Onto the Pony Planet--Chapter 23 notes · 1:39am Apr 6th, 2015
A huge thanks to my pre-readers and creative consultants: Humanist, AnormalUnicornPony, metallusionsismagic, AShadowOfCygnus, bitbrony, MSPiper, MrZJunior, Forderz, Woonsocket Wrench, and my parents.
I also owe a debt of thanks to Uncle Mike, who helped me understand how a search warrant might be used in a case like this.
Travos is the bull from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I have to confess that I googled for it; while I've read and loved the Chronicles of Narnia in the past, it's been a while since I last read them.
Assuming that I got the gist of Uncle Mike's PM, in a case like this Moller wouldn't just exercise the search warrant on Dale's house, and then leave that same day. Houses take a while to search, especially if you want to be thorough. If he left a cop at the house, to preserve custody, he or one of the detectives could go back whenever they wanted to in order to look for something else.
If Dale were still around, he could get a lawyer, who might be able to end Moller's warrant, but of course he isn't.
by alidor42
Maybe not as fun as Dale's imagining.
Triangles and squares, in case you don't remember, is from the cartoon that showed Dale becoming an ambassador:
The man—who he suspected was supposed to be himself—was addressing the crowd. There was a speech bubble above his head, although it was empty. In the next panel, the crowd responded with a blue triangle; the third panel showed him saying ‘triangle’ with all the other people.
A thick border separated this small cartoon from the next. The composition of the panels was the same, except this time there was a large white pony addressing the crowd. She had a horn and wings, and was unmistakably the same in appearance as the one he’d seen on the beach, and in the books Lyra had shown him. Instead of a triangle, her crowd was speaking in green square.
The third set of panels showed the two of them meeting together in front of a Russian-looking fantasy castle. He spoke his triangle, she her square, and in the final panel they both spoke a light-blue seven-pointed star to each other.
The ponies he meets at the farrier's are all canon background ponies.
mlp wiki
Lavender Fritter
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Apple Leaves
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Peachy Sweet
by durpy
Shoeshine
It's established in canon that some ponies, at least, wear horseshoes. We could dismiss Scootaloo's nightmare as just that, but in Trade Ya, RD was trying to trade one of her horseshoes.
In real life, there is a debate whether horses should wear shoes or not, but most reasonable people agree that if a horse is working on paved streets, for example, it probably needs them, while a horse which is only used for light duty in grassy fields likely does not.
There is a wide variety of shoe shapes and shoe materials available, from traditional steel shoes, to modern shoes with rubber bonded on them for traction. There are also therapeutic shapes, which can be used on horses with hoof problems. This is especially important for some IRL horses, because they weren't bred with hoof strength in mind.
To the best of my knowledge, there are two common types of shoeing in practice these days—hot shoeing and cold shoeing. Below are videos of both; if you don't want to watch them through, the biggest difference in methods is that a hot-shoeing involves pressing a hot shoe up against the hoof to show you the contact pattern, and to make it easier to work the shoe.
hot shoeing video
cold shoeing video
Of course, that's not the only hoofwear we've seen in canon. The princesses and guards have their hoof boots, Rarity has had her glass slippers, and Twilight has her Wellingtons.
Luckily, there's precedent in real life. Hoof boots are a thing, and they'd probably be made by a cobbler, which means that Dale has a chance to get his paw boots repaired or replaced.
The whole bit about shoeing sparked some discussion by my pre-readers which ultimately ran on for several pages, so this is just a brief summary. Anyone who knows a lot about farrier work, feel free to let me know what I got wrong.
Incidentally, speaking of old-fashioned names for things, I think a female farrier would be a ferris, but I wasn't able to confirm that.
mlp wiki
Roma is a canon pony, who sells tomatoes at the market.
Tiessen is an OC. Tiessen, in case you were curious, is a variety that's good for places with cold winters and cool springs. While we don't know about the temperature of Ponyville's spring, we do know it's usually late.
In canon, there is a bee stall, so a ladybug stall isn't that much of a stretch. Ladybugs could be useful to rid the garden of pests, and it's worth noting that Bitta Blues [EDIT: and Bitta Luck] have a ladybug cutie mark.
And proving that I research nearly everything:
There are, in fact, approximately 17 tomatoes to a peck, depending (of course) on the size of the tomatoes.
source
EDIT: Oh, and I guess this puts OPP over 200,000 words.
I was wondering how long it would take for Dale to want shoes of his own again. I would probably have demanded them within a few days myself, but obviously Dale has different root status than I.
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He hasn't really needed them when he was in the hospital or at the embassy, and he assumes that the ponies are trying to fix them or replace them.
2950849 we can imagine how awkward that conversation will be.
"yeah, my feet are kinda hurting, how is the rest of my clothes doing, like my paw boots?"
"oh! You mean you need them!?!"
Cue Rarity -levels of panicked action!
You're welcome
Regarding that consult, you've got it covered. My boss tells the tale of a homicide investigation where they held the scene for three weeks while they went through the house again and again searching for trace evidence, bringing in a bloodstain pattern analyst to chart the spatter patterns, inventorying the contents of the place, superglue fuming entire rooms and painting the wallpaper with ninhydrin for fingerprints, et cetera, et cetera... Moller's right: this ain't CSI, and we don't solve cases in an hour with time-outs to sell cars and razor blades.
And, I love the notion of Starlight in an apron, presiding over a good ole boy's smoker grill loaded with veggies, while Dale and a few ponies stand with mugs of cider, maybe pitching horseshoes... It's just too good a scene, with some interesting possibilities for character interaction, to not work in at some point...
What I've seen on the subject suggests that it essentially correlates with how similar the horse's life is to how it'd live in the wild. Time in stalls, less low-energy walking/more intense labor, paved roads, etc, all keep the hooves from growing in and wearing out in the way they evolved to, and as such make shoes necessary.
Incidentally, at least a couple sources suggest setting aside a few months of the year to leave horses unshod whenever practical. While I'm not knowledgeable enough to vouch for the health benefits of doing so, it does seem like a good idea.
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Luckily (for Rarity), this is one of those cases where she's sent them on to an expert.
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I can actually see that, too. What better way to officially open the new embassy.
Of course, I can't help but think that if you always cook over a woodstove, doing it outside loses a bit of its charm....
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I found, too.
That's actually one of the uses for the hoof-boot. Apparently (and it's not really surprising), you can't just yank the shoes off and let them go barehooved right away, but you can let them wear the boots while their hooves are growing back to where you can put a natural contour on them.
Any reason for using an OC in this case? Usually you seem fond of using background ponies to fit the roles you need.
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I love that picture. The translation is as follows:
I'm not a ferrier, but I do know that a good, nutritional diet can give a horse enough hoof strength to take on paved roads, at least a mild amount, bare-hooved. Apparently, the ordinary hay-rich diet isn't really... conducive to strong keratin? Idk. My point is, pony ponies aren't stable-kept animals. They're people with a rich and diverse diet, that could and should be sufficient for the ordinary pony to walk around even on the cobbled streets of Canterlot. It's also important to remember that Ponyville has mainly dirt roads, even in town.
Granted, it still makes perfect sense for at least some of them to be shod. AJ and Big Mac almost certainly are. I imagine any ponies that haul wagons long distance on a regular basis are.
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Two reasons:
1. I couldn't remember who was manning (ponying?) the asparagus stand in canon, and couldn't find a picture.
2. She's unlikely to ever reappear
I am in most cases, if there's a pony who can plausibly fill the role. However, it's worth mentioning that Lecol, Featherbrain, Noble Voice, Sandy Tail, and Dusk Glimmer are all OCs, and there are probably other ones I'm forgetting at the moment.
Also galoshes, of course.
Huh, that explains why they kept an officer in the hall outside the one room when the guy in my rooming house beat the ever living shit out of his buddy. (Thought his buddy stole his money, found it later and saw nothing wrong with painting the walls in the blood of a friend) Cops don't seem to like that job either it seems.
Or at least the one we had didn't.
Ha ha ha. Yeah, I guess when they don't finish winter wrap up on time it IS a LATE spring.
Well played sir, well played.
Although with Twilight in charge it seems to be on time now, or perhaps even early.
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Thank you for the translation!
Do you perchance mean "Bitta Luck"?
I imagine for the ponies, it would be similar to the whole minimalist-type shoe thing that humans have, only to a greater extent. If you have a good diet and build enough strength, you can comfortably wear minimalist shoes/ walk around without horseshoes. But, if you don't get outside nearly as much, or have medical reasons to do so (like in my case, in which my ankles overpronate when I'm running) then you would wear more supportive footwear/use horseshoes on a regular basis.
Also, knowing that AJ most likely wears shoes with calks, seeing the many instances in which she punches someone is that much more painful.
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That's certainly a possibility.
Probably on-time. I bet Twilight would get a stern talking-to if she finished Winter Wrap-Up a week early in Ponyville. That'd probably throw the weather schedule off for everypony.
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No, the one I was thinking of was Bitta Blues (named incorrectly in the blog). She's presumably named after Bitta Luck, though.
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In real life, of course, there are a whole host of factors which go to determine what shoes (if any) a horse wears; in the case of sapient ponies, I don't know if it would be simpler or more complicated (after all, they can say right away that these shoes make their legs hurt, and they can take care of their own hoof trimming when required).
I'll probably go into more detail in a blog post later, but I want to write the side story before I give away all my secrets in a blog.
Like many farm ponies, she wears shoes with removable calks. That way, she doesn't tear up the floors in her home, and doesn't damage the apple trees when she's applebucking, but she can put them in when she's plowing the field or hauling a wagon.
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You'd think that, but without AC, extended cooking in a kitchen on a hot summer day can reach 120+F easily, even with the windows open. Cooking in those conditions is absolutely miserable. It's why kitchens used to be partitioned from the rest of the house, too. You want that heat in winter, but definitely not in summer.
Mind, professionals in this sort of setting would be expected to do it anyway, but I'm sure they'd relish being able to set up some grills or stoves outside to do the actual cooking where they can get a breeze. (Edit: Cooking for a large group, I mean.)
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Instead of "Manning" the stand, maybe it would be "Hoofing?"
Weird thing that everyone else probably knew long before I found out, but the word "man" is latin for "hand."
...Yep. So the old "Mankind" or "Race of Man" meant ...We named our entire species for the fact that we have hands.
We really, really like our hands... I need a "Lyra" smilie now.
Tavros was only in the recent Narnia movie versions, never in the books, so I don't know that I'd say he was part of "C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia" per se...
/nitpick mode
Love the story you've crafted so far! Huzzah for blue-collar ponies and humans deciding the fate of intergalactic affairs with stolid good humor and common sense! I'll be interested to see where this all goes...
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You make a good point. In fact, I used to work in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and we had to close one summer day, because it got so hot over the grill that the owner worried it was going to set off the automatic fire-suppression system. That was the year she finally installed A/C for the kitchen.
Some of those problems can be mitigated with a good kitchen design (like windows--they help), but one of the liabilities of a wood stove is that it's gonna be making heat whether you're actually cooking anything at that moment, or not. There's a non-negotiable warmup and cooldown time.
I was thinking more of the charm of cooking over an open flame, rather than the heat. In my experience, it was fun on camping trips to cook over the fire, but I don't think it'd be as much fun if that was the only way I could cook.
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That's a line I probably wouldn't cross except in a comedy. I do try to remember to avoid those types of word constructions, but I'm not always successful.
One of my stories mentions a 'hand crank.' I should probably fix that, since nobody's noticed yet.
Hands are pretty awesome. I'm glad I have them. It would be very hard to type with hooves.
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Well, that's reasonable. Explains why I didn't remember him: I've only seen two of the movies thus far. Couldn't tell you how many times I read the series.
It's my belief (as a blue-collar worker) that the man or mare on the ground is the one that actually gets things done. Politicians and managers might make the inspirational speeches, but it's the little guys that actually do the things. And (again, as a blue-collar worker), I've got a soft spot for the workingmare.
3027570 I can see your point in that, but I admit to a certain malicious stubbornness regarding words. When people corrupt perfectly good words and then act offended when those words are used in their correct and original manner, I just let them be offended. They did it to themselves, after all.
For instance, a plot is a plan, a scheme, the central theme of a story, or an area of land. Clopping is a sound made by horses walking on pavement. Hoofing is walking, running, or an old vaudeville term for dancing. If some corrupted "brony" wants to giggle or blush at my using words correctly, it's their business. I have nothing to do with it.
But, yeah... I understand you wanting to avoid giving your readers opportunities to offend themselves.
3028023
Yeah, I've done that a time or two. Ponies clopping down the hall . . .
Why, I may have said in the latest chapter of OPP that "all the talking made Lyra a little hoarse."
3027570
This is a solvable problem
https://mlp.reactor.cc/post/5505755
5722234
Oh boy.
<cracks knuckles>
You'll get to a chapter in Field Notes where Joe learns about pony typewriters and various pony typewriter tech (much of it based on actual historical typewriter tech).
I'm not gonna say you can't build a chorded two-key mechanical typewriter, but it would be hard; normal typewriters are difficult enough. My personal headcanon is that the two-key typewriters type two symbols only, long and short and most ponies can read that--probably taught in schools. (if it's something that's going to a printer, it'll be typeset in normal characters) [I think it's come up in CSI/OPP, but I also think that the ponies use two written languages, Ponish and Unicorn; unicorn has more characters so there's no ambiguity about how something's supposed to be spelled. I don't know if you're a native English speaker, but words like 'raise' and 'raze' are pronounced the same, while 'bass' (the fish) is pronounced differently than 'bass' (the instrument/range on a piano); here in my home state, one end of the Mackinac Bridge is in Mackinaw City; 'Mackinac' and 'Mackinaw' are pronounced the same.]
In one of my pony on Earth stories, one of the ponies gets an orbitouch keyboard, which is conceptually similar to a two-key chorded typewriter:
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Oh, what a sharp reaction...I'm sorry.
I haven't read it, but I will.
I agree, it would take a scientific and technological revolution to implement such a scheme. An exchange of knowledge and technology. Interplanetary friendship. "Twilight will be thrilled."
Although here it is
https://ficbook.net/readfic/4776415
Magical Crystallography and the circuitry. So a typewriter can be assembled. It would be interesting to observe the process of implementing such a scheme. Well, you'll have it your way. Although there was an episode with crystals and a lamp in your story, too.
No, but there are plenty of similar words in my language, too. They sound and spell the same, but have different meanings depending on the context. They are called homonyms.
Example.
Посол (от слова «соль») — способ соления продуктов.
Посол (от слова «посылать») — в значении «дипломат».
среда (обитания) — среда (день недели);
There are words that are spelled the same way, different in meaning, but different in stress on a syllable.
замОк (механизм двери) - зАмок (фортификационное сооружение)
And most of these words are most likely borrowings from other related languages.
Well, yes. And on such a keyboard, if you get used to it, you can type even faster than on a classic one.
In principle, it is possible, as a temporary solution, to give a pony and a simple laptop. Only will have to put on the hooves what kind of gloves with one finger pointing down, yes not very comfortable, but you can work.
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Heh, no worries, I meant it in the context of 'here's something I've thought about and put in a few fics,' so I have some opinions on the matter
Depending on what kind of tech can work in Equestria, there are probably better, more modern solutions than a mechanical typewriter. My own headcanon (minor spoiler) is that electricity as we know it doesn't work in Equestria, so they have to find different solutions.
Yeah, and in the upcoming Field Notes chapter (when you get there), there are typewriters powered by spellcraft with mixed results. I personally, as an author, enjoy researching old tech that pre-dates electricity and fitting that into the pony world, although of course there are some spell-powered items here and there--the crystal lamp that you noted, also the heart monitor is magitech, and there might be a couple other items here and there.
I should say that I don't have anything against authors that go for lots of magitech in their stories, it's just not my personal preference as an author. I've certainly seen some really good fics that have a lot of magitech in them.
Yes, and that's one of the problems with language, perhaps all languages, I don't know. Very much not a linguistics expert; I speak one language decently well and that's it. Always impresses me at how good non-native English speakers are at speaking/writing English--sometimes I come across a writer or a commenter who I know isn't a native speaker, but most often I genuinely can't tell. Certainly can't tell that you're not a native English speaker
But yeah, the general idea with the different alphabets used between the Unicorns and the other ponies is that while it's easier to mouth-write with fewer characters, for spellwork you want to be sure you're pronouncing everything correctly, so the unicorn writing is phoenetic, while the 'common' language is not. Presumably as they invent a more modern legal system, legalese will be written in unicorn, too.
That's very much the case with the Mackinac/Mackinaw I mentioned above; it's a Native American world, spelled in English and French (that part of Michigan was held by both nations at various parts in our history).
One of my favorite words that I've come across in writing is 'nave,' which has at least two different meanings: one is a part of a church, one is a part of a wheel. The two words have entirely different origins; the church one comes from Latin and the wheel one comes from Persian (I think).
I don't think the pony in question is that fast yet, but she's decently quick.
There was one fic, I can't remember the name, where a little 'finger' that attached to a hoof was referred to as a 'dexterity enhancer.' Personal experiments show that you can operate a touch-screen cell phone with nose-boops, including typing text messages. It was slow and weird but with practice it could be done quickly, I'm sure. There are also text-to-speech programs which work decently well and would be an option.
There's probably a lot that could be done to adapt some human tech to ponies, depending on how far the author wants to go.
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Just the lamp example, was very revealing (to me, as a technician). It, a seemingly simple part, had a magic circuit inside, and another crystal doesn't fit and makes a "boom". A processor is essentially many, many diodes and transistors that add up to operational amplifiers and you can work with these. A calculator can be built on elementary logic. Enchant the crystals and use magic as the control signal. The first 4 bit microprocessor was the Intel 4004 and had 2300 transistors. You could build a similar one on elementary logic
https://habr.com/ru/articles/590821/
(Something like this, only there are prefabricated elementary assemblies. And if made from individual transistors, the computer would take up an entire dining room table.). Well, never mind, it's just an awareness of the possibilities, I could hardly build something like that by myself. At most a few elementary circuits. Although I could give them clues as to where to go. Dale's hasn't yet fully realized that technically, ponies are way behind humanity.
No, I'm not. My situation is like Dale's with Spanish. I learned English in school, but the teachers kept changing and teaching each one differently. In general I can explain something simple, but without a Google translator it will be difficult. Although if I find myself in an English-speaking environment, I will quickly learn to communicate well (my life will depend on it).
Ah, I have a similar experience myself. About seven years ago, I injured my right hand (Crack in three fingers). While it was healing, for a couple of weeks I held the phone in my left hand and used the stylus in my mouth. Tongue controlling it like a stylus on a gamepad. Also, by the end of the first week I could type, by the end of the second week I could sign documents. Much later, when I saw ponies writing, I laughed a lot. If I got to a pony in a pony's body, it would be no problem to write a letter.
However, even now I actively use this skill when soldering radio parts. I use my teeth to guide the solder wire when soldering when my hands are busy (Pre-wrap the tip with duct tape, lead and teeth do not go well together)
The thought was that some crystals receive magic energy and do something (i.e., produce light) while others store magical energy and release it and obviously they can't be interchanged--sort of like putting a battery in a light socket.
Matt Parker on YouTube built an adding machine out of dominos--appropriate logic gates, you input the numbers you're adding by flicking the appropriate dominos, and then it gives a result. Obviously not practical (as I recall, the setup was the size of a basketball court/tennis court (half a football field?), took a whole weekend with a team of volunteers to 'set' and could only produce a four-bit answer (i.e., 2-8), but it's a good demonstration of the principles of computer logic with something you can see.
I don't know enough about computer engineering to know if ponies could actually build a computer with the tech I think they have, although they could conceive of one (if memory serves, Babbage's Difference Engine was designed before electricity was much of a thing).
I do think it's important to recognize, as you have, that while the ponies are less technologically advanced as we'd consider it, they are far more advanced in many other ways--maybe they don't have light bulbs, but some of them can teleport, and we can't do that.
You're doing perfectly well here on FimFiction
After crushing a finger and basically losing use of that hand for a week, I discovered that I didn't know how to use a fork with my other hand, quite the discovery to make as a teenager
Since then I've practiced some other skills with my off-hand, just in case. Never tried to add my mouth into the mix, but I could see it being doable. Certainly come to points in projects where an extra hand would be very useful. I have also discovered in soldering that having more than two hands would be very beneficial.