Re: [Fallout Equestria] Setting discussions

by O. Hinds Sat Apr 26, 2014 12:39 am

Meleagridis wrote:This is pretty neat. So a feudal whatsit rises, literally, from the ashes. Huh. Maybe this gets answered further down the page, but what kind of relationship do these guys have with each other, across species and not? The guys have always been isolationist, I imagine that wrangling them even for world-ending war involved some serious negotiations. Would they be a little... territorial? They have to share a small (for a dragon, anyways) living space, but nothing is too small to sever with a fence or a line of chalk. And their tenants, their serfs... what do they think of their providers? With all the breaks they're getting, it seems like they might be pretty protective. And if the big guys do get a little standoffish to other big guys (including marking territory) it might mean that serfs sign themselves not to dragons, but to a dragon. One lord.

They could throw all their gratitude up that way, and the big guy becomes an identity for them. They are all one big happy family, working for Soggyscales. Soggyscales' glory is our glory. Go go team Soggyscales. To hell with with the Smogbellies. Smogbelly is a dick, and so is everyone signed to Smogbelly. Tell you what, boys... when the sun goes down, let's you and me sneak into Smogbelly's land and pinch something small enough that the Alpha won't notice.

Dragon cults? I'm thinking more like... I dunno, mob families mixed with samurai.

Ponies would make dealing with other dragons a little easier, if they're airing on the side of caution. Think about how few of these snail-speed breeders (I assume, anyways) were lost in the war. Honestly, they shouldn't be risking each other in conflicts or even monstrous labour. Ponies could do things in their name. And while their out, the power hungry ponies could probably be furthering their own goals. This supposed system is ripe for abuse by enterprising individuals, who may be long dead by the time their deception is noticed.

Hm, interesting ideas...

by Harmony Ltd. Sat Apr 26, 2014 7:28 am

Indeed, interesting ideas.

Wanna explore them a bit more, Mel'? See what comes out?

by Meleagridis Sat Apr 26, 2014 9:11 am

Always do. Can't guarantee I'll be by any more frequently, but I like the idea. (Have to go right now, though, or I'd have some more stuff to dump)

by Harmony Ltd. Sat Apr 26, 2014 9:41 pm

Re Stalliongrad:

The idea that not many people would have tried exploring the region after the Gardens got activated directly contradicts an earlier thing I said about the Stalliongrader diaspora in the Wasteland preserving the memory of their Motherland and wanting to retake it one day.

So I guess something is bound to happen there, with Stalliongrader settlers coming from all corners of the Wasteland starting to establish settlements on the now inhabitable ashes of the old city.

Now the question is: how do we resolve the situation in an interesting manner?

by O. Hinds Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:32 am

Hm. Well, I see three possibilities at the moment:
1: The settlements vanish overnight, as if they'd never been (thanks to rapid disassembly and landscaping robots and the conversion or execution of the settlers).
2: The underground facilities for the most part seal themselves off, and the resettlement proceeds without anyone knowing that they're there. Until something, I'm not sure what, happens to change that.
3: The settlers go mad as a result of one of the less sane and more experiment-minded AIs having control of the surface accesses. Think a miniature Big Mountain, perhaps. Hm. Have you read the cut ending where the PC would join the Think Tank? I'm remembering the bit of it that had the members of the Legion made to believe that they really were living in ancient Rome, on the moon. Possibly something like that?

by O. Hinds Sun Apr 27, 2014 8:18 pm

Two things:
Firstly, I don't know if this is useful at all, but it seems pretty cool.

Secondly, I think that your math was wrong earlier. Sorry.

Harmony wrote:Let's say 28 square kilometres. 28 million square metres. This leaves around a thousand square metres per columns, on a basis of one column per thousand dead.

That would have only twenty-eight thousand columns for only twenty-eight million dead. At one thousand deaths per column and the earlier-used highly conservative estimate of two hundred million deaths total, we're looking at only 140 m^2 per column, by my calculations.

by O. Hinds Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:39 am

I've just been playing around a bit in SketchUp, and, yeah, this could look very impressive. If not for the curve of the crater, it might also be pretty easy to get lost in. Finding a specific name would require checking the registers... and I imagine that the visitors' center might even have electric scooters.

Oh, my test model used square columns 2.5m on a side with straight sections 5m high, the idea being that, where names are available, each is 2cm high. Each column's top is a 0.75m-high pyramid, and each column is set in a base 0.25m high and 3m on a side, for a total ground-to-tip height of six meters. Each column is set in the center of a sloping plot 6 meters on a side, though my test model is flat, with paths around the edges. We probably can't use the entire surface of the crater, but this ought to give us the capacity for over seven hundred million deaths. I'm also imagining that there's some sort of domed structure in the very center, possibly with an eternal flame and a general anti-war message. And possibly pumps in the basement to keep the memorial from flooding when it rains, depending on the elevation.

by O. Hinds Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:44 am

Oh, hm, a flaw in my design: the regular square plots won't work with the increasing radii. Still, there are probably some salvageable ideas in there.

by Harmony Ltd. Sun May 11, 2014 4:40 pm

A sudden thought:

It's most probable that, although the place was almost completely automated by that point, there was a lot of ponies working inside the Stalliongrad's Underground Manufacturing Complex, and it's also more than probable that a reasonable number of these people survived the initial barrage of Balefire bombs the PR launch to try to demolish the complex - if only because they probably were in the command centers of the complex, which were its most hardened parts.

So the question is: what happened to them? Did they die, from hunger, radiation-poisoning, or stark-raving mad at the thought of being buried alive under the ashes of their ruined homes; or did they somehow survive? And if it's the later, how?

Spoiler:

by O. Hinds Sun May 11, 2014 6:08 pm

Neat idea! Of course, it begs the question of how they'd react to people coming from outside...

by Harmony Ltd. Sun May 11, 2014 7:23 pm

Which could then explain, among other things, one of the possible reasons as to why the place still hasn't been (re)discovered.

by Harmony Ltd. Mon May 12, 2014 2:00 am

A counterpart to the PR's Profectum, but with manufacturing instead of SCIENCE! ?

by O. Hinds Mon May 12, 2014 2:34 am

I thought of that, but it isn't exactly. Profectum was still fully aware of the outside world, and it did still have a viably large population of living ponies. A better comparison might be between Alliance Profectum and Stalliongrad under whoever it ends up joining. I'm not sure, though. Sorry; I'm tired and behind schedule after an hours-long argument in my RPG group in which our GM was attempting to mediate between myself and another player.

by O. Hinds Mon May 12, 2014 2:35 am

Unless you meant to compare wartime Stalliongrad, in which case... I don't know. Sorry.

by O. Hinds Mon May 12, 2014 2:40 am

Basically, I'm not entirely sure what comparison you're trying to make, and my brain is too worn at the moment to really put much thought into trying to work out alternatives or the like.

by Harmony Ltd. Mon May 12, 2014 3:57 am

No prob. Will probably explain that around 10 hours from now.

by O. Hinds Mon May 12, 2014 6:46 pm

Well, I'm in a better mental state now, but I'm still not sure just what comparison you're trying to make. As I see it, both Profectum and Stalliongrad progress or may progress through three stages. The first stage is the one of as-intended operation, Profectum and Stalliongrad undamaged, expanding, and serving/part of the PR and Equestria respectively. The second stage is of solo operation and survival after the damage caused by the war and the loss of external connections; Profectum already passed through this, but Stalliongrad's still in it (at least in metatime). The third stage is of reintegration and renewed change and expansion; we don't yet know what shape it will take for Stalliongrad, or even if Stalliongrad will manage to reach it, but for Profectum it was joining the Alliance and becoming a university town in addition to its other roles. Profectum is, of course, still in this stage.

by Harmony Ltd. Tue May 13, 2014 4:34 am

That was the idea, two relics of the Old Wod's wonders, still functional and potential or realized game changers in a post-apocalyptic world - Profectum being realized, and Stalliongrad still being potential.

by O. Hinds Tue May 13, 2014 4:42 am

Ah, yes; I'd agree with that.

Might one also see the Hoofington Core as being in that group? Ending the game counts as changing it, after all. :D

by Harmony Ltd. Tue May 13, 2014 5:09 pm

Until PH is resolved, I tend to put every Hoofington reĺated stuff in a mental "don't open before Sombermas" shoebox.

by O. Hinds Tue May 13, 2014 8:45 pm

Me too. Except for the things which I know but can't even reveal I know. :D

Sombermas... Hm... I have been wondering if we could get EQD to go all out for PH's completion...

by Vinylshadow Wed May 14, 2014 5:47 pm

...You mean, even after three thousand two hundred and thirty six pages, Project Horizons isn't done?

[screams internally]

by O. Hinds Thu May 15, 2014 1:02 am

Oh, you did say that you were only in the home stretch, rather than at the end of the most recently posted chapter, didn't you? Yes. yes, PH is still not quite finished. Is it not glorious? :D

by Vinylshadow Thu May 15, 2014 1:29 pm

[internal screaming intensifies]

Well....time to read the nine billion other FOE side stories

Pink Eyes is...not my favorite, to be honest, too 'cutesy' for this sort of thing, so I went ahead and read a summery of it x3

Viva New Pegas is a lot better (so far) than the other New Pegas fic

by O. Hinds Thu May 15, 2014 8:58 pm

Yeah, I never finished Pink Eyes...

I've not read any New Pegas stories.

by Vinylshadow Fri May 16, 2014 10:07 am

I've been tempted to try ponifying the opening sequence, but my writing would fall far short of what most FoE fics seem to hold themselves to.

That, and I'm not sure what pony species I'd make the Courier. Unicorns seem to be the most common, but a pegasi would make the most sense, since he'd be an errand pony.

Plus, I wouldn't know where and when in Equestria to set it.

'Viva New Pegas' apparently takes place 20 years after the events of the end of FoE...and I haven't seen any hints about it in 'New Pegas'

by Harmony Ltd. Fri May 16, 2014 4:20 pm

Random thought:

I was thinking how in a lot of fantasy settings, authors can't resist the temptation to introduce an Atlantis-expy in their work, an old and extremely civilization that got destroyed through its own hubris, generally on a continent that got sunken in the process.

This made me wonder... Is it also the case for this setting?

Potential candidates:
- El-Dogado ("Dogs dug too deep, and too greedily")
- The Star-Worshipping Zebra
- show-accurate Crystal Empire (though only in the most superficial sense of "a land lost to time")
- Equestria itself??? Though Zebrica would probably be a more accurate candidate, if we go with FoE's description of the effects of the war on the Zebra homeland.

by Vinylshadow Fri May 16, 2014 5:16 pm

What if the Crystal Empire had 'popped back' after the bombs fell?

Would Sombra make forays into the Wasteland, or would he consolidate his power in the north?

by Harmony Ltd. Fri May 16, 2014 5:32 pm

Depends on a number of things.

First, as a disclaimer, in the headcanon we've been developing here, the Crystal Empire as it is described in the show doesn't exist in this setting. What exist is an isolationist Empire on a different continent than Equestria, that may or may not have historically done (and continue to do) an heavy use of mind-altering magics.

This said, if we imagine a Crystal Empire as described in the show and put it on that remote continent, having it emerge a few das after the Days of Fire...

Well, first and foremost, Equestria and large swaths of Zebrica are at the moment extremely unwelcoming envirronment, devoid of any slaves. So they aren't of any interest to Sombra. Only the CE (crystal empire) has slaves he can use to dig his precious cryyyystaaaals, and I'm under the impression that crystals are not something the Crystal Empire lacks. So there's no pressure for Sombra to try to expand at that moment.

It's possible the Sombra-led Empire will simply grow and slowly expand on the frozen continent for the next hundred years - if only for Sombra to consolidate his power base before attempting to conquer the whole world.

Now, we need to remember that the continent on which we've put the Crystal empire IS remote, and far from everything else. So the Empire is at a disadvantage if it ever wanted to start launching itself in a Dark Crusade. Unless you handwave the logistical concerns with literal magic, but that would be... bad.

by Scienza Fri May 16, 2014 5:33 pm

Why would he want to? Equestria's a radioactive shithole now, while he controls possibly the only place in the world still untouched by the apocalypse.

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