"You know something about radiation, don't you?"
It was perhaps the last thing that Celestia, protégé of Queen Harmony, was expecting her mentor to ask. Having a cutie mark related to the sun didn't prepare her for an expedition to the ocean floor to investigate a strange signal and then decide if the source should be salvaged. In the depths, Celestia makes a discovery that could change ponykind forever and she struggles with the implications as the full weight of responsibility begins to press down. Equestria's future will depend on her decision.
Chapters (1)
You had me at 'radiation'.
A story and science, and censorship, and responsibility.
2673387 And Russians, don't forget them.
2673407 Russian always make everything better.
Somewhere in there, you made a tense mistake... Something like 'make' instead of 'made'... I think it was in the conning tower. Anyway, Good read, keep it up, etc etc.
Interesting idea, as well. Using a Russian missile sub as a life lesson.
I'd say the story was indeed literally deep and dark.
Really though, it's a pretty logical reasoning of a seed for as to why modern-day Equestria is as steam punk as it is. The choice of reverent inaction was indeed the best.
It'd be interesting to revisit it post-Luna's return by a private group.
2673522 Yeah, I do have a bit of a naval fixation.
2673532 that's putting it midly
2673594 It's not consistent. Sometimes even subs of the same class would not all have names.
2673522
So you can suspend your disbelief for magical talking ponies... but not for the preservation of a submarine?
So, ponies in the future speak Russian.
Well, looks like it's time to write that Red Dawn crossover.
I like it.
And I expected Replicators, the Thing, or at least Necromorphs.
2673833
Magic kept it preserved
Ponies speak Russian?
...
...
I'm surprisingly ok with this.
2673864
Game. Set. Match.
Well played, sir.
2673955
you mad, brah?
This is my second favorite "ponies discover nuclear artifacts" story on this site*.
2673522
I think the fissionable material is still around. Pu-239 is the most likely candidate, and has a half-life of around 24 ka. Good archival paper can be expected to last "over 1,000 years", and the paper is still around, which puts a decent cap on how old this can be. Even being generous and allowing the paper to still be around, in good condition, after 5 ka, most (87%) of the Pu-239 is still left. The other candidate for fissionable material is U-235, with a half life of 704 Ma, and the decay there is a rounding error (more than 5 nines remains).
How did ponies evolve and take over so quickly? It's magic, so I ain't gotta explain shit, but I'm going to assume that ARDNEH has a sense of humour.
*The competition in this category is stronger than it has any right to be. I'd say which story is my first, but I think it kind of wrecks the effect of that story if you know ahead of time that it's in that category.
Looks like Equestria stood on the shoulders of a dead and heavily irradiated giant.
2673594 It's a Borei class sub K535.
I didn't read the story but the description has bad grammar in it.
unless radiation has just been discovered this doesn't make since, but at the same time if it hadn't been discovered then the word radiation wouldn't exist, so this makes no since.
"You know something about the radiation, don't you?" is better
I don't even know what to say
Maybe
It was the last thing that TWILIGHT, protege of Celestia and the Queen of Harmony, expected her mentor to ask.
I think you mean investigate AND THEN decide
Good luck with the grammar battle it's not easy.
First thing I thought when I read the description:
"You like Krabby patties, don't you Squidward?"
2674460
"I didn't read the story but the description has bad grammar in it.
"You know something about radiation, don't you?"
unless radiation has just been discovered this doesn't make since, but at the same time if it hadn't been discovered then the word radiation wouldn't exist, so this makes no since."
The way I see it is that Equestria was at a 1910's level of technology. Basic understanding of radiation, steam power still in use, yada yada. Then when Celestia became the princess she supressed Equestria back to a 1400's level of technology. To keep from developing nukes.
As for the story, I am glad for one thing. That Celestia did not decide to flood the submarine, because you know what happenes when a nuclear warhead fills with water? The water causes the fusion reaction that is required to split atoms to take place. And thus she would have detonated at least 50 nuclear warheads of un-known power. Maybe even more than 50.
She may not have known it, but that one decision saved whatever they called Earth at that point from becomeing a nuclear waste land.
2674460 I'm in a particularly cheeky mood, so let's discuss the points you made.
I suppose you wouldn't know if radiation had just been discovered; you didn't read the story. Also, I think you meant sense, not since.
This is a story tagged for "alternate universe," where Celestia is a protégé and her mentor is named Queen Harmony. This was explained in more detail within the first three paragraphs of reading the story. Also, Deep isn't tagged for Twilight, so I don't know where you got the idea that she was even in the story.
This is a fair point. I changed it.
I think your comment could see its greatest gain from an improvement in punctuation. I noticed a few missing periods and misplaced commas. A few well-placed semicolons would probably not be amiss.
I see that you don't have any stories of your own. If you choose to begin writing, I offer my services as editor. Together, I think we could cover all bases.
2673407
And communism!
Of course pony technology isn't as advanced as humans. Two reasons: First, ponies have magic to accomplish tasks for them, and do not need as many machines, and second, ponies just don't think about technology in the same terms as humans. For humans, whenever there is a breakthrough in science, all aspects of technology are increased wherever it is practical, whether it be transportation, medicine, education, communication, energy sources, agriculture, or even weaponry.
Wow.... this is deep... Literally.
2674568
Water doesn't cause nuclear explosions.
Pretty much all nuclear bombs we have nowadays work via the implosion principle. You take a sub critical sphere of fissile material and set of a lot explosions next to it to compress it so it goes prompt critical and explodes. Water doesn't nearly have the pressure needed to do so.
The alternative is 2 sub critical half spheres that are pressed together by explosives to create a large prompt critical sphere. Obviously this is also done via explosives and water wouldn't have any effect.
I think you're confusing nuclear bombs with nuclear reactors. In reactors water is often used as a neutron moderator so the neutrons go slow enough to cause additional fission chains. But considering the phrase "The water causes the fusion reaction that is required to split atoms to take place." I don't think you know that much about nuclear technology :P Fusion and fission are different things.
Oh, and 50 average nuclear warheads exploding wouldn't turn the world in a nuclear wasteland. We've set off way more as tests during the cold war. Including the 50MT Tsar Bomba. You need all out nuclear war with thousands of bombs, all over the planet to truly create a nuclear winter.
images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30500000/Halo-4-Master-Chief-halo-30585560-1671-1920.jpg
This was a suprisingly deep (no pun intended) story.
Now, while I understand Celestias choice I wouldnt outright support it. Her decision will probably result in ponykind developing at its own pace for shure but with it she denied them information about their past. Nuclear fision is dangerous if handled carelessly or weaponised but that does not mean that the ponys would follow the same path. In fact, I believe the ponys here would go like in the old saysing: "A dumb man/pony learns from his own mistakes, a smart one from the others'."
The wreck is still there afterall.
This sparked a similar idea in my head. Thank you for inspiration and great story!
2674816 Oh I see, sorry. Wouldn't the reactor exploding cause the nuclear warheads to go off or something, because you would think it would. And since the sub crew was arming the nukes before the mutiny took place then some might still be armed.
that would be spelled "confidant" or "confidante".
Nukes. It's always nukes.
Why can't we go out by some disease or just by infertilization?
---
But I have to say, very interesting story and concept with Queen Harmony and Celestia's understanding of radiation. Very science-y and well written.
Nukes. It's always nukes.
Why can't we go out by some disease or just by infertilization?
---
But I have to say, very interesting story and concept with Queen Harmony and Celestia's understanding of radiation. Very science-y and well written.
Reverent inaction . . . It sounds like a good idea, but it isn't. The reason why is that Celestia simply doesn't know enough of what went on to make that judgement call. She has a few broken words and a radiation signature, that's not enough to go on. Not only that, but that radiation signature is still there, and people still have records of it. Eventually someone's going to go on a dive like Celestia did and discover it again. A far better option would be to have Celestia tell people that it was a tomb that shouldn't be disturbed because the people there died heroically to save millions of lives. Then again, I'm betting a lot of those Russians would probably have preferred if their remains were taken to back to be buried on dry land. . . . Also, Celestia suppressing technology because she feels it's dangerous is a cliche that a lot of people tend to hate with a passion.
As a side note, this story reminds me of another where the ponies are very very Russian.
"Oh shit, Tartarus exploded and everything is attacking us!"
"Just use the Elements--"
"They broke!"
"Oh, the humanity! If only we had something to defend ourselves with!"
Really, this is the billionth story with this premise in this fandom. Nuclear Weapons have been the greatest force of peace on our planet since they were developed.
2673522
If you weant to get really technical, ponies can't take billions of years to evolve.
Because the planet's lifespan doesn't extend past one billion before we suffer the same fate as Venus.
2675136 Fixed
So ponies are russian... with american accents... and greek myths. Honeytiger is okay with this.
This. Was. AWESOME!
I really love the premise of Equestria being in a post-human world. Though I would really like to see a followup to this. Perhaps Princess Twilight Sparkle stumbles across the radiation records and the account of the expedition. Perhaps she becomes suspicious that Celestia claimed it was nothing (doubly so if Celestia curtly tells her as much and forbids her from bringing it up again).
This was good ... even though I disagree with Celestia. At least suppress technology SELECTIVELY, Amishlestia!
HALO, anyone?
webmemes.org(spiderpman)
Anywho, nice story! Sequel?
2675065
Nah, Nuclear reactors cannot explode the same way nuclear bombs do. They work fundamentally different.
A nuclear reaction works by splitting fissile material. When, for example, an Uranium235 nucleus gets hit by a slow neutron it falls apart into 2 smaller nuclei and a few neutrons. Those new neutrons go really fast, but if you slow them down they can in turn hit new Uranium nuclei. The idea behind nuclear power is that splitting those atoms gives you energy, and thus if you manage to slow down those neutrons you can use this chain reaction to get energy.
In a nuclear bomb you want this reaction to go completely out of control. Each split should induce loads of other splits so the entire mass of uranium is almost instantly split. This is surprisingly difficult. If you don't get it all exactly right the reaction will just fizzle out. Therefore the uranium used in nuclear weapons is almost pure Uranium 235 (Almost no Uranium 238, the most commonly found version). When the thing is supposed to explode they set of a neutron bomb which bathes the uranium in neutrons and compress the whole sphere with an explosion so the nuclei are as close as possible. They also have loads of neutron mirrors around the whole setup to make sure the reaction goes as quick as possible. If just one of these things happens out of order the reaction won't be fast enough and the explosion will be way less powerful. That's why you don't have to be afraid a nuclear bomb unintentionally explodes. Those things only go off when we want them to. You'll still have a pretty bad day with the compression explosives going of in your face, but it won't be a multimegaton explosion.
In a nuclear reactor you want the reaction rate to be contained. You don't want runaway chain reactions, you want each split to (on average) induce exactly 1 more split. That way the reactor will output a constant energy stream. This means the uranium is way less refined, only about 5% of the uranium needs to be 235. To slow down the neutrons they use moderators, this can be loads of stuff. Most often they use water (preferably heavy, but light can also work with some effort) or graphite. So in a nuclear reactor you often have rods filled with uranium interspersed by some form of moderator. To control the reaction they also use control rods. The control rods absorb neutrons. So if the control rods are inside the reactor less neutrons will make splits, so the reaction slows down. Inversely it speeds up if you pull them out. If you keep them at exactly the right height the chain reaction will be stable and you'll have constant output.
A good nuclear reactor has numerous safety features. A common one is to have the control rods held up by electromagnets. If the power fails the rods fall down so the reaction slows and eventually stops. But, as Chernobyl shows, things can still go wrong. Provided that you burn the safety instructions and spit on their ashes at least.
Suppose a worst case scenario for the submarine in this story flooding. It uses water as a moderator and the moment the ship crashed the control rods where fully extended with all safety features switched off. The reaction would go quicker and quicker until the water around the uranium would start to boil. At this point the reactor would probably spring a leak somewhere and the water in the reactor would evaporate until it is dry. When there is no more water there is no more neutron moderation so the reaction would stop. This is the state in which Celestia would find the sub. If she flooded the thing the reaction would start anew. But this time there is no limit on the amount of water. So the reactor core would keep heating, and heating, and heating. Eventually the uranium would melt and the reactor would officially have a meltdown. From here the radioactive molten metal would simply eat its way through the reactor walls into the earth until it runs out of nuclei to split and cools down.
Not very spectacular all things considered. The nuclear warheads probably wouldn't even notice it (water is a good isolator, that's why you can take a sub to watch lava flows underwater without melting.)
Even if the resulting meltdown somehow triggered the nuclear bombs to explode it would be pretty boring. XKCD examines some deep water explosions here. Of course Celestia's day would be thoroughly ruined. But the surface would barely notice.
Short, sweet, and not a bad bit of world building. Definately one good possible explaination for the lack of technology in Equestria that is our level, yet can also explain why it still has some advanced technology. Also interesting to see a queen before Celestia came to power actually teaching her. Well done.
It's ... ok.
The scene with Queen harmony and the not-yet Princess Celestia was very nice, helped set the stage and gave an insight into the world that is both extraneous to the story at hand and yet really helps to give this story a larger 'oomph' to it. The lead-up to the actual meat of the story wasn't that great, sorry. It might have been better if you had just done a jump-cut from the Harmony-Celestia conversation to Celestia making her first speech just before she's going to go down or some-such. There wouldn't be anything to be missed from Celestia not having much to do against her Queen's wishes.
The points of others are valid - how'd the sub manage to survive the million years? How'd the nuclear fuel/payload not degrade to lead? How do ponies know what
applesradiation is? That last one is actually not a very important question. Humanity knew about radiation in a simplistic sense before we could track/study it very well. So that last one is pretty much just a 'huh, ok' situation to me. Also, mugik. But still, the other two are rather important 'suspension of disbelief killers' in my case.The message has undertones of some misanthropy but at the same time it has a huge streak of 'good humanism' in it - what with the mutiny and the crew not willing to partake of revenge. However, that is what nuclear sub crews are trained for, so I don't know if it fits 100% but it is a nice counter-balance to the whole 'humanity-ending holocaust.' I like it, gives 'humanity' to the dead crew.
Overall, I like the idea and the execution is fairly well done but it has some hiccoughs and could use some spit and polish.
2674568
Oh I didn't expect a Dark ages thing to take place, I guess that makes since then
I rather enjoyed reading this story. Short and sweet, so bonus points for not making me wait a month for the next chapter. Did expect a little bit of radiation sickness brought on by Celestia though, or was it just not that bad/Celestia is a radiation sponge (I drink. Your. Rads. I drink them up!)?
2675186
Because we're in a hurry, that's why!
2675578 Well, I could've told ya that!