House Path world building · 2:00pm Dec 7th, 2016
An inquiry from Jeffh4 for some details on House Path, led me to do a little background world building....
House Path's primary campus is in Griffonia. The other major campuses so far are in Ponyville and the Crystal City. There are sub-branches in Canterlot, Manehattan, Baltimare, and Vanhoover, with plans for further branches as time and resources permit.
While the Ponyville campus is not the official primary campus, for practical purposes it is because of its central location. The Griffonians would fight hard to keep their official status of being number one though if anypony suggested otherwise. The old conflict between griffons and ponies has been transformed into a keen rivalry to produce the best warrior-scholars, and so far the griffons' extreme pridefulness has given them the determination to maintain that status.
The Ponyville campus has a large complex with dedicated classrooms and facilities, but Twilight's castle maintains its library and primary offices. The Chrome Hive has a some classrooms also for subjects that the changelings specialize in. As Free decreed, aside from some necessary exceptions, the hive remains open to non-changelings, and was constructed with that in mind. The main campus was built between the castle and the hive, enabling quick access to all facilities.
The sub-branches cater mainly to the younger students who might or might not go on to the full course where fighting skills are required. The younger students are taught the normal broad range of subjects, but self-defense courses are a compulsory part of the curriculum, which helps them decide if the path of the warrior is for them. House Path recognizes that not every student is suited to going on to being a warrior, but basic fighting skills are highly desirable. The sub-branches might also have resources that are not readily available elsewhere. Study trips from the main campuses to the branches take advantage of those resources.
As I said, the branches cater mainly to the youth, but if they choose to go on to higher study, then they must attend a major campus. This is a boarding school arrangement, which is one reason why they can only accept youths if they also live in that town/city, so that they can go home after classes. The House leaders want children to stay with their families until they are ready to move up.
Ponyville has grown up to be a school town. No major industries are allowed to be situated in the area – only the existing rural businesses and support businesses are allowed, and much effort has been put into maintaining the town's relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The railway station has become a lot larger though to cope with the increased traffic in both people and goods.
If you think of something that could go well with this article, be sure to comment!
I always love reading more about the world you built
Because I'm a prop-head pegasus, I did note that there was no mention of an airfield or other facilities mentioned in caring for the Skyshark airship both mechanically and storage.
Only reason I think of it is I've been to Lakehurst, New Jersey, home of the Hindenburg crash, and seen the hangars they kept it in. And they're truly massive structures.
media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-void-lakehurst-new-jersey-an-interior-view-of-the-giant-hangar-at-picture-id516514454
Nowadays they use the ex-hangar space with a mock up of an aircraft carrier's flight deck, to train flight deck crews for jobs on carriers. And honestly, the structure they built INSIDE the building was big, but the ceiling still was downright haunting how high above it was. The doors were on train tracks, and don't count as doors, but are actual 'structures' that move. It's sort of scary how massive it was.
There are some decent shots of how it looks now on Tripadvisor. The external shot gives you an idea how massive a structure it was.
Uh, sorry...
4331777 The Skyshark is not a House Path vessel – it is an Equestrian military ship on assignment to Princess Twilight Sparkle. Therefore when Twilight doesn't need it, it isn't just moored and waiting around for her, so there are no permanent facilities except in the navy shipyards where it is serviced. I suppose I could mention mooring facilities though, as the airship would need to be able to be stationed temporarily occasionally.
4332170 True. At the very least, if it's to be used by House Path on occasion, I'd assume that they'd have some sort of facility or at least some clearings for allowing for disembarking and embarking procedures to occur.
They tried to do that with the Empire State Building, having the Hindenburg be able to dock there, so passengers could leave and board there, but that was always way too hard so they just went to Lakehurst instead.
I'd assume most winged-species would be able to embark from landing areas on the ship, but for Earth ponies and Unicorns, you'd need some sort of facility, even if it was rather small. Unless House Path let the Skyshark be moored at a gryphon-facility... I can't remember if that's what they did right before the Crystal Kingdom Battle. You'd want some sort of building, if just for traffic navigation. A tower, with lights, if they didn't have Twilight's comms. Gryphon signal flags could work too, at least in the Gryphon kingdoms.
Sorry, again, I'm sort of a prop-head. I think about silly stuff like this.
would there be classes to show ponies and others how to be stealthy by the changlings? although they couldn't change they could still learn things like that.
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Unicorns could be used to levitate passengers and/or cargo to and from any airship. That way a simple mooring mast and perhaps some warehouses would be sufficient for an airfield at Ponyville.
How about something on the House's R&D facilities