or " oh jeez Scoob, what even is an airstrike "

Yeah that is the real me, I had about 7000-8000 words to say about this.... and I thought it was better if I spoke them to you in a torrent of sound instead of type them out to you. Basically we need to do something to make the Zebra's able to kill or counter pegasi attacks cause other wise the zebras are dead.

The most famous ( though not at all representative of the general tone of the film ) sequence in Apocalypse now : Part one :

and part two:

THAT is what the Equestrians can do that the Zebras cannot . Indeed that as far as I can tell the zebras cannot even defend against. Note that in Apocalypse Now the side with the Air Cav and the Napalm are the invaders, that is the ones that are " playing War on Hard Mode". In our story the side with the Air Cav and the Napalm are the defenders. That is they are " playing war on Easy Mode". Again I go into all of this in the video, hence why it is a video and not a super long essay.

Watch my video and tell me what thoughts y'all have about this.

6499605

Oh wow, this should be a cool conversation.

But yeah, the war itself... man, have we put a lot of thought into redesigning the whole thing since you were involved with the project.

Before, it was literally the Fallout: Equestria zebra war (which, as you point out, makes no sense).

Now, it is quite different. It has been thoroughly redesigned from the ground up. It will be fun to discuss! I have quite a few notes on it which I can provide. One of which is information about zebra 'seekers'. Thing is, I came up with seekers back in September 2016, so I was pretty sure you've been made aware of them. They are pretty horrific AA weapons. More on that later. We can talk about the war progression first.

6499605
I'd chalk up the Zebras' survival to "dark magic of the foreign variety" plus "tactics similar to the ones used in the Vietnam War that convinced the U.S. military to pull out". Basically, even though Equestria's pegasi have the superior air advantage, the zebras have some stupidly OP anti-magic measures that can hurt unicorn and pegasus alike. It's shown in narrative that standard magic can't stop everything forever. The ponies can run dry very quickly and end up falling unconscious. And pegasi aren't exactly machines without hearts like your typical air-strikers. They are vulnerable to pain and some more primitive projectiles such as rocks or arrows. Losing these highly respected powerhouses can be demoralizing for the less-experienced and ponies that have barely begun to participate in a wartime setting. After all that, the zebras' hit and run tactics can confuse the remaining ponies long enough to overwhelm them.

The Zebras aren't above taking hostages if it holds off their enemies just a little longer. If your answer to an enemy holding a hostage is "bomb 'em from the sky", then you really don't know how the hearts of Equestrians work. Loved ones tend to be a large obstacle when it comes to unleashing power without restraint.

Sorry, I don't have over 9000 words to respond to everything you brought up. Plus, it's kind of hard to hear you over that constant background noise.

Watched those movie clips. (will get to your personal one soon.) Thankfully, I have a VPN and can fool Youtube into thinking I'm in the US. For some reason, they restricted the videos so we can't view them here in Australia.

So yeah, air superiority has been a pretty critical factor in human warfare in the 20th century. Amazing, isn't it? I've taken this into account in our zebra war. Will be fun to discuss.

6499637
Funny thing is, here IRL, Air Superiority as we know it will cease to exist within our lifetimes...and I don’t mean in a good way, either.

6499605
I finally finished the long video. Haha that was far more comprehensive than I expected. And of course, I welcome the challenge because a robust story should be able to withstand a solid stress-test such as this.

I'm not going to give my full reply in this post because it would be pretty long. Maybe I should make my own video.

However, I will say that every point which was raised has an established in-universe answer. So I am happy to say that it has passed the stress test. The main topic of pegasus advantage has been resolved with the seekers. I'll explain those when I give my response.

But more important than merely giving a simple answer, I think it would be helpful to provide a thorough breakdown of the war in Black Feather for the purpose of clearing up some misunderstandings. From watching your video, I can see that much of your impression is heavily influenced by the Fallout: Equestria zebra war. I need to make it crystal clear that the Fo:E zebra war is nothing like the Black Feather zebra war. We officially divorced from that universe about a year ago if I recall. Everything in Black Feather (and the Harmony Universe overall) is entirely original and custom built to fit within our narratives. I'd be happy to explain it so that we can clear up any lingering Fo:E assumptions.

6499605
Nice video! Given me plenty to chew on

Pegasus air superiority, this has always been a big problem with the original fo:E as the zebra had no real counters to it, especially when you had air carriers and battleships. Kkat went to retarded lengths to try and come up with ways to combat them but they always seemed stupid or completely not fitting with the setting.

Now I'll let Recon cover the Seekers, which are the zebra's main AA weapon, and a pretty vicious one at that.

I think the first thing to consider in regards to pegasus air power is that the vast number of innovations that we see in Black Feather are relatively recent developments, or, like the TEI spell, are experimental in nature. Both nations prior to the war possessed battlefield tech roughly equivalent to 16-17th-century armies; predominantly melee weapons with rifles issued in extremely limited numbers to experts. In the years prior to Black Feather, the war has seen technology makes leaps and bounds but has only caught up to 1930s-40s tech in the last six months of the story, especially after Brumby Ridge.

Secondly, we have to look at the pony mindset during this time. Ponies were not prepared for any kind of prolonged conflict and Celestia's rule had very much eroded the pony psychology when it came to conflict. The idea of strategic bombing and napalm would be a horrific concept to a pony with the outbreak of war, even weaponizing the weather would probably not enter their minds at this stage. Overcoming this way of thinking would impede pony weapons development. The idea of fighting a total war would be completely foreign to ponies prior to the Brumby Ridge tragedy.

Another thing to consider is the pegasus weight carrying ability and their vulnerability to ground fire. Machine guns and their ammo are very heavy, especially when flying so they'd have a very limited payload and loitering time. Being slow, the pegasi would be vulnerable to zebra marksmen and would have little protection from small arms fire.

From a tactical level, the zebra would adapt, much like the German army did in Normandy during the allied invasion, marching at night and exploiting forests and other cover to prevent detection from the air or keeping their unit sizes small to help them avoid strafing runs. This might have a knock-on effect of turning the war into a series of small-scale skirmishes rather than full-blown battles involving thousands of soldiers (though we do see some major battles later on in the story)

6499605

Okay, so I've made a response video. It's longer than I planned. I figured that in order to really explain the war and to avoid having to give a crazy amount of further explanation as to why things ended up the way they are, that I'd just give this enormous preemptive talk to give the full context of things. Hopefully, it will make the entire war scenario "make sense" as it is presented. I leave little room for ambiguity or presumption at this point, offering my vision for this war and all the character motives, the technology progression, the mentality of the parties, and so on.

I do ramble a bit, mostly because this is the first time I've really spoken about these things from memory. Hopefully, you'll find it provides additional insight into this universe and can get something out of all this.

Additionally, I mentioned that I would give information on the seekers and the elites.

Also, here is a brief writeup on the Black Feather zebra war in regards to how it started and its early progression. It is not comprehensive, but it is in a lore format rather than bullet points like the timeline.

Oh, and also since I touched on the zebra motive for the war being the prophecy which was made not long after Luna's exile to the moon... I figured I might as well highlight the fact that this is what BDK has rendered into comic form for us all to see:

https://www.deviantart.com/bernarddk/gallery/66421123/K-Tah-s-Prophecy-Comic
(dA folders read right-to-left)

6499636
I do not have time to comment in depth so just a few notes . A more in depth convo will have to wait for me to listen to recon's response which will probably answer a lot of my questions and I probably will not have time to do that till next weekend,.
6499636
So again the reason why Viet cong tactics worked was multifold, for one the viet cong were in their country, for another the United States was not. what I mean by this is it is easier to grind down a country's morale when the population sees no clear reason for a war to exist. Being invaded on the other hand..... well these factors is what the North Vietnamese general meant when he told McNamara " we did not care about our ten as much as you cared about your one".
The thing though is, and i go through this IN EXCRUCIATING detail in my video supra is that so much of the Viet Cong tactics involved the fact that the war is in .... nam. Ie theyre ability to melt away into the civilian population and to know the territory intimately. The zebras are in no position to do this here. In fact it is the ponies that can do this. t

Also they may have anti magic powers.... but the bullets coming out of Rumble's twin saddle machine guns are not magic are they? Just good old fashioned newtonian mechanics.

basically i am going to have to read up on these seekers, because that is really what I am going about here... how do the zebras neutralize equestrian air superiority long enough to drag this war as long as they have.. and how do these AA technologies change or impact the rest of the dynamics of the war.

6502028

When Duvet and I talked briefly about what Light Machine guns would be like, especially if you are carrying two, we decided that this was too much for Rumble to be flying around with.

A replacement idea would be for something with a really high rate of fire but extra small caliber. There are no armored targets to engage, really. A hailstorm of tiny bullets would be far more interesting for him to wield. And the ammunition would go a lot further.

Looking forward to your response to the video!

Fwiw, 'air superiority' is kind of a misnomer.

As mentioned by Recon, the weight of equipment is going to be a major issue, especially for Pegasi traveling any sort of longer distance. They aren't fighter craft, capable of traveling hundreds of km while carrying a payload that can napalm a city block. I mean, we need *four* pegasi to carry Nyx home at one point -- that gives a good baseline for overall capacity I think.

So I would consider them to be extremely mobile foot soldiers, not air superiority in the sense that we think of it. Any time they get into combat, they're *in range* of small arms fire. Heck, Rumble gets shot down by a single zebra, even with a battle saddle kitted.

6499605
We're still very much interested in your thoughts on this topic.

6499605
I'd really like to know as well, we put a lot of effort into the timeline and it'd be great to know what you think

6513999

Oh of course these are not bombers lol. They may make bombers later in the war, but i am aware that they are not really going to flatten zebra cities. Still in a matter of tactics special forces units that can fly should still make a lot of impact against units that cannot.

6500873
an hour and forty minutes you are taking pages from my book I see lol

so quick and dirty ,. without watching the video yet.

I read about the seekers.. The cool dark magic aspects of it aside, the large cumbersome launchers make these seem like analogous to a Patriot missile in terms of how maneuverable they are in the field of battle. Which is not much. Certainly they take care of some of my issues regarding massive troop movements, but depending on their rate of fire they could still be overwhelmed by a pegasi attack. I also read that Zebras also have shotguns that shoot anti pegasi flechettes. Good stuff for very close combat ( like the one we see during the sacrifice scene with the balefire or whatever it is called now)

What I would like to see , if I where a zebra commander , is a MANPAD. basically this :

That oddly cute airplane drone ( it looks like the spirit of st louis) is even roughly pegasus sized, for convenience haha .

MANPAD means Man-portable air-defense systems and that is the key to their power. Whereas the zebra seeker is emplaced ( like a patriot missile) this is carried around physically and can be used by a three man ( or smaller) team. It would cover the middle ground between the seeker( which really strikes me as something you would use around a base or an installation , not something you would carry around with an infantry company) and the flechette shotgun, which sounds like it would become very inaccurate at a relatively short rannge, as is the case with shotguns in general.

6538367

Don't forget the critical fact that everyone has been pointing out to you:

Pegasi are not airplanes. They cannot carry large payloads long distances. Strength and fatigue are important issues. Pegasi are very mobile infantry, not bombers. Remember the cumbersome effort it takes just to carry Nyx back to safety.

Also, keep in mind morale, skill, and numbers. They are not highly-trained fighting forces taught under a strict and well-established system. They are largely civilians who have volunteered to help defend their nation and been given rudimentary training and weapons. And there are not tens of thousands of them able to be mobilized to overwhelm zebra positions. The scale of the conflict is simply not analogous to anything available in US air power. Remember what Luna laments early in the story? They are spread too thin. They can barely defend their borders, much less do what you suggest.

You simply cannot use real life as an analogy to much of anything in this universe. You must judge the universe within its own boundaries.

6538379
understood. But again remember that I talked about carpet bombing the Zebra cities when i was Fantasizing about what I would do if i ran Pony DARPA. If I can reverse engineer a nuke I can invent the airplane. But this is irrelevant. Dont focus on this.

Because again as I said, what the zebra need to be afraid off is not the pony version of the Enola Gay , it is a lot of Rumbles with whatever weapon they CAN carry. Because the ability to fly is not only force projection, it is also mobility, meaning the ability to strike and get out ASAP. As I pointed out in my video this is already an effective strategy for any defending force to use against an invasion, it is only increased when the defenders can fly. Taliban/ viet cong with jetpacks ( and the winner for the most absurd phrase I typed this week goes to) would be even worse than the regular kind, even if they were never able to carpet bomb the American bases, simply because they would be able to launch an ambush that much quicker and get out before a counter attack that much faster.

So how is this for low tech.

The Mongols. Why were the Mongols able to route heavier armies in battle and invade more of the world in less time than any other force before or since? The Mongols were horsemen since birth, since they lived as nomads in the steppes. They rode small hardy horses ( so small the Europeans incorrectly thought they were.... yes ponies). They were able to rout European and Islamic heavy cavalry because their horsemen were able to ride fast and travel light. The Mongolian horses could forage in the winter which helped with logistics. They could move . Fast, faster than anyone else. Get in strike, burn shit, keep moving. The heavy equipment was all on the other side and they were the invaders ( again " playing war on hard mode") and yet the mongols kept winning.

They did not carry bombs they could drop . They could just.. keep moving. Nothing moves faster than the pegasi( except the alicorns) as long as the pegasi CAN carry a weapon that has a longer range than those flechette shotguns they are still a threat.

6538502

1: Oblivion Pearls are strictly available to the Elites, who have been given the ability to grow them by the Zebranomicon. This magic is far beyond anything ponies have, and "reverse engineering" is impossible. They are not engineered in the first place.

2: There are no airplanes. Equestria simply has no such technology.

3: Pegasi carrying lancer frames with automatic weapons are limited in number and range. Pegasi get tired after flying long distances. They would need a forward base of operations within the zebra nation to carry out any kind of assault on cities. They are too busy defending their own nation to be able to mount such an offensive. But... if you read chapter 8 you understand that Luna is doing her best to plan for an offensive war. Equestria simply has not been at the stage yet where an offensive war is even possible. But Luna's new conviction to end the war swiftly is changing things. It has only been a couple months since the tragedy.

What exactly is the concern here? I don't understand.

4: Numbers, skill, and morale. Again, I will repeat what I said in the previous post.

They are not highly-trained fighting forces taught under a strict and well-established system. They are largely civilians who have volunteered to help defend their nation and been given rudimentary training and weapons. And there are not tens of thousands of them able to be mobilized to overwhelm zebra positions. The scale of the conflict is simply not analogous to anything available in US air power. Remember what Luna laments early in the story? They are spread too thin. They can barely defend their borders, much less do what you suggest.

5: Mongols. No. Please stop using real-world analogies. There is nothing like the Mongols in this universe. If you spot a consistency problem within the Harmony Universe, please point it out without making external references.

6500873

6538379

Super short by my standards since I did not have much time, but I did finish watching your video and wanted to have a quick reaction video put up that captures my immeadiate thoughts.

6538848
I need to insist that development discussion take place in the dev forum to avoid spoilers.
This forum here is a general public discussion and notification forum.

Though to be clear, questions are welcome and encouraged in the public forum. But you have a mixture of legitimate plot spoilers and outdated information. Please come to the dev forum to get brought up to speed, otherwise we will continue having an awkward series of misunderstandings.

Feel free to start a thread there. Then you can be entirely open with what you're saying. But I still ask that points be made concisely, beginning with clarification questions. It is very likely that we have already thought of and compensated for something you've got a concern about. You would need to be more regularly involved to be fully up to speed on things. Until then, please just ask first.

6538848

Alright I watched your video and I feel better about things, having seen you explain the situation. I'd still feel more comfortable talking about this in the dev forum due to spoiler management.

1: Regarding character motivations which were centered on the "desperate" nature of the Fo:E war, I think it's probably a good idea to reexamine these motivations to make sure that they are sound. Not sure if you recall, but there was actually a combination of factors which made up these motivations. Those factors are more in the forefront now.

2: Darpa vs SMRI: Yes, they are researching technology for the war, but the research is also producing general technological advancements which will bring a higher quality of life to the nation as well as advance the plot of the parent story. SMRI exists to advance arcane technology. At this time, that does largely involve wartime applications. But I should underscore that it is not the point where the entirety of the national effort is related to fighting the war. It simply does not fit the timeline or the circumstances to do such a thing. Prior to the war, Equestria was what you see in MLP. These are not warlike people. They are not experienced in war, nor is their society set up to handle what we would classify as a large war in real life.

The main thing with the above is to remember that Fo:E had a mission. To shoe-horn the Fallout game scenario into MLP. And it sacrificed mountains of plausibility to pull this off. I've long discarded all of that and built a universe which pre-exists in a complex scenario that leads up to what we see in MLP and then progresses onward to some pretty fantastic things far in the future. Those things cannot be achieved if Equestria is entirely consumed with this war over its nine-year span. There are many amazing things which get set up during this time, and in fact, the war itself does end up catalyzing events in the future which are critical to ponykind's ultimate destiny. In short, the war had to happen so a few key things in the future go how they should. But the war is not this all-encompassing mega event that dominates the story verse.

I should state again that none of this is meant to be a real-life analog. Darpa is not included in this verse. Sparkle Magical Research Institute is its own thing and exists for in-universe reasons and has in-universe goals.

3: Magical Ministry Tour (the chapter from the original draft) will obviously need a complete redesign. I have some pretty cool plans for it but it is not yet outlined. I will get to it when my rewrite effort reaches that part of the story. But I can say that the spot in the story which was formerly taken up by that chapter will now be taken up by three distinct chapters. Their names will be...
27 - A Time For Mourning
28 - The Scientific Method
29 - Dragon Mountain

4: School Tragedy. Yeah, this was a major change. I've redesigned everything having to do with the school tragedy because, honestly, Fo:E Littlehorn is a complete clusterfuck of plausibility issues. What we've got now actually makes sense and also contributes to the overarching narrative of the entire story verse. You can read up on the Brumby Ridge tragedy (and all the other Fo:E replacements here.

5: Seekers (again). Please understand that the seekers are balanced with everything else in the system. If the pegasi were overpowered, I'd probably have made them more effective. But holy shit you can't just make these available to any old zebra patrol. Pegasi might as well just sit the war out if that was the case because they'd be entirely neutered. I think the main problem you're having with the pegasi aerial advantage is that you are still imagining them being airplanes rather than light infantry. They are not heavily armed or armored. Compared to zebras in a fight, they are quite outclassed. Being able to fly evens the odds enough so they can actually have a contributing impact on the war.

Recall how the seekers operate. Popping one up in the air would make an entire formation of pegasi scatter for their lives because they know how gruesome a death awaits them if they are targeted and don't manage to evade it. The fear aspect of it is a pretty big deal because these are not career military soldiers for the most part. They are ordinary civillians who have been given a bit of training and some weaponry.

As for how zebra infantry units handle pegasi... usually flechette scatterguns. Possibly augmented by shaman psionics or a number of other unique offensive or defensive measures. Remember that the zebras are experienced in war, whereas Equestria is not (apart from the two leaders literally). Remember too that this is primarily a magical war, not a technological war. How are flying opponents handled? By carefully balancing them with the side which does not fly by sculpting the tools and skills on both sides.

6: And a final thought on the "desperate" nature of the war and whether it is "total war" or not...

Since the school massacre, things have changed. I think this may help your understanding to think of it as more "desperate" in the past couple months. And if you look at the wording of the burdens Nyx and Luna both have, it is framed as a more recent thing.

So what has changed? I think it's important to keep in mind that the war has progressed in severity at a gradual pace over the last nine years, but in the last two months, "the gloves are off" on both sides. The zebras are stepping up the game since the portal showed up right in their war council HQ linking to Equestria. Also, the zebras did notice that "Nightmare Moon" responded to that incident by flying across the border and personally slaughtering quite a lot of military units. Likewise, Luna is quite focused on ending this thing ASAP which means a lot of new recruits as well as weapons tech development.

So since things have only recently shifted, that is an important factor to keep in mind in terms of how all the characters are affected by the war. Imagine you are out for a run. You start with a slow jog and up the pace over time until you are good and tired. And then suddenly you run as fast as you can. You're already tired and now you're pushing yourself. That's what they are feeling. It hasn't been a lengthy war of attrition. It has been a prolonged defensive conflict leading to a desperate turn of events.

Maybe when we take this to the dev forum, I can link you to the timeline so you can see exactly when things happen.

We had further discussion on the pegasus situation today, and the consensus is that while they would have some success, they would also be highly limited by zebra infantry with any kind of flak gun. Really, this is a non-issue. There is no way pegasi are going to dominate the battlefield when the enemy has wide-spread shard launchers or any other flak based light munitions. Flying high would keep them safe while in transit, but they also can't really attack from altitude either. Any kind of strafing run would require predictable flight patterns the zebras can fire along. Also, the zebras are likely camouflaged and scatter amongst cover and foliage, while the pegasi have no cover in the sky and are actually more vulnerable.