Jade - 17th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
“Awww come on!” I whined doing my best to give David puppydog eyes, “Please teach me how to use a dagger like that?”
“No.” David grunted, turning his attention back to the alchemy kit he had been working at for the last hour.
“But you’re amazing with one! We could be attacked again, you believe that yourself! I would be able to help a lot better if I could use a blade that good too!” I pleaded, levering myself up onto the edge of the cart to get a better look at the overly stubborn diamond dog.
I’d gotten a lot better over the last few days. My regeneration had kicked in a few more times. “I can probably walk now. I’m totally fine to train, it’s not like I’ll be using my hooves for it. I don't need to move to copy the martial art!”
“Which is why I can’t train you.” David groaned setting down a mortar and pestle to turn and face me.
“I can do any movement with a blade you can, what’s hands of magic have to do with anything?” I demanded in a firm tone. The argument was starting to get me angry.
David shook his head and sighed, “This isn’t like kung fu, or karate, or whatever martial art from some far off land you know of. Yes, you could mimic my hand motions, but you can’t learn a skill from me which I don’t have.”
“That is a load of horseapples!” I grumbled. “You took out the griffons with that dagger of yours that takes skill!”
He nodded, “Yes. But it’s not knife skills. It’s killing skills. I used my knife because I didn’t have any other tool for the job. I don’t know any martial art, I don’t know any historical melee techniques. What I know is what I learned in the Marines, they don’t teach you how to use a weapon, they turn you into one.”
I blinked and tilted my head to one side, “What do you mean?”
“What I said.” David grumbled.
I gave him a look of annoyance.
“Oh fine…” He sighed before standing up.
“You want to know how I use my knife?” He asked as he pulled the blade from its sheath and spun it around in his hand. The blade flashed as he flipped the point around in a full circle, so the blade skimmed past his forearm as it rotated, then caught it expertly in a normal grip.
“Yes! I’ve only been asking for like a day now!” I said nodding eagerly.
“I know what this blade can do. I spent a week doing nothing but cutting, chopping, thrusting prying, and hitting everything under the sun with it.” David said, flipping the blade into a half dozen different grips as he spoke. “I know it can rip a man’s guts clean out with a back slice, go right between the ribs, clean into a shoulder and pry the joint loose… I know what this tool can do to meat. The only trick then is to apply it to the enemy as the situation calls for. That’s it, and it can’t be taught.”
I rubbed my head with my hooves, “But it totally can! You learned to do it!”
David growled in annoyance and sheathed his knife, “No I did not! Look my people like things to be fast, hard hitting, and clean. Instinctively we love fair play. It’s built up from childhood, give the other guy an even break, let him play the game on the level, don’t hit a man when he’s down. There’s a fifteen yard penalty for clipping, and the fighter who hit’s below the belt get’s tossed out of the ring. We like it fast, and hard hitting, and we like it clean.”
“What’s that have to do with you stubbornly refusing to help us both live through this?” I demanded actual anger starting to throb in my forehead.
David narrowed his eyes and made a gesture with his hand to point to them, “Look me in the eyes, I want you to know I’m telling you the truth.”
“Fine…” I looked as closely into his eye as I could without being distracted by the mismatched colors.
“When you step off the gridiron onto the battlefield, the rulebook is burned, buried, and forgotten.” He said bitterly. “There are no penalties except the one for losing, and it’s not measured in yards. It’s measured in lives. War is the law of the jungle, kill or be killed. There is no guidebook, no referee, and no honor. You have to turn your instincts inside out to play soldier, because war is play to win, or die.
“The goal is destruction, pure and simple. Your mind has to be tuned to a new pitch. No holds barred, to hurt, to cripple, to kill. It’s war, you are not fighting for a gold medal or a fancy belt, but for survival. The enemy is going to kill you so you have to do him in as quickly as possible with whatever you have at hand.
“If you’re lucky you use the right tool for the job. But you had damn well better also be able to use a rock, some dirt, your hands. You need to be prepared to bite someone's tongue off if you have to. Your weapon isn’t in your hand or magic, it’s in your skull.
“I could show you every which way to Sunday you can use a Bowie knife, you could practice those moves all day every day, and the first time you fought a seasoned fighter you would die expecting him to counter your strike with the textbook correct counter to whatever you threw. Real war isn’t like that, training goes out the window with that rulebook. If you want to survive you learn what your tools can do and you do them to the enemy in whatever way presents itself in battle.” David finished, then sat down and turned back to his alchemy kit.
I was quiet for a while as I tried to understand what he meant. It sounded like he didn’t want to give me a false sense of confidence, like he thought that teaching me would just get me killed. That didn’t seem logical, surely if you trained you would be better right? “But… In chess practice makes you bet-”
“That’s exactly why I won't train you. That mindset that the average civilian has will just get you killed if I show you any trick of the trade.” David sighed, “Look, do you know how to use that shortsword?”
I pulled the short blade out of it’s sheath with my magic and held it in front of me to look at. It was a slender blade, not very long, just about as long as my forearm and hoof. It wasn't made for changelings, and had a simple guard and hilt, just a little disk shaped pommel and a small clover pattern tipped crossguard.
“Yeah, I guess.” I said as I recalled all the different things we were shown in class that the blade could do. “But I’ve never used it before, except on that griffon. We don’t have magic till we’re grown up. They showed us the moves in school though.”
David grunted again. “Mmm… Right, that’s different then. You need to know what you personally can do with that thing, but that’s it. Learning a specific fighting style just locks you into that style. You will think in set patterns, not with your full range of tricks. That will get you killed. Tell you what, those three rabbits I caught earlier, I want you to butcher them.”
“What?” I asked, eyes widening in alarm.
“I’m going to make a stew. They need to be gutted, skinned, and the bones stripped. Go do it. use your sword for it, and work out how it cuts stabs and pries.” David ordered in a firm tone, not even looking up from his work.
I gulped lightly, the through to cutting even a dead animal appart was pretty gross. “D-do I have to?”
“Yeah. I can’t exactly make ballistics gel for you to cut up.” David answered simply.
His words stuck in my ears. There was an alternative thing to practice on? “Why can’t you?” I asked hopefully.
“Well,” David said cautiously, “the key ingredient is a sapient life form here… As far as I can tell rabbits are still just rabbits, so it’s morally okay to eat them, and therefore to have you practice cutting on them.”
I winched, “Uh… do I even want to know what-”
“No. It’s a Soylent Green type of thing, but for ponies.” David muttered. “I’m pretty sure I’d be hunted down for making it.”
“Oh.” I said simply. That sort of made senc-
“Oh!” I said wincing as I understood what he meant properly.
Then my brain added two and two together. “Wait! Drop everything! Ponies are animals where you come from? And used for… parts, so not like, slaves that are called animals, but animals… Are you from another plane?” I asked curiously.
David turned and gave me a blank look of bafflement.
“You know, planes. The layers of reality stacked atop each other which are all different but similar and connected?” I asked.
“Oh… Uh, probably.” David said in the tone of someone hearing about a concept for the first time.
“Probably?” I exclaimed raising a non existent eyebrow.
“Well, to be fair my people have proven that life is a byproduct of planetary formation so it’s completely possible that I’m still in my own universe, or plane as you call it.” David answered giving me a shrug.
I instinctively felt the urge to faceplant, and slipped off the cart. Fortunately my wings instinctively buzzed, catching me mid air as I groaned, “How the bucking hay do you not even know how you got here?”
David sighed and rested his face against his hand for a long minute. “Look… I wasn't always so happy, okay? All I know is that before I got here I was out for a walk after a good long visit from my friends Jack and Morgan.”
“Are they like, wizards, or what?” I asked. At this point I simply had to know. It was mammeling me.
David laughed, actually falling over onto his back. “Yep! Enchanter’s extraordinaire, removing memories one blackout night at a time, and causing bouts of sickness the morning after each night around the world!” He giggled for a few moments before sitting back up with a grin, “Those are brands of booze, Jay. I was blind drunk when I got here, last thing I remember is trying to light a cigarette somewhere near the train station.”
“Oh… So you were really drunk and woke up here?” I asked, just to clarify.
“Yep! Still in the old uniform, these boots, pants, jacket, tailored to fit this body but still the same. Had my knife, watch, Pocket Ref, everything but my Lucky Strikes and my Zippo.” David sighed. “That was a hell of a three months… Never quit anything cold turkey.”
If there was one thing I had learned David did, it was ramble. Maybe if I got him to ramble on enough, I could make him forget he wanted me to go cut up some dead things! It was a good plan, and I was happy to be a part of it.
“Quit? What did you quit?” I asked.
David hunched back over his alchemy kit and tapped a glass bottle with a rod, watching the liquid inside bubble. “Smoking, tobacco specifically.”
“Wait, but isn’t that terrible for you?” I remembered a bunch of long speeches about smoking and why not to do it. One Zebra in the hive had smoked a pipe a lot and he was pretty cool so everyling had kept telling us not to do it.
David shrugged, “Eh, for most people yeah. But most of its negative effects don’t affect a small number of people due to a number of genetic factors. Not to advocate you picking it up but I was pretty much fine. Sure got the stained teeth, and I might have had a cancer or three, never checked for them. But my lungs were just fine. Ran five miles every day, breath never short. Which was good, I liked the flavor, bitter things have always been my favorite.”
“Oh.” I’d never thought about that.
I’d seen pegasi eat fish, and then a unicorn try the same thing, but get sick. Different things did affect different species differently, why wouldn’t different things affect people within a species differently too?
“If you liked it and it didn’t hurt you… You’re making something druggy right now, why not make your own?” I asked genuinely seriously, but also hoping to avoid cutting practice.
“Because for the life of me I just couldn’t find any god damned tobacco plants!” David grumbled. “Now I’m not feeling the need to smoke, so I don’t care much.”
“I guess that makes sense… So, whatcha making?” The mysterious bubbling yellow and white liquids could no longer be ignored. Last time David had set up that kit he made a clear liquid that tasted like oranges to perk me up a bit. The dog was a wizard with an alembic.
“I’m whipping up an old gem called guncotton.” he answered cheerfully, “I’ll need it to use a weapon I’ve been trying to build for five years now. I’m pretty sure that Applewood’s smith will be willing to work with me and all I need is for someone to weld the barrels together. Then I’ll have my people’s sacred weapon, and defending us on the way to Equestria will be a million times easier… Long as I make plenty of guncotton and we don't run out of lead.”
“Cool!” I landed on the ground, my chest starting to hurt from hovering beside the cart. The ground felt a bit weird under my hooves after so long laying down, but standing didn’t hurt too bad. Hopefully I’d be fine by tomorrow.
“Yes, very cool.” David agreed. “So cool, that you will want to try it, and I’m not going to let you try it until you know your sword inside and out.”
I stamped a hoof in frustration. “It can't be that cool!”
“Oh really?” David asked, giving me a smug grin and raising an eyebrow.
“Really!” I answered, humphing angrily.
“Ask yourself this, Jay.” David said smugly as he turned back to his work, “How cool is a type of weapon that you have never seen before, that totally changed how an entire species fought their wars, and is so culturally ingrained that I’ve spent five years and four attempts to make a working one with the technology available to me here knowing that with one I can survive anywhere on this rock as long as I keep making ammunition?”
I grumbled angrily to myself as I picked my sword up from atop the cart with my magic. He hadn’t lied to me yet, and that did sound pretty cool. “Ugh… fine… where are the rabbits?”
“Good bug girl.” David chuckled. “They are on the back of the cart. Now, go learn how to take organic things apart.”
So Dave is making a gun, but the question is, what kind?
Musket, revolver, bolt action, shot gun?
Also I'm gonna say this now, CALLED IT! Dave is going to become Jades teacher, in the art of war and survival, now all she needs to do is call him "sensei".
David could train Jade to become a killer, but you can't go back from becoming a killer.
Great to hang out with, sucks when they leave.
That is one hell of a hangover.
It'll be interesting seeing if David can really come up with a working gun, it would be hard to overstate how much that changes the equations they're working with.
I actually never thought of melee combat like that, of course you can still learn good stuff from martial arts, but it would limit you.
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Given apparent tech levels it's most likely going to be a musket, possibly a rifled one but I can't think of anywhere that would have the equipment to rifle the barrel.
6494764
You never know, he could use Magic to fill in some of the technological gaps, he could conceivably make a repeater.
6493840 A bastard fusion of a Lancaster pistol and a break action shotgun. Shotgun rounds are easy for anyone to make, and a Lancaster pistol's firing mechanism is so simple that a reasonably talented 12 year old could make one. It's basically a realy big bore version of an late 1800's handgun from when self contained cartrages were new. They were used a bit into WWI but at that point you jsut needed more than four shots. Check these beauties out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWGII108sOU
6494764 Actually it's a spin on a smoothbore handgun from the early days of the self contained cartage. Four shot break action semi-auto lancaster pistol sized up to a 12G because shotgun rounds are easy to make. I would have gone flintlock, but those are actually harder to make than a Lancaster.
6494743 That's something that any MMA fighter will tell you, in a street fight, the odds are even between the kung fu master and an experienced thug. If only because that thug isn't thinking in terms of "Tiger counters crane!" but rather "That kneecap looks breakable, gogo gadget crowbar!"
The best thing to do for martial arts to use in real combat and not sport is to train in many different ones at once. This is why Krav Maga and STARS drew from many different styles. It gives you moves, not a style of combat. Ask any US Army ranger about fighting hand to hand and most of them will tell you "A kick is to get you room to get your side arm out and shoot them." In a real fight you want to have your whole arsenal ready and usable.
6493847
The sign of great friends everywhere!
6494299
He totally can! Modern firearms are very complex, and old firearms are still very complex, but from 1850 to 1910 is this beautiful butter zone of dirt simple firearms with like, four moving parts. I'm a bit of a historical gun nut, so I happen to know about this simple as hell little break action semi auto pistol from 1860 vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/guns/images/4/4a/Lancaster_Pistol_(2).jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130624222717
That's something a smith could make with medieval techniques as long as they were skilled, and if you knew how to make primers and gunpowder you would be set. Sure it's a smooth boar weapon, but you load it with minniball shells and it's going to do okay at handgun ranges.
6494846 Actualy, all he'd need for a repeter is somepony withthe capability to make a rifled barrel. As long as you don't mean automatic, repeating firearms are not that complicated.
40.media.tumblr.com/591b05a67bfbeeee781c3d34c06e4ae7/tumblr_mognkzYMsR1s57vgxo1_1280.jpg
However, there is still that X factor of "What is David personally aware of?" He cant make something, or have someone else make something, that he docent know the workings of.
Is this a typo or another one of Jade's odd turns of phrase? I don't think we've seen this one before.
Hey look, it's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man come to ask about that reference. =p
heh David's an advocate of the cult of the gun? Not that guns are in any way a bad thing, but they're just a tool...if a very powerful tool. Easy to use, easy to abuse, and needing a lot of discipline.
David's right about codified fighting styles, though....great for sparring or tournaments, but they'll get you gutted in a real fight. Still, the discipline and self control they teach is valuable, and the few that focus on what certain strikes do more than on when or how to strike, and knowing how to hold and move your own body, are still quite valuable.
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6494891 as I much as I think I would be "cool" and "able to handle anything" I do not want to get into a real fight.
6494988 Ether way, Dave+gun=dead everything (everything trying to kill him and Jade anyway)
6495006
Think about it, if you are a bug, why would you say something was bugging you? So I made a small reference to a story about rats where instead of "rats!" for "crap!" they say "People!" >> Yes... it's silly...
6495038 Sure, somethings. But not say, cragodiles, timberwolves, and about 80% of the Equestrian monsters...
Pphphtt... (should be an 'a' instead of an 'e' tho)
So what's David going to use for a primer? I hope he's not going to start messing with fulminates...
6495222 That's what he guncotten is for. Put some flint where the firing pin will striek it, the spark ignites the guncotton, which ignites the powder charge. It's got a bit more kick then a modern day bullet dose to it, and is by no means smokeless, but it works.
Yeah, I agree with Dave about not teaching Jade "moves" with the knife - real fighting and killing is more about mentality and willingness to set your reservations about gutting the other guy aside, it's kinda what they drill you for in the army. You have to be prepared to kill before anything else.
Jade will have her mind full trying to fight those inhibitions, she doesn't need to be fumbling for "techniques" and desperately trying to remember some "correct" way to use the knife, that would just get her killed. It's better to flail instinctively at that point so long as you do it without lag.
Besides, a handheld knifefighting style would be needlessly limiting to someone who can wield the blade telekinetically and would just needlessly limit your vectors of attack when you can actually strike from any 360 degree angle and stab the guy from a direction he can't defend against or is forced to turn away from you and expose his back to guard against the floating blade. Trying to mimic a physically handheld style would just limit creativity and probably make her learn some unnecessary habits anyway.
And ooh, Dave is trying to make a gun? That's pretty cool if he succeeds - a gun should be pretty useful against Gryphons. Well, so long as he can manage at least a repeating version. A single shot 'musket' of some sort probably won't do you much good with a bunch of gryphons barreling towards you. Though I guess managing to drop even one before the pack is upon you would be pretty useful if there are few enough of them (helps if you can turn a 4 vs 1 in to 3 vs 1 before the melee starts).
Should be a useful addition indeed so long as he doesn't try and shoot a manticore or a hydra or a crogodyle or something with it - most of Equestria's megafauna (which thankfully seems mostly confined to evrefree forest) would likely only get pissed from being shot at.
Which makes me remember one fic which explained why ponies don't use guns (except some canons on their airships) despite having the evident technology for them and stick to mostly (enchanted and otherwise) melee weapons - with how physically strong/durable ponies are shown to be, and assuming all the predators and stuff are of proportional strength/durability, and many of them being airborne besides, a ww1 era weapon simply doesn't do much on a timely manner. If you want to fight most of the hostile stuff around and accomplish much of anything, you have to get down and dirty and put your muscle in to the fight.
Still should be a useful addition for Dave for certain and will probably catch the gryphons by surprise. So long as Applewood has a halfway decent smithy, getting the parts for a simple gun should be quite possible.
And ooh, changelings are aware of alternate universes/dimensions? That's a nice twist, and likely means that ponies (or at least high level unicorns) should be as well - I wonder if there is a chance Dave might get a chance to go home by the end of this story.
Though hm ... on another note, would he even want to? From the sounds of it, his life was going down the crapper before he got sucked in to Equestria. I wouldn't be surprised if he rather chose to stay instead of going back to his old life of drinking and wasting away.
6496634 I have literally waited my entire FiMficking career for a comment this thoughtful and interested in my work. I am honored by your appreciation of my story!
Yep! That's problem one in a nutshell and it's something any seasoned soldier would know on day one of encountering any telekineticly enabled individual. But you also know you wouldn't tell them that, you'd make them figure it out because then they are much more likely to use it right. Were you in an army?
Naturaly! You wouldn't expect a GI to not try to get himself a firearm, right? As for what kind... well the next chapter will give a hint or see him get the weapon. And yes, most assuredly it will be... sort of repeating. Ironically a musket or flintlock is far more complex and hard to make than a few guns from 1850-1910, provided you can make self contaend cartridges, which as a applied Chemistry major, David can.
Damn strait! Unless you had a 50 BMG or a 700 Nitro Express there is no handgun on Earth that will make a Cragodile even blink!
Yep! When you have class 2 super strength on the DC scale as a basic feature of your race, melee combat is FAR more viable for you than it is for humans, even concerting ranged weapons. There is another angle though, the gun is clearly a tool built by primates, for primates. No pony would ever design a gun, or even a crossbow in the shapes we see them, simply because they would be hoof or magic operable. Griffons have talons so they might develop handguns, but given the megaphaona, hand cannons are more likely. By handcanon, I mean something like this piece of engineering idiocy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_Q8C_67jY
Well yeah, naturally. Twilight writes books on everything, including her experiences in the human world (EQG is cannon to my AU, but greatly altered to be not boring high school insert plot here movie...) Her books spread,d other mages test her theories, and write books, information travels, albeit slowly. So yes, by this point even a remote changeling hive knows about alternate dimensions. Howeaver, David very likely prefers being where he is now.
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Well, I'm very happy if my ramblings made your day a little bit better When a story truly grabs my attention and excitement I can't help but get wordy. And thank you for writing such a good story!
True, true - habits developed naturally are more likely to help you in combat, as you are more likely to use them instinctively and without fumbling the process. Trying to 'force' something might be too slow - in a fight you might not have the time to think, just act.
And no, I haven't been in the army (and have some mild interest in all things military), though I have a friend (well, more of an acquaintance perhaps) who used to be.
Very true - we are a tool using race both because of our ability of fine manipulation (fingers and opposing thumbs are awesome) and because we need those tools to dominate other predators. We are both very good at it and very reliant upon it.
Ponies, by comparison, would be much better naturally equipped to deal with predators, thus there would be less of a rush to develop ranged combat - and ranged combat would evolve slower because, unlike on Earth, bows and arrows and other 'early' ranged weapon types would be pretty ineffective against much of the predators of the once-wild Equestria, thus considerably less effort would go in to their evolution and development. You don't spend time and resources on stuff that works poorly after all, especially in the early days of your society when progress trends and direction would develop.
Not to mention that Unicorns - the one pony race that would have the option of fine manipulation to a degree that would make stuff like bows and thrown javelins practical - already have naturally inbuilt 'ranged' options. Your early primitive bow and other ranged weapons won't compare favorably to a unicorn simply blasting stuff with a laser beam, and your melee weapons count as semi-ranged anyway with TK (and you can probably put more of your oomph behind a TK swing with a sword, as opposed to a bow string which can snap, oomph you might need to deal with the megafauna) so why bother - so ranged weapons simply might have never caught on culturally, until you get up to stuff like canons, which would be more for siege warfare and the like, which might explain why Equestria seems to have stuff like canons, but sticks to swords and spears (which are probably enchanted to some degree in modern days - we see cloudsdale sports teams use flash-freezing arrows in equestria games, their military equipment can't possinbly be worse than the sports gear heh) for interpersonal combat.
Darn, sorry, I seem to have rambled again. Just that all this stuff has gotten me excited and thinking about evolution of weaponry in equestria and the choices/practical implications/limitations behind it >_>
Ooh, interesting - I wonder if that means he will have the option presented to him at some point and Dave will have to make a conscious choice to remain? I imagine that up to that point it wouldn't have been a serious consideration anyway, so he just wouldn't have thought about it at all. Why think about what you can't change and all that.
Though wait, Twilight's books have spread as far as the diamnod hive? Wasn't Equestria an almost-myth to Jade who wasn't even certain existed? I figure having books around for a purple pony princess would sorta make their existence very tangible (Dave is fine not knowing, seeing as he is evidently coming from the other direction).
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May I ask what got your attention so much? I'm always trying to improve my writing.
I don't like to boast or brag, I'm a big believer in the old saying "The apprentice speaks loudly of his skill, the master says nothing." But as someone who once won a HEMA tournament, yeah. Exactly that. You won't be any good at fighting until you dont even think, you just do. Unless you cheat and know a few good tricks, like Gorman's Throw, a nasty little feint which makes you appear to be injured, and ends up with your opponent impaling themselves on your blade for you. Having the basics down pat and preforming them via muscle memory while thinking about when o use the right trick to beat your opponent is the only way to be great at fighting.
Which is why firearms do exist, but they are not a pony invention and ponies basically only use them for sport. Match shooting for instance. After all Dash has mentioned both bullets, and tanks. While she could have meant sling bullets (shaped lead or clay projectiles for slingers to sling), tank clearly meant "Something hard to break that plows over other things." so she meant some kind of battlefield vehicle, meaning they probably have firearms. Though Equestria seems like a place where weapons ownership laws for civvies would be strict.
"Hello! One third of my kingdom's population are natural born sorcerers!" "Oh... Right... Yeah... Um, this army was just for protection in the badlands, I'm actually here to negotiate a trade agreement." "You're the 42nd person to say that!"
Seriously, one third of ponies have a biological type two phaser in their forehead... They dont realy NEED weapons. Not for personal attack, especialy not Earth ponies. I'm looking at you Ms. "Throw a boulder with so much kinetic energy it's impact causes a mock 2 kiloton nuclear blast's over pressure wave'!" Even still, much of their real firepower relies on special talents. So siege weapons most certainly exist, and we can assume they are as enchanted and deadly as those ice arrows at the minimum.
Oh no don't apologize I live for this!
No no, Twilight's books made it to mages near Equestria, who wrote their own books on their experiments based on Twilight's. Those books spread out to more mages, and so on. In the game of Telephone that is the spread of information by textbooks, the "original" discoverer of planes was lost.
6497106
Hm, I think it's a combination of little things that combine together in a story that I greatly enjoy, not any single specific element. I like that you are exploring changeling culture beyond that of Chrysalis and her hive, which isn't that common and adding all sorts of interesting little things about their structure/habits/biology etc. I generally like worldbuilding, so I'm happy to see plenty of that.
I also like 'first contact' stories and Marco Polo-like adventures in new and strange lands where everything is fresh and full of wonder, and it feels like the story will have both of these elements when the pair will finally get to Equestria as both Jade and Dave know nothing at all about it.
Politics can be interesting as well when backed by solid writing and your is certainly solid, so the upcoming clusterfuck that's bound to happen when Equestria learns what happened to Jade's hive is something I am eagerly looking towards - all those treaties the Gryphons feared and how that will impact their relationship with their neighbor, the eventual fate and ownership of Jade's mine, etc.
The twist of the human being a diamond dog is pretty neat as well. And I like adventure stories, which this one certainly is - all in all it has lots of elements I like and looks to be heading in a direction I like, all backed by solid writing. Good stuff all around.
Yeah, I can see firearms being used for sporting events and the like, but they probably won't be too effective as actual military tools given the inborn capabilities of ponies, to the point where they start truly phasing out melee combat, until we get to some post-modern stuff (and perhaps not even then replace it fully, when you can have pegasi divebomb enemy formations and disrupt them by starting a big ol' brawl)
And they actually do have tanks, though the only one we have seen is the 'civilian' one owned by Cheese Sandwich, aka the Party Tank :P
But obviously they have the concept of it down and could make something more militarized if they wanted to.
http://i.imgur.com/yavtcMb.png
Yup - special talents probably play a decently big role in who chooses to become guards (and as such, I assume, would be naturally pretty good at what they do - though perhaps rusty on doctrine and the like, depending on how long it has been since Equestria has seen real military conflict - a sneak attack on Canterlot that's solved in a few hours doesn't really count)
And yeah, siege weapons ought to exist - and we know they have canons, and they have airships (like Fancy's flying yacht). Combine the two and you have the bane of many a fortification.
Hmm, is it safe to assume then that things take place quite a few years in to future compared to the show, if Twilight's writings and derivatives of it have managed to spread that far?
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Ah, well then, looks like I'm starting to get good! It's always the little things that make or break a story isn't it?
They only did that IRL because they made everything but plate armor useless, and that stuff was very expensive to produce. Hell the Turks fielded full plate armored troops through WWI! But after that last hold out armor died because guns were just too powerful for our stuff. But for as long a black powder remains the propellant of bullets, any armor we would see ponies using would make the standard early firearms useless. So you are entirely correct. Even before you add in magical force fields and warding spells. It's a good thing ponies are pacifists...
... Yankovic you magnificent bastard I red your book!
Yep! The old Stratofortress! Or if you prefer th emodern version, the god old Spooky
galeri8.uludagsozluk.com/425/ac-130-gunship_556798.jpg
For when you absolutely, positively, must kill every god damn thing for a football field sized swath of terrain below you. YOu know, what that tiny spider vanishes from sight.
Woah! A new reader Sorry! I got realy popular with a story series I kinda stopped for a number of reasons, I'm used to peopele knowing the little things like: My dating system at the headline of each chapter actually means something.
This story takes place in an alternate timeline of my main universe (this one may become the main universe though I like it more... It's less silly.). So first off 15 EoH stands for Year 2015 of the Era of Harmony, which began upon the return of nightmare moon. By my best guess the show covers 3 years of time, so this is 12 years after the show's cannon events.
Have the Equisverse's calendar: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wOyuKmDk7nNPvZo1QUlgbb0DWSb_NqA4nE9JoRmunkw/edit?usp=sharing
And the Timeline of events: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-NOx54djM6cTOmCdUJ7EZJGq-0_Iv5nysjDEKzBPuuA/edit?usp=sharing
Timeline is only accurate for this alternant timeline up until the third year of the Era of Harmony. None of the rest is canon after that. Also the time loop with the CMC docent happen because that starts post EoH. I'm still procrastinating making the timeline for this version of my Au. Just ignore the bits that mention them it happened without them there.
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Yup, completely agreed - singular ideas serve as good hooks overall hooks for a story, but it's the little things and details that glue it all together and determine how smooth the final product looks.
Yay Airpower! I love airpower
And yeah, if ponies really wanted to they could deploy their own version of carpet bombing - build a cloud fortress, hover it over enemy positions and drop stuff on their heads. Like, for example, that bottled lightning we saw in Tanks for All the Memories when rainbow broke in to the weather factory - I bet those could make for pretty awesome bombs. I can certainly see why the gryphons wouldn't want to mess with em.
On that note, roughly speaking, how advanced is the gryphon kingdom compared to Equestria? (Not just militarily, but in general).
Yup, sorry, this is the first story from you that I have read
Though I might have to give your other ones a chance when I get some more free time to read, that list of events sounds pretty crazy/interesting.
Why is that?
Uh, i thought we specifically went over the fact that this was a sword with a hilt that was 'clearly made to be used by something with hands' that her mother gave her as a kind of heirloom, not just a run of the mill blade that any... ahem, ling could find in the hive. Did i have a stroke? Did you have a stroke? Either way, someone here stroked out.
6834864 Fixed to read:
Thanks dude!
If he's making what I think he's making, then those Griffons don't stand a chance! Nothing like a M1 Garand to do it!
i quite liked the writing, and the story and worldbuilding are fairly soild... but the (seemingly unnecessary) human insert and technology insert just keeps making it hard for me to enjoy the flow. Definitely will give you thumbs up for the writing and story itself so far... but don't think i will be reading anymore myself.
Cool! He is trying to create a gun...
Though, based on the comments, I won't see a bolt-action rifle anytime soon...I don't know why but I really like them compare to the other type of guns....
Two things really bothered be here. One, Dave is way to open with someone he met only a few days ago and knows nothing about. It could be argued that some of that familiarity stems from fighting together, and perhaps the doctor patient relationship helps. But the "fight" they were in was breif and they didn't need to rely on eachother much. And doctor patient relationship would cause Jade to trust Dave, but the inverse in not necessarily true. Second, this is a little thing that really bothered me, Dave called Jade 'Jay'. This shows an extreme level of familiarity that would only be seen in long time friends and family. Likely in the timeline of this fic, no one, barring possible love intrests, will ever be at the correct level in a relationship to use such a familiar nickname. Also, the fact that the nickname used is the same as the one used by her younger sister ties those two things together oddly. It is a rather simple and obvious nickname, but the fact that it's used by two unrelated people feels weird from an outside point of view.
7111446 Eh, the dude's been one his own for a good long while, I get the feeling he'll attach himself to her pretty quickly because of that.
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yes sensei
Mm. The clue that escapes the older comments. This ought to be the mighty double-barreled shotgun. It's the only thing that comes to mind: that fancy dual-barreled AR15 evolution I saw a while back would be far too complicated, and I don't think it had been invented yet when this was written, so that has to be it: the Deuce of Boom herself.
Not Ma Deuce, if you've heard that name. She's only got one barrel (at a time, anyway). One of her great grandmas, though.