouldn't be a serious war. And it wasn't, at first. But the ponies had no idea what they were getting into, and they didn't stop; the zebras could have ended it quickly, back then, being much more skilled at war, but they were afraid, understandably, that that would have been seen as a too-unprovoked attack against Equestria. So the war continued, grudges built, and things started to get worse. And by the time that everyone realized what a serious war was and that this was indeed one, it was too late.

I seriously have to question why every nation in the world didn't rise up to stomp out the people that thought it was okay if the sun and moon stopped orbiting (because how could they know the bodies would keep orbiting otherwise). Why even a single non-zebra would join such a people. I think both have to have that sort of significance for the world to stand back and watch with their fingers crossed (even if that didn't make much sense, either).

Why get involved if you don't have to? At first, everyone expected the zebras to win only if Equestria let them; it was either a foregone conclusion or a plot by the Princesses, and, either way, better to stay out of the mess. As for why, later, both sides swelled, I think that the reason is simple: by the time the war became unlimited, it was too late to pull out (which seems to be a running trend here). Until it became clear what Equestria was turning into, everyone assumed that the war would end in a negotiated settlement that, while better for the victor (assuming that it wasn't a tie), would at worst just be rather harsh on the loser. This is Equestria, after all, and even with their rampant pony supremacy they'd want to pat each others' backs about how well they're taking care of the poor losing side. Then everyone notices how close to rectilinear mustache territory Equestria is getting, and the people already against it decide that a victory is their only hope of coming out of the war in anything resembling a comfortable shape. Key, though, is that it still wasn't a totally unlimited war; they didn't want to kill the Princesses, just march into Canterlot and make them sign a peace treaty. It was only at the very, very end, when the zebra command realized that they were losing and soberly considered who they were losing to, that they decided that the possibility of losing the planet was better than the near-certainty of living under Equestria's cold steel horseshoe.

[O. Hinds]

actual free will

...how do you mean, sir?

Oh, while I'm open to being proved wrong, I do not think that our universe or universes sufficiently like it can incorporate true free will; I do not see a place for it. I note, however, that this is academic, since we have quite good simulated free will and no true free will for it to compare unfavorably with (though the structure of that sentence is itself influenced by the simulation).

Discworld

I really need to read the entire series. What I've read of it I've loved, but I get easily distracted.

I quite recommend it.

[O. Hinds]

They both wanted, and tried to, kill one of the princesses. The "good" one, too.

When?

And again, what you're saying is that they decided they'd rather the possibility of the sun either being stuck in the sky forever or forever set, potentially killing everyone everywhere, over being under Equestria's rule, however harsh? It's a wonder the zebra didn't have more deserters, particularly from anyone and everyone that wasn't a zebra.

The non-zebras might have gotten off more lightly, but they'd still have been on the losing side.  And yes, that's what I'm saying.  If it's "probably die and maybe kill the planet" vs. "live, but you, your children, their children, their children, etc. until your family dies out will be worked to death in slave-labor mines", well…
And who's to say that Equestria, flush with victory and suddenly having no one to point its many many guns at, wouldn't have turned its eyes elsewhere?

I mean, what is the point of building fallout shelters at all if you expect life to come to an end, entirely?
But maybe that was just "optimism" on their part.

Right.  A total planet death would be… a total planet death, but anything less than that leaves some possibility, however small, of survival and reconstruction.

You misunderstand, I'm a strict determinist, I was curious how this other world is different in such a way that it doesn't operate how ours does.

Oh, sorry.  Well, it's quite possible, of course, that their universe is the same mix of determinism and randomness as ours.  They have physics that we don't, though, of particular interest here being the fact that they have actual measurable souls.  Depending on how those and the physics associated with them work, I think it's possible that they could have at least some measure of top-down authentic free will (I'm here considering authentic free will to be "the mind exists as an entity, it makes decisions, and those decisions are communicated to the brain" and simulated free will to be "the brain does stuff through the same random and deterministic processes as the rest of the universe, and the record of these actions is, for the "viewpoint character", as it were, put together with sensory input and played as a "mind" in such a way that the brain/mind order appears to be reversed".).  Basically, I think that they have sufficient different/extra physics that there exists the possibility of self-awareness as an inherent property, which would allow true conscious acts (Though… interesting idea: assuming that free will does exist here, it still doesn't necessarily do it on a personal level.  Though I suppose that that's debatable.  If a brain's mind is created by the deterministic action from its particles but those particles are themselves self-aware, is the brain's mind self-aware?  Or, conversely, since an entity may believe perceive itself as self-aware but not be, would a stone composed of conscious particles, though having no mind of its own, be considered conscious?).

Hm, and now I seem to be getting philosophical...

[Harmony Ltd.]

On another subject :

From my perception of it, Gawdyna Grimfeather was already in her late forties during FoE. Thirty years later, she would probably be almost eighty.

I had an idea, I don't know what it's worth, but let's share it anyway...

I was thinking that Gawdyna may have been killed during the Bitter War, the Bitters being suspected to have killed her - she was visiting soldiers on the frontline. Without having appointed an "heir", there may have been some intestine struggles to know who might replace her in the job.

I'm still thinking about that last part.


Also, PH ch. 57 introduced a bit more insight into the politics of the Enclave and the state of its society, and this leads me to believe I would have to rework a bit the whole Fall of the Enclave / Bitter War pan of the setting. If only because of how much more quickly it might collapse if everyone start giving Neighvarro the finger after the number of defeats it would have suffered (Cathedral, Neighvarro, etc...). I'm starting to believe it's more likely the Enclave would have fragmented rather than imploded, some portions eager to trade with the surface, while the others would play the role of the Bitters trying to conquer and annihilate the surface.

Trying to add a bit more depth to the whole period than just "lol nope, we just want y'all to die" (Bitters).

[O. Hinds]

On another subject :

From my perception of it, Gawdyna Grimfeather was already in her late forties during FoE. Thirty years later, she would probably be almost eighty.

I had an idea, I don't know what it's worth, but let's share it anyway...

I was thinking that Gawdyna may have been killed during the Bitter War, the Bitters being suspected to have killed her - she was visiting soldiers on the frontline. Without having appointed an "heir", there may have been some intestine struggles to know who might replace her in the job.

I'm still thinking about that last part.


Also, PH ch. 57 introduced a bit more insight into the politics of the Enclave and the state of its society, and this leads me to believe I would have to rework a bit the whole Fall of the Enclave / Bitter War pan of the setting. If only because of how much more quickly it might collapse if everyone start giving Neighvarro the finger after the number of defeats it would have suffered (Cathedral, Neighvarro, etc...). I'm starting to believe it's more likely the Enclave would have fragmented rather than imploded, some portions eager to trade with the surface, while the others would play the role of the Bitters trying to conquer and annihilate the surface.

Trying to add a bit more depth to the whole period than just "lol nope, we just want y'all to die" (Bitters).

Interesting…

Also, it occurs to me that this might result in Las Pegasus approaching the Alliance instead of the other way around, possibly before the Miliozi make their move.  In fact, it may be that the intel provided by the defecting Las Pegasus was what convinced the Alliance to fully cease recognizing the GPE.
"Well, so much for the high and mighty Neighvarro.  Hey, you know those non-savage surfacers that Neighvarro's always told us to keep an eye on but keep hidden from our people?  Despite the fact that the surfacers seem to have ample fresh food and brand-new manufactured goods, but only minorities of pegasi and griffins?  I've got an idea…"
I like this idea!  It also means that Las Pegasus would be joining pretty much fully on their own terms, rather than being pressured into it by Elusive and the Miliozi.

I'm not sure how, exactly, they would create a plague of locusts that was virulent-enough to be a serious threat to the ponies' food supply without risking them spread out over the world and consuming everything like... well, like parasprites.

Well, controls could be put in, such as, say, highly degenerate genes that cause the fifth generation to be infertile, or something.  Those could go wrong, of course, but human bioweapons manufacturers certainly haven't let things like that stop them.

...am I reading what you posted wrong? I think you're saying the zebra didn't intend to kill the princesses, but there was a very clear attempt on one of their lives that they didn't even care when the "wrong" princess showed up for.

Oh, Shattered Hoof Ridge?  That looks to me like a capture, not a kill, attempt, and capturing either Princess could have brought the war to a swift, peaceful, and, at least to some degree, mutually beneficial (if tense) end.

[O. Hinds]

That's quite a deal more control than I would expect of them.
I was talking of literally casting creatures from clay, setting them to some form of life-giving kiln, and releasing them into the world. Something that's far more an art than a science, and denies any control of that sort. A creature's traits would be defined by how it was made (what kind of teeth it had, if it had wings or segmented eyes or was entirely blind or etc.) and whatever the magic itself would give it. The kind of thing that could only be refined over centuries.

That art could be studied, though, have science (and the known zebra skill at alchemy) applied to it.

In any case, even though this particular task is unlikely theirs, I would still insist they must have some form of relevance to their world of myth, I'm just not sure what it would be. I additionally realize this is a point we're unlikely to agree on, since you don't feel such a relevance is necessary.

Yeah. We can agree to disagree, though; no need to fight to the death over differing headcanons. :)

Right, I entirely forgot Somber re-wrote that canon. Not sure how they'd keep a princess hostage but, hey, if a changeling could do it, why not a zebra?

Well, they were able to temporarily incapacitate one, and we know from Canterlot that they could kill one. Containment capability isn't too unlikely. And, if the Princess in question was Celestia, they might not even need to contain her.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I'll note that the Alliance controlling an SPP tower might give them more or less direct access to its intelligence gathering capabilities and that of the whole SPP network if their tower isn't "firewalled" from the rest of it.

[O. Hinds]

I'll note that the Alliance controlling an SPP tower might give them more or less direct access to its intelligence gathering capabilities and that of the whole SPP network if their tower isn't "firewalled" from the rest of it.

Would they? I hadn't thought of that.
[checks map]
Hm, yes, there is a tower within the area taken by the Miliozi. As you say, though, not sure if it would still be on the network.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, that's a possibility for interesting politics for Littlepip to take part in :

NCR : "Cut the Alliance from the network, plz ?"
Alliance : "We are only making sure that the NCR isn't preparing something against us, can you blame us ?"


Also... On the other hand the NCR might tolerate the Alliance spying on them from the SPP towers, if only as a guarantee of goodwill. And depending on their mood, the Alliance could even accept to be spied back from its own tower(s).


Overall, I think Littlepip would want the SPP to stay "neutral", and not directly linked to the NCR, the Alliance, or any power beside herself. It's possible she would firewall EVERYONE from the SPP network.


Thoughts ?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Not relevant to the discussion at hand, but I think it would get lost on the chat thread so I'll put it here...

This may be an interesting case study for the effects of energy weapons :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

TL;DR : guy get his head bored through by a particle beam, survive with almost no sequels

[O. Hinds]

Not relevant to the discussion at hand, but I think it would get lost on the chat thread so I'll put it here...

This may be an interesting case study for the effects of energy weapons :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

TL;DR : guy get his head bored through by a particle beam, survive with almost no sequels

Wow, interesting.

[Sponsored content]