I'd imagine a power of love conception between a heterosexual couple would be easily mistaken for a conventional conception. So in many cases it might go entirely unnoticed.

1119822
I'll second Ponibius on the MoL helping out heterosexual couples too. No reason it wouldn't, it's just not as notable since they have conventional sexual reproduction as an option.

Poni is right on the MoL not being a cure-all for reproductive problems, though. It helps with conception, but if there are complications during the pregnancy and/or the mare isn't able to carry a child to term things get messy. That said, in Equestria having True Love backing you up does help the odds.

For cross-species, I'd say it's probably possible between species that can already breed with ponies (donkeys, griffons). It might be possible with changelings, but it's hard to say since as far as ponies know they're not really capable of feeling True Love.

1129325well when I brought up the topic i was thinking along the lines of the Stallion shooting blanks, since love magic takes care of the biological necessities. though is said stallion did not know he was sterile, the event could easily go unreported

1009946 I'm doing that - if applicable - if I'm contradicting the Winningverse directly, and I can count on Chengar to set us all straight. With a well-placed, Kicker-delivered Krav Pega buck to the head (nyah-nyah!).
Damn it, where's our Cloud Kicker emoticons!?

So the bat-ponies are not thesdrals, but pegasi with armor enchanted to give them a nocturnal, goth look. I don't know ... I imagine them as a pony sub-species, not a get-up.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the 'verse's canon; just stating my opinion.

Quick question about griffons.
Part of the legends around them is an that griffons mate for life and won't choose another mate if theirs special somebird dies.
Time Turner touched on this while insulting Gilda in Los Pegasus and my implication in that was that Gilda was in Equestria looking for her significant other.

So, legend or truth in the Winningverse?

1199239

I'm assuming it's a cultural thing. So, the ideal situation for a griffon would be them to stay with their partner until death do they part. But if that happens a bit early... I don't see why one wouldn't look for another partner. It could either be frowned upon or just shrugged off.

I noticed that theres nothing for a myth/ledgends category. Is there any? If so what would they be?

Just curious.

1210245
There's definite potential for one at some point, but right now there's not really enough Winningverse-specific content to fill a myths and legends section out.

Original hypothesis:

LoveConception which mixes genes like sexual conception (LoveConeption is like sexless sex) would allow LoveConceiving mares to outreproduce sexually reproducing ponies, leading to the eventual extinction of stallions (stallions can also LoveConceive, but require a willing mare which makes them the slowest reproducers of them all).

Synthesis of feedback:

LoveConception is so difficult that sexual conceivers have an advantage, so stallions are not likely to go extinct.

Posted in its own thread and in the WinningVerse-Setting-FAQ.

I had some random thoughts on the guard and how they relate to the population as a whole based on numbers for the US, but before I do I have one major issue I want to bring up. Equestria absolutely must have two separate training programs because you cannot use the same training for law enforcement and combat personnel (although they could share facilities). You will wind up with police officers jumping to lethal force and killing civilians for no good reason because they are trained for combat with an enemy that wants to kill them, soldiers who die horribly because they hesitate to resort to lethal force because they are trained to work with civilians, or both when you try to create some hybrid between the two. Needless to say, any of these possibilities is a disaster which is why every country in the real world worth mentioning maintains separate law enforcement and combat entities (although they may be grouped together for administrative purposes). The Royal Guard could still make a single organizational entity work like many countries in the real world, but in order to do so the Gendarmerie would have to be their own semi-independent organization with their own Lt. Commander sort of like how the USMC is largely independent despite technically being part of the Navy (if you doubt this, go try telling a marine he is the same as a Navy sailor to his face).

Now that that is out of the way I will move on the the actual military. Some very rough numbers the population of the US is about 300 million, the military population of the US is about 1.5 million or .5%, and the law enforcement population is about 1.5 million or .5% for a total of 1% of the population in uniform.

Scaling that off your force of 40,000 guards (which includes both police and military), I would expect the population of Equestria to be about 40000/.01 = 4,000,000 for a population of four million. That is a bit lower than the ballpark estimate of 10 million I got starting from urban and rural populations, but my estimate was more an order of magnitude thing than anything else and I would expect Equestria to have a proportionally smaller military and law enforcement organization than the US based on the cultural differences so that number definitely makes sense (and it is also naturally an approximation as well).

Moving on, roughly half of that guard population (20,000 ponies) should be dedicated law enforcement based on the roughly even split in the US which naturally leaves 20,000 ponies in the military. Out of those ponies, a much larger proportion of them are going to be fighting troops than the US military because they do not require legions of support personnel to keep high tech equipment running (the F-14 Tomcat required something like 50 hours of maintenance for every flight hour). That said, it is also unreasonable to assume they had the same nonexistent supply chains as medieval armies did which resulted in just about every soldier fighting and feeding themselves by pillaging the land they traveled through. As such, I am going to assume that approximately half the troops are in supporting rolls (training, administration, logistics, ect.) which reduces the fighting strength of Equestria to about 10,000 ponies. These forces are also going to have to serve in various border patrols, guarding important positions, and garrisoning Westmarch along with various downtime, so I would guess that the total deployable force is probably no more than about 2,500 troops, and even that would take time to pull together so 1,000 is the largest possible rapid response force I can see with something like 500 being more likely.

Once again using the US as a reference point, a full wartime mobilization (based on WWII) would call up a bit over 11% of the population (16 million troops over the course of the war out of a population of 140 million), so Equestria could theoretically field about ten times that many troops which pushes them up to about 440,000 with only about 30,000 tied down in police work and essential patrols (after accounting for their support staff), although half of what was left would be tied down in support rolls which would allow them to field a fighting force of about 200,000, although in practice the increased logistical load would demand an increase in the percentage of support personnel so 100,000 to 150,000 is more likely. That said, I could see Equestria fielding up to twice this many troops on the assumption that they have a proportionally smaller standing military and police force than the US so they could increase their military population by a larger percentage, up to about 10%~12% of the total population.

1384455
Interesting thoughts. Though it's possible you're putting too much thought into this.

Think of it this way: Equestria would have an almost insignificant crime rate and a lot of territory to cover. It would simply be easier to pool law enforcement and military into a single group, especially where both civilian and military answer to the same pony. Modern democracies have divisions of power, while Equestria is closer to older feudal systems where such splits are unnecessary.

From that point the difference between Guard and Gendarme is simply a matter of specialist training. Much as the palace guard would have additional ceremonial training as well. The Gendarme would be trained to have an understanding of the law so that they could arrest offenders and then drag them before a suitably skilled unicorn, or princess, for a reform spell.

Jeeze, now i'm over thinking this.

As for war mobilization: That's something Chengar will probably address in the Luna Rebellion. I'd expect almost every colt in Equestria would quickly end up joining militias, and many of the mares as well.

1385035, 1384455
I'd have to agree with Rodinga that the Gendarmerie is just another specialized branch a pony can serve in when they enlist. Going off the way real-world militaries work, everypony goes through basic training, then they get specialist training in whatever branch/section they go to. For ponies who join the Gendarmerie, they presumably have specialist law enforcement training similar to what you'd find in a real-world police academy.

West Hoof would train officers for the Gendarmerie, though I imagine they get a fairly different course load compared to a frontline officer. Then again, an officer for the Royal Corps of Engineers is gonna get very different training from an officer for the Long Patrol, so that's not a huge issue. No different than a college offering different majors, really.

I expect the Gendarmerie does usually operate with a fair degree of independence, just as a practical matter.

As for the strength of the Equestrian Army relative to population, Winning Pony does point out that the modern Equestrian military is tiny compared to Equestria's actual warmaking potential. The Lunar Rebellion is going to show far larger forces in the field,

1385035 What makes you think I put too much thought into this?

As for the gendarme, even with a low crime rate they have to be trained differently from soldiers or they will make a mess of things. This is a universal constant and the reason that even the most oppressive regimes have a separate police and military force because they know that the military will make too much of a mess if they try to police the general population on a regular basis.

It is worth noting that there was no such thing as "police brutality" under those feudal governments you mentioned, and the only time the lord would curtail them was when they seriously affected productivity, usually by killing too many workers. Those governments also had a universal policy where they supplied their armies by pillaging the land they traveled through with little regard for the population, and there was no real distinction made about who actually governed those people. Now, unless you want to argue that this is the policy of the Royal Guard, I think it is safe to ignore those historical examples.

1389744 I mentioned that they could share resources, however the training at all levels would have to be almost entirely separate. Police and military unarmed combat training look very different, and weapons are totally unrelated. Tactics are also going to have to be vastly different, and that is without thinking about things like military strategy, law, and so on.

West Hoof is probably the place they could share the most because of all the other courses that do not directly apply to either branch (things like history, math, science, ect.), but beyond that the sharing is going to be mostly logistics. This is also going to be much more distinct from the other branches because the long patrol and engineering officers are going to share a lot of general military coursework that the gendarme will not get.

While this split could be considered specialization, it is going to be much more significant than what you seem to be thinking of because a military basic training is going to cause problems for police officers. US Military Police have to go through an enormous amount of training after finishing boot camp, and a huge part of the reason for that is to unlearn a lot of what they just learned so they can be retrained for law enforcement, and even then they mostly deal with military personnel.

The other possibility is that what they consider basic training is something like a four-week course on military discipline and nothing combat related with another longer military or police basic training course afterwards which is then followed by further specialization.

Moving on to the strength of the army, that is really no different from the US. The US military currently consists of less (that number also included the Coast Guard) than 0.5% of the population or 1 in 200 people (the real strength of the US military is training and equipment, not numbers). During World War Two, that rose by more than twenty times, and that was with just men serving so it could be even higher now, although I am curious what kind of numbers you were thinking of during the rebellion. Of course, the fundamental problem with the numbers during the rebellion is that was 1000 years ago so the population has had plenty of time to grow or shrink to just about any size imaginable. The real problem here is that I do not have an actual number for the population beyond what I extrapolated from the guard (4 million) and visuals (10 million), but based on the agreement between those two numbers I think it is reasonable to assume that the US military is a fairly good model.

1393799
Sticking to the US army for real life reference when discussing gendarmes might not be the best way to handle things. After all, the US doesn't have a gendarmerie, and is incredibly picky about not letting the army get involved in law enforcement. We'd be better off taking the French Gendarmerie Nationale, Spanish Guardia Civil, or the Italian Carabinieri as an example to build off of.

That said, actual combat skills are a small part of basic training, and usually only goes into basic marksmanship and weapon familiarity. Most of the emphasis is on military discipline, teamwork, and physical fitness.

1394053 I was mostly using them for a size reference, and if you looked (and did not loose track of it in the giant pile of numbers) I did keep the police and military more or less separate on both sides.

Unfortunately, I am really not sure what you are talking about with that second paragraph. The way it is worded, it could be referring to either branch in either country. Assuming it is talking about Equestria, the actual combat portion would have to be minimal so the military would need another round of combat training even for the support personnel, and the police would need a separate round of combat training emphasizing their rules of engagement and subduing suspects without causing undue injury.

1394100
Nonetheless, a look at how actual gendarmeries handle training would be informative. Sadly, a quick google turned up nothing, and I don't have time for an in-depth search at the moment.

My bad on the second paragraph, I was actually referring more to real-world military basic training but it would apply to Equestria just as well. Actual infantry weapon training during Basic usually doesn't go much beyond ensuring a soldier has basic proficiency and knows to maintain their equipment. Advanced combat training is going to differ, but gendarmes and frontline soldiers both need a level of baseline competence first.

1394412 It would be, but that is probably going to be difficult to find because military and police forces like to keep as tight a lid on their training so others do not know how to exploit it.

For the second, that varies wildly by country and service so it is kind of hard to use as a baseline. For example, the USAF does not bother with much combat training because they operate exclusively from secure locations protected by either the army or marines, but on the other hand the marines give everyone full combat training with their "every marine is a rifleman" thing so their basic training probably includes more direct combat training than any (non-special forces) air force specialist gets.

1394506
Well, I wasn't figuring on finding all the dirty details about gendarme training. Just something along the lines of what wikipedia has on US army basic training would be plenty to work with.

1395138 I see. From what I have heard it is more or less the same as most police training, although they get training with more weapons (US police are not trained on assault rifles) and more marksmanship training because they are technically part of the military.

It only gets funny if someone transfers from a combat unit to the gendarme because they have to be more or less fully retrained because one of the big focuses of combat training is breaking down the natural hesitance to kill which is a very bad thing in a police officer. I am not sure how often this actually happens, but given the months of training involved I doubt it is very common.

That said, my knowledge is second hand at best so it could be off, but it does mesh well with what I know of military and police work so it is probably at least close.

having spent nearly a decade in the US Army, I can tell you right now that one of the early and basic premise of your stance is flawed. Being in the regular active-duty army does not in any way make me unfit to be a police officer. Indeed the Police forces gladly welcome ex-military because of the discipline, critical thinking, and tactical backgrounds they posses.

The reason for a separate police force/military in the US is one of budget more than anything. Soldiers are much more intensely trained and supported (food, lodging, medical, etc) than your standard beat cop.

A military as described in modern Equestria consisting of small numbers of volunteer elite soldiers would form the backbone of a highly effective police force as well.

A good solider has high morale and knows how to kill the enemy without hesitation, true. An excellent solider can do that and has the situational awareness to not kill innocents, identify proper use of force in a chaotic situation, and so on. Elite military soldiers under a leader focused on compassion, peace, and love would be -ideal- law enforcement.

1398119
With the US, I would also imagine a big part of the strong separation between police and military is down to culture and tradition. Up until the post-World War II/Cold War era made it a necessity the US did not like to maintain a standing army in peacetime. When the US army barely had enough manpower to function as an army, it made sense to leave police duties in civilian hands.

1399987

Different sides of the same coin, I suppose. In the Revolutionary war, local/state militias were forged into an army, making the police force the army.

Culture certainly plays a big stake in things. However the US does have a distinct combination of population and geographical size that isn't very closely replicated elsewhere. Places like Australia and the former USSR may have had the size, and places like China certainly have the population, but I still feel the primary concern is one of economy. A soldier receives more training, thus costs more money, than a cop. A certain number of cops are needed for a geographical area and population density. Training an entire force of cops to the standards of a soldier would not be cost effective.

Culture plays a part, but I don't think it is so clear-cut exactly what part in the context of the discussion. If anything, those with more conservative mentality and those favoring state-power over federal would be more than open to the idea of army/police/militia enforcement of laws. It tends to be more of a liberal mindset that favors individual disarmament, reliance on police, and minimal force. Indeed, the more extreme you get on the liberal scale, the more pacifist things tend to get, and the desire for everyone to be disarmed becomes exaggerated.

Point being, our culture as it relates to the topic of military/civilian police force isn't so easy to apply to one side or the other of the discussion. It applies to both I'd say.

The point I oppose vehemently is the concept that a military as described in the winningverse, which happens to be closer to modern US and Israeli militaries, would produce mindless thugs incapable of proper use of force when dealing with criminal civilians. Sure, a military of the Lunar Rebellion Era would pose problems. Indeed that story is illustrating that very issue if you want to look at it that way (at this point up to ch6 is published only).

Might I remind others that Military Police do exist. Law enforcement exists within the army itself, and as I said in my last post, ex-military are considered highly valuable members of the civilian police force.

With the debate on wither a single facility like West Hoof would be reasonable as a place to train all Equestria's military officers, to include those destined to be in the "police force" I say yes it would be. It would be economic and geographical concerns that would prompt the need for another academy, not fears of "too much training."
***
EDIT:
Moved to appropriate thread.

1009946 Done, as of the Transitions mini-arc. More to come, of course.

1125417 Cross-Type breeding takes place - Derpy's a Pegasus, and her foal is a Unicorn. That's pretty much canon, I'd say.
In the Winningverse, Star and Storm are Unicorns, and Wind and Typhoon's daughters ("Daaaaaad!" Hmm, somepony taught her the Royal Canterlot Whine...). Going by that, it can be said every Type (I hate the word "breed") has each other's genes, or several common genes interact differently. "Damn these promiscuous ponies, they drive me to drink!"

1541299
Storm, Wind, and Typhoon are all pegasi (sp; there's like four ways to pluralize 'pegasus', not sure which is considered correct)

1541266
ooooh, PM me a link?

1541356 D'OH!!

1541360 You got it. Chapter in question. You'll have to wade through, unless you just want the meeting.

1542370

Be nice. It's an easy mistake to make, y'know. Pegasi are always going around enchanting little gems, hiding them on people they want to stalk, and tracking them with magic radar/sonar/stuff.

In reference to S3E6, "Sleepless in Ponyville"

I'm curious about the interplay between Luna's ability to enter dreams and the Winningverse laws of magic.

Equestria's Government

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have absolute authority within their realm. Though they generally restrict themselves to already established laws and precedent in the management of their government. They also tend to keep a light hoof on the daily affair of their subjects, generally only intervening when there is believed to be a need for them to do so.

Laws of Magic

3. Thou Shalt Not Invade the Mind of Another.

Forcibly entering another sapient creatures mind is considered a profound violation of the pony involved. In addition to violating the privacy and sanctity of the pony person, such invasions can cause significant damage to the pony’s mind.

There is no penalty if one pony or sapient being allows another into their mind given such an act avoids invasions of privacy and any psychological damage.

Obviously it isn't illegal for Luna to enter a pony's dream. It is clearly within her realm and under her absolute authority. The rulers do at least follow the spirit of the law it seems, and I'm wondering if there are a more personal set of "rules/guidelines" Luna might follow in regard to this. Does she spend a great deal of time entering random subjects' dreams to learn secrets and assist in fighting crime? For personal entertainment? Or is this one of those rarely used/hidden abilities only used in defense of national security?

The law reveals a couple of things. It reveals that invasive mind magic does exist (for it to be illegal), and also it's use is considered bad enough to warrant a law prohibiting it. We can assume that the general populace and perhaps the monarchs themselves frown on being invasive in general (much like most people frown on murder and theft). In other words, most ponies don't like others entering their heads. It would seem to me then, that ponies wouldn't generally like the idea of Luna entering their dreams at whim. Even if she were to be generally cautious with the use of such power, it would make other ponies disgruntled that she even can.

In the Winningverse with it's a bit more gritty and realistic outlook on such details, is it common knowledge that Luna can enter dreams or not, and what do ponies generally think of such ability when it is revealed? Does it fall under the same kind of mindset as the movement of the Sun and Moon (oh, I had a good dream last night, thank Luna) or does it invoke more myth/folklore reaction (be good, children, or Luna will bring you bad dreams!) (spoken about but not really "believed" much like the boogy man).

What is your view on Changelings? You brought one up in the story regarding Cloudkicker's mother and the prompt death thereof. But otherwise I don't recall it having caused much trouble beyond the fact that it had led them to the dead mother and taken its place.

1726469
The upcoming Changeling fic from Comma-Kazie should shed some more light on just what they're up to.

1574865

Whoops, didn’t see this question until now for some reason. So sorry on the belated answer.

Dream magic is a gray area where the Second Law of Magic is concerned. It’s going to get covered in detail in my Lunar Rebellion-WPverse related story Midnight’s Shadow, but when a pony goes to sleep their mind touches the plane of existence known as the Dreamscape. Technically when Luna enters a pony’s dream she is touching where that pony is touching the dreamscape.

I would say that Luna is very careful in how she uses her ability to enter ponies’ dreams because she can seriously violate both the Second and Third Laws of Magic if she were so inclined considering a pony’s dream’s is a convenient backdoor into a pony’s mind, and thus the potential to causes all sorts of damage.

She probably mainly uses it to try and help ponies like we saw in Sleepless in Ponyville where she tries to help Scootaloo get over her own fears. She could also use it to assist with long range communication. It probably does lead to some entertainment, much like watching television. Using it for civic justice would be tricky, considering it is legally tricky at best to use anything she glimpsed from a dream to enforce the law. For national defense she is probably more willing to use her muscle to bring a hurting and gather information, but she would be very weary of doing anything to violate the Second or Third Law, for that way leads to Nightmare Moon…

I would say it is common knowledge, or at least rumored, that Luna can enter pony’s dreams. Given Luna would use her ability for benevolent reasons, ponies would have a generally positive attitude towards it. It really comes down to the individual pony and how they feel about it. Some might welcome it for Luna’s help or have a positive experience like Scootaloo, while others react negatively to their privacy being violated.

I figure Luna keeps her cards close to her chest on the exact range of her abilities where dreams are concerned. After all, you don’t want potential enemies to know what your limits are and everything you can and cannot do. So as a result there would be a lot of rumors/myth/folklore on the topic by the typical pony.

1728053

Thanks for the reply. I'm in no rush for the info, so your answer was plenty punctual for my needs.

About the dream thing:
I would imagine that most dreams aren't remembered anyway, pretty much like in our reality. I would also think that Luna could encourage or prevent the remembrance of a dream that she was involved in as part of her power. That would be why there could be only rumors about her entering dreams. I would also think that her banishment would include being cut off from the Equestrian dreamscape by Celestia.

Hmmm.

1003952
A quick question, if I may, about CK. Has the meaning of her cutie mark actually been established in the verse? I think it might have, but after reading as many of them as I have, I can't remember.

1859214
Yeah. Her special talent is cloud manipulation.

1859288
I did think so, but there's a lot to cast doubt on that sometimes. Cloud manipulation is something that a lot of ponies are able to do, and not all of them have it as their talents. On the other hand, the other aspects of CK's life seem a lot larger than that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that - it actually makes her and her stories more interesting.

Canterlot Military Academy, which handles ... my Coast Patrol (Coast Guard/Navy/Marines).

Wouldn't it make more sense to put the water service officers in Manehatten (or at least somewhere on the coast)?

I notice that many stories on the sites of Bronies and PegaSisters have widely different sizes of MLP:FIM-Ponies. This has not comeup in this group, but it might. I have suggestions for the average size of average ponies:

Before we begin, we should define what a pony is:

A pony is an horse equal to or less than 14 hands. An hand is an old unit equal to 1/3 of an old foot. It is equal to approximately 10 cm. An pony cannot be taller than 1.4 meters tall.

These are little ponies.

Along these lines, I put together this:

Mares have medium build, are 6 hands tall (.6 m), 50 kg (100 pounds in the old units).

Stallions are 7 hands tall (.7 m) and, because they are heavily built, they have a mass of 100 kg.

The Royal Alicorn-Sisters are 14 hands high (1.4 meters). Any taller and they would be horses —— ¡Not ponies! Despite their height, they are so lightly built that their mass is only 200 kg.

Please chime into the conversation.

2147992
Going by the assumption that critters are normal Earth-size in Equestria, you have proper comparison tools. Fluttershy is often seen in close proximity to various critters. Harry, her bear friend, would be an excellent choice to extrapolate Fluttershy's size, and by extension everpony else.

2150425

The trouble is that we do not know which kind of bear Harry is (probably a kind of bear which exists only on Equus —— ¡not Earth!). Compared to Winona, the ponies only slightly smaller than regular horses, but compared to the birds in 02:07 May The Best Pet Win, the ponies are very small. In 03:11 Just For SideKicks, Spike, the CutieMarkCrusaders, and the pets are the same size. Sizing the ponies by comparison to other animals and objects may be possible, it it is difficult.

2154781
One wonders if there is even a point. They are ponies, and their world is sized to meet their standards. While that would make some others, such as Iron Will, feel out of place. It doesn't actually change anything.

Frankly speaking, some of these questions probably shouldn't even be answered until an author needs to make a judgement call when such a question becomes nessisary, and said author will likely answer it in order to meet the demands of his or her story.

2154781
Indeed, that difficulty comes from the points you mention, the assumption I mention, and the simple fact that the show itself is far less consistant with its details than the average fanfic writer.

Anothr route that could be taken is to go less objective and more inferential. I've seen fics where the author makes up flavorful units of measurement like kilotrots. While it may not be as satisfying as solid metric values, the old "standard" system carries a thematic feel with the show.

Interestingly enough, the main issues of inconsistency born from that system are largely not a problem in Equestria. When the standard foot was literally the size of the king's foot and changed with each coronation, Equestria has an immortal being to form that standard off of.

2157026

We agree pretty much at this point. On hindsight, topicdrift obfuscates the true point:

If it ever comes up, we should decide ahead of time the scale. That is I suggested making the mares and stallions little ponies and the Royal AlicornSisters still ponies but just barely so. Trying to measure the ponies from screencaptures probably would not work and may not be worth the effort.

I do not write this comment just to agree with you, but bring up the point that you brought up a very interesting point when you wrote “kilotrot”:

The show would have been better if the ponies would use a different base:

It would have made the show more other worldly. 2 bases come to mind:

* Quaternary (Base-4)
* Sexagesimal (Base-60)

The Quaternary system is self-evident because ponies have 4 hooves.

The ponies might choose Sexagesimal because Quaternary is not very compact and only fractions with powers of 2 in the denominator terminate. A pony-mathematician would ask:

“¿Which base has require about the same number of symbols as the alphabet, including both upper case and lower case , along with punctuation and has a large number of factors, so that when splitting things into small groups, the part past the radix-symbol terminates?”

The answer is Sexagesimal because it is the least common multiple of all positive real whole integer equal to or less than 6 (2^2 * 3^1 * 5^1 = 60). The next such base is Base-420 which is the least common multiple of all positive real whole integer equal to or less than 7 (2^2 * 3^1 * 5^1 * 7^1 = 420). Unless the Pony-Alphabet has an huge number of letters, and the ponies use a great many symbols for punctuation, Base-420 is clearly too large.

As neat and other worldly Quaternary and especially Sexagesimal would have made the show, it is the road not traveled. We can still use kilotrot. The trot-part of kilotrot is sort of other worldly.

2160266
I like base12; 3 tribes, 4 hooves (a common, unifying trait). A fairly large amount of prime factors, without being "large" like 60.

2161594

Duodecimal (Base-12_ is better than Decimal because it is more composite. The factors excluding unity and itself are 2, 3, 4, and 6. Its prime factorization is 2^2 * 3. For 10 the factors are 2 and 5. The prime factors are 2^1 * 5^1.

About 60 requiring too many symbols, you already know these 62 symbols:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789

As mentioned in the previous post, finding the best composite number for base is all about finding the least common multiple up to where one decides to stop counting. If we go to 6, we get 60 with the factors 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and the prime factors of 2^2 * 3^1 * 5^1. 60 is a reasonable number symbols to learn and is highly composite.

Computers around 2020 probably will switch from binary to balanced ternary:

When we first tried to build computers, we tried decimal, but creating 10-way switches was complicated. We went to binary because a 2-way switches is much easier. If we would have thought about it, we would have used Balanced Ternary for Radix-Economy:

Many tradeoff exist in designing computers. Radix-Economy is a way of measuring the tradeoff in n-way switches. one multiplys the number of possible states of a switch by the number of digits it takes for representing an integer. As an example, the decimal number 4,294,967,295 has an radix-economy value of 100 (10*10). In binary, its radix-economy-value is only 64 (2*32). The graph of average radix economy looks like y=x/nl(x). The lowest radix-economy is for e, which does not work because is not an integer, but the closest integer is 3.

We made experimental computers using balanced ternary (used the values of -1, 0, and +1) since the 1950s. These computers have been more powerful than their binary counterparts. The reason the computer-industry did not switch to balanced ternary is because it is easier to shrink the component-size, than to switch architectures. We approach the limits of miniaturization:

Because baryonic matter, as opposed to dark matter, is atomic, we cannot simply shrink component-size. We must look to different architectures. We already started down that path with making multiple-core processors because it gets easier to add more cores than speedup the processor. By 2020, if the computer-industry wants to increase performance, it will have to switch from 64-bit multiple-core processors to 81-trit multiple-core processors. After that, computers will have to go 3D:

Computer-chips are thin with just a few layers. If we want to build a robot, smarter than the smartest human, with a mass less than 50 kg (less than 100 pounds in the old units), its computer would have to take advantage of the third dimension. A 3d 81-tri multiple-core computer smarter than the smartest human could have a volume of less than 1 liter, a mass of less than 1 kg, and use less than 100 Watts of power.

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I was referring to 60 as "large" not in reference to a conceptual counting limit or character concern. It was more as a denominator. Much like the difference between measuring something in feet+inches vs centimeters. You end up needing a lot more 60ths to measure something than you need 12ths.

The rest of it was certainly fascinating though. I already knew of the miniaturization issues. I'm curious why we've waited this long to go to trits. Mechanical solutions like thinner materials/more cores seem like they'd be less profitable than design solutions like the trinary switch architecture.

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Cryosite:

> “I was referring to 60 as ”large“ not in reference to a conceptual counting limit or character concern. It was more as a denominator. Much like the difference between measuring something in feet+inches vs centimeters. You end up needing a lot more 60ths to measure something than you need 12ths.”

I routinely use a ruler with 300 millimeters etched onto 1 side (the other side has 12 of some other unit on it). I have no trouble using those millimeters.

> “The rest of it was certainly fascinating though. I already knew of the miniaturization issues. I’m curious why we’ve waited this long to go to trits. Mechanical solutions like thinner materials/more cores seem like they’d be less profitable than design solutions like the trinary switch architecture.”

In the past, although a computer using balanced ternary would be more powerful, it was simpler to just shrink what one has. Now, it is easier to add more cores. Certainly, if Remington-Rand (the company making electric shavers) made the first commercially available computers in the late 1940s use balanced ternary, throughout 20th century to the present, for each date in the alternate universe, computers in that alternate universe would be twice as powerful than computers made at the same date in our universe. But in our universe, after going binary because 10-switches were unworkable, miniaturization was easier than switching architecture.

At this time, it is easier just to add more cores than change architectures. The chip-manufactures know that they will have to switch from 64-bit to 81-trit, but, for now, it is easier to add more core.

The above paragraph could make it seem that we should switch from multiple binary cores to a single-core balanced ternary. Multiple cores is a good architectural solution. The reason multiple cores only became common recently (experimental, and supercomputers used multiple cores for years) is that it was easier to reduce the feature-size and boost the clock-speed in the process. Future computers using balanced ternary will have multiple cores. When we had to start routinely using multiple-cores, we should have gone from single-cored 32-bit to multiple-cored 81-trit instead of single-cored 32-bit to multiple-cored 64-bit, but it was cheaper to go to multiple-cored binary in the interim and postpone the transition to balanced ternary until we have to way to improve binary computers.