Running across Equestria, a vast network of pipes transfers soup from the mines out West to hungry ponies on the East Coast. Few ponies sitting down to a bowl of fresh cazuela ever think about the soup pipeline.
For Langy, it’s her job. It’s her life.
The soup must flow.
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Delightfully surreal, arrestingly realist, and all over a great read. Soup must flow!
Noodle soups must play havoc on pump wear. And I’ll bet a cry of dismay runs the full length of the line when the call is made for the cream of pumpkin shipment.
I’m just imagining the damage croutons must do to the valves...
I’ll raise my chunky mushroom to them in a toast.
Good gravy, never thought I'd find myself invested in the world of soup.
This is a great read; your research shines straight through, you have all your morsel-sized details in the right places, and the structure of the plot is purely addictive. Obviously there's only one conclusion I can come to: the soup must flow!
Both supervisors are named for seafood soups.
... and The Roads Must Roll...
Amusingly Prachettian, and surprisingly reminded me more than a little of my own job. Well done.
Biscuit did you read/play/watch Dune again?
Well that was interesting. I wonder what they would think of New England Clam Chowder? It would probably drive them nuts.
I can’t help but imagine how this might have unfolded differently if Estee was the author. So many little things that could go wrong, especially the valve twins.
Don't you knock my delicious gray-green ooze.
This was incredibly tense. Just imagine a disaster at the soup pumps. The horror. The scalding, many-flavored horror...
Thank you for a surreal but greatly enjoyable industrial thriller. Though I do have to wonder what the soup mines are like. Relics of Discord's unrule, no doubt, full of steam pockets and noodly appendages...
10067962
Do you think the French onion comes with cheese already in it? That can't be good for the system.
10068128
He who controls the soup controls Equestria!
10068162
It would all be some conspiracy by the earth ponies to keep racist unicorns from getting their soup and it would all turn out to really be the CMCs fault.
The product of the treacle wells, on the other hand, has to be shipped by train.
What happens if the miners hit a vein of stew instead of soup?
Reminds me of a Gumby & Pokey story that involved Toy Mines. What fun.
I see that cropped cover image
My inner engineer is smiling but my inner chef is frowning.
The spice soup must flow.
*reads title*
What? No, seriously! What?
*sees author*
Oh, everything makes sense. Situation normal, move along.
The soup mines.
The soup mines.
Author, you're going to a special place after you die.
10068306
Same, lol
Reminds me of another sci-fi story: The Roads Must Roll.
That was surreal and I think there were innuendos in there. Fun read.
Also, if you want to take that metal pipe (or can) flavor out of your tomato soup, add a teaspoon of sweet pickle relish.
Analysis suggests ever increasing probability of a Class 5 excursion. Primary lift stack blockage followed by Ram Jam Pogo.
Temporary solution.
Soup Dragon and the Clangers trouble shooting insertion team.
Overall solution.
Find out who is creaming the proffits.
An intresting application of technology in this case is a full scale model of all the valves, pipework, tanks etc. A liquid based analog computer. The Glooper
Im just extremely glad that food products, at last check, cant undergo the horror stories that went round the Polymer labs from mistakes and faults over the years. 30 years later and still get PTSD from when someone trying to cost cut and reach targets turned the pressure up just that fraction too high.
What.
When I saw the title I had to click it just to see what the hay parody of Dune this would be, and I must say I wasn't disapointed, not in the least.
You managed to create a great story despite the absurd premisse.
Great work, I'm impressed.
The soup must flow.
10068490
Unless it's ROAD ROLLER DA!
This is not how I expected the story to go at all. I am not disappointed, though.
Reminds me of the Golgafrinchan soap mines.
My family has a lot of folks who depend on pipelines to deliver.
Somehow, Discordian soup deposits feeding Equestrian industry just feels comfy because of that.
My two favorite subjects rolled into one fic: Dali-esque surrealism and Dune references.
I unintentionally learned something about both soup and pipeline operations.
To say I didn’t enjoy this would be a lie, but... The f*ck is it?
How much time did you spend researching pumps, soup, and pipelines for this fic?
However long it was, it was time well spent.
10068145
I have been requested to relay this message from someone without an account.
"Ah, t'chowder. Plays merry hob wit' yer Mark Eights, a chowder. I remember ol' Oates-Face used to make 'em scrub the flilters fore and aft if there was just a whiff of chowder on the line, and we'd double t'coal cos it's the very devil to pump. Aye, the very devil."
"She'd throw a rod if you were unlucky. Aye, twelve tonnes o'sparkles and rainbows comin' at yer forelimbs, and behind it a thousand gallons of hot fish soup. Many's the poor soul who went down when t'chowder made Big Aggie throw a rod."
"That'd put hair on yer fetlocks."
10068713
I read that in a mix of a Scottish and Irish accent.
10068510
I remember an old Popular Science article I read years ago on the possibility of a hydraulic (water) computer. It would have been built using layers of thin plates with various openings and grooves instead of wires.
I think that means it would be the original 'wetware'.
10068895
Because I did the Polymer course at university, Ive been waiting for thiese guys for literally decades.
Sweat Bots
This is also intresting for bot power.
Power Blood Soft Bot.
10067954
Thank you!
The soup must flow.
10067962
Yeah, they’d get caught in the rings. Probably have to get inside the pumping chamber and clean it out by hoof after each shipment.
Especially if it’s cold. Those flow rates would really cause problems, like pumping custard.
You ain’t kidding. And it wouldn’t take too many to stick a valve open that’s supposed to be closed. . . .
10067986
You’re welcome!
Thank you, I really appreciate that!
The soup must flow.
10068030
Well, as we all know, giant crabs are the enemy of some ponies, and they say keep your friends close and eat your enemies.
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10068092
Haven’t read that one in decades.
Ooh, that’s a callback to a less-familiar sci-fi story.
10068093
I’m imagining you running the gravy pipeline. “It’s like soup, but it’s different.”
Thank you!
10068128
Surprisingly, no. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen the movie or read the book. I just got inspired by a soup-related conversation on Discord a while back, and here we are.
10068145
Like, the proper white stuff, or the red abomination?
Either way, I figure it’d be another thick soup that would give Langy grey hairs.
10068162
I give Estee my blessing to write a sequel or a different fic in the soupverse.
10068170
You’d change your mind about it if you had to run it through a pipe.
“The disaster at Canterlot Pumping Station Six was horrible, colorful, and delicious.” Depending on the size of their storage tanks, it could be worse than the Boston molasses flood.
You’re welcome!
I figure inside the mines, at least, it’s like a combination of hard rock mining and drilling for oil. Like, once they’ve hit a seam, it’s hooves and tails everywhere until they’ve got a pipe jammed into the flow.
Now you got me wondering what they do with the inferior soups? Sell them for export? Donate them to orphanages? Free lunches for the soup miners?
No, you gotta add the cheese later.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2019/1/28/1947254.jpeg
10068199
I hope Estee reads these comments. Because that would be amazing.
10068249
Oh, yeah, totally. I bet they tried to put it in pipes, and some poor pony had to chip out a hundred yards of thickened treacle.
Even at that, getting it back out of the railcars is a challenge. Maybe there’s a spell for that.
10068270
That goes through a different pipeline network, to the rough-and-tumble logging ponies.
10068296
I am unfamiliar with that. Never watched Gumby as a kid.