Okay, hectic work schedule aside, I've been doped up on pain meds for the past few days because of a bunch of broken teeth. I can sort of think clearly now that I'm not getting injections of demerol, just the tablets.

Glad to see y'all here, I wasn't sure if I was going to get any responses to my call for collab writers. We still have a couple positions to fill, so if any of you would like to take one, or know someone else who would like to take a spot on the crew, go ahead and recommend them in a post.

I saw a question in the Introductions thread, so I'll answer that now. Yes, Earth is being destroyed. It will be the same thing that destroys Earth that sends the crew and ships to Equestria. Now, we'll have to have a little exposition in the story for this, but I think I've found a good way to explain it all. Let me know your thoughts whether you agree or not. ANY other way you can think of will be discussed and possibly used, but this is my thought on it:

The pony race is an old one. Many, many thousands of years old. Using their magic, the ancestors of Celestia and Luna hopped from planet to planet every time their current home ran out of natural resources. Every time they did so, however, they started anew. Technology wise. In doing so, they used the power of the sun itself, plasma ejected off the sun's surface is drained of it's power and used to form a portal to new worlds. (I.E. a solar flare, or coronal mass ejection.) They would need to build a massive machine, magically started and fueled by this plasma, in order to properly maintain a portal in which to cross. The magic would start the machine, which would pull on the surface of the sun, causing an ejection.

My thoughts is that Many years before Earth became populated by humans, ponies lived on Mars. They used up their resources and fled the planet, which is why it's the barren red rock it is today. I would say this is just a sidebar, but Earth could have been part of a pony experiment on evolution, the ponies seeding Earth with species but leaving it alone to watch what happens. Over the course of thousands of years, humans become the dominant beings, eventually getting to where we are now, exploring our solar system.

In the trip to Mars, the three ships (which I think, since it was suggested they're "travelling to the new world" should be called the Santa Maria, the Santa Clara, and the Pinta.) using high frequency radio waves to communicate with Earth, inadvertently trigger the machine, since the radio waves are near enough to the light energy put out when activating the machine with magic. The machine causes the sun to eject a massive amount of plasma, but unfortunately Earth is in the way, and is destroyed. Enough of the plasma makes it to Mars however, the machine is fully powered, and pulls the ships into it, landing them in one of the random worlds the device spits them out to.

It was also suggested that cryogenic freezing be used. As I have stated, we are SO far away from having true cryogenic hibernation be plausible. And I want this to keep fairly close to our current technology level. However, we are able to put people in a controlled hibernation by slowing their heart rates, and slightly cooling their bodies, and having a constant stream of nutrients fed through a stomach tube and I.V. with little to no problems in reanimation. This would be a good course of action, I think. The crew taking turns every week switching out who is hibernating and who is keeping an eye on the ships and trajectories.

One more note: if there are spots not taken by the time the story has officially started, those people will most likely be killed off in the rather rough landing I'm preparing for the first chapter. I have yet to decide whether or not I will be claiming a second spot, but I think I will, so that my character won't be too lonely. Also, if there are not too many female characters, I may ask one of you to take one on. When I do claim a second character it will probably be female. I don't want like a 1:1 ratio of males to females, but I don't want like one female to the rest male. These are going to be the last of their species, gotta have some baby making if they want their species to survive... not to say this needs baby making actually IN the story. As far as rating goes, I'd like the main story to not go above teen/sex/gore. Mature/sex/gore would be okay, but only if you make it as a side story, please. Heavy language is okay, but put an A/N at the top of a chapter that will have heavy language/blood/et cetera.

As for formatting, I'd like to see all chapters at least 2000+ words each. All stories need to be proofread/edited before posting. If you need help with that, ask one of us or find someone who is decent at proofreading. ALL Project Nautilus stories need to have full continuity to the rest of the story. No killing off a character if they appear in another person's story, don't bring people back to life if they're dead. If your character goes crazy they can see hallucinations, but that's as far as dead people being in the story. As far as ponies go, no killing them off/starting a relationship with them/making them do something that would conflict another's story WITHOUT going through this group's thread first. ALL people who could be affected by a story event need to be consulted before any such thing occurs. Stories can be either published on your own account, mine, or another's, which ever you prefer, but if it falls within the continuity of this story, it needs to be added to this group's story list. Please specify before hand if the story is canonical to it, or is "alternate universe-esqe" to the main story line. Separate folders will need to be made up Issac. I have asked the all of your characters spread around Equestria/Griffonia/et cetera. You could have a few stay in the same spot, but talk about it with the other people who are claiming a settle-down spot first to see if them both being there will seriously affect the other. If two of you wanted to work together to sort of make a single story line for both or more of your characters, that's fine too. Just remember, there is plenty of Equestria to go around. I think I have stated before that I have claimed Canterlot, so if anyone wants their character to stay there as well, we can talk about who it will affect us.

Keep the characters as close to canon as possible. We'll all have to discuss whether or not to keep Twilight an Alicorn. We also need to discuss what point in time in the show this all starts. I'd like to say it starts at the end of Season 3, where we are now. I would also say that whatever happens in the upcoming season will be moot, and the very arrival of the humans will change whatever happens in Season 4. If you want to dispute that, make a thread so we can discuss it.

I don't think I need to mention this, but I will just in case. I'll even bold the shit out of it so you know I'm serious. THIS IS, IN NO WAY, TO BE ANYTHING LIKE CUPCAKES, RAINBOW FACTORY, CHEERILEE'S GARDEN OR ANYTHING GRIMDARK LIKE THAT. NO FOALCON, CONSENSUAL OR NOT. RAPE CAN BE MENTIONED, BUT NOT PERFORMED IN DETAIL BY YOUR CHARACTER OR ANYONE/PONY. As I said, sex can be mentioned, but nothing that would get the story a Mature rating. If you want to do that, make it a separate story. And don't post it to this group unless we can all agree on it. DO NOT make your character some super being/hyper intelligent demigod or something of the sort. These are smart and strong people, otherwise they wouldn't have been chosen for such a mission. But this is not Star Trek where every character seems to have some inane knowledge of all physics, quantum mechanics, biology, chemistry, medicine, food, music, art, and so on. They're just humans. Not Q.

ALSO! I know everyone loves the Doctor, but for all our sakes, please, please, please discuss it with us all before putting him your story. Anything Doctor Who related needs to be unanimously approved by the group.

I think I've written enough for now, especially since my latest dosage of pain meds has kicked in, and I can't stop laughing at a rather unfunny episode of Breaking Bad. I just wanna rub my hand on Walt and Jesse's shaved heads. Fuzzy wuzzy.

Anyway...

If there's anything in particular you want to talk about, do bring it up. We all need to know every detail and thought so we can keep it near perfect. I'm going to TRY and write up my post for the Intro thread, but... yeah I'm a little distracted at the moment.

TTFN.

~WIngless~

1476387
Ah! Brilliant of you to join us.

So, going down the list, I first want to say damn. Really sorry about the pain meds. It sucked when I used to have to be drugged up enough to make Charlie Sheen jealous.

I like the mechanism used for destroying earth/ getting them to Equestria. It seems really believable and could also be an explanation of how they can harvest the energy to manipulate the world through magic. Just an idea.

Oh my gosh! You actually used my Pinta and Santa Maria idea! I feel so successful!

Folders? No problem. As a matter of fact, I think I'll hand the admin baton off to you. You are the head of all this and I don't want to go all Lt. Col. John Konrad on this.

I agree with the content control also on limiting it to no foalcon or mature material (Although admittedly some things I have planned will ride the ragged edge.)

1476619 I'm fine with things being borderline mature, but I think we'll all need to agree on whether or not a Mod will force us to change the story or change the rating to mature.

And once I thought about it, your idea for the ship names seemed right. This is the first time a human would step foot on another heavenly body orbiting our sun, why not name them after the most famous exploration ships in our time?

1476653
Tell me if any of the following content are too far even on borderline levels:
-Decapitation/dismemberment (not in great detail)
-Slight sexual reference
-Swearing acceptable to tv standards
-Alcohol reference
-Drug reference
-Moderate to severe violence

1476696 I think decapitation is the closest thing to borderline. If done right, I think you could keep it Teen. But if it's too detailed, such as blood spurting, connective tissues tearing, the sound it makes, that sort of thing, then it might be too much. I think the most that would be acceptable would be like "Blah, blah, blah, she closed her eyes before the blade met his neck. She heard the skin and bone be torn asunder, and the thud of the head meeting the ground before the body, but she couldn't bear to look."

Alcohol and drugs I don't think are really considered more than Teen for the site. I had a story that I cancelled but before I had heavy alcohol and drug usage but was never asked by a mod or had someone tell me it needs to have a higher rating.

Swearing doesn't seem to be too much of an influence on rating as well, but like I said, it would be best for every chapter that has strong language should have a short author's note warning at the top.

The Teen/sex rating is pretty much "the mentions of sex, or sexual acts, heavy kissing, perverse thoughts and/or jokes. The Mature/sex rating is basically any full descriptions of any one or more characters engaging in sexual acts, including the detailed or even not-very-detailed descriptions of oral sex, masturbation, penetration; detailed written 'imagery' of sexual organs; or any act that could be construed as sexual. Again, kissing and... I suppose slightly heavy petting is okay, but if it gets as far as someone having sex, describing sex in detail, touching each other or their own genitals or mammaries for sexual gratification, then it's a no-no. (I mean, you could talk about a guy taking one of those pisses that just feels SO good, but really, where in the story you going to talk about an orgasmic piss?)

Severe violence, without even asking what you mean exactly by it, is a no. In this case, if it's violent enough to wonder if it needs a mature rating, it's probably too violent. That pretty much goes for the sexual one above. Heavy blood, viscera, physical torture, burning flesh... yeah those are too much. But general fight scenes or scenes involving medical procedures wouldn't be too bad as long as any medical procedures weren't described in a cut-by-cut, stitch-by-stitch manner.

1476387
Two questions.
If our characters are leaving Equestria, what are the restrictions on the world building that we can do for that race, in this case Griffons?
Also, what tech level are we using for this story? Is it medieval/show level, magic tech or full on human tech such as internal combustion?
Thanks.

1482098 As far as tech goes for cultures that haven't really been seen much in the show, I think you could do what you want, within reason. Y'know, don't make the griffins super high tech, but I doubt they'd be really old tech either. As far as magical tech goes, as I said, each time the ponies jump to a new world, they start over tech wise. But since the portal machine I mentioned is powered by magic and plasma, it's safe to say they could be on the boundaries of higher technologies, but I think it would be safe to have show level tech, but behind the scenes, or maybe in Twilight's own studies a bit higher magically or electron powered technology would be acceptable.

Plus, I would think as far as the internal combustion engine goes, I'd say it exists, but since magical tech is more environmentally safe, and probably cheaper too, it's not very common.

1484001
Awesome, thanks. To be honest, I was going to make the Griffins more tribal, so not that technologically minded, but that's not that big a thing.
Also, how about internal combustion was used, but now with new magi-tech engines and the like, its seen as obsolete so its only used by the less technologically minded races.

1484173 That would be a good idea, although the entire thing should probably be discussed with the rest of the group. I'll start a thread so we can all be on the same page about tech.

1476387

Can I ask why the Nina is not mentioned in the ship names?

1495608 The Nina is the Santa Clara. The Nina is a nickname given to the ship by its crew, in joke/reference to its owner, Juan Nino. The names you see above are the actual names of the ships, but most people know them by their nicknames.