EThe Campus
MLP: FiM
Equestria Girls
MLP: Movie
Sci-Fi
Slice of Life
Anthology
It’s been 15 years since Princess Twilight Sparkle acceded to the throne and the Rainbooms went off to university. Some things have changed, others have remained the same. Lectern’s is gone, but now there is the Campus. • A Twin Canterlots anthology
OC
Sunset Shimmer
Sci-Twi
Dave Bryant · 8.3k words · 35 3 · 840 views

As if I needed more stories to write . . . · 3:26am Nov 2nd, 2020

. . . Now my muse Icara is insisting I need to develop the fiction-within-fiction animated series Sunset and Rose discuss in The Campus, with the Mane Seven as the senior officers of the starship Harmony. The trick is developing a space-opera setting and series premise I can work with that still is plausible for half-hour animé-style television. I’ll collect thoughts on it here so I don’t forget them, since currently I am focused on Three-act Play. Suggestions are welcome.

Oddly, I don’t have a title yet.
The opposition, the Locusts, will be robotic—like Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers or any number of other examples of a similar trope. The good guys will be humanity in general, whether under the umbrella star nation or independent frontier settlements not yet incorporated. Yes, it is hackneyed, but that’s kind of the point, given this is supposed to be an animated action-adventure television series, with merchandising tie-ins, for a teen and young-adult audience.
Harmony, of course, will be a heavy cruiser. Besides calling back to Star Trek, cruisers—whether heavy or light—are designed and built to operate independently or in small detachments. Originally, in the Age of Sail, to cruise specifically meant exactly that: scouting, commerce protection, raiding, or patrolling singly or in small groups on distant stations. Cruising is the ideal assignment for the protagonists of a series like this, even allowing for occasional squadron or task-force actions as the scriptwriters desire, and generally speaking a heavy cruiser is the smallest type commanded by an officer with the rank of captain. (A light cruiser’s CO usually is a commander; a destroyer’s CO usually is a lieutenant commander.)
Thanks to Chris and TCC56 I am considering including space fighters. The latter asks, “if you have Rainbow Dash as a main character, why is she not a fighter pilot?” which is a fair question. If Harmony does end up with fighters, it would have to be an absolutely minimal number, probably a flight of four, mounted on external hardpoints instead of stored in small-craft bays with the pinnaces and other auxiliaries. Their primary use would be as scouts, but they would have to be able to defend themselves and Harmony, which is why they’re adapted fighters instead of simpler, cheaper designs. A light cruiser might have a pair; a battleship might have two flights or a whole squadron depending on its size and age.
Why would the humans use pilots instead of AIs in remote platforms? Because in early engagements they found to their horror the Locusts can take over and subvert AIs through some sort of electronic-only telepathy/mind-control equivalent, and being subverted is a special nightmare of every AI citizen. This even would allow for a subverted AI going by the name of Chrysalis bossing other subverted AIs, manipulating remote android “drones” resembling humans. I’m thinking AIs are too big to fit in human-size bodies, but they could control robotic bodies remotely.
This also implies FTL communications, since that would be the only way to control such a remote body in real time, and would be a real storytelling convenience. I’m thinking it’s got a lot of bandwidth at insystem distances, but attenuates rapidly at interstellar distances, requiring relay stations and such.
Before the Locusts appeared, a naval starship—especially a capital ship—generally was assigned an AI officer. After, AIs were withdrawn from smaller ships, instead concentrated two or three at a time to larger ships; the more AIs around to support each other, the harder they are to take over, and the more of a check-and-balance they can exercise on each other. Baron Engel gleefully suggested the three AIs assigned to Harmony be Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. The idea is appealing, but with there being in-universe real people involved, I’m not sure how the studio’s legal department would react to it.
No magical geodes. Besides not fitting the space-opera setting, they’re covered under Eloptic Machine’s security classification. And that assumes the girls would be willing to talk about it, which they aren’t.