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From the album: MLP OCs
TBA. -
Hello again everypony! I am dropping by here to talk about one of my favorite subjects "how do I get out of a tricky situation or plot without doing things the RP staff will shake their collective heads sadly at", and offer helpful suggestions. Now, it is tempting (and natural) to be rational and tackle problems or challenges in RP the most efficient way possible, but sometimes that not only skirts on the edges of being a little too much for the tone of the WoE forum, but solves the problems too easily and might make for a less-rich RP experience. This is Equestria, after all, a land of whimsy and colourful ponies who can break the laws of physics and common sense. So, if you you need to ask someone if something might be considered a little too advanced or overly powerful to be allowed in in the World Of Equestria Slice of Life forum, the best solution is to just change your approach and do something goofy. A few examples (more to be added) Getting Characters who can not fly naturally to be up in the clouds. After all, one of the greatest visual gags ever is a Rube Goldberg device! So have fun, and remember that the most entertaining way from point A to Point B is definitely not a straight line. When in doubt, a silly means to an end is probably going to be more acceptable and true to the show than a magically powerful or technologically advanced one, especially if you keep it as a one-time event in your RPs.
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- plot devices
- magic
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Wingnut looked along the length of the dock, and saw what it contained to be good. While the air-ship dock, like it's bretheren in the lower reaches of Cloudsdale, was made of carefully sculpted cumulus, the unicorn didn't experience a sudden sinking feeling due to the cloud hoof shoes she wore, one of her earlier inventions. At the time finding a cheaper and more effective way to vest the spell permanently in an object had seemed the height of her ambitions, but now she had far greater plans. The air-ship dock contained one of her later inventions, and the instrument of future ones. The 'Equestria Spanner' had started out as a medium haul cargo air-ship, 'The North Wind', on the Canterlot/Staliongrad run. Over sixty ponies could stand nose to tail along the length of her envelope, though the ones at the each end would be on a slope, and possibly require some sort of harness. She mentally waved away the designs that started to line up neatly in her mind. But it had been Wingnut who had taken the aging, second-hand vessel and converted it into a flying workshop, it's main cargo bay stuffed with the equipment necessary to fix almost any sort of malfunction in either air-ship or locomotive. She'd retained the pectoral wing-sails and underslung rudder for manouvring, but rebuild the main engines and wing-sail arrangement at the stern to be more efficient, faster, and above all, operable remotely from the control cabin at the front. No... she'd be going over all that soon enough. For now she just admired the new decoration on the envelope which shielded the line of spherical gas cells. While many air-ships had fanciful scenes or decorations on their envelopes, hers was coloured a jaunty (and highly visible) orange. The only decoration was her company logo, her cutie mark of a hex-nut with a pair of white pegasus wings, and underneath the legend, 'Wingnut's Air Repair Service'. It was emblazoned as a boss on the very nose of the envelope, and again on each flank. Her latest upgrades and modifications had just been completed, and she had decided that other air-ship operators and indeed the public should have a change to see them. While she had contracts with several air-ship companies to fly off and repair their vessels in situ, new customers were always helpful, and recognition for her inventions would help to bring in engineering business. Which led to the present circumstance, a gangway leading to a hatch on the forward cabin, and a banner reading. 'Open ship day! All ponies welcome!'
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Just when I thought the Equestrian tech tree couldn't get any more overgrown... cabinet arcade games! In Hearts and Hooves day, the colt who's too young is also playing what's clearly a cabinet mounted video game, and there are others around, which show some sort of screen. This was something I was certain was beyond Equestrian technology. Apart from the processor unit, there must be some sort of display technology. Which begs the question, why don't we see other examples of it? Absent any form of radio or cable network to act as a broadcast system, there must be some sort of recording technology better than vitrola style vinyl discs to act as the memory of the arcade game. This is a society with no forms of mass media beyond the newspaper. Despite having quite sophisticated photographic technology and audio recording, and bright enough light sources, they don't have even the most basic film industry, something that happened in our world with a more primitive tech level than theirs. They even have unicorn illusions (Rarity's fashion show) to give them a starting point (Rarity should have challenged Trixie on that, she'd have knocked her illuminated line drawings out of the ring). I can't believe a society that developed airships to a practical level and has things like aerosol spray cans (Sweet and Elite) isn't able to come up with a flexible celuloid film. Thermionic valves are possible, since we've seen incandescent bulbs in multiple episodes, so broadcast radio might be a possibility. But that's a side issue. Thaumo-tech is the only answer. Some magic or magic/electrical/mechanical hybrid technology that allows for low density memory storage (the earliest arcade games were electromechanical and used discrete components). Either the display uses ordinary lights projected onto a screen (again why would this be developed for arcade games and not film?) and manipulated by mechanical slides, or some magical equivalent of the cathode ray tube. I suppose they could be purely mechanical ones, but the one he was playing definitely had a joystick like controller, and I can't think of any mechanical game that did.
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Recently, I had the idea that a character who was a lamplighter might be an interesting app. In human history, these were the people who went around lighting the gas and oil lamps that served as street lights prior to kerosene and electric lights. I asked around in chat what kind of lighting was available in Equestria, because if there weren't appropriate kinds around there wouldn't be much of a point in having a lamplighter; and one of the board staff who was there (I don't remember exactly who, might have been Dio) indicated that there was a mixture of kinds, including gas or oil, electric, and magical, and I proceeded with the app with that in mind. However, in the canon thread in News & Updates, I saw the following: ...which suggests that oil and gas lamps would not be appropriate (much less electric, but I'm not worried about that). For streetlighting, that suggests a heavy reliance on magical lamps and/or lots and lots of candles. So, I suppose I'm asking for a firmer guideline here about what kinds of lighting technology are permitted and present. In defense of oil lamps, at least, I would point out that ponies would almost certainly have access to some kind of lighting oil, if for no other reason that the vegetable-based oils used in cooking can be, and in human history indeed have been, also used in oil lamps; olive oil, for example, was the main lamp fuel around the Mediterranean. (See also Wikipedia.) While magic/candles only would probably not kill the app, it would require a rewriting. Flickerlight's relationship with, and talent with, fire is an important part of her personality, and whether or not she gets to make use of that talent in her job is going to have an impact.
