On Technology · 11:25am Jan 23rd, 2015
art by MadHotaru
Several fans have asked about technology in the world of Fallout: Equestria. Questions such as those about canon-compatible technologies or zebra technology are frequent enough that it seems a worthy subject of a blog post.
(But first, a little aside. I was recently made aware of this fundraiser: Tournament of Canterlot. Seems like a good cause. What do you think? Should we throw some Fallout: Equestria stories its way?)
Back on topic...
Technological evolution as a whole was extremely scatter-shot in Equestria. Several factors caused this. First, you had the war itself. War has classically been a drive for technological improvement, especially in times of an arms race; but those improvements are always war-related, with civilian applications filtering down. For example: we invented the nuclear bomb well before we invented the nuclear power plant. Second, you have the availability of magic, which not only allows technological limitations to be overcome, but allows technologies to leapfrog over some of the incremental steps of improvement that would be required in a magic-free setting. For example: you don't have to develop proper laser technology to have laser weapons when you have attack spells like the one Twilight uses during the changeling attack. Finally, you have the "industrious earth ponies" (as they are called in "Hearth's Warming Eve"). The inherent magic of earth ponies is expressed in the Fallout: Equestria universe by increased industry and productivity. They invent faster, they build stronger, they farm better. And when that industry is put towards... well, industry, then the resulting technological evolution in the areas that earth ponies are focused on will quickly outpace others. For example: they had helicopters before they had airplanes... if they ever had airplanes at all.
Let's look at the possibility of aircraft. No, as there aren't any airplanes mentioned in Fallout: Equestria. However, dirigibles and zeppelins are mentioned in the story. There were also helicopters -- the Griffinchasers, based on more advanced versions of Pinkie Pie's flying machine (pictured above) in "Griffon the Brush-Off". And since the zebra nation was repeatedly mentioned as having even more advanced robotics, you can reasonably assume flying robotic drones -- perhaps some models along the same lines as the flying security bots in the various BioShock games. The show even gives us a glimpse of similar Equestrian aerial arcano-technology (pictured below).
Fallout: Equestra does not give a lot of information about zebra battle tactics, so there is only a little canon and a lot of open playground for other authors when it comes to depicting zebras in battle. Amongst the few things that the story divulges about zebra warfare tactics is that the zebra military put emphasis on martial and stealth training. The zebras had vested cultural significance in martial arts. They employed snipers, sneak attacks and assassins with deadly efficiency. In addition to all this, as mentioned above, we also know that the Zebra Nation was more technologically advanced than Equestria.
Zebras lack the conveniences of unicorn magic and easy flight. Like Earth Ponies, Zebras have to do everything by mouth, tail and hoof. And this gave them a far greater push to invent better tools and technologies than the ponies labored under. Until they started large imports of gems from Equestria, shamanism was limited to personal spirit bargains -- enchanted items couldn't be mass-produced nor spiritual gifts applied on a civilization-scale. However, they benefited from alchemy, and this allowed them to make some serious leaps in technological capabilities.
Going against the zebras meant facing guerrilla tactics, soldiers with supreme close-quarters combat skills, robots infused with machine spirits, shaman-enhanced weapons, war zeppelins and aerial drones, even inter-continental rockets powered by alchemical superfuels.
art by Brisineo
Equestria's own rocketing technological progress in the decade just before and the decades during the war can be attributed to a combination of the inherent magic of earth ponies applied to invention and engineering, the ability to shortcut steps in advancement through magical spells, and the reverse-engineering of machines and weapons that the zebras introduced first.
In several of my blogs, I have offered expanded ideas on canon-compliant technologies. In "The Motorwagon Orb", I introduced the idea of motorized vehicles as an invention of Flam & Sons, based on the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.
Likewise, the best glimpse of the front lines during the war that I can offer is from my memory orb blog post "The Morale Officer Orb". The only real look at the war shown in Fallout: Equestria itself is at the beginning of the chapter "Dances of Light and Shadow". This was an open-field battle that was devolving into trench-warfare, but we don't see much. "The Morale Officer Orb" shows a glimpse of the same battle from a different perspective, revealing a few interesting tidbits about the technology and tactics of both sides in the process.
I hope you found this interesting, and maybe even helpful. 
Neat little work to read over and think about.
It is amazing how much magic let's you jump around the tech tree and pull off somethings that really shouldn't be possible. Hell, a lot of the FoE tech even makes more sense then the Fallout verse's tech because of it.
Also really great little bits about the Zebra's own tech and magic.
This is great! I've been looking for so long on something that details the technology in the Fo:E verse for my stories. Thank you so much!
The bit about zebra tactics is very interesting. Guerrilla warfare, machinery and alchemy make a potent combination. No wonder Equestria had such a difficult time.
Also, that steampunk Pip art is insane. I love it!
and nearly nothing on the equestrian Navy, well that just means I can be super creative on that.
Ooh, nice steam punk Littlepip there.
I have to admit, looking at this and considering the difference of development at the time things like the pirate kidnapping incident and what the ponies faced when they first went to war with the zebra are really put into perspective here. It wouldn't have been pretty
Not to mention when put side by side with your Daring Do story, it gives a idea why Celestia wouldn't really trust the zebras to take care of the hostage situation. If I may ask, would the Spirits of the Whispers have had any effect on Celestia and would she notice such magic being used around her to erase a ponies past?
There are words here. But that Littlepip is also delicious.
i do find it strange that you do not try to build on the canon of your own story. especially since it was your own creation. still it has expanded so beyond itself that it would be kinda iffy to make one thing canon over others.
....hmmm. mind if i spout a thought regarding the tree of harmony? it is said in the sotry that the forest became rather out of control after the war, despite it not being hit by much radiation. in the show we had a similar situation with the tree of harmony and the forest becoming out of control because of it dying.
if i were to try and create a reason why, i would probably have it that the tree Left. it sensed the death of its bearers and realized the land was being poisoned, so it uprooted itself through some manner and left, so that the everfree could bleed its energy into the corrupted land and try to help it heal. it allowed the moon and sun to move on its own and the clouds to grow wild. things that would occur naturally perhaps, but were accelerated by the everfree's magic, however the everfree could not grow past its borders, the land was too poisoned even for it.
also the reason why red eye did not find the tree despite building on the old sister castle. it had simply left the everfree and went somewhere else. how it did, and where it went, is the question, however the tree lacked the power to heal equestria itself without its elements, and knew its precious bearers had left the potential for equestria to heal, and had to trust them.
if i were to create a myth behind it. there are reports of beings seeing a strange mare, ethereally beautiful and frightening. she wanders the lands, and everywhere she steps poison recedes. largely avoiding equine eye, the mare was reportedly seen, quite often, by hellhounds, and more often than not the barbaric fighters stayed their claws, chilled by her presence. and the few who even made a shot on her found the blasts dissipated and the mare taking no acknowledgment of their existence.
the alicorns seem to have confirmed the mare's existence, but it is vague. they state that the mare wandered into the goddess's territory, and they attacked. in an instant they lost the connection to the twenty or so they sent after the mare, as if they ceased to exist. the goddess herself began screaming about something trying to tear her apart before amanging to repel the unseen attacker. after investigation, they found the ruined remains of sixteen alicorns. four bodies were missing, and five sets of hoofprints were shown walking away from the massacre.
Considering I'm planning to write a FoE fic based during the Great War, this has been of considerable help.
Definitely!
2741810
Yeah, Stardust does this too, to some extent. Kinda fun to mess around with.
2742233 Though I don't speak for the author, it's fair to speak in general tems: The story is finished, and it should stay finished. Expanding upon the world is a job for other people, but constantly going back and editing the story or making sequels that modify/retcon canon is pointless. The story stands on its own merits, and so it goes for pretty much all works of writing, I'd assume; constantly re-editing a work shows, among other things, that the author has no faith in the story's merits, or that they can't leave their old work behind. Look at Past Sins, which is still bad even though the author's gone and redone it like a million times, and now they're just known as "the guy who did Past Sins" instead of putting whatever writing talent they have towards other ventures.
The story doesn't incorporate parts of S2 and beyond because it was written during/after S1, and I'm kind of glad for that; with all the things that have been added in FiM canon, trying to get the entirety of the plot to fit around the new stuff would be a fucking mess.
2742330 Who said anything about editing the existing story? i mean here anyway. And you can expand on the world without re-writing what was established. Yes Littlepip's story is finished, but there are so many other stories that could be written to expand on the world Kkat created. Which has been done, and no reason if she wanted to, she couldn't make one of her own.
Going by other posts it's mostly due to 1. Not being sure anything else could live up to how amazing the original was. With FoE being such a tough act to follow, it would be hard to write something else that amazing. Or at least to not have it judge more harshly for not being the same. 2. Since so many people have already done so much to expand on it, she doesn't want to render them 'non-canon' as in having them go against what is canon by making an official sequel that adds things which weren't in the original to the official canon.
The not editing is something different.
I wonder who would have won if the megaspells weren't fired.
I was always so impressed how you were able to meld the technology of MLP with that of Fallout. Using a collective of different aspects from both to form what we have here. It's a truly remarkable feat.
hi hi
Item number one, airplanes. Back in season one, it was shown that ponies in Equestria have the capability to produce a pitch stable, high aspect ratio hang-glider wing. If ponies in Equestria didn't have airplanes, it is not because they didn't know how, but because they didn't feel like it.
Which brings me to item number two, invention in general. People have an inherent curiosity and drive to discover. A lot of scientific progress has been made because people just want to know. However, discovery does not always translate into invention, and inventions do not always become widely accepted. History is full of people like Robert Goddard, who never lived to see their discoveries bear fruit. In order to have something become widely accepted and adopted, it usually requires a need that the technology is attempting to fulfill.
Blindsight, Peter Watts
War does often require innovation, but it is hardly the only challenge that people face. I would wager that you can look at just about any rapid development of technology and see a nearly parallel development of problems that require solutions. Sometimes the unintended consequence of the previous invention spurs additional invention to cope with said consequence. (And not all challenges are successfully overcome. History is also full of examples of cultures that faced war and hardship, and disappeared from world altogether, oftentimes taking their technological innovations with them as they fell.)
I would hesitate to say that Equestria's technological development is scatter-shot, in the same way that I would hesitate to say that human technological development isn't scatter-shot. Someday, if people ever explore the stars, we might find evidence on other worlds that our own development has been highly unusual compared to others.
For me though, magic does pose some interesting questions in terms of what it can do that technology in our world will never be able to. Questions like, "can magic produce more energy than is put into it, and thus create a perpetual motion machine?" So much of what we know intuitively about the world comes from those basic natural laws, like thermodynamics. When you start throwing those out, the consequences can be enormous.
Honestly, since the Fallout: Equestria-verse is a mashup of Fallout and My Little Pony, there was a possibility that the Post-apocalyptic Equestria would have some technology that's based on some magic powered.
2742441 Equestria, It's stated by Twilight that she was days from cracking the Alicorn formula (The only major factor left was dosage). An army of of Alicorns, heck a small squad would destroy the Zebras.
I generally like to draw very parallels between the Zebras and Fallout's Chinese when speculating about Fallout: Equestria.
What I love about the story is how it builds so much on the worlds it's based on, seamlessly combining two opposite themes into the sweet juxtaposition it is.
*Sees all the zebra stuff on technology* Oh yeaaaaaah. Always the best race :D
I've been wondering about stuff like this. Glad to have you give us your opinion on the matter.
If I may point out, we actually did have nuclear reactors before we had nukes. The first energy creating nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, was built in December 1942 (although the Germans had been working on a nuclear program, that didn't produce any results, since 1939) and the trinity test did not take place until July 1945. We actually needed to create nuclear reactors before we could have nukes, because the required plutonium needs to be manufactured from neutron decay inside a specially designed reactor. So, although your point stands that we didn't have CIVILIAN nuclear reactors until ten years after Trinity, we did have functioning, energy producing reactors before that.
So....what of the Enclave Raptors? Under what category would they be placed in?
2742441 Very much Equestria. IIRC, the Zebras launched the megaspells because they knew they were going to lose. Theirs was a religious war, and having their personal devil (Luna, whom they still believed fully was Nightmare Moon) come out victorious was the absolute worst possible outcome to them, so they chose to attempt to destroy everything in a desperate last-ditch effort to kill her. Obviously, they succeeded.
you forget the elicopter in season 4 with the history of the Wonderbolt
2747734 badass cloud ship
I always thought the ponies got their tech from books left behind by Megan Williams.
i.pinimg.com/originals/77/0c/e0/770ce087f6b4f5a72c5cb038a1463175.jpg