Now that I'm getting ever closer to actually, at long last, finishing Contest of Champions, I'm still debating what to do with a Season 3 story. Given the theme of that one is Changelings I do want to involve them somehow, and I want to do something more low-key and slice of lifeish as well. I might do two stories, one focusing on Trixie and the girls going on a roadtrip, and one focusing on the Changelings, maybe some mishaps and misadventures of several Changelings initial attempts to infiltrate Equestria. I may also have those two stories intersect, not directly per se, but the events of one might affect the events of another. I don't know, still thinking on it all.

Working on the cover art of my latest story, Eternal Night. I was wondering if I could get some feedback on it. What do you think so far?

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The basic composition looks solid enough to me, and the edge work is clean. It also definitely sets a mood with NNM looming in the sky over a frightened Trixie. It's fine enough as is, but

There is a lot of empty space on the right, and just a bit on the bottom left. You could fill out that space by sliding Trixie more to the the right and a little down. Alternatively, if your willing to crop the right edge you could just slide Trixie down a little. If you really want to emphasize NMM looming overhead, You could slid Trixie a little left and more down while cropping most of the right edge and maybe a little of the left

Other things you could do to fill out the empty space might be to add a title card to the upper right. If you wanted to keep it subtle, the title could even be spelled out using stars.

If you don't crop anything, you should also keep in mind how the image will look shrunken down on the story page, especially since landscape dimensions tend to get shrunk more than portraits. I think NMM should read pretty clear regardless, but Trixie might blend a bit into the grass. You may need to tweak the colors and/or shading values to help her stand out more.

Oh my gosh this song is so Luna!

7564413
That's a pretty good song. What's it from?

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Glad you like it and checking the video its apparently from: Lovers, Lore & Loss: Songs From the "Heralds of Valdemar" Trilogy

7595893
I'll have to look into what that is exactly, as if it's a book series, the song certainly made me interested.

7564413
Sorry I missed this for so long. You are right though, and the song is very Luna. Although, especially in the second half, I'm reminded less of our Luna and more of the one from the old Equestria Prevails art pieces.

7596448
No worries and ooh, very fair comparison!

The art gave me Lunaverse vibes:

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I can see it. It's that industrialization style that makes it have that Lunaverse flavor.

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That was my thinking as well :D

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Kind of makes me think it might be fun to write a Lunaverse story that's focused on Equestria's military. Not necessarily a war story, but just a look at the daily lives of those serving. Honestly I'm not 100% sure on how the Lunaverse Equestria's military is structured. I recall we've got the Night Guard, and that the different noble houses have their own house guards, but I can't recall if Equestria has a larger military force beyond that, even if it's just volunteer militia or the like?

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Fisher was stated to be the Minister of War, so presumably there's actual troops somewhere. And IIRC RDD said that Equestria had to invade one its neighbors (Caballeria) and help a pirate king take over to oust some dictator that wanted to invade Equestria.

Idea: pony version of Squid Game, except instead of getting killed, losing contestants get hit in the face with a pie by Pinkie Pie or something.

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Hmm, I think I might like the idea of writing a story that gives the Equestrian military some more detail, then. Fleshes out ranks, equipment, culture, and their actual day to day functions, which I feel would mostly involve helping with local issues like disaster relief, monster hunting, maybe even aiding in construction efforts and the like. Things might be different on Equestria's borders, where a story might look at how a border fort might function, and if there's any involvement with immigration in and out of the country.

Heh, I do like the idea of Pinkie Pie and a secret society of jokesters organizing some kind of super clandestine but ultimately harmless extreme gameshow.

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Something more along the lines of Takeshi's Castle would probably be a better fit.

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Somethings I do remember from previous conversations or may have mentioned in Mountain: -

• Each province has it's own province guard sponsored by it's noble which provide disaster relief and potential law and order support in that province and gets folded into the national army in the event of a major conflict i.e. US National and State guard.
• There are army, navy and airforce (Pegasus plus magic plus airships) branches of military, the navy is the smallest branch.
• The postal system is technically part of the military and can be folded into them at times of war
• Fisher is / was minister of war
• It's fairly common for younger children of the nobility to spend at least some time in the military, they make up a fair chunk of the officer corps.
• There are a number of special departments in the military including one who's job includes dealing with dragons (often keeping a watch on sleeping ones)

7633383
That could be a pretty neat concept to explore, (Pushes down Changeling thoughts) I imagine a unique location would serve that premise well, so maybe a tower on a frigid border on a high but very accessible locale?

7633476
I am liking the idea of Equestria's party ponies having a sort of organized club that puts together big game show events, the zanier the better. And Pinkie Pie could pretty much snatch up anyone in Ponyville, or indeed Canterlot, given the social circles she moves in.

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Now I'm kind of wondering what uniforms for the Equestrian's might look like, and if there'd be a lot of differences based on region or what noble house certain guard groups worked for. There's a lot of variety in our real world from a similar time period where industrialization was becoming a thing:

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Yeah, to go with the time period we're portraying there will probably be some attempt to go for standardization but probably quite a bit of variation in reality. The core army might have more or less the same uniform while the various province guard may have their own uniforms provided by their noble or for the poorer area's whatever they could get their hooves on. Various historic or more elite units may have their own unique additions for example a unit famous for having supported Cadence in some battle 200 years ago may have the right to include her own personal heraldry (say a heart) on her uniform alongside Luna's.

7634495
That's an interesting question to be sure, I think it begs the question, does Equestria have a standing army in service of Luna/The Court, or is it a more old fashioned, each noble has their own retainer force and rally a host when called on by circumstances?

7634991

I'd think they'd still be on a sort of hybrid system, a smallish professional permanent core to the army which is at least theoretically primarily loyal to the state and a number of noble 'owned' militaries which do local work which then get folded into the overall army in the event of a major conflict. It may be that over time the power of the nobles militia have been generally weakening and the national army getting stronger.

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I have no idea if this is a brilliant idea or a horrible one, but I suddenly like the notion of writing a super-serious toned, but purely parody based version of the Great Emu War, but set in the Lunaverse, in whatever province we want to construe is akin to Australia.

7635050
I think that makes a lot of sense, and I imagine they'd be distinct from the Nightguard too?

7635360
Pfft XD Being an Australian I find this hilarious.

7635391

Yeah, I'd see the Nightguard as being Luna's / The Palaces / Canterlots personal troops more of a sort of secret service type with some CIA duties bolted on rather than a battlefield unit. They can fight but they are not really trained for mass combat more of a bodyguard function, maybe with several 'layers' of membership so the very elite spend their time at Luna's direct beck and call while a larger group man the palace and even more act as the garrison for the city (as Vicereine Wall Flower has been shown to be the noble in charge of the city it possible her personal troops are the 'lesser Nightguard')

7635360

Interesting idea, I'm not sure if there's anywhere which could count as Australia, socially at least, geographically an area where new farming has just been sent up could be more or less anywhere. It's just that apart from Nulpar there's not really anywhere which seems to have been settled recently, although as always it probably wouldn't be to hard to create somewhere from whole cloth. Maybe the 'mild west' might work as there does appear to be recent colonization there (although with some set backs) and the native buffalo could have warned the settlers that it was a bad place to set up farms due to the 'Emu' which they ignored.

For the general background to the 'war' I think it would work quite well with Fisher wanting to show off some new magictech weapon or possibly for his successor (whoever that might be) to be stretching their muscles a bit. I'm not sure what weapons would be deployed to try and deal with whatever animal replaces the Emu in the story, it brings to mind some sort of gatling gun but that would seem to be a very significant step up in Equestrian Weaponry, although we did see the Camel's had better firearms. Maybe a more purely magical weapon which rather than killing the enemy (Lunaverse is a bit darker that way but I'd say something with the destructive power of a real machine gun would be rather beyond the pale in the setting) it freezes or stuns them and one of the issues discovered is that it doesn't work for very long on the 'Emu' such that they keep waking up angry before you can move them away or just come back again if you do.

Of course the whole situation could apparently be dealt with by bringing in Fluttershy as a negotiator, although L-verse Flutters would probably have a panic attack before you could ask her.

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If I remember correctly, isn't there some disputed territory bordered by the griffins on the north and east, and Equestria (specifically the Twilight family's province Latigo) to the south and west? It could be possible to have there be some settlement there which could come into conflict.

Fisher's successor in the Night Court was stated to be his wife, Svelte Lord-Fisher, in "For the Mare who has Everything." That story is currently filed in the 'Movies and Tie-Ins' category but both RK (whose upcoming Golden Horseshoes story FtMWHE is a prequel to) and RDD liked it, and RDD said that it can get moved into 'Season 3 canonical episodes' once we start writing season 3. Svelte isn't particularly militarist and would care much more about helping domestic ponies rather than going on foreign adventures, although she'd be willing to endorse the use of force if she thought that was the best option for Equestria.

That said, we don't know if Svelte inherit his committee positions, and my personal inclination would be that she didn't and someone else who was in the Ministry of War took over after Fisher fled. But if you want to get some sort of Fisher magiteck weapon involved, it would still be possible; his factories would still be running and they could produce something useful. The Emus might learn via a spy that his factories are building something which could be dangerous and decide to preemptively destroy it, which could result in an Equestrian counter-attack. It could also be possible for Fisher himself to instigate some kind of conflict, since we never stated exactly what happened to him after he fled. (My personal head canon is that he fled to Zaldia, both because the unicorn supremecist nature of Zaldia appeals to him, and also because he could convince himself that he was still being a patriotic Equestrian by trying to get himself into a position where he could do something if Zaldia gave into its paranoia and attacked Equestria. He doesn't believe Cadance and her country would be any use in a Zaldian invasion; his view on Cadance is basically, 'how will the princess of love fight an enemy? What, is she going to emphasize with them until they stop fighting? What kind of lame power is heart, anyways?' So he might want to see if he can use his magical talents to infiltrate the Zaldian government or military and then hopefully derail things if Zaldia goes hostile. However, none of that is canon at this point and pretty much anything could be done with him).

7635480
Mhm, I think that fits the tone of the Lunaverse very well!

7636724

I guess it depends if the Emu are going to be sentient or not. If the story is to more or less match reality (apart from the small colorful horses of course) then the Emu are just large birds and the failure of the military is due to poor planning and general incompetence rather than the Emu having spies or sabotage. Of course in the L-verse it would be fitting for the Emu to actually be intelligent or for some of the war department to think they are even if they aren't.

7636853

If they're not sentient, I can see a couple options for bringing in FisherTech. Such as: Emu begin messing with Fisher's factories or property, like the gopher in Caddyshack. Fisher or his successor goes nuts and unleashes bigger and bigger (and goofier) weapons to deal with them.

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I'm actually rather tickled by the idea that the Emu's level of sapience itself is something that would be in question during the story, where the Equestrians just can't tell how smart the Emus actually are. Like, 90% of the time they just seem like somewhat doofy, belligerent birds, but then that other 10% they'll suddenly do something remarkably smart or appear to be coordinating with each other, confusing the ponies that are trying to deal with them.

"Sarge, is it me, or are those Emu's planning somethin'? They're all huddled together, and I swear they're whisperin' to each other."

"Pfft, don't be daft, Private, these birdbrains ain't capable of tactical planning. You're just being paranoid."

"But Sarge, I saw one of 'em holding a hammer in it's beak. Where'd it even get that?"

"Probably just stole it out of some poor pony's toolshed 'cause it was shiny. Don't go attributing too much intelligence to the enemy."

*Meanwhile in the background the Emu with the hammer starts pulling support nails out of a bridge the ponies are using to move critical supplies over the river*

As for what kind of magi-tech weapon might be developed and deployed, assuming non-lethality is a key feature, perhaps some kind of giant pepper-ball launcher? Something like a mounted repeating crossbow but launches bolts tipped with big pepper bombs or something similar. Conversely we could go the route of some kind of wheeled tesle-coil device that's designed to non-lethally zap things.

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Maybe something which boosts a unicorns lifting capacity? Some sort of ridiculous looking hat which allows a normal unicorn to bubble up and lift several Emu at once and then has a tendency to short out or run out of power at just the wrong time releasing the Emu and maybe setting a few things on fire, like the users mane or coat.

7639581
Well for a non-lethal magi-tech weapon, how about a one-of-a-kind gigantic Morpher Ray:

A device whose function relies on a weird artifact located in the devices core:

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The column stretched almost to the horizon a ragged trickle of dusty ponies, many sporting bandages some only walking with the support of their colleagues. All looked completely defeated, only a few managed to look up from their own hooves as they passed the squad.

"What happened to them Sarg?" asked Hard Head.

"Don't know, can't be anything to do with these Emu things can it?" said Night Fighter looking towards where they were coming from. "They're just birds?"

Her words seemed to galvanize one of the passing ponies, a mare with an arrow cutie mark and one leg in a sling. "Just birds?" she repeated quietly. She turned towards the new arrivals her gaze not quite meeting there's instead seeming to focus on a point somewhere several hundred yards over their shoulders. "Just birds?" she repeated louder before giving a barking laugh. It was a sound which didn't seem to have the slightest connection to sanity. Next to her one of her follow guards seems to have been woken from his gaze his eyes darted from side to side seeming to try to take in the entire vista at once. "Birds!" he gasped before starting to gnaw on his spears haft, "Where?"

"Come on they're just Provies, Province guard, they couldn't figure out how to use a spear if it didn't have 'this end towards the enemy' written on it!" growled the sergeant. "We're the professional army. Hu-Ra!"

"Hu-Ra!" grunted the rest of the squad, but they didn't sound quite as enthusiastic as they had.

"Just Birds!" could still be heard in the distance followed by another a cackle of deranged laughter.

Other lines to include

"They cut the power? How could they cut the power? They're just animal's mare!"

"They come out at night... mostly."

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I think whatever the weapon is it should be usable by all three pony races, as I figure that'd be part of it's selling point, that any member of the militia's our guard units could use it. Morph rays aren't a bad idea, as would a classic shrink ray, or a large scale hypnotism device.

Been thinking about how we might get the LunaSix involved, if only a couple of them. Perhaps quite by surprise or accidental paperwork, Trixie finds herself temporarily assigned to some kind of magi-tech safety commission and she and a couple of her friends are sent to inspect the new device as it's being tested, and that ropes them into the whole Emu conflict?

7651849

Remember Fisher was fairly tribalist in a every tribe has it's assigned place with Unicorns in charge type of way. A device that requires being charged up by a unicorn but then used by an earth pony or pegasus 'grunt' would fit with that idea. Otherwise something which could be charged by a treadmill might work.

I'm not sure if a member of the luna-6 needs to be involved we can have stories which just flesh out the setting or deal with secondary or tertiary characters would work.

If you do need to have them then the area being involved could be one that Cheerilee passed through during her travels and she might have some friends in the area. Other connections might be a guard friend of Scootiloo's mother contacting Heavy Roller to try and get Element support or Fluttershy hearing about the Emu being attacked and asking Carrot Top or Trixie to help.

Could I have some information on Griffon Society in the Lunaverse? Like who are their rulers, for example? And their political structure, etc? The Griffons are going to play a major role in the next story I'm writing.

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Think reading contest of Champions is probably the right way to go, the first few chapters at least, Vex has written most of the Griffin stuff for the L-verse.

As far as I recall the Griffin lands are split into a large number of separate Kingdoms which are at least nominally united behind a single Emperor, sort of like the Holy Roman Empire. There is a fairly sharp divide between the central and border kingdoms, the central ones are more stable and safe where as the outer kingdoms are more prone to rebellions and bandits. I think its suggested this might be a sort of cyclic system with periods of lawlessness in the outer kingdoms leading to civil war which eventually ends up with a strong ruler unifying the empire which then over the years starts to break down again until the next civil war. Its also sort of suggested that Luna might be happy for things to work this way as it stops a strong potential enemy of Equestria forming and that she may even help the whole process on.

Generally the Griffins seem to be Germanic in feel, like I said I think the HRE is an influence. They tend to be fairly aggressive and honor dueling seems to be a big thing in their culture. At least amongst the upper classes we've not seen that much of the lower classes to see what they're like.

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That is hilarious on several levels for many reasons.

7641745
That ending was frankly ominous XD

Think I might've asked this one a while back, but...
What does Clover Charms do for a living in Ponyville?

7666242
She works an assortment of odd-jobs. So she can basically be seen anywhere in town doing just about anything.

She also lives in what would otherwise be Cranky Doodle's shack in the Maneverse at the edge of town. It might be rather rundown with drafty windows and a leaky roof, but at least the rent's dirt cheep.

She can also obviously be found bumming around the library to mooch snacks out Twilight's cupboard.

Found a very fitting song for Celestia:

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Reminds me of colonial attitudes to indigenous peoples

"Look, they're just filthy savages, what can they do?"

Ignoring that an Emu is a fast, pony sized bird, wity razors on their STRONG legs.

Well, I'm in the middle of writing Contest of Champion's epilouge, and my mind is already turning towards what I might write next for the Lunaverse. I mean, yes, this Emu War inspired comedey story is definitely in the running, but I'm also considering how to proceed with... well, advancing the Lunaverse given it's current state.

I mean, not to bandy words, but things have been quiet around here for a long time, and understanably so given how much time has gone by since this place was last jumping. But that being said I very much do plan to stick with this lovely universe RDD created and write stories here until I'm too old and decrepid to move my fingers, so the question then is begged to be asked how I shall proceed when Contest of Champions is soon to be done. I certainly don't think I'll tackle anything too big or epic next time, but even if I account for smaller scale stories, a part of me wants to work towards meaninful tales that move the characters and setting towards, if not a conclusion, a satisfying direction that if it comes down to it, can serve as a continuation regardless of whether or not Season Two ever officially concludes or Season Three ever gets an officail beggining.

So I suppose this is more an open question to anyone who might see this, and especailly RDD if he ever wanders by this way, when I pick up another story with Trixie and the gals, should I try to keep it kind of somewhat seperated from the main storyline? More slice of lifeish?

I mean, mostly I remember Season Three was meant to involve the Changelings, but that's about all I recall, and we've got Ocellus hanging around already to act as a character to build that on. I was considering how and when to add more Changleing storyline and characters, especially with the idea in mind that they're not supposed to be readily or easily revealed and there's at least a partial theme of paranoia to be developed around them.

At any rate, this is just a general poke of this forum to see if I can shake some of the dust off of it.

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From memory I think we world built it that those tiny bug flutter pony things came from the same realm as Changelings and because the Changelings were plotting their invasions the little one's did their pollen/magic gathering stuff earlier when it was much more risky and would warn the mane cast, though be it vaguely of the coming threat as thanks for their help.

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Okay that's good to know. For the moment I'm considering what kind of stories I can write in Season Three that would work without cutting RDD off from any specific plans he might still have for it, and I do want to at least introduce in one or two Changeling characters who largely remain hidden amid the cast during these stories. My first thought is to have the L6 go on a vacation to some resort location, basically looking to unwind after all the craziness of Season Two, and during said vacation one of the Changeling agents who has identified the L6 as a possible threat to future invasion plans is basically trying to gathering information on them and how to imitate them, but in so doing we get a number of comedic events as the Changeling misinterprets the L6's relationships with one another (more excuse for me to do more TrixiexRaindrops shipping if the Changeling misreads how far along those two are).

7754932
I am a big fan of more TrixiexRaindrops and that does sound like a hilarious episode that shows the Changeligns as proactive while still being a relaxing piece for the cast and reader.

7754978
Indeed one of the things I'd like to do is while establishing that the Changleings are a threat, I want them to come off as both people, but people of a very different expereince and culture than Equestria. This builds off of what's been done with Ocellus, I think, where misinterpetation and confusion over Equestrian ways is sort a main theme with the Changelings. Less about them being menacing and more about them just having a way different society and values set compared to what the ponies use.

7754984
That sounds like a fun set up to be sure and heck even just cos of their feeding habits they'd have very skewed cultural ideas, let alone the whole. "Different species and culture" aspects.