7. Communication Issues
Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies
Communication Issues
“With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.”
— Dan Rather
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 9:35 A.M. Central Standard Time, June 19, 2015
Bruener Farm, Randolph Kansas
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
By the time Jon made his way back to the house, it was buzzing with activity. Ponies were everywhere. It was understandable since he had pointed them in this direction to get a glass of water or use the bathroom, but with hundreds of the colorful quadrupeds around the farm, it was getting a little surreal. And less than a step into his house, it got surreal-er.
“Mister Bruener!” A tall man with a short-cut mop of curly hair sprang up from the kitchen table and advanced with his hand held out in front of him. “Governor Brown. We just got in a few minutes ago, and the mayor has been filling us in on the situation.”
Jon shook the proffered hand, of course, but could not see Randolph’s mayor anywhere in the room. There was a grey-haired older mare who was shuffling through some papers, and since only a politician could possibly get dropped naked on an alien planet and immediately find paper to shuffle, he turned and nodded with a polite, “Madam Mayor.”
“Mayor Mare,” she said with a terse nod in return. “Specialist Grace,” she continued, nodding at an emerald-green unicorn mare with a short-cropped mane beside her. “And Spike the dragon,” she finished, looking down at the end of the table where—
Jon blinked. Admittedly, he had been overexposed to a torrent of winged, horned, and bare ponies in a multitude of colors over the last two hours, but this was most certainly not a pony. For starters, it was bipedal and using a clawed hand to hold a ‘Bruener Seeds - For all your planting needs’ pen while scratching away on a piece of paper. The pale purple shade of his skin was not unusual, in recent context, but the pebbled texture to it indicated he was covered in scales, of all things, and the thin green frills on his head made him look adorable, quite unlike Smaug.
“Just about done… and there,” said the dragon, finishing off the line with a flourish and passing the paper over to the unicorn, who examined it briefly and passed it on to Jon. “A complete census of the Equestrians who we’ve been able to find so far. Complete, as far as we know, but we’ll have to send it back to Princess Twilight for validation against any ponies missing there to make sure we haven’t lost one.”
The paper looked like hash, with scribbled dashes and symbols that he could not make heads or tails out of, and neither could the governor when Jon passed it over.
“Translation spell,” said the unicorn, who had one of his seed company pens held in her magic and was scribing away on another sheet of blank paper. “Starswirl the Bearded incorporated a dimensional compensation section to all of his portal spells. It gives the portal traveler an image of the destination linguistic capacity and incorporates it into the subconscious language center of the brain. I’m making a translated list for you now,” Grace added. “Unless you want me to cast the translation spell on you, so you can read it before we send it on.”
“Um… I’ll pass. My brain has been battered enough today. Just a minute.” He stepped into the cramped room next door where his office lurked and ran a few quick copies on the printer. “Here you go, Governor Brown. Mayor. Spare copies for you. Um… Governor?”
“Oh!” The governor looked up from the page of incomprehensible scribblings. “Yes?”
Jon wanted to ask what he was doing there, but then again, if Jon was the governor and heard about a herd of extradimensional ponies visiting just an hour’s drive away, and had the Kansas Highway Patrol as a bodyguard…
“How was the trip down from Topeka?” he asked instead.
“Fast.” The governor grinned. “The Highway Patrol wanted to make this trip pedal to the metal and lights flashing, but we just nudged the speed limit a little so we could do some work on the way here. My aide is in the other room on the phone, trying to keep the state from falling apart while I’m out and about. There’s a few patrol officers up by Highway 24 directing traffic with the Ft. Riley MPs, and the last ambulance left about ten minutes before you showed up here. All we have left for emergency personnel are RCPD and some of the fire trucks. I’m supposed to liaison with the Army base commander when he arrives, but there’s been some problem with communication. He should be here shortly.”
The pony mayor had a pensive expression of worry while she tapped on several pieces of paper in front of her. “Governor Brown assures me that our citizens are being well cared for and they will be returned as soon as they’re ready to travel, which is good. Princess Twilight will have the return portal up soon, and I want to make sure everypony here gets through it as soon as possible, even if she has to make a second casting later to get everyponyelse home safely.”
“What about the…” Jon tried to think of how best to phrase what the ponies had been telling him about a ‘swarm of shadow creatures which had taken over Ponyville’ in a way that would not make him sound crazy.
The mayor shook her head. “There were four princesses in our town for the Raising of the Sun ceremony. Even if the shadow monsters were resistant to magic, they were certainly overmatched. Their taking us hostage was an act of desperation. By now they’ve been defeated, so we’ll be back home and dealing with repairing the damage shortly.”
“Since the original portals—” Governor Brown paused with a peculiar expression, as if the governor of a state was unused to saying ‘portals’ in his official capacity, but he picked up quickly “—showed up here, Specialist Grace speculated that any return portal will show up here too, since it would be easier to anchor in this location. If everything goes as expected, they’ll be gone by noon except for a few of the ponies who had been more severely injured. Those, we’ll have to watch over for a while, but they should be able to be picked up in a week or two without incident.”
Jon rubbed his stubbly chin. Getting out to the field early this morning had been more important than shaving or showering, and after having been splattered with blood, all he really wanted to do was take a shower. “If so, the human crazies won’t have enough time to get all worked up about an alien invasion, and the lookie-loos won’t get here until it’s all over. I’ll still have to charge for tours of the alien landing site and chase nuts out of my milo fields for a few years, I suppose. Still, you’re all welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”
“I’m more worried about finding enough bathrooms,” said the pony mayor. “Three in this house and one next door with over a hundred mares.”
“We should be good there for the short term,” said Jon. “I called Pastor May and he’s got a few friends from our RV club bringing their units over, in addition to however many porta-potties Riley County Emergency Management brings. How many ponies are we talking about for the next few hours?”
“Two hundred and forty three,” said Grace without looking up from her writing for a moment, although she backtracked somewhat immediately after. “That’s a grand total, of course, including the two griffons, the changeling, and discounting the duplicated report we had of Sweetie Belle.”
“And me,” said Spike.
“And Spike.” Grace looked up from her writing, used her magic to lift the census out of Jon’s hands, and passed it to the dragon.
Governor Brown spoke up while Spike was rolling the paper up and tying with a piece of red ribbon. “Between Randolph, Ft. Riley, and Manhattan Emergency Management, we should have plenty of restroom facilities and cots, in the worst case. The Randolph mayor is coordinating with the local churches, and most of the younger ponies are over at the Methodist vacation bible school.” The governor paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s going to drive the atheists crazy, but it was the closest spot with facilities for the thirty or forty little ones and parents.”
Jon nodded, then passed a look between the two ponies and the dragon. “So how often do you visit other dimensions?”
“Actually, if you don’t count fighting that Tantabus monster in the Dreamscape, it’s the first one for me,” said the pony mayor.
“Second,” said Grace, still writing. “Graduate school. Minor accident during finals.”
Spike the dragon was looking up at the ceiling, counting on his claws. “Do you count time-related paradox desolate worlds split off from the main timeline when a unicorn bent on vengeance goes back in time repeatedly to prevent a series of events which are the only way to save Equestria? If so, I think twenty-three, although at least I’m not a dog in this world.”
“He’s Princess Twilight Sparkle’s assistant,” said Grace before Jon could ask.
“Her number one assistant,” corrected Spike.
“I…” Jon paused, then shook his head and turned for the bedroom. “Let me get a shower and shaved.”
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 10:05 A.M. Central Standard Time, June 19, 2015
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
After he had grabbed some clean clothes and returned from the ‘mud-room’ shower in the basement (passing several ponies waiting in line), the oddity of the situation had not changed much. The Army had arrived, in the persona of General Hackmore with an additional SUV of MPs and a sense of military frustration that Jon had gotten quite used to during his four years in the service several ages ago.
After a brief introduction around the table, Jon excused himself to get a cold soda for each of the ponies and people gathered around his dining room table, and a beer for himself. He, at least, was not on-duty, and needed it.
“What took you so long?” quipped Jon once a hole opened up in the ongoing conversation, and he had taken a first swig of his beer. “In the movies, the Army has tanks at the scene of the alien landing in about five minutes, followed by men in dark suits and politicians.”
“I’ll have you know one of my best tank commanders was at the landing,” said the general with a bit of a smug smile. “Fished one of the little ponies out of a pond and has been out with the sorting and recovery effort for two hours now. Had the little thing practically land in his arms.” A twinge of pain wiped out the general’s smile. “Captain Rietz tells me the pony hit by the swather is going to be fine. They’ll be medevaced to KU Med along with Missus Apple, for surgery, but it doesn’t sound life-threatening. You did a good job stabilizing her and calling for an ambulance.”
“Army training, sir. I was in 21st TSC, 1st Armored in Germany back in the late 70’s. We… um… had a lot of traffic accidents.”
“Good answer, too. Army’s changed a lot since then. We’ve got all these newfangled gizmos.” He held up what looked like a blackberry with a color screen, only with a cable and a fat external battery. “Didn’t take mine today since I was golfing and my second had things under control. Then I get news that your guests—” he nodded to the ponies at the table, who nodded back “—had landed. Half-hour later, I’m on the way here when I get a call on my unsecured phone requiring me to go back to Ft. Riley to get my SMEPED.” He rattled off the familiar acronym as Smeeped, which made Jon chuckle.
“Let me guess. The battery was flat.”
“As a stone. No place to charge it inside the vault. So I steal a charging cord from one of the tech weenies and a battery pack from their video games, and check my ultra-secure have-to-have-a-SCIF-before-reading message.”
“Let me guess again,” said Jon. “Something on the order of ‘Treat the situation carefully and avoid conflict’ I would presume. Oh, and ‘Take no action without authorization’ is a must.”
“Close, but too long.” General Hackmore cleared his throat. “Paraphrased, it was ‘Await further instructions.’”
Jon chuckled. The governor had a short coughing fit into his fist and turned a little pink. The jade-green unicorn writing on a sheet of paper merely looked up with an expression of bored indifference.
“So, had this been some sort of alien invasion, your world’s guards would be just as ineffective as ours, until whatever princess you have here fights back?”
“No princesses here,” said Hackmore, deflecting the question as expertly as Jon could have expected from a military commander with an armored division of several thousand men including artillery and helicopters just a few minutes away. “Excluding a few D.C. residents with delusions of nobility.”
“Then who raises your sun?” asked the unicorn.
The general started to reply, hesitated, then very carefully repeated, “Raises our sun?”
Grace nodded, although her expression tightened into something approaching caution. “In Equestria, Princess Celestia raises the sun every morning to bring on the day, and Princess Luna raises the moon at night. Seriously,” she added at Hackmore’s blank stare. “Are you telling me that your world’s sun raises itself?”
Ten minutes later after several short YouTube videos had been shown, the dense cluster of ponies around the table all had a look about them as if they had been dropped into a shark tank by accident. To make matters worse, the dragon took that moment to belch, complete with green flames, smoke, and a rolled-up scroll. While Jon took the battery out of the beeping smoke detector, Spike unrolled the missive and began to read.
“Spike. No ‘Dearest’ or anything.” He sighed and continued reading. “Unclassified dimensional beings… Huh, I thought they were shadow monsters. Oh, well, they were beaten. A paragraph on that. Here we go. Received your letter and checked against the attendance list. It appears we have all ponies and griffons accounted for. And your number one assistant,” Spike added. “Anyway, blah, blah, return portal may be delayed, differences in the long and complex blah something about time differences between here and there, and she doesn’t want to goof it up in front of Princess Celestia. She doesn’t really say that, but it’s pretty much a given. And… three days here in your world, it looks like, if she’s guessing the time factor correctly. Cool. Not much time to see the sights, but it’ll have to do.”
“No, by tomorrow, K-77 will be backed up to the Nebraska border,” said General Hackmore. “We’ll have to helicopter everything in and out.”
“Do you think having RCPD put up about ten miles of ‘No Parking’ signs would help?” said Captain Rietz, who had been remarkably quiet until now.
“And fifty tow trucks,” said the general. “Or one Hercules, if it could squash the cars and stack them like pancakes.” He shook his head. “I suppose not. Signs will have to do.”
Samantha Rietz typed with her thumbs on her phone while talking. “I’ll get the signs started going up today, and put a dozen tow trucks from the area on duty. That should take care of most of the rubberneckers.” She started to say something else, but after a quick look at the nervous ponies, held it back.
“Security,” said Grace in her stead. “If the townsponies don’t feel secure, things will get out of control, fast. The pegasi will scatter to the five winds, and what’s left will run around in circles and panic.”
“It’s not that bad,” objected Mayor Mare, only to pause and admit, “Well, yes.”
“It’s bad enough the Army’s moving in. I don’t want to turn your farm into an armed camp, Mister Bruener.” General Hackmore considered his quiet SMEPED, but Jon removed a framed map of the farm from the wall and put it down in the middle of the dining room table before he could say any more.
“You don’t have to bring down the whole division, sir. Just enough to show the flag and keep the civilians back for a few days. I’d take a platoon of M1s and put one here, here… Give me that bowl of candy, please. Okay, the M1s are Lifesavers, M3s are wedding mints, and MPs in Humvees are these red things that nobody likes. There’s only one highway entrance to this area, so park an M1 at the top of the hill on the utility road for intimidation factor, out of sight from the highway so people don’t rubberneck and rear end each other. One at the bottom of the hill by the farmhouse to handle anything that gets by. Duplicate that on the dirt road by the pasture where the RVs are parked, and spot sentry posts on these high points. Make sure to pick vehicles with new paint jobs, because the press is going to be all over, and the least we can do is give the Army some PR.”
Samantha craned her head over the map and got out some pennies. “We’ll probably have to put up a temporary traffic signal at the Randolph main street turnoff, since there are so many ponies in town now. We’ll put traffic control points at the three highway exits that we can swap between MPs and RCPD as needed, and restrict access to residents and invited guests. That should handle traffic in town. Now for your house, we’re going to have to shut off access to the Tuttle Creek off-road vehicle area.”
“No argument here,” said Jon. “Those guys pulling trailers go blasting by the house too fast as is. Do you think we can get that gravel road paved to cut down on the dust?”
“That’s not my area,” said the police officer, “and it would take the Second Coming of Christ to get the highway department’s asphalt machines out here on this short a notice. Anyway, the dirt back road between your farm and the town is going to be a security nightmare, so I’ll cut off vehicle traffic except for emergency vehicles and ponies. Thank God you don’t live on the highway. We can put a RCPD checkpoint at the highway entrance to your farm to chase off unauthorized vehicles and send them down the service road toward town. General, if you can put one of your MP units over here in this draw, you can catch the trespassers who get turned away at the checkpoint and decide to try sneaking in anyway. You bust ‘em, we’ll cuff ‘em.”
“You mentioned helicopters, General Hackmore.” Grace floated several buttons over the map. “Is there any way you can keep them from flying over the farm? Our pegasi may not be familiar with your kind of aerial craft, and may be injured.”
“As governor, I can designate an emergency no-fly zone for endangered species through KDWP,” said Governor Brown. “It may not stop people from flying over, but we can fine them until their ears bleed.”
There was a brief pause, and four people produced cell phones to take a quick picture of the colorful map, the general using both his personal phone and his SMEPED.
After they all spent some time clicking away in silence on their phones and considering the map, Governor Brown checked his phone and said, “Looks like WIBW will be here in less than an hour. Mayor Mare, did you want to restrict the press contact to a pool of just two or three vehicles? Otherwise, you could have a hundred of them out here. One at a time is about all anybody should have to deal with, and WIBW has the satellite equipment to use for any other news agencies. They’ll share if they have to. They’ll whine about it like little children, but they’ll share.”
“One vehicle should be enough, although if you need to bring in one of those satellites for the newspapers, we can park it somewhere, I suppose.” The pony mayor adjusted her white collar and tie, which had gotten a few grass stains and wrinkles on it, but still looked fairly good. “Our news reporters always get so many things wrong. I swear half the morning paper is made up of corrections and the other half made up.”
“Hm…” Governor Brown checked his phone again. “We really should call local radio first since KMAN has a call-in show running right now, but if you’re up to doing a bigger radio interview before WIBW gets here, I may have a way of getting your story out unfiltered before the national news media goes crazy.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.085 seconds
Total duration
1,044 users online
1,873,269 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
You’re on the air.
Bruenor has his head on straight, just the
dwarfman to host half-a-village's worth of ponies for a few days.The first time I read that, I thought we were dealing with transporter-clones. Wouldn't that have made for a right proper FUBAR?
Good stuff, as usual, looking forward to the next part.
"And the MP's are these red things nobody likes."
9567224
9567196
LOL. Turning the MP's into "Redshirts" are we?
WHEEEEE!!!!!!
I can imagine the headlines
"Politicians found to be the multiversal constant."
"Horse puns: the secret to magic."
After a photo of the foals in the church,
"All hail our new fluffy overlords."
"Diabetes - their greatest weapon."
And the one with Derpy getting headpats:
"Seven amazing techniques to fight the pony menace."
Raising and lowering the sun and moon was good, wait till the ponies explain the Elements of Harmony. I wonder if Granny Smith and Apple Bloom will get a protection detail?
I didn't know Americans view their government agency this bad.
Huh I wonder if the show is a thing in this world
You know, I suddenly get this funny idea where Ponies, so used to their 'tame' nature, contract humans out for dealing with their non-tame nature. Because humans specialize in that.
Everfree forest out of control again? Pop open a portal and contract a tree trimming and logging service.
"No," said Spike, "says here there were multiple Sweetie Belles, most have just already left. And apologized for not having enough room for the rest of us."
The typical reaction to learning you're in an Everfree Universe.
"Worse still qualifies as not that bad."
Every time I read "RCPD," I have to remind myself that it's not the Raccoon City police department, and we don't have to worry about zombies attacking the ponies.
In any case, this is going to be one heck of a media blitz. Looking forward to it.
I think you’re ruining the PoE genre for me, Georg. I’m not sure how anyone would follow this act.
it is looking as if George has a hit story running here and O boy it is a good one .
i am loving all the details and the fact that you are not drowning every one in needles details a perfect balance.
9567266
Depends on the state. In Illinois it's not really a question of whether the government's corrupt, it surely is. However, since the city of Chicago effectively votes for the entire state, the machine focuses on the city and the rest of the place runs itself. Seriously, of Illinois' last seven governors, four have ended up going to prison.
9567316
I keep getting RCMP myself for some reason, I can only imagine the cultural issues arising from Mounties interacting with ponies.
The "WIBW" makes my head hurt a little. I know that TV and radio stations west of the Mississippi typically start with "K" and east start with "W." Unless, "WIBW" predates the system and was grandfathered in?
9567357 "Down with the oppression of our equine sisters!"
"Now, Bon Bon. We have to remember--"
"Throw off the bridle of tyranny, be free!"
"I'm sorry, officer. She get like this--"
"I said throw off the bridle of tyranny! You're not throwing it off! Lyra, help me with this blasted thing."
"Bonnie, horses aren't intelligent in this world, and I'm not helping you take off the Mountie's bridle."
9567335 The details are tricky. Trying to show the important ones and skip over the ones people can fill in on their own, which can be hit-or-miss.
9567320 There are quite a few I'll never be able to beat, like Stardust.
9567316 The shortest The Sweetie Chronicles - Fragmest ever.
9567310 "Oh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok...."
9567266 You've obviously never tried to get a local gravel road paved anywhere.
9567386 (We're talking about WIBW AM radio here, by the way.) Yeah, they're a little different, because of grandfathering rules, and I believe it moved from the east coast somewhere. More details here about other naming hiccups.
I've read most all the snippets that you posted before you published this and thought they were pretty good and would make an interesting story.
I started reading the chapters and it is fantasic! Wonderful work, Georg! I can't wait to see how you bring this all toy!
Was the changeling the Ambassador or Kevin?
I bet the red things are those little red cinnamon candies. Gotta be real sadistic to have a bowl of those sitting out. Never liked them and they'll over power anything that they touch if mixed with other candy.
XD That reminds me of Norton the First, emperor of the United States of America and protector of Mexico
9567310
That... is actually a really fun idea.
9567266
It’s partly a cultural thing, and partly that there are still Americans alive who remember a time when dealing with a bureaucratic problem meant that you walked down the street to your local bureaucrat and talked to them about it. Growing up the son of the mayor of a small town (by California standards), which could usually get things done quickly unless we had to bring to a county, State, or federal agency for it. In the time it took to get the needed approvals and actually demolish an old building, and a new apartment building and market in its place, and redo a connecting traffic intersection, I had time to finish college, struggle fininding a job after the recession, move to Seattle, live four different places and change jobs twice, move to Minnesota, buy a house, get married, and get to my first anniversary before that project still wasn’t finished. That’s why Americans often joke/complain about our government agencies being slower than molasses in a New England winter: They are. Unless they’re trying to take stuff away from you. They can move real quick when they’re trying to take stuff away from you, and then mysteriously slow down again when you try to get it back.
Anyway, rant over, but that rant is probably part of why I like this chapter: Because I get to see leaders leading and not getting in each other’s way. It’s glorious.
9567433
Hazard pay's gonna be a bit on the high end though. Y'know. Since the trees/plants can fight back.
This is an important question.
9567386
From Wikipedia:
WIBW-TV is one of the few television stations located west of the Mississippi River that utilizes a call sign that begins with the letter "W". Capper purchased the license to a radio station in Logansport, Indiana in 1927, and added a "W" to the initials of the Indiana station's owner, Indiana Broadcast Works. However, AM 580 signed on before the "W/K" divide for call signs was shifted to the Mississippi River by the FCC. Kansas was located on the eastern side of the original call divide, so it would have been acceptable to have a "W" in Kansas in any event.
9567484
That's what I thought but I didn't have time to read the whole Wikipedia article. Housework needed to be done. :p Thanks for the important bit.
9567471
I would add one more. The pre-timeline split Equestria and the Post timeline split Equestria.
Depending on what variation of time travel that is used each time back produced a new universe including the universe where they went back and saw Sunburst get his Cutie Mark. So the universe they are in after that is another universe then before the timeline was split.
9567310
And then the environmentalists come out of the woodwork screaming about the natural habitat of the parasprite and what not.
“If so, I think twenty-three, although at least I’m not a dog in this world.”
Spike is just so cool. Truely a #1 assistant.
Good to see that Dragon-Mail still works across the divide.
9567266
Well, a lot of us believe that there is no problem so big, no SNAFU so tangled, no situation so screwed up, that the Government can't somehow make things worse.
Adorable sapient alien horses. Can you say "imminent media circus"?
Someones had time to play zombie defence round his place?
Not just time variation you got to watch out for with D jumps. Movement in 4th dimention is electrical charge, thats why neutrinos apparently are so hard to grab, theyre flatlanders. Pure 3D only. Counteracting the charge in ojne direction can immensely amplify it going in the reverse direction, that one model of why time flows one way. It flows in all directions equally, but sums asymetrically.
Then there the imaginary phase vector of your quantum state, which means you can remain matter going one way, and end up antimatter or T/B quarks etc going in reverse, leading to instantaneous decay products etc.
9567196
“That’s a given for some of us...”
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/1/16/536__safe_artist-colon-glitterypencils_pinkie+pie_rainbow+dash_bait_carrot+on+a+stick_cloud_crossed+legs_cupcake_cutie+mark_duo_earth+pony_eyes+closed_.png
So, post season five and a nod to the Equestria Girls films. I wonder if Twilight and Sunset, after all the displaced ponies are returned will have a nerd out over the potential of other earths very different from the one Sunset’s on. I get the feeling Spike will probably make some comments on that at some point.
They're about five minutes away from catching Spike eating the Humvees.
The Methodists will take good care of them, I expect.
Two hours was manageable, but three days is way more complicated. At two hours you might not even need to feed anybody, but that's the least of the problems with a three-day stay.
Decent sounding strategy to manage it, though. Nice to see everyone working on the same page.
9568119
It might not even be a different earth. When going through Starswirl's portal you change form to fit in with the locals. This wasn't Starswirls, it was Twilights emergency teleport that went wrong.
9568321 Twi's still going to blame herself something fierce.
9568289 Three days? Trivia. (Dials a number) "Hello, Dominoes? I've got a fairly large order for delivery..."
9568234 "What?" Spike looked up from the gaping hole in the M1A2 glacis plate, still chewing. "The ceramic plates are good, a little like diamonds with caramel center. I don't know why you thought depleted uranium wouldn't be good for me."
9568119 "Hey, Twilight. Did you know you can put a thousand books on this Kindle? I filled it up with Harlequin romances for Rarity."
9567735 Smart people would limit the press to a very small pool of quite sharing individuals, like they did for the Gulf War. (only fewer)
9567596 No comment. Really, no comment.
9567514 Strange, the environmentalists who go into the Everfree Forest on the 'Help Save the Hydra' camp outs never come back, and nobody complains.
9567484 Heck, I've lived here all my life and never really knew about Arthur Capper. When I grew up on the farm, I used to get the Capper's Weekly, and the Topeka Capitol-Journal, both offshoots of his. Interesting guy.
9568289
How many vegetarian food trucks are in town?
Three words 'army field kitchen '
Wait, no, we are trying to treat the ponies well.
9568453
Equines need plenty of fiber. Just imagine what would happen if one of them ate an MRE.
9568453 The Amazing Carnak holds the envelope to his forehead and announces, "Vegetarian Food Trucks"
He then opens the envelope and reads, "Name three words that never go together in Kansas."
Actually, there is a field kitchen with the rest of the field equipment being deployed. Just remember the first pony dropped in at dawn, and it isn't even noon yet. They'll probably just order out for pizza.
I Wonder if any human diplomats will go to Equestria with the first batch of ponies.
9568882
That urban legend has been debunked many, many times.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bumblebee_argument#Origin
9568983 It was a general notion bandied about in the 19th century, never formally addressed in any papers, since it seemed a rather silly topic.
Once we had a concept of aerodynamics fully established and understood vorticies, it became clear how the bumblebee flew.
9567942
Makes me wonder if pegasi can cloud walk in this dimension.
Army Corps of Engineers (errr.... are those the same thing as combat engineers?*) BETTER be able to work fast once order given, but that might go against the General's "do nothing" orders...not K am interpreting things right?
*If nothing else just tell them to treat it as a series of connected airstrips like were build during island hopping in WWII, but with reduced requirements for straightness, levelness, and load?
Uhh...
What?
Yeah, best brace yourself and try not to lose your sanity.
Always a surprising topic for both sides. Range of reactions go from utter disbelief to scientists believing it to be religious fanaticism.
Wow. A rational plan made in such a short time. Really, this must be witchcraft.
Yeah, you really need accurate information out there, before it gets all muddied up and people start believing the wrong things: that won't do good for public relations, after all.
Now that I re-read this.... will we see anything regarding the griffons and changeling?