Virtually invisible to PaulAsaran
A storm knocks out the power to Luke and Moonlight Zephyr's house. She doesn't realize the implications of it until she tries to make herself a smoothie.
Not having electricity is, for her, a minor inconvenience. Not having her smoothie is a tragedy, and the obvious solution is to fix the wires.
Luke is not on board with this plan. Power lines are dangerous.
She's not convinced, and she can fly.
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Glorious :))
Never underestimate the power flowing from a smoothie.
Natural pony powers used in the natural, instinctive (and super confident) pony way have this endearing stupid genius angle that's just unique.
Posted in
Admiral Biscuit's Fleet (group)
Ponies on Earth (folder)
Supervisor: (rubbing his temples) "So...tell me again...how were the power lines..."fixed?"
Derrick: "Again, Sir...not entirely sure. They were tied off to...to...trees...by ropes!" He looked at his notes. "We...did receive a call from someone in the immediate area reporting the downed lines...and there was a volunteer firefighter who was clearing the debris who said he may have seen a man and a pony--" but he was cut off as his supervisor sat straight up.
Supervisor: "Hang on! A pony?! Was it possibly...one of those ones with the wings?"
Derrick: (shrugging) "He didn't say, Sir." He stared at him. "Is...that ...important?"
The Supervisor just smiled.
Later that day
(knock, knock)
"I'll get it!" Luke opened the door, only to see two electrical workers standing there, with one holding a coil of burned rope.
"Is this yours, Sir?" asked the taller of the two.
Luke looked at the rope, then over his shoulder at Moonlight, (who was sipping on another smoothie), then back to the workers.
"I can explain."
I held my breath each time. Yeah, I know Pegasuses or Pegasi deal with thunderstorms all the time, but electricity be scary even if you know what you're doing. Enjoyed it a lot, though! Always good to see an Admiral Biscuit pony in the human world fic!
It's not the voltage that kills, it's the ampere.
According to google, the most destructive lightning strikes are around 30kA to 300kA. Looking at a 500kV power transmission line, it could carry 1000MW - 1500MW. Using W = VA, we get about 3000A, or 3kA.
This might not kill Moonlight.
But it is very dependent on how much amperes an Equestrian magic lightning produce and how much is negated through magic.
Either way, I would still worry more about others around her that are not magical. Especially when she mounted the power line onto a tree. It is a huge fire hazzard waiting to happen.
The worst part is that now the tree has a lot of built up charges. The moment anything conductive like our bodies comes close to that tree, even powered off, we can still get shocked. That one repairman will have a bad day for the rest of his life. Unless, Moonlight somehow managed to ground the tree properly.
I feel glad my country puts our power underground.
In short, Moonlight is lucky she didn't boast about it to the firefighters. That is definitely a court case in the make.
Could ponies survive in a US prision?
11697185
Perfect epilogue!
Pegasi are quite something, aren't they?
derpicdn.net/img/2019/10/10/2164901/thumb.jpg
[My face during this story]
I was waiting for the shock... which came, and went, and left me thinking "what? How?"
I heard this in the ORC at Everfree and was expecting imminent disaster all the way through. Having a whole bunch of engineers in my family I was pretty sure there would be death and/or serious injury. You kept playing with that tension all the way through. I loved (and hated) it!
"It might be dangerous, but not getting her smoothie would be tragic."
This makes perfect sense. Of course pegasi would be afflicted with plan continuation bias. Not quite as bad as one shared brain cell, but can be just as bad...
I kept expecting the Pony to be a Batpony what with the fruit = smoothie angle. Having read We Don't Go to Sub-Level Five might contribute as a big deal about good smoothies was made by the Batpony main characters.
Also kept expecting it to turn out she was never in any danger (at least from the electricity itself). See below.
11697239
The roots wouldn't ground it?
But the part that got my upvote was that it would be weird if Pegasi DIDN'T have at least SOME degree of lightning-proofing. I agree that the clouds in Equestria minus the Everyfree could be lower power... hadn't really considered that before.
love it a amazing story.
11697239
Now you've got me imagining an Admiral Biscuit–style slice-of-life story about an average day for a pony incarcerated in an Earth prison. What if it were a unicorn? We don't have magic-suppression technology.
Definitely a single braincell pinging around in there. Eesh my heart. n_n
When they got back home to the brownout, I half expected Moonlight to fly up to the stormclouds and buck them, aiming a lightning bolt straight at the lines she had repaired. After all, everything had been spliced back together but the lines had been drained of too much electricity, right?
Also, I personally love the fact that synthetic rope melts. The ability to seal cut ends is pretty marvelous when you’re trying to make the most out of what you have on a backpacking trip.
11697450
Be really funny if said pony casually revealed that they could escape at any time if they really wanted, just like Hancock.
Do not get between a Pony and their smoothie! You never have these break down with archano tech devices, it's the humans fault for not using magic!
Yeah, I was never expecting her to get hurt, since I know how very non-electracutable you write pegasi, but her... roommate? boyfriend? not quite getting it and being in a constant state of "Oh fuck oh fuck, oh fuck...." was hilarious. Though I was a bit worried if her attempt at a patch job would result in something catching fire/exploding. Plus, it worked! She likely caused all kinds of issues when it came time to actually fix said patch job but.. that's a problem for humans who didn't take her need for a smoothie into account! Eventually humans will learn just how damn single minded Ponies can be, it doesn't matter if they need to beat the laws of physics with a barb wired wrapped bat till it begs for mercy, they WILL get what they want!
but, her being all happy and adorable when she finally got that well earned smoothie is just, too adorable and cute and precious to not be worth all that effort!
That said, we can add high powered electrical wiring repair crews to the Earth professionals begging for some pegasi to come over and join the crews. Will make the companies insurance adjusters very happy.
11697161
Thank you!
Ponies gotta get their smoothies, and that's a fact.
The old "she doesn't know it can't be done, because she didn't read the instructions" level of confidence. Which usually is wildly successful or a catastrophic failure.
11697162
Thank you!
11697185
There was actually some discussion of that during the story-writing process. Depending on how electricity-proof ponies are, they'd be a fantastic addition to an electrical company. Even just flying along the lines for inspections could be very valuable, getting up to things without ladders, etc.
I could see a utility company supervisor being torn between wanting to curse her out for her temporary line repair and wanting to offer her a job.
[Dunno if you're read it/seen it, but I wrote a story some years ago about a pegasus couple working as window-washers in New York City.]
11697186
Yeah, it very much can be (and I've seen a professional electrician accidentally short something he shouldn't have) . . . he was fine, he was taking reasonable precautions.
Thank you!
What in the names of Edison and Tesla...
.
...
.
Now I have a query I have to convince the people at the power company to start using.
11697239
I've never run the actual numbers, but Silver Glow mentions that positive lightning can kill them (that's the really powerful stuff that comes from the top of clouds). The lines she's fixing are in the tens of thousands of volts at most, which is probably pony safe. And of course if she's not grounded, she's a lot safer.
I don't know how much of a fire hazard a tree carrying power lines hung on ropes is--most of it depends on if she made sure the wires were far enough apart they couldn't arc, and if the rope she used isn't a good conductor. For the purposes of the story, it's 'safe', but in real life . . . well, don't mess with power lines, they'll kill or mutilate you in ways you never imagined.
Continuing from above, I think that as long as the ropes aren't too conductive, the tree will be safe. Certainly the bottom electrical line she fixed would be; that line that feeds into my house literally runs through a tree and hasn't caused any problems yet.
There are a lot of advantages of underground power lines. It's not undoable in the US, but for a lot of rural infrastructure it's just too expensive to justify. I do know that some newer housing developments put their power underground; in some places that might be a requirement.
Maybe, but this also feels like one of those cases where there isn't really a law that would apply (not unless her 'repair' injured or killed someone).
That's a good question. I could see it going a lot of different ways. Keeping one there might be a challenge; a pegasus could probably make her escape from the exercise yard, and a unicorn's got a lot of options open to her, as well.
11697240
I love pegasi; they've got such a fantastically crazy outlook on life. And they're overconfident but they make it work for them.
11697289
My headcanon is that pegasi are largely immune to electricity up to normal lightning, so she's at least right that the electricity in the lines she's working on won't kill her.
That's something I do know about, having read my brother's aviation magazines, and it's a little something I think about when I'm on a long drive, or a drive in questionable road conditions as we sometimes get in Michigan. Especially around the winter holidays.
11697311
I haven't read that story (although it's been on my RIL for a while). The smoothie desire was a nod to GaPJaxie, who wrote a story for me about a pony on Earth becoming obsessed with smoothies.
She wasn't--not unless she started messing with high-tension power lines.
I know that trees sometimes catch fire when power lines arc on them; I don't know if it's the lines arcing against each other, or the electricity going through the tree, or a combination of both. I don't know how good a conductor trees are--regardless, it's wise to not touch a tree (or anything else) that's touching a downed power line.
My own thought is that pegasi are largely lightning-proof, but as far as I know there's no definitive canon on that, or whether or not Equestrian lightning is the same as Earth lightning.
That having been said, when they're in the air they might not often be targets, since they're not grounded and would have a similar electrical potential to the air around them. Even so, airplanes and helicopters do get hit by lightning every now and then, so it's not a guarantee that they wouldn't get hit.
I just looked it up, and birds in flight do sometimes get hit by lightning.
11697333
Thank you!
11697450
I feel like a unicorn would be in an Earth prison for exactly how long she wanted to be. Certainly a more powerful unicorn couldn't be kept (like Twilight, Starlight). A pegasus would give them trouble, too; the first time she's allowed in the exercise yard, she's gone.
Depending on the earth pony, it could also be a challenge. Strong stone walls wouldn't be an issue for a pony like Maud, and the mind boggles imagining what Pinkie Pie would do.
11697496
11697509
That would have given her a result, but probably not her smoothie. It's a good thing she got the line fixed the right way before she resorted to that.
There are advantages of it for certain uses, like melting off the end so it doesn't fray, a trick I've also often used. And a lot of synthetic ropes have really good load capacities for their size, far more than the natural ropes that they replaced.
11697524
I would assume that for unicorns especially, that would be the case. Pegasi would be hard to keep in some prisons, especially if they have to give them outside exercise time.
Earth ponies might find it a challenge, but then you've got ponies like Maud and Pinkie Pie to consider.
11697607
"My blender back home runs on a magic crystal, it doesn't need any electricity from the wall to make it go."
Luke's a roommate, and he's probably got a lot more grey hairs now than he did before she decided to fix the power lines.
There was a part in Quantum Castaways where Twilight said that ponies went to war over cake (I think, I haven't read it in years). So yeah, don't get between a pony and her treat, dammit.
Funny you should mention catching fire/exploding; in another story I'm working on with a pegasus, she's building a lightning catcher, and a couple of people stop by and ask her what it is, and if it's safe.
"As safe as anything meant to be hit by lightning . . . it explodes a lot."
That's always the payoff in the end, isn't it? Happy pony with a smoothie, what more could you want?
Oh yeah, totally. Although I do feel that the power companies would want some really good tests in controlled conditions to find out how much electricity pegasi can deal with before they tell their insurance underwriter that they've hired a pegasi as a linemare and she can work without a bucket truck or any protective equipment.
Especially if she's twisting the wires together with her mouth.
I love the genre you've been forging for the past couple years with Ponies on Earth. This story was a great read. Keep 'em coming!
11697617
You totally do! I like that, that's a good one
11697664
Thank you! It's a fun space to write in, and a lot of people seem to enjoy the stories, so I'll keep 'em coming
this was such a fun read, watching ponies do human problems is always such a fun conundrum and you do It really well!!!!
11697708
Thank you!
11697622
With high voltages, there can be capacitive coupling across an insulator.
Aka, the current might not conduct directly across the insulator, but the build up of charges on the live side will produce a force that drags around the natural charges present in the grounded side and create localized charged zones.
As an engineer: Oh no.
Oh no.
CEASE.
(Also, apparently Pegasi are not just electricity-resistant, but UV-resistant... which kind of makes sense, actually. All that time spent up at high altitude.)
Okay, she's actually got some sense-
CEASE YOU SILLY HORSE!
(God damn he's lucky his house is only receiving single phase. I don't want to think about what Moonlight would get up to with three-phase...)
Yes! Yes it matters!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is, as some others have said, something remarkably endearing to your ponies "That can't stop me, because I can't read!" mindset. I get the feeling that living with Moonlight (or any other Biscuit pony) is a roller-coaster from endearing calm - sleeping with her head tucked beneath her wing, d'awwww - to heart-attack panic.
This story is the kind of thing that would give some people I've worked with conniptions, yet Moonlight does it so endearingly and competently it's hard to be angry with her. Still, she's a very, very lucky pony... that she's didn't set anything else on fire!
Living with a pony must be akin to living with a beautiful wife/girlfriend who is always doing bone-headed things, but you can't stay mad at her because she's just TOO adorable!
Yeah, I spent most of that story silently screaming for much the same reason Luke was.
11697625
Pegasi are definitely the nuttiest of the pony tribes.
From throwing children off cliff faces to say "I love you" (because I trust you and know you'll be safe), to amassing colourful stones (like darn birds) in a high rise convention centre as a courting ritual, they are fun and quirky.
Yes, those two examples were both from fics around here. If fact you may have written the second.
EDIT:
I found those fics. Yes, you did write the second one
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/520881/id-throw-her-off-a-cliff-no-problem
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/476378/convention-hotel
She's lucky Luke wasn't around to see that. He probably would've gotten a heart attack.
It's like a Kirin sticking their hoof into boiling oil to see if the temperature's right for making fries.
Seriously, though. Power lines are no joke. They can boil trees inside-out:
I was never taught that; I do it anyway and I see everyone else doing it, so I figured it was common sense.
Also, he is really underestimating ponies' resistance to electricity, especially pegasi. A baby can shrug off a lightning strike.
11697614
I have indeed, and it's one of my Favorites!
I love all your Slice-of-Life stories, but there's just something about your pegasi ones that are even more special! All of them seem to reflect those "Rainbow Dash" traits of "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" and "why waste time thinking when you could be doing?!" I've had friends like this in real life, and while they were always a handful, the rest of us ultimately didn't mind getting them out of the messes they got themselves in because we knew they weren't trying to be a problem, they were just...impulsive. Of course, that didn't rule out a smack upside the head a few times, but it was done out of love, not malice.
Hmm. I wonder if there's a story in there somewhere...?
11698958
I don't know where you're from, so maybe that makes a difference. Here in the UK, the rule for non-working traffic lights is Highway Code Rule 176. The relevant part says: "If the traffic lights are not working, treat the situation as you would an unmarked junction and proceed with great care." In the absence of an actual Stop sign, it is not legally required to stop at an unmarked junction. That said, in a case like this it would be a very good idea to do so. (Again, this is for the UK. Other places will differ.)
11699687
I live in the US.
I feel like this story is based in Michigan and it's a poor Consumer's Energy lineman that will have to deal with this.
Granted, pegasi are resistant to electricity, but everything has its limits. ¡Moonlight Zephyr is lucky to be alive! At work, we say that safety is no accident. On submarines, one says that one never gets a 1st chance to make a mistake. I recommend staying away from Moonlight Zephyr:
¡Idiots not just kill themselves, but are very efficient at taking innocent bystanders with them!
11697836
Electricity is like magic. I know some stuff about it and some cutting-edge ways it's applied (like automakers using the inductive kick of collapsing coil fields to boost the next coil in line), but at the same time I have no idea how any of it actually works.
11698072
As an engineer: you're about to have a Bad Time.
To a degree, yeah. Short arc flashes aren't likely to produce any long-term damage I hope; if she knows her stuff she knew to close her eyes before pushing that contactor in, or maybe her pegasus third eyelid has UV resistance. [headcanon!]
I once convinced a newbie at the shop you could test a fuse for goodness by licking it. That might not be true, but I can tell suspect ignition coils by sniffing them. NOT WHILE THE ENGINE IS RUNNING, though.
Only if you don't want the next guy working on the electricity to have a Bad Time.
Yes, that's very much the vibe I go for, especially with pegasi who I think display that trait more than any of the other tribes. I won't go so far as to say that unicorns are level-headed, but they at least have some logic behind their actions. Earth ponies are generally practical ponies and think things through before committing . . . but I think with all of them, human logic and pony logic are far removed.
11698093
?' and 'why would you do that?' moments. Especially with pegasi.
I think you've hit the nail right on the head. You can't stay mad, but at the same time, there's a lot of 'what the
11698576
My headcanon is that pegasi are largely resistant to electricity, and in fact in one never-published story, a pegasus working search and rescue with the Coast Guard gets herself blown off a power pole when she accidentally grounds herself on a 30kV line. The humans are understandably panicking, while the rest of the pegasi are just like, 'pfft, 30kV, she can just walk it off.'
Doesn't make it any easier to be a human watching it, though.