Celestia Sleeps In--Chapter 13 notes and thanks · 11:14am Sep 1st, 2013
Blog entry for Chapter 13
A huge round of of applause for my pre-readers! Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents!
Given the stage of Pony technology we see in the show, it’s probably a little early for science fiction as we know it to make an appearance. Nonetheless, not only is it a convenient reason to give for Twilight questioning what is no doubt the wisdom of Equestria, but it’s a nod to the influence Sci-fi and fantasy had on my own upbringing. The first set of novels I remember finishing was the Lord of the Rings; by my best guess I was about seven when I first read them. Admittedly, there must have been a lot that went over my head back then.
Winter Rye is a very obscure reference to a well-known science fiction author. Hint: his family name derives from a word for winter crops in the language of his birthplace. This is in response to some criticism leveled in a previous chapter for non-pony style names.
In the MLP comics, the moon apparently does have a breathable atmosphere. That having been said . . . first, as I stated in an earlier blog post, the story is set to canon as it was during the Apple Family Reunion episode (I’m pretty sure that was the most recent one I’d seen when I started writing this story). Second, since this is a fan work, I’m chasing a moving target. With what we know now, I could have alicorn-Twilight say that the humans look like ponies do after they go through the Stargate, but with few different, not very vibrant skin colors. That ain’t gonna happen.
Gryphon vs. Griffon. In canon, Gilda’s last name is spelled Griffon. While it’s not the ‘correct’ spelling of her species, it is the way that Hasbro spelled it. For that reason, I’ve chosen to use that spelling throughout for the species. Also, I’m assuming that Gustave doesn’t live in Ponyville, but was on his way to the competition from someplace else.
Although Pinkie’s room is often portrayed as being at the top of Sugarcube Corner, in Party of One the street is right outside her door, and Rainbow passes by a bed which could only be hers; therefore, she must reside on the ground floor.
The stethoscope was invented by Rene Laennec in 1816, when he had to examine an overweight woman for a heart condition. Since the only means of listening to the heart at that time was to put one’s ear against a patient’s chest, and the morals of the time prohibited this, he improvised a rolled-up sheet of paper. While the doctor has a stethoscope, the nurses don’t; if they want to listen to a patient’s heart or lung function, it’s an ear to the chest.
Dale’s Breakfast, or: Why is the Fish Cooked?
The ponies know that Dale eats meat (Lyra especially). She, of course, presumably can’t recognize the difference between roast beef and raw beef, having eaten neither. The only meat which the ponies have ready access to and no qualms about eating is fish. (Whether they eat it themselves or not is irrelevant. In canon, Fluttershy got some for her ferrets; I can’t see her asking Applejack for a sheep to feed her bear.) But why cook it? Why not just slap a dead fish on Dale’s plate and call it good?
They presumably know that improperly stored or prepared food can cause illness; at the very least they have the concept that food-which-is-left-out goes bad, since they’ve invented iceboxes. Whether or not their science understands microorganisms is immaterial.
They presumably also know that animals can get sick from eating uncooked food—they don’t eat their eggs raw, after all.
Experience probably would have taught them that pretty much anything can eat cooked food without risk of illness, while uncooked food is more problematic. Thus, in the interests of safety, it seems a logical conclusion for them to cook the fish. Even if they believe Dale can (and normally does) eat raw meat, it’s a safer, more conservative choice.
This was confirmed by a vet—she could think of no cases where an animal that normally ate raw meat would be harmed by feeding it cooked meat.
Dr. McCoy’s Medical Tricorder: I seem to remember that there were small scanning devices used on Star Trek (the original series), but I wasn’t much of a watcher. As a kid, we didn’t have a TV (I still don’t), so my opportunities to watch stuff was pretty limited.
Wikipedia wasn’t much help here. If I’d known what it was called, I probably could have found what I was looking for . . . this is sometimes the curse of the internet. After wasting a goodly amount of time googling, I remembered that one of my friends from high school would often get into technical arguments about Star Trek vs. Star Wars (like, did the Enterprise have a better fire suppression system than a star destroyer). Since we’re friends on Facebook, I asked him. He, and another geeky friend I asked both suggested Medical Tricorder.
Now that I had a name, I could look it up on the interwebs. It was bigger than I’d thought; it certainly wasn’t something that Nurse Redheart could conceal under her hoof. Still, given Dale’s age, he probably remembered that Star Trek had some futuristic medical devices, and he probably watched the show when it first aired. Subsequently, he’s likely seen other sci-fi shows with really miniaturized medical devices, and is conflating the two.
Dale’s unexpected view: Ponies don’t wear clothes. Or underwear. Go ahead and spend some time at a horse pasture—I did. Horses move their tails around a lot (and if they held them as high as they do on the show, you’d be seeing it all the time), and it doesn’t take much to see more than you might want to.
Un-refrigerated butter: when I was a kid, the butter sticks just sat on the table in their little butter dish. When kept at room temperature, butter’s easy to spread on toast. When it’s been refrigerated, though, it just digs holes in the bread. The shelf-life of butter kept out is surprisingly long; I don’t recall it ever getting moldy, rancid, or whatever else may happen to warm butter. My parents don’t do this any more; perhaps they’ve switched to unsalted butter, which only has a counter life of about a week.
Egg yolks tend to be more orange in free-range chickens than confined chickens, although the color is largely dependent on what the chicken eats.
There probably aren’t HIPPA regulations in Equestria, so nopony would feel any concern with discussing Dale or Kate’s condition with anypony who asked. Back in Ye Olden Times, small-town newspapers often carried brief accounts of the medical condition of the residents, in fact. “Farmer Brown fell off his tractor and broke his left leg. He spent two days convalescing in the hospital before returning home.”
Secret Service ‘retinal disruptor’: ‘Dazzlers’ have been around for a long time. Powerful spotlights were used in WW2; as early as the 80s, lasers were used for this purpose. Whether or not the Secret Service actually has lasers which are capable of temporarily blinding a person is immaterial; the armed forces do and have been using them. The idea is simple: shine a green or red laser into someone’s eyes, and they can’t do anything to you, because they can’t see you. You can try this yourself (but DON’T) with a green laser pointer, or even a really bright LED light. DON’T TRY THIS. The military weapons are supposed to be non-lethal and non-permanent. No guarantees if you try it yourself with improvised equipment.
Hot bunking or hot racking is the practice of assigning multiple crew members of a ship—on different watches—the same bed. The idea is, of course, that when one crew member is on watch he doesn’t need it, and a separate bed for every crew member wastes space. I’d imagine that this practice has largely fallen by the wayside in the US Navy by now on the surface ships, but was certainly common (and may still be) in the submarine service, where space is really at a premium; it would certainly be something that Dale would be aware of. And to be honest, a spaceship has more in common with a sub than any other type of vessel. Those readers who are in the Navy, feel free to add your two cents in the comments.
Bed size: In Read it and Weep, Rainbow’s bed is much longer than she needs it to be (although like most things in the show, it’s not consistent).
Actually as acute as equine hearing is, a stethescope is hardly necessary. They would have no trouble at all using their ears.
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You're probably right: given the size of their ears, they'd be able to focus sound really well, and it's reasonable to assume pony hearing is roughly the same as IRL horse hearing.
The doctor does have a stethoscope, so they do know what they are. I'm no doctor, but I do use a pointy stethoscope on cars to pinpoint noises; it's plausible that a stethoscope can help localize the source of a sound on a patient better than a pony's ear.
McCoy's medical tricorder was a big ol' brick, but it did come with a much smaller probe attachment for medical scans. In addition, tricorders in The Next Generation (started airing ca. the 80s-90s) were much more compact, and came with an even smaller probe.
a.tgcdn.net/images/products/additional/large/a6eb_star_trek_tricorder_inuse2.jpg Example of an Original Series tricorder
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Yeah, I imagined it smaller. I think I was thinking of the tricorder in TNG, but thinking of Dr. McCoy rather than whoever was doctor in TNG. There might have been a smaller tricorder in some of the movies, too.
Why are you aruging about tricorders? Obviously throughout the startrek franchise. Its been following a path similar to the cell phone it spawned. Bigger than smaller.
And by one of the real men I based Piercing Gaze on, too! He tested his dazzle-strobe-spotlight system by piloting an airplane over a target and having the air defense crew turn the spotlight on him, to see if it would prevent him from seeing the target. Not only did it prevent him from seeing the target, it temporarily blinded him, and he nearly crashed! The test was deemed successful.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure that was the Dream-Moon. Much like Lovecraft's.
Rarity sleeps on an absurdly large and luxurious bed. She either likes to pamper herself, or ... well, I have a good opinion of her, so I'll assume she likes to pamper herself.
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That's plausible.
I read about using them on British ships in WWII, to keep the dive-bombers from hitting their targets. It was even easier to aim; the plane was flying straight at the ship. The downside was sometimes the planes, with bombs still attached and fused, crashed on the ship.
I also assume she likes to pamper herself.
I recall reading or watching about a modified M3 Lee that carried a strobe light. When flashed quickly, the opposing soldiers were completely unable to track the tank as it weaves back and forth. The generals that received it weren't given actual instructions on how to use it, and it disappeared from most people's memories.
It did have one major downside, in that it gave aircraft a giant arrow to shoot at.