Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 1 notes · 1:31am Sep 20th, 2013
EDIT: I added bullets to separate perspective shifts, which will hopefully cut down on the confusion a little. I'll do that going forward for any perspective shifts that don't also have a major scene shift.
A big thanks to all my pre-readers: Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents!
First-time readers: You don't have to had read Celestia Sleeps In to enjoy this story. I'd recommend it, of course, but don't feel obligated.
Long-time readers: As you can see, this continues exactly where the last one left off. I promise you, I won't be having characters give long boring summaries of what already happened.
In real life, horses will often run back to their stalls in a burning barn. Presumably, they feel safe in their stall, and when they’re panicked (because the barn’s on fire), they want to go back where they feel safe.
I know one emergency emetic spell, but it’s not very pleasant
This is a reference to Jersey Lightning’s Pilot’s Story
I’ve seen a number of older hospitals with cemeteries right next door. I suppose that makes it more convenient when the cure fails. Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo is like that; the Riverside Cemetery is just on the other side of the parking lot.
High-level unicorns: while I’m not too fond of that way of describing powerful unicorns, it is what Twilight says when Trixie casts an age spell, so it’s canon.
It was not an unreasonable thought; the institutional mind tends to think the same way all across the vast reaches of the universe.
Even assuming that the convenient parallels between Equestrian society and our own are simply due to lazy or uncreative animators, I believe this statement to be one hundred percent true. If and when humanity makes contact with an advanced alien race, I believe the mind-set of their bureaucracy will be no different than our own. With that thought in mind, I recommend “Allamagoosa” by Eric Frank Russell (if you can find a copy). Originally published in 1955, it’s still relevant, because the military mind never changes.
Goodall is badly miscalculating Kate’s weight. The normal dose of morphine is .5mL/Kg. While I don’t have an exact weight for her, it’s reasonable to assume she actually weighs between 50 and 70 Kg, which means that she should be getting no more than 35mL of morphine. According to Goodall’s flawed estimate, Kate needs 80mL of morphine. The good news is that the LD is 200mL, so she’s still safe there. This, of course, assumes that pony morphine is the same potency as the Earth equivalent.
While I’m no expert on what women wear while they’re sleeping, I know of one girl who always wore a bra to bed--even if she was wearing nothing else--one who insisted on panties and a shirt, and a third who was perfectly comfortable nude or just wearing a t-shirt. I realize that by observing I may have been influencing the results, but it’s the data set I’ve got.
According to a guy I know who’s shaved his head, the hair-standing-on-end feeling is exactly the same even without hair. I wound up not using that in the story (or at least I haven't yet), but I researched it anyway.
Lyra as a grandmaster is a reference to Xenophilia, in which she’s portrayed as a Still Way grandmaster.
I interviewed a subject who was given morphine in the sixties after shattering his leg in a tobogganing accident; he said it was fairly fast-acting, and one of the benefits (besides dulling the pain) was that it put him in a happier place, where he was no longer concerned with the extent of his injuries. While hallucinations due to morphine are rare, they’re not impossible; in Kate’s case, the combination of morphine, blood loss, injury, waking up to see ponies administering medical care, and the exertion from attempting to stop said ponies would likely be overwhelming. It’s quite likely that her brain would finally just check out. I would assume that the last gasp of rationality would be her memory of seeing one of the ponies with a syringe, and the assumption that followed that she was on some kind of drug, and that she would subsequently assume everything else had just been a happy hallucination.
Rorschach is a reference to Watchmen. In the movie, he’s depicted with a face covered in gauze and wearing a fedora. I presume this is true of the graphic novel, too; however, I haven’t read it in years.
“I am Ozymandias,” etc., is from the poem “Ozymandias” by Shelly. Ozymandias was also the villain in Watchmen.
If I’d done a little more research earlier, I would have found that strong sunblock can prevent flashburns. It’s a trick experienced welders know.
I'm so confused! You don't have any new stories posted or updated. I've been F5ing like a madman and I don't see any "onto the pony planet"
1361581
It's gotta pass moderation. It's the next part of Celestia Sleeps In . . . I am doing it as a three-parter. There's another long blog post which is going to be posted as the last chapter of CSI, then I'm hitting the 'complete' button.
1361591 CSI is wrapping up, to make way for a sequel?
Then I guess it's...
images.wikia.com/random-ness/images/8/8c/CSi_Miami_sunglasses.gif
...Case closed!
1361581>>1361611
Story passed mod; here's the link:
LINK
And how do you even know they'll even have a bureaucracy? What if they're a hivemind. Or alternatively since human bureaucracies are only necessarily because of our limitations when dealing with more than ~150 people if an alien species does not have that limitation they might just be able to interact as a society like we do normally. Or perhaps their culture came to a different solution to the problem? Giving people a minimum set of directives to achieve and leeway in achieving them for instance. Alternatively maybe their species or culture makes bureaucracy as we know it impossible; a sufficiently fierce drive for independence for instance.
I may be overstepping a little bit, it's true. A hivemind probably would be quite orderly, but I suppose that'd just be the nature of it.
Still . . . there's something to be said about the institutional mind. In a way, it's like mass-production but on a larger scale. While most of us don't want cookie-cutter homes, nor do we want to all be driving the same car, there's a certain economy to doing things the same way over a large scale, and I figure that, at least, would apply no matter what the culture.
Allamagoosa is a great story.
Yeah, the offog came apart under gravitational stress ...
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Offogs are particularly susceptible to gravitational stresses.