It's almost unheard of for a mission to wrap up that quickly, and nopony's scheduled to retrieve them for three days. Which means Twilight and Applejack can use just that time in the griffon nation to -- play tourist! Check out some of the local attractions! And just spend a few uninterrupted non-crisis days together, because that hardly ever happens. So before they decide what to do first, they should clearly consult the local weather schedule --
-- forecast?
What's a...
...surely they'll be able to adjust. Or at least be capable of telling the police why they couldn't.
(Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.)
Chapters (1)
That should be the new tagline, now that the reality is one doesn't work.
Ye gods, Creative Celestia is the best Celestia.
Now this? Is pretty funny. It's almost cathartic to see the Equestrians get the piss taken out of them a bit, when they are actually heroic and good as we know, but they are certainly silly in many ways. That's fun. Good contrast.
...Wow. This was an incredible sequence. What a story! Quite funny and entertaining. Those wacky Equestrians! With their micromanaged weather!
Thanks for this one, Estee. It was fun to see the Griffons through their own eyes in their own country, though I can't forgive them for their decimal comma crimes. I don't even know what the number he wrote was supposed to be, 99 or .99? I was 100% in Twi and AJ's shoes in that moment, and it sucked, cause I was having fun ripping on them before that. Taught me a little empathy!
Weather always does seem to start when you've stopped looking for it...
Ya know. I think the princesses have tried to create a nation with as close to perfect predictability as they could in response to growing up in the discordian era. But I think that environment has had a few unintended consequences. Namely citizens who don;e deal with change or the unfamiliar well...
Celestia is like Dr. Doom in that she will create entirely new forms of punishment from scratch just to make a point.
Last NFL game cancelled for weather:
Nov 17, 1935 Boston Redskins vs Philadelphia Eagles
Downloaded to
The Triptych Continuum Rebooted
Year 4 folder
Now will Rainbow being creative backfire? While Celestia was worried about the managed weather bleeding over into the new zones what to prevent the new wild weather from bleeding into the control zones I'd think they would be some bleed in both direction
Of course the way percentages work in weather forecasts, at least as I understand it, 15% could mean a 15% chance of rain over 100% of the forecast area... Or a 100% chance of rain over 15% of the forecast area. And the person reading the forecast has no real way of knowing which it is. Or exactly where the bounds of the forecast area are exactly for that matter.
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YouTube channels SciShow and MinuteEarth to the rescue.
I think this is my favourite part.
It just perfectly captures the moment when the catalyst was added to the unstable concoction of Twilight's fraying sanity, as well as encapsulating the story's message that not everyone's culture would or should accommodate your preferences.
It's nice to see a portrayal of non-Equestrian nations as fully functional civilisations on their own terms, rather than cultural backwaters just waiting for ponies to spread friendship to them.
You just know that Rainbow isn't going to be the only member of the Weather Team to be involved in this. Because getting a Palace version of a Blank Check to 'get creative with the weather' is not an opportunity one passes up.
IMO, relations with the Griffons is complicated
On the one hand, ponies eat plants. They can eat some meat, but they've got to eat far more vegetation than griffins + a lot of them can't fly.
Vegetarian + flightless = weak = despised.
On the other hand they've (likely) won every war they've ever fought with everyone = strong = respected. They've certainly got the princesses & control the sun & moon + unicorn magic. They are almost as dangerous as the largest dragons & that means respect.
So, crazy but powerful = confusing to Griffins.
Nature vs Nurture
On The Highway of Life
Crazy People Have The Right of Way
Good titles for a story set in Gryffindor.
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Science Made Stupid:
How to Discomprehend the World Around Us (Weller)
Won the Hugo in 1986 (Best Nonfiction Book category).
Had an essay on determining how probable the rain that fell actually was.
Culture Shock. It's what every tourist undergoes to some degree whenever they visit another country, but it's different for every individual.
Seeing both Twilight and Applejack go through it to this degree was absolutely hilarious, though I would offer the argument against classifying the former as "one of the sensible ones."
I absolutely love this.
Its refreshing to see the mane six as 'villainous' (stretching but technically correct) protagonists. Especially being portrayed as boorish tourists. Yes the Griffons are a tad patronising, but as they see it Equestrians are control freaks liable to snap if everything isnt "just so".
I adore the Protoceran world building as well, especially the Hunt sport.
I think given this chance that Rainbow is going to be creative. Very, very creative.
Applejack and Twilight deserved that punishment, though, I still wish they went to prison.
I like this one :)
btw
voice
The words that I can hear, floating in the air between every scene break:
Glorious to see the view of insane ponies from the outside for a change. Twilight, Applejack, this is what privilege looks like.
What I love about this one was the reason they snapped… these are the absolute two worst ponies to have nothing with which to occupy themselves. Applejack overworks herself and Twilight organizes every moment. They are indeed the two most sensible bearers when things need done, but it’s easy to see the wheels coming off when they have the urge to fix something and there’s nothing to fix.
And I do sympathize with them when it comes to sports. I doubt there’s a single sport in existence where a new observer couldn’t quickly identify a better way of doing some aspect of it, and the only answer for why it isn’t done that way is usually “tradition”.
Loved the weary and condescending griffons having some sympathy for their guests’ madness throughout. Good stuff!
Hmm. Is Twilight getting the hang of pegasus vision, or are there universally visible indicators of some kind? (Possibly the latter. I imagine the officer would recognize that horn and wings make for a notable combination.)
One of several advantages over the crystal coffee table: Celestia can explain her reasoning in a way ponies can actually understand before the fact.
Welp, they're doomed, in case the framing device didn't make that clear enough.
Ah yes, Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps the only mare of her generation who actually cares about history. (see Harmony, Elements of; Moon, Mare in the.)
I can't help but think of Discord's game in the hedge maze. Of course, there one team was shamelessly cheating.
I do like the helpful pegasus-shaped griffon. Very useful explanations, even if she's asking the tourists to deal with what they see as utter madness.
In any case, lovely bit of silliness. Thank you for it.
wow if this is how they react to normal weather pony kind would not have lasted long if cosy glow had successful got rid of magic
To say something new... Loving all the little nods!
I am surprised this hasn’t come up sooner. You would think that they would have experienced something like this far sooner. They just found out about how things are supposed to work naturally and it made it funny.
I can't remember the story, or the exact phrasing, but in that story, Celestia said to her enemies something along the lines of, "I have been called many things, but the title I bear most proudly is Teacher." Education ensued.
(Edit: 99.98% sure it was Arad's Stardust or Mente Materia, but I don't feel like searching for the exact chapter)
Celestia is often depicted as a chessmaster, or great strategist, or just someone you don't want to cross when she lets her mane down.
Estee's Celestia is all of those, and has a delightful appreciation for comeuppance due, besides.
I'd hate to see their reaction if a tornado had spun up
The title made me think of JoJo
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Fun fact: A guy decided one way to compare the accuracy of forecast percentages of the National Weather Service, The Weather Channel, and his local TV news station. The NWS was right on target- 20% of the days where they forecasted a 20% chance of rain actually had rain. The Weather Channel was almost as accurate but fudged a little bit on percentages to cover for days when freak weather might happen. The local TV news station, in contrast, was completely awful and seemed to issue hyped up forecasts that weren't very accurate to boost ratings.
Source: https://randalolson.com/2014/06/21/accuracy-of-three-major-weather-forecasting-services/
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Blame Discord. It has been stated his reign of madness was responsible of exacerbating ponykind's herd instincts, as a coping mechanism.
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You think creative Rainbow can be bad? Just wait until Rarity finds out. She remembers a lot of weather magic from the Cutie Mark switch incident, as Cadence can attest.
Did you know there exist MILITARY forecast meteorologists? Which are, like, court martialled if they are mistaken jn any significant way?
The caveat they have guaranteed forecast for like 4 hours, tops.
Ah, getting angry at the weather and dealing with it. Now THAT'S a true sport.
Good story again Estee.
100%
...Look, I'm just spittin' facts, here.
What amuses me here is that both sides are being a bit prejudiced about it, but both of them also have fair points that you can't exactly just dismiss either (though obviously, for a number of reasons, the griffons have the stronger argument here), so you kinda got a back-and-forth to it that--completely unhelpfully as it does nothing to really help resolve the real problem--cancels each other out. So they can ultimately preach their sides of the matter as much as they want, but ultimately, they aren't going to be making any progress that way, because both sides are too convinced their respective way of looking at it is the right one.
Which, of course, is precisely what makes this dumpster fire so much more hilariously amusing.
The fact she has to force it out now is very telling.
On that note though, this "Stalk" sport is very interesting, and you've clearly thought out a fair bit of the logistics of how it'd need to work and still be fair. I can almost see it working as a real-life sport, in fact...with maybe one or two tweaks for added safety.
It would be something along her speed, wouldn't it?
That's...not helping your case in the slightest, Twi.
Oh! So Griffonant is basically Latin, then? Huh, dunno why I didn't catch onto that sooner...but then there hasn't been exactly that many instances of it given in-story, so...
Mwahahaha, can't say the two of them didn't deserve it. On one side, I can kinda understand Twi and AJ's frustration over the matter, but ah...they definitely made Mount Everest out of that molehill, to the point that they failed to look the matter from any perspective but their own, so...my sympathies don't go especially far here.
So by all means, have fun with it, Rainbow.
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Per Triptych, she remembers indistinctly.
Has been jailed at least 2 times
Hoofballistic (assault) & Resisdent Weevil (breaking & entering + arson). Twilight has helped her on several occasions.
No, PINKIE is the practical joker & troll.
Advanced Darkness.
For when Princesses go MAD.
Finally remembered one forcast from last year. One particular day there was 5 consecutively hourly predictions, each with a 20% chance of thunderstorms. Once my sight had recovered from the flash of light coming through the plastic phone casing, through the curtain, reflecting off the back of the monitor, then the wall, and the simultaneous explosion of thunder, I dropped the computer and associated network as quickly as possible because Im paranoid and like to safe the gear on the first hint of a thunderstorm coming over.
What the met office meant, was that thre was an unbroken line of thunderstorms coming over sometime during the day, so it was a 100% chance, somewhere in that 5 hour window.
They might run the simulation 51 times and take the average, but they dont give you the spread. Theres one particular statistical system where the more you sample, the worse your errors get.
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Of course this and some of the other forecast details/stories others have posted does demonstrate that the science of meteorology just isn't a super exact one by nature. Even when you have the best teams working on it to get the most accurate of predictions possible, sometimes the weather's going to do something completely different that no one could've expected anyway.
An example that happened when I was in middle school, where ALL of the regional weather teams were in agreement that a major winter storm was rolling in to our area, and we were not only going to get hit, we would get hit HARD, in a sort of "winter storm of the decade" kind of scenario. And I cannot stress this enough--everyone was predicting this, no exceptions, no variations, no outliers. According to all the data, by all accounts, it was a definite certainty. The confidence of it hitting was so high that everybody took steps to prep for getting snowed in, towns stocking up on supplies and making emergency preparations to combat the snowfall as best as they could, even the schools let students out early the Friday before it was set to hit, so to ensure all of the students would have ample time to get safely back in their homes before the storm struck, and made preparatory plans for possibly cancelling school the following Monday if everyone was still snowed in after this storm struck. By the time the storm was set to hit, everybody had prepared for the worst.
The storm instead blew right over us, barely even dusting us with snow, went further south into the next state over, and hit THEM hard instead, catching all of the meteorologists completely by surprise, because according to their data, that shouldn't have happened and there was no reason to have expected it to.
Another example was when a rainstorm that was predicted to just idly roll through the area as normal instead parked itself directly over my hometown and must've dumped its entire payload of rain directly on us, not just giving us well above record rainfalls for our area, but also caused some flash flooding, something none of us locals had ever seen happen in our area before. The meteorologists later couldn't explain how and why it happened and were caught just as off guard by it as all the rest of us.
So I guess the moral of my story here is to give your weather teams at least some slack, because weather's a fickle mistress that will sometimes do the opposite of what you'd think it would out of seeming spite.
You know, reading all this delightful head-canon about Protoceran culture and their nonplussed attitude towards “wild weather”, it makes me wonder how an Equestrian born and bred Gryphon would react to life in Protocera.
That may make an interesting story... and give this ‘verse another good side character, akin to Ratchette... hmm....
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Now that's just not true. "Cheating" implies there are rules to break or bend, but rules are boring. Therefore, there was no cheating, and nothing to be ashamed of.
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Chapter2, Sunset. (could have only been chapter 1 or 2 because of what happened during/after the education)
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She may be a bit prejudiced against griffon scientists after that one astronomy professor who attempted to persuade Luna that Moon doesn't exist.
You know, of all ponies, I would have expected Twilight to understand how science communication works. I sure hope Equestria never has to contend with global warming or a non-Windigo-induced ice age; if this story is any indication, their climate scientists would either be exiled or tarred and feathered by the first IPCC report.
And this is why the Crusaders were able to do what they did for so long: nopony notices crazy when everypony's crazy.
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The region I used to live, was a 45 square mile county which was nicknamed The Valley. Its hills hold one of, if not still the highest main road in the UK The weather there was regularly totally different to the surrounding counties due to the geology and geography. Being a south facing valley mouth, sotherly winds would lift and speed up as they came up the line. You could have constant cloud cover over the area, and the lifting wind would push it apart. Mostly though it would be sunny in the overall area, and the lifting wind would cool, form clouds, and rain.
Lots of rain.
Turns out the one year measurement of 50 inches they were happy with to build reservoirs there a hundred years ago, was a below average year. This year is looking to beat even the dryest year Ive seen measured in the last 20. But, hurricane season is approaching and the leftovers can do all sorts of nasty things to the UK. Even The Valley notices when it gets 150mm of rain in a day. These records of nightmare rainfalls from elsewhere would be devastating.
I can imagine what "something" in italics is implying.
MENU:
Large Steak
Small Steak
Expensive Steak
Porkchop
Sides:
Chicken Drumstick
Garden Salad
This is subtly BRUTAL. She's calling Equestrians children and I'm pretty sure she's implying that they are of the immature/spoiled don't know how to act properly in larger society variety.
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Twilight and Applejack: "What's on the menu for ponies?"
Griffon waitress: "Well, we got eggs and Spam; Spam, eggs, sausage, and Spam; Spam, baked beans, and Spam; Spam, Spam, Spam, mushrooms, and Spam; or Lobster Thermidor au Crevettes with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and Spam."
Twilight: "Don't you serve anything without Spam?"
Waitress: "I suppose I could make you a daisy, Spam, and daffodil sandwich? That's not got much Spam in it."
Twilight and Applejack together: "WE DON'T LIKE SPAM!!"
(Behind them, the other customers start tapping their plates and singing, "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, lovely SPAAAAAMM!")
Applejack: "QUIET!!"
An hour later
Twilight: "That could have been worse."
Applejack: (burrrp!) Let's never speak of this again..."
"Most Equestrian didn't deal well with that"
"Most Equestrians didn't deal well with that"?
"maybe I should just start carrying copies for some of the Canterlot"
"maybe I should just start carrying copies of some of the Canterlot"?
"A children's activity room was located in the hotel. Twilight found a boardgame which had instructions in Equestrian. It turned out to be about diplomacy and once they'd each played it for about an hour, it mostly became about trying not to kill each other."
...In Protocera, Diplomacy is considered a children's game? :D
...Hm. Though maybe it's not Diplomacy; I'm not sure how they could really get going at the backstabbing there with only two players.
"you finally reached the top for one of the tallest buildings"
"you finally reached the top of one of the tallest buildings"?
"by several minor enchantments: additional effects meant"
"by several minor enchantments; additional effects meant"?
"And portions of the dome had been ground to produce a telescope effect, while others magnified and a few channeled sunlight to where it was most needed"
What's the difference between the telescope effect and the magnification here? For an alternate interpretation, what's the difference between magnifying and channeling sunlight, at least assuming additional energy isn't being added?Ah, I think I see, from later text: the magnifying sections magnify what's nearby, with what's far away out of focus?
"and it wound on the sixth page of The List"
"and it wound up on the sixth page of The List"?
"as the mares finally dipped their heads in what almost could been shame"
"as the mares finally dipped their heads in what almost could have been shame"?
Thanks for writing, Estee! :)
You know, part of the reason meteorology is so inexact is because there's no way to control all the variables or repeat exact situations with minor changes. You'd think that would be less of an issue when there is a whole nation that would love to lend some pegasi to help with the experiments.
11372516 You've placed the grasping member firmly upon the exact reason why unicorns are viewed with muted terror among the physics departments of other races.
"You don't understand," said Professor Mutnik to the young unicorn who had by some terrible mistake of the registrar's office been enrolled in his class. She was a child, no more than twelve or so, and most of his students were working on their thesis topics. He had been willing to humor the dean's office for a few weeks, but once the first exam had been graded, it was obvious she did not belong.
"No you don't," said Decimal, who lit up her horn and spread several sheets of her exam answers across his desk. "Here, you marked me down for answering sigma cubed times i when that is the obvious answer. I mean otherwise you have to integrate across several series when all you have to do is change the value of e to 2.6 here--"
"Wait," said Mutnik weakly as Decimal's quill danced across the page. "You can't do--"
"Which means adding a spinwise twist to pi over here to make it 3.56i over theta," she added with her horn glowing brighter.
"Those are constants," stammered Mutnik. "Constants!"
"They stay constant for the first half of the equation," said Decimal, now furiously scribing away as the numbers began to glow on the page and change before his horrified eyes. "You have to flip pi back to 4 here or you get an unresolvable phasic rift and once a parallel dimension starts leaking out over the page, you might as well start over..."
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Does weather take into account the Root Temperature variance of speed of sound? that is, the velocity of the speed of propagation varies as the square root of the energy density? Which is weird given how closly otherwise light behaves just like sound.
Then theres the whole gravity looks like the result of increased fractal folding in fourth spacial dimention, which changes all your rulers?
How many computer programming languages use the exact same definition, value, and symbology for otherwise claimed constants, such as Pi?
I loved this. Collo was the perfect straight-Griffon for the situation. The touch with the closet was nice, too; between the two of them, it was easy to get a sense of the scale of the issue, how many ponies had lost their minds at some facet of the Griffon lifestyle. The receptionist at the hotel was probably my favorite little detail, though - they didn’t want to say the word “forecast,” quite possibly because they understood what might happen once it was said. This specific meltdown has happened before, and it will quite likely happen again, unless either Equestria or Protocera makes an enormous change to the labor surrounding weather - which, of course, they won’t. Why would they?
Overall, great culture shock. Loved the characterization, too!