[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

stringtheory wrote:

Ironmonger wrote:Out of curiosity has anyone checked out my FoE fic yet? I haven't got much feedback on it other than my initial writing flaws and some "good jobs".

I know I gave my opinion, you should remember me...
I still think your group is overpowered and that from what you've been saying about your fic here, your 'wasteland' even if it is 10+ years after FO:E seems a little bit too okay/normal, really whole platoons of tanks?

Tanks are uncommon but not rare in this part of the wasteland, and I don't recall saying anything about platoons of tanks. The group itself is this powerful because I fully intend on throwing them against some very dangerous things, they survive mostly on their wit. Iron Fury is mostly specialized for combat but has a few skills, Kralle is a complete sociopath and entirely combat, Armatus is a failed experiment but a walking tank in certain situations, and Sonar is the resident scout and tech but somewhat unreliable in his skills at times, as said in Chapter 1. Prancinnati has its own dangers and is quite far from safe.

Ironmonger wrote:The large body of the T-28 (I originally planned to use the T-35 but I read it's cramped) but with a KV-1 turret, possibly an 85mm gun or the gun of the IS-2 if need be. Reason I came up with this (I admit it was rushed) is the T-28 and T-35 seem like they would be good for dealing with masses of infantry if they had the proper armor and were more reliable, but they lacked penetrating power. A large caliber with a short barrel is akin to pissing at someone. It's a raw idea and needs some work.

That's an odd mashup since the T-28 is oddly designed, the KV turret is just as cramped (But the KV-85 which had the same turret as the T-34/85 was much better desgned) does make for an interesting mashup except the T-28 for all it's sized was lighter armored than a T-34.

And the IS makes even less sense, the IS gun is a 122mm and something like twice the weight of an 85mm in both shell and simple gun weight alone. You'd have to kit-bash in a massive engine. And not even world of tanks have come up with a napkenwaffle engine stronger than what the KV was rolling around with.

Mister Frost wrote:On the subject of Equestrian vehicles, did those ponies never stop and think that maybe some sort of APC would help them not die? Do they have those? I've not heard it mentioned. Would certainly help out in the Wasteland

APC's take a certain kind of military mindset to develop, and being the combatants are equines the ability to be able to sit for long distances rather than walking (Or in this case trotting) has a low likelihood chance of developing. The idea of a armored personnel carrier with a gun to support the troops and the ability to drop soldiers on the front lines of the battlefield is very new. It took till the 1950s before it became an accepted idea. Even the M3 Halftrack and German Hanomag were only armed against shell splinters and not even bullets in all places.

O. Hinds wrote:Pretty much the only unequivocal advantage I can see walkers having is the (theoretical; it requires a very good control system) ability to operate on much rougher terrain than tracked or wheeled vehicles.

The design of choice has already been provided. Something like a Tachikoma, what's a Tachikoma you ask?
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zvSi5BV8_dU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
AI driven light tank with legs that can lower down to make feet or raise up to make wheels. Very agile, lightly armed and armored with an armored pod for carrying a single passenger. Used to supplement forces in Urban environments. Could we get that kind of mobility in real life where it's spidermaning it's way across buildings? Heck no, nor is it going to jump thirty feet in the air or drop fifty feet with no damage. But we can get something that can climb stairs, roll along a round and carry someone. And the setup of trio cameras in rotating domes in something we are putting in real life robot designs these days.

That's about as big as you can make walking robot before square cubed bits you in the ass hard. As for rougher terrain, nothing beats a tread for handling rough terrain but only a leg design lets you handle the kind of Urban environment without smashing up the street or making rubble piles to climb over things.

Cptadder wrote:AI driven light tank with legs that can lower down to make feet or raise up to make wheels. Very agile, lightly armed and armored with an armored pod for carrying a single passenger. Used to supplement forces in Urban environments. Could we get that kind of mobility in real life where it's spidermaning it's way across buildings? Heck no, nor is it going to jump thirty feet in the air or drop fifty feet with no damage. But we can get something that can climb stairs, roll along a round and carry someone. And the setup of trio cameras in rotating domes in something we are putting in real life robot designs these days.

That's about as big as you can make walking robot before square cubed bits you in the ass hard. As for rougher terrain, nothing beats a tread for handling rough terrain but only a leg design lets you handle the kind of Urban environment without smashing up the street or making rubble piles to climb over things.

I think that we could get that kind of maneuverability, but it would take 30+ years of development or a breakthrough in true AI to do it. The jumping ability is likewise definitely possible, but nowhere near practical at the weights we're talking about and it'd probably be easier to give it rockets or something silly like that rather than try to make the legs do that. The landing ability should actually be relatively easy with those legs and the wheels on the feet; these things would be easily air-droppable.


And yes, they would really shine in urban environments, but those aren't the only places they have a huge advantage. Treads work better than wheels on uneven, soft, or broken terrain, like dirt, sand, rocky plains, and trench warfare in particular. But they still can't do anything on mountainous areas, anywhere with boulders too big to roll over and too close to navigate between, anywhere without open straightaways at least the width of the tank (forests and such)... basically this works almost everywhere that you used to have to use infantry because vehicles didn't work. Imagine a Tachikoma in, say, Vietnam.

Like I said, walkers like this aren't tanks. They never will be, because that simple box design with treads underneath and a cannon on top will always have the best armor and firepower possible wherever it can function. But a small walker is a big step up from even power-armored infantry, and can go almost anywhere a soldier can but faster and harder.

Cptadder wrote:And not even world of tanks have come up with a napkenwaffle engine stronger than what the KV was rolling around with.

Well, actually, the probably-made-up Maybach HL 295 Ausf. A and B, which is available for the E-50, E-75, and E-100, as is the HL 235 for the E-50M. Each has a horsepower of 1200. The engine in the Maus boasts 1750 horsepower. The KV1S' has... 600 with the V-2IS engine. A Maus engine has indeed been built, so... yeah.

Sindri wrote:

And yes, they would really shine in urban environments, but those aren't the only places they have a huge advantage. Treads work better than wheels on uneven, soft, or broken terrain, like dirt, sand, rocky plains, and trench warfare in particular. But they still can't do anything on mountainous areas, anywhere with boulders too big to roll over and too close to navigate between, anywhere without open straightaways at least the width of the tank (forests and such)... basically this works almost everywhere that you used to have to use infantry because vehicles didn't work. Imagine a Tachikoma in, say, Vietnam.

In Mountainous terrain you have a point, Afghanistan is a stone cold bitch for tanks but Vietnam? Dense forests? Unless it's redwoods or Bocage just smash em down, smash em down, grind em beneath the treads

Like I said, walkers like this aren't tanks. They never will be, because that simple box design with treads underneath and a cannon on top will always have the best armor and firepower possible wherever it can function. But a small walker is a big step up from even power-armored infantry, and can go almost anywhere a soldier can but faster and harder.[/quote]

IncoherentOrange wrote:
Well, actually, the probably-made-up Maybach HL 295 Ausf. A and B, which is available for the E-50, E-75, and E-100, as is the HL 235 for the E-50M. Each has a horsepower of 1200. The engine in the Maus boasts 1750 horsepower. The KV1S' has... 600 with the V-2IS engine. A Maus engine has indeed been built, so... yeah.

It's not just about horsepower, it's to do with dimensions and fuel consumption. Yes a Maus engine could power a T-28 armed with a IS-2 turret and gun.

Except the tank would not have room for the turret since even the Maybach HL takes up over 70% of the T-28 volume leaving no room for pesky things like fuel or crewmembers.
What I mean is that the T-28 engine space simply does not have the room for anything seriously bigger. That's the problem with multiple turrets, your power to weight ratio's drop into the tank something fierce not to mention what the extra turret rings and armoring cost you.

True that. A proper upgunned, uparmored, and upengined T-28 would need a new chassis, most definitely. I also found out that the 295 was actually that which would be used in the AMX-50B MBT.

Raw idea indeed. I'll probably have to find a new base chassis. Perhaps find a new chassis and make my own changes to the dimensions to make sure everything is just dandy.

Ironmonger wrote:Raw idea indeed. I'll probably have to find a new base chassis. Perhaps find a new chassis and make my own changes to the dimensions to make sure everything is just dandy.

Your idea was fine enough, T-28 with KV-85 turret, sloped turret with an 85mm gun, maybe new turrets for the side machine guns (The BA-64 springs to mind for the much lower slung sloped turret rather than the tall and proud stove tops).

The point where you pushed to far was with the IS-2's gun. You kind of need an IS series tank to carry that sucker around. Even the SU-122 had massive issues with turning and alignment.
Either way a larger chassie is required, wider treads, move room, front turrets only. Maybe something like a Crusader MG turret the front can turrets were called sardin tins because they were EXACTLY big enough for someone to be inside them looking through the gun slit with your head pressed up against the armored roof. Celestia help you if you had a fat head.

IncoherentOrange wrote:Yeah, I know, just sayin; it's not true hard sci-fi. Close, though. Xenovirology is rarely ever addressed, yet is really quite a valid concern, 'innit?

It's really not. A virus works by hijacking the cell's internal mechanics to make copies of itself instead of the normal function of that particular cell. Most viruses depend on attacking a particular type of cell, like liver cells or white blood cells or something. Viruses that can manage to jump between species even here on earth are fairly rare, and those that can are even more rarely dangerous to humans. (Some few are -- mad cow, bird flu, etc. -- but those are the exceptions, not the rule.) A virus keyed to another form of life entirely, with utterly (or even slightly) different cell structures would be unable to do anything. It would be like trying to jumpstart your Ford from an F-16; there's just nothing there to hook the cables to, and if you can find somewhere to put them you're more likely to short out the plane or set it on fire than get your car started.

Xenocontagion in general is unlikely to be anything to worry about; the chance of anything from an alien word that operates on non-terran biology being able to function in a terran body is vanishingly small, including things like bacteria. Allergens might be a concern, but again, the likelihood is that anything alien will have about the same effect on a human as concrete dust. Poisons are a much greater concern, since those don't depend on the attacking substance being able to survive in a human's biological system; there are hundreds of totally natural compounds that can easily kill you dead without proper protective gear.

That's neat and makes sense, and yet, blows a large part of my story out of the water, which is rather bad for me. A little bit of reading, and likely fixing will be done. Though, what I have planned does still work, even if the biologies of the fauna and flora involved don't mix, because magic. So it looks like that hasn't put me too far off-track.

I could refute and say that something bad could happen. If the ecology of such a world is similar in scope to ours, there will be countless varieties of microbial life, some of which might pose a threat either by being extremely poisonous to everything around it, or simply by being large enough to absorb all the others and break them down to their base nutrients (a major problem would arise if, say, our stomach microbes were to all die or be eaten, right?). Nothing would know how to deal with each other, other than perhaps to fight against it. (As we know, sharing is not something most creatures comprehend, be it space, food, anything.) Nothing in their biologies would be compatible, but chemical reactions, and thus weapons employed by either party, might.

...I can't think of everything, and am probably dead wrong.

FeatherDust wrote:

IncoherentOrange wrote:Yeah, I know, just sayin; it's not true hard sci-fi. Close, though. Xenovirology is rarely ever addressed, yet is really quite a valid concern, 'innit?

It's really not. A virus works by hijacking the cell's internal mechanics to make copies of itself instead of the normal function of that particular cell. Most viruses depend on attacking a particular type of cell, like liver cells or white blood cells or something. Viruses that can manage to jump between species even here on earth are fairly rare, and those that can are even more rarely dangerous to humans. (Some few are -- mad cow, bird flu, etc. -- but those are the exceptions, not the rule.) A virus keyed to another form of life entirely, with utterly (or even slightly) different cell structures would be unable to do anything. It would be like trying to jumpstart your Ford from an F-16; there's just nothing there to hook the cables to, and if you can find somewhere to put them you're more likely to short out the plane or set it on fire than get your car started.

Xenocontagion in general is unlikely to be anything to worry about; the chance of anything from an alien word that operates on non-terran biology being able to function in a terran body is vanishingly small, including things like bacteria. Allergens might be a concern, but again, the likelihood is that anything alien will have about the same effect on a human as concrete dust. Poisons are a much greater concern, since those don't depend on the attacking substance being able to survive in a human's biological system; there are hundreds of totally natural compounds that can easily kill you dead without proper protective gear.

Yeah, you pretty much have this down--but do remember that mad cow isn't a virus, but a prion.

And so we see that xenovirology and xenobacteriology don't fit too well into hard sci fi. But they are covered, to an extent, in the softer stuff; War of the Worlds probably got the ball rolling (and gave a good reason not to make a big deal of the issue), Azimov's Caves of Steel went a little into the issues encountered by people who spend generations in super-sterile environments, the decidedly mediocre The Andromeda Strain was--gasp--all about alien infection (and was probably the hardest of this lot), and of course Speaker for the Dead and its sequels explored the concept pretty well (even if they got worse over time and were just weird by the end).

I guess it's not something that's brought up too often, but if you're willing to step into soft SF you can easily find it covered with varying degrees of quality and depth.

IO: There are ways to make it work. Probably the easiest would be to have them be bacteria-like, and able to live in the human body but not specifically adapted to it. The real problem is if you need it to be massively contagious. Causing harm isn't too hard, as you can do something as simple as having the bugs act like, say, botulism, where the harm isn't the bacteria attacking the body but just their putting out a generic poison that happens to affect humans.
Edit--looks like you were on this.

I might be able to put up an image of my tank design sometime, nothing special just switched turrets.

Look here. That is a microbial weapon. It uses proteins that probably would be incompatible with alien life, yes, but what if they were? What if it were raw poison? Would it work then? Maybe. But just as likely, not.

The assumption made in the story is that alien microbes have a standing chance to, at least to a limited extent, be harmful. That may have to be changed, at least slightly.

Edit: Until we find some living extraterrestrial life, it's all completely hypothetical. In some xenobiospheres, there may not even be microbes as we know them. They might be smaller, or bigger, even. So much could be different, and so much could be the same. We just simply don't know.

FeatherDust wrote:

IncoherentOrange wrote:Yeah, I know, just sayin; it's not true hard sci-fi. Close, though. Xenovirology is rarely ever addressed, yet is really quite a valid concern, 'innit?

It's really not. A virus works by hijacking the cell's internal mechanics to make copies of itself instead of the normal function of that particular cell. Most viruses depend on attacking a particular type of cell, like liver cells or white blood cells or something. Viruses that can manage to jump between species even here on earth are fairly rare, and those that can are even more rarely dangerous to humans. (Some few are -- mad cow, bird flu, etc. -- but those are the exceptions, not the rule.) A virus keyed to another form of life entirely, with utterly (or even slightly) different cell structures would be unable to do anything. It would be like trying to jumpstart your Ford from an F-16; there's just nothing there to hook the cables to, and if you can find somewhere to put them you're more likely to short out the plane or set it on fire than get your car started.

Xenocontagion in general is unlikely to be anything to worry about; the chance of anything from an alien word that operates on non-terran biology being able to function in a terran body is vanishingly small, including things like bacteria. Allergens might be a concern, but again, the likelihood is that anything alien will have about the same effect on a human as concrete dust. Poisons are a much greater concern, since those don't depend on the attacking substance being able to survive in a human's biological system; there are hundreds of totally natural compounds that can easily kill you dead without proper protective gear.

Yeah most viruses wouldn't apply. But there are several that cross species on earth. And even a very minor virus that you have no experience with is devastating, as early colonists and settlers moving to the americas discovered. So there's a chance, small as it is, that any virus from us might affect them, and a similar small chance that any of theirs might affect us... and if either of those happen we have a potential extinction event on our hands. And sure, alien biology makes things less likely than going between species on Earth in most cases, but when you're dealing with two types of sentient mammal growing up on almost identical planets? Better safe than sorry.

The precautions listed in the text here aren't something that everybody dies without. But they could be. So just like the colonists bring along defensive weapons, various vehicles, test the atmosphere before heading down, and have protocols in place for the ludicrously unlikely event of first contact, they sterilize themselves before going into a new biosphere. And if they're smart they'll be spending the first few chapters at least in sealed suits (until the manticores rip holes in them).

Because honestly, which is more likely? That the first inhabitable planet humanity finds is full of talking magical equines, or that their common cold is lethal to primates?

Sindri wrote:
The precautions listed in the text here aren't something that everybody dies without. But they could be. So just like the colonists bring along defensive weapons, various vehicles, test the atmosphere before heading down, and have protocols in place for the ludicrously unlikely event of first contact, they sterilize themselves before going into a new biosphere. And if they're smart they'll be spending the first few chapters at least in sealed suits (until the manticores rip holes in them).

Because honestly, which is more likely? That the first inhabitable planet humanity finds is full of talking magical equines, or that their common cold is lethal to primates?

The story's humans took crazy-prepared as their motto when building the colony ship. Whatever it is, some preparation has been made. Why? Because cost wasn't a problem. The thing can even defend itself if it needs to, and can arm a whole battalion of colonists with small arms, again, if need be. The point is, you can never be too careful, and with something this big and so little of a margin for failure, you'd better bet they're coming prepared.

Off topic again. Would this be an example of HiE?

Nah, not really. That's more a humanization or alternate universe than HiE. HiE has humans, in pony or human form, entering (or having been) in Equestria (usually) physically.

IncoherentOrange wrote:The story's humans took crazy-prepared as their motto when building the colony ship. Whatever it is, some preparation has been made. Why? Because cost wasn't a problem. The thing can even defend itself if it needs to, and can arm a whole battalion of colonists with small arms, again, if need be. The point is, you can never be too careful, and with something this big and so little of a margin for failure, you'd better bet they're coming prepared.

Exactly. Because if you're taking a twenty year trip, you might as well spend a few months during the planning phases doing nothing but come up with obscure, unlikely scenarios and preparing for them just in case. And if you're paying to launch seven thousand people at another world, you might as well give each and every one of them all the equipment you can think of because the cost is trivial in comparison and you don't want the whole expedition to fail because of something stupid.

And because in any true exploratory mission there will be enough things going wrong that you couldn't possibly have prepared for that you don't want to add things that could have been fixed to the list. I doubt that the security chief will be particularly pleased by the performance of their little dart guns against, say, a Hydra?

Sindri wrote:I doubt that the security chief will be particularly pleased by the performance of their little dart guns against, say, a Hydra?

That is unless their "little dart guns" are filled with Sodamide (NaNH2) mixed in an ammonia solution to provide easy delivery through the dart tip, that is made out of Carbide steel which can punch through most metals and probably hydra scales. It would take a lot of darts given the size of a hydra, but a squad of men with automatic "dart machine guns" could dish out the necessary dosage in a reasonable amount of seconds I think.

They can regrow their heads all they want, I'mma just melt the thing's guts.

OBS.GS.§S wrote:

Sindri wrote:I doubt that the security chief will be particularly pleased by the performance of their little dart guns against, say, a Hydra?

That is unless their "little dart guns" are filled with Sodamide (NaNH2) mixed in an ammonia solution to provide easy delivery through the dart tip, that is made out of Carbide steel which can punch through most metals and probably hydra scales. It would take a lot of darts given the size of a hydra, but a squad of men with automatic "dart machine guns" could dish out the necessary dosage in a reasonable amount of seconds I think.

They can regrow their heads all they want, I'mma just melt the thing's guts.

"Sir, this creature's biology appears to use NaNH2 in an ammonia solution in the place of water in its blood."
"Wait, what? How is that even physically--"
"Magic, sir."
"Goddamn I am starting to hate this planet."

Surely an attempt at establishing a colony can't end as badly as THIS:
WARNING: GORE

Starship Troopers Scene:

CalamityWhen wrote:Surely an attempt at establishing a colony can't end as badly as THIS:
WARNING: GORE

Starship Troopers Scene:

Sure it could. That just killed everyone in the colony. Leaving plenty of room for subjecting everyone in the colony to one of many fates worse than death. Or killing everything on the planet. Or giving the things on the planet the capability to get back to your worlds. One of the few absolute truths of our universe: it can always get worse.

Sindri wrote:

CalamityWhen wrote:Surely an attempt at establishing a colony can't end as badly as THIS:
WARNING: GORE

Starship Troopers Scene:

Sure it could. That just killed everyone in the colony. Leaving plenty of room for subjecting everyone in the colony to one of many fates worse than death. Or killing everything on the planet. Or giving the things on the planet the capability to get back to your worlds. One of the few absolute truths of our universe: it can always get worse.

Point. It can indeed get worse, yes. But the odds of it doing so (if we don't treat Murphy's Law as an absolute) get progressively more slim. Point is - I think that those Mormons ended up quite a lot worse than the topic of discussion is likely to.

The universe can always get worse, and Murphy's Law will usually show up at your door with a lead pipe in hand and two large hispanic men behind him, asking "Where's my money?"

CalamityWhen wrote:
Point. It can indeed get worse, yes. But the odds of it doing so (if we don't treat Murphy's Law as an absolute) get progressively more slim. Point is - I think that those Mormons ended up quite a lot worse than the topic of discussion is likely to.

Yeah, ponies tend not to eviscerate guests.

Question: Does Murphy's law apply to the bad events themselves? e.g. can your two Hispanic men suddenly get attack by, oh say, raptors? And does the law apply to the raptors as well? And so on and so forth?

Well, if the parasprites came and decided that they were food...

Oh, wait, they've most likely brought *ahem* 'incendiary defoiliant devices' with them. Not to mention pesticides and super-tough, genetically-engineered, poisonous-before-ready(?) crops, dirt for the crops, special bees for the crops...

The guns and sedatives: Well, three puts a man out for the better part of the day and they weigh like, eighty kilograms, and a hydra weighs, let's say, three elephants, which weigh about six thousand kilograms, so that's eighteen thousand kilograms.

That's six hundred and seventy-five rounds to put down a hydra, that is, if it doesn't weigh more, and I don't doubt it does. If it were threatening, then they'd use AP rounds, most likely, and that would take fewer bullets, probably.

Murphy's Law applies to possible things. Raptors are extinct. (Well, actually, many 'raptors' still exist, because the word actually means predatory bird.) It states that if it can happen, it will happen.

OneMoreDaySK wrote:Question: Does Murphy's law apply to the bad events themselves? e.g. can your two Hispanic men suddenly get attack by, oh say, raptors? And does the law apply to the raptors as well? And so on and so forth?

That's like one giant clusterfuck of bad.

Things that could've happened to the raptors did happen, we call it a mass extinction event.

See, Murphy's Law (at least in its typical form) is demonstrably false. There are several times when something could have gone wrong but didn't.

There are two similar rules I believe in though:
Finagle's Law states that the perversity of the universe tends toward a a maximum. This allows good things to happen in order to lull you into a false sense of security, and it explains why so many of the things that do go wrong seem to be, purely by coincidence, part of some vast coordinated cosmic joke at your expanse.
Meanwhile I forget the source, but a common maxim in engineering is "If there's a right way and a wrong way to do something, it's guaranteed that somebody will do it the wrong way." This is a simple application of the law of large numbers, and it basically means that if you design a toaster that explodes when you plug it in backwards, no matter how many warnings you apply or how stupid somebody would have to be to do it, the explosion is your fault because the toaster is capable of being plugged in backwards.