My Little Pony XXX: Trixie Treats!

[Sean Mirrsen]

I can assure you, rotten - though Lawful - bastard that I am, had such a thing cropped up on my watch, I'd have let you in, as they say, ten seconds flat...
While I don't have any particular objection to other people enjoying such fare - I don't judge - there are proper places for it, and those are not here.



Depends what they're made from, doesn't it? E.g. laser energy, electricity, blades, plasma, monofilament wire¹...



It never rains but it pours, right? Got to take in Mum's mobility scooter 'cos it suddenly keeled over and died yesterday - and they're flying on to Tennerife next Tuesday...



¹Okay, not that last one; despite being a common idea in some sci-fi, that is one weapon that always makes me skullpalm and point out that PHYSICS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! It it's one molecule thick, then you can't swing it and even if you could there'd be no mass for it to work. And if it's stabilised/strengthened by a forcefield or something (like energy whips), why not, I dunno, just use the forcefield?

Well, one way it could work better is if you assume that a forcefield isn't something you can easily swing either. A monofilament whip, despite being a molecule thick, still has some sort of mass to it, and presumably creating a forcefield around a molecule-thick string of matter is easier than simply creating a free-floating forcefield of the same shape. Assuming some kind of physics limitations, forcefield-supported monowhips are actually decent.

[Deadly]

A few days of really slow ponythread, and then you go and give me six new pages overnight. Yay Now I recognize ponythread again

Almost all of them were directly related to your avatar. If you don't have a pony avatar, then the color scheme of your avatar. Also, everypony was female. No exceptions.

Was I there? I suppose I was Fluttershy, or her twin, then

Also, yay for being female!

[Bayonet Priest]

My latest project:

Line by Line, Sketching It Slowly

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I thought you were an inexperianced artist but you keep posting all these awesome sketches. When you mentioned you were drawing Rarity I thought about how I people had said that her hair was rather difficult but you seem to have pulled it off just fine. Rarity is best pony.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, that was a trying trip. It'd have been nightmarish if Mum hadn't been with me navigating... Not only did every sodding traffic light stop me, but we nearly crunched into some woman who was trying to nose in waaay to close to the car in front and had to suddenly brake because she did. (I think we just touched - but not actually bumped - the bumpers.) I stalled it out about four times (though not, ironically, on the bloody awful hillstart). This sort of thing does not help my confidence... I really hate driving.

Well, one way it could work better is if you assume that a forcefield isn't something you can easily swing either. A monofilament whip, despite being a molecule thick, still has some sort of mass to it, and presumably creating a forcefield around a molecule-thick string of matter is easier than simply creating a free-floating forcefield of the same shape. Assuming some kind of physics limitations, forcefield-supported monowhips are actually decent.

No, no it really doesn't have any appreicable mass. That's kind of my point.

Rant incoming.

Oh boy... *gets popcorn*

We're now talking atomic physics. Atoms are small. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly small they are. I mean, you may think it's a short space between Pinkie Pie's words, but that's just peanuts to atoms.

Fagpacket calculation:

A 2m whip, made of, for the purposes of arguement, lead (because it's a conveniently heavy atom with confirmed stats, and thus a good upper estimate for atomic size and weight) is 4950495050 atoms long (for the Van de Walls radius of 202 picometres.) The approximate volume of a lead atom is thus 0.00000000000000003452571789 cm³. As lead has a density of 11.34gcm^-3, this gives an estimated mass per atom of of 3.9 x 10^-16 grammes (i.e. 0.0000000000000039g). So your one-atom thick whip would weight about 0.00000017g. A seventeen millionth of a gram.

From a quick google search, the largest molecule know to science is about 10 nanometres across - but it's also a liquid, so it's density is likely to be different. (Unless, of course, you count a single piece of metal as a single molecule, and then it can, technically be as big as you like - but then you can molecularly build a sword and call it a monomolecular blade...)

Rough calc: lead has a molar enthalpy of vaporisation (i.e. how much energy it takes to not just melt, but evaporate, 11.34g of lead, or 6.0 x 10²³ lead atoms) of 179.5kJ/mol^-1. So, let's take a higher melting point metal, like, say platinum, which has 4695kJ/mol^-1. So, using the same number of atoms (4950495050), it takes 479 x (4950495050/6.0 x 10²³) 3.9 picojoules or 0.0000000000039 kJ (or 0.0000000039 J) to vaporise your 2m one-atom-wide whip.

Which is suspect you'll find, is rather less than you'd apply to it, trying to swing it... (You know the sound of a whip cracking is the tip breaking the sound barrier, right?)

(Now, granted, I'm a necromancer with an engineering background, not a molecular chemist, so thse numbers are not going to be accurate - but they will be roughly in the right handful or orders of magnitude (which is close enough, given how very, very small we are looking at.))

Long story short, monomolecular weapons are bullcrap (and monofiliment is not much of an improvement) the way people think they should work. They are either so thin they couldn't possibly apply any force, or they are basically thin wire, which does't bend well; have you tried whipping someone with wire? Doesn't work so well does it? No. (Decapitating a motorcycle rider with a taut wire and whipping someone are two entirely different things.) And, course, whips not made of metal need to be fairly hefty to do anything significant. Cutting things, does actually require the application of energy, the other fact that escapes many of these sci-fi writers (the tales of katanas so sharp they cut a feather dropped on them are apocryphal - well at least not without magical enhancement). Energy weapons get away with it because they, are, you know, energy (and they apply - mostly - heat energy to vaporise the local area as their "cutting" method (see lasers)).

"Sharp" is emphatically NOT the same thing as "thin", which is what these people seem to think. (Sword with monomolecular edge to the blade, yes - because you've got something to give some welly to and to resist the equal and opposite force applied over that very small area. This is why swords (and knives and scissors etc etc) are not made of thin plates...)

As described in a lot of these places, monowhips are actually basically magic, or would have so be so supported by technology that the technology is doing all the work - because the strength of a single molecule is actually basically negligable.



A really, really, really STUPID example of this was in a Star Trek novel I read, whereby an alien race used monomolecular wire web strung between starships as a weapon (i.e. they'd fly past a Cardassian ship on either side, and the ship would be destroyed, because apparently Star Trek shields can't stop something one molecule thick (despite that being the sort of thing that the navigational deflector is expressly designed for). Oh, and they're not held by forcefields, so they're invisible to sensors. The sheer, mind-numbing idocy of that idea I simply cannot describe. It is just about stupid on every single level. Never mind the fact that you'd have to get within hundreds of metres of the target (point-blank range), the fact that it simply wouldn't work (shields, the hull, the speeds involved (significant fractions of c) veres the strength of a material); the most obvious thing in the world would have been to just slice your phaser down an arc between the two ships! Job done! Guess what nobody thought of doing? (And if the material is phaser proof, why not just coat your whole sodding starships with it?! Hell, even if you could only do one, you would still be laughing all the way to the bank.) Grrrr.

And now I need to go hit something, because remembering that particular bit of concentrated stupid makes me madder than the Nostalgia Critic and the Bat Credit Card...

[the_druid_droid]

You sayin' I'm a mutant?

You sir, are some sort of high-powered mutant; too weird to live and too rare to die!

((Cookie if you get the reference))

Joking aside, I have neither posted nor am aware of any posts of rule 34 stuff and I read almost every post.

Aye, this has been my perception as well.

I thought you were an inexperianced artist but you keep posting all these awesome sketches. When you mentioned you were drawing Rarity I thought about how I people had said that her hair was rather difficult but you seem to have pulled it off just fine. Rarity is best pony.

Rarity's poses are best poses.

Fantastic work on her mane and tail, those are hard.

I am proud of how the mane and tail came out, but OH MY SWEET CELESTIA did they take effort. I think Beeskee mentioned in the IRC that he thought that the 'Rarity losing her tail' thing in the pilot was an in-joke, and I'm starting to think that's spot-on!

Also, the proportion of the leg widths is off...I really need to practice pony legs.

Also @AotRS - Sorry to hear that today was so rough. I hope things improve!

[otakuryoga]

...now I'm worried things like that have been going on and have somehow passed my notice. If I have to review thirty threads to check, I shall be very cross.

closest i think we have come was a mention of Dom Fluttershy and there were some spoilered links to some tame pics on ponibooru
but the pics themselves were not posted here

[Nameless]

Creepy:

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That last image is creepy.

Nameless, you don't want to look at that last one if you can avoid it.

[byaku rai]

*lich rant snip*

The first thing to realize with "monofilament" weapons like that is that they operate pretty much solely on the Rule of Cool. They are indeed stupid, but to a certain mode of thinking they're pretty darn cool, and that justifies their existence. I personally don't agree with that, but it's something that's difficult to escape, just like a lot of things in sci-fi. I prefer my sci-fi to be a bit "softer" most of the time, partially because I'm fascinated with the concept of GODLIKE POWER THROUGH SCIENCE and partially because I don't like having to think too hard when I'm reading for pleasure.

Personally, I prefer Warhammer 40k Power Weapons, because they at least make a token effort at making sense and accomplish the same thing with much less hassle.

[Tiki Snakes]

Personally, I think that rule of cool has no place with monofiliment stuff.
In as much as a weapon whose explanation for badassery is basically Yay Science!, doesn't get as much leeway with, you know, science.

I'm fine with monomolecular edges, though. They are at least less painful to my brain than 'vibro' weapons.

[Trixie]

I'm fine with monomolecular edges, though. They are at least less painful to my brain than 'vibro' weapons.

Despite dentist drills working on exactly this principle?

I'm fine with both, BTW.

Also, anyone got more requests for OP, wants to be added, or is the matter closed? :P

[Tiki Snakes]

I have no problem with Vibro-Drills. A vibro-drill weapon is something that I would definately call Rule of Cool for. Just who the hell do you think I am? And so on.

If nothing else, it just sounds a lot less like it would end up exploding if used in an actual combat situation.

[Rebelhero]

I have no problem with Vibro-Drills. A vibro-drill weapon is something that I would definately call Rule of Cool for. Just who the hell do you think I am? And so on.

If nothing else, it just sounds a lot less like it would end up exploding if used in an actual combat situation.

I thought that said something COMPLETELY different 0.0

[RdMarquis]

As described in a lot of these places, monowhips are actually basically magic, or would have so be so supported by technology that the technology is doing all the work - because the strength of a single molecule is actually basically negligable.

I'm guessing this is a bad time to talk about my Shadowrun character's weapon of choice?

Oh, and to make this post pony related, here's filly Twilight playing with Smarty Pants.

http://ponibooru.413chan.net/post/vi...93?search=cute

[Athaniar]

Oh, and to make this post pony related, here's filly Twilight playing with Smarty Pants.

http://ponibooru.413chan.net/post/vi...93?search=cute

Aww, she's just so adorable.


Also, I started writing that fic (based on the RP idea I posted earlier), and here is the first chapter. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!

Preceeding fic: Dragonscar (alternatively Paladin's and Dragonscale's biographies)

Incursion
Chapter I - Talons of the Griffon

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The royal guard tried to get away, but in the shape he was in that was easier said than done. Wounded by claws, fangs, and dragon-fire he attempted to fly away from the deep forest cave. There was the exit! For the first time in days he felt fresh air... and was promptly rammed to the ground. The dark-feathered griffon clearly wanted to end the pegasus there and then, but he was stopped by a commanding voice.

"We want to keep him alive for now, Bloodwing," the unicorn mare said. She was not quite like a normal pony, though, her yellow eyes were like those of a reptile and her teeth were sharp. In color she greatly resembled the green dragons of the deep woodlands, with a sea-green coat and a moss-green wild and spiky mane. She wore a cape, but there appeared to be something hidden under it, probably wings. "Go fly to your master Iron-Talon and tell him to have his troops prepared. It will not be long before we strike now." She looked at the bleeding pegasus. "Pitiful. I expect Paladin to put up a better fight when I catch him..."

The strawberry-colored filly looked at the scene in horror one last time before running as fast as she could in the other direction. Why did she have to disobey her parents and sneak into the Everfree forest? This wasn't fun at all! Fragaria ran, and ran, and hoped the bad ones hadn't seen her...


"Of course I'm sure we were seen. I can smell it.” Dragonscale frowned. “An earth filly. Scared. Too close to Ponyville to just fly and grab now. We need to do this with subtlety and swiftness. The filly knows. She must not be allowed to live. Bloodfeather, this one is yours."

The griffon, Bloodwing’s brother, grinned with homicdal glee. "Consider it done, miss Dragonscale. The small one will be silenced, and we will have our revenge." As he flew off Dragonscale returned to the cave, her sanctuary. The sound was still in her head. Always in her head.


It was late at night, but Fluttershy was still awake. Owlowiscious had broken his wing, so she had volunteered to take care of the bird for Twilight. He was feeling better now, so she thought about getting some sleep. She was just about to when she heard something moving outside, coming from the direction of the Everfree Forest. It didn’t sound like a big horrific monster, so she took a quick look outside. It was a scared little filly! Quickly she placed herself in the way and stopped the panicking pony with her body.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized as she checked to see that the filly was all right, “but you seem to be awfully scared, not to mention on your own at a time like this. Where are your parents? We need to get you home and into bed at once.”

Even in the presence of kind Fluttershy the green-maned girl was too terrified to speak, so the pegasus smiled at her and took her inside and started cooking some soup for her. However, neither of them noticed the skulking griffon in the shadows near the house. Bloodfeather frowned slightly. He now had to deal with two ponies, but the yellow one didn’t appear to be much of a threat. He was a trained killer, she was, what, an animal handler? And not another pony around, either. Just perfect. Unheard and unseen he looked in through one of the windows. Neither of them were paying any attention to what was going on outside, so he quietly opened it and in one quick leap pounced at the filly with his claws extended.

What happened next went very fast. At the last moment Fluttershy noticed the assailant, and placed herself between the griffon and her ward. The claws struck her side and left a deep wound, but she still stood.

“I don’t know who you are,” she told Bloodfeather in desperate anger, “but you DO NOT hurt my friends! You DO NOT hurt defenseless fillies!”

The griffon chuckled. “And you will stop me? You are resilient, but your death is inevitable. It’s my mission to slay all who interfere, and right now that means you two!”

Whatever Bloodfeather thought would happen next he did not expect her to open her eyes wide and simply stare at him. Simply stare? No, there was some kind of power at work.

“You back down this instant, Mr. Griffon! Go back to wherever you came from and don’t return!” There was indeed power to the pegasus’s stare. She was far more powerful than she looked, and when angered like this her will was steel and her might unstoppable.

“I… am… too disciplined to fall for… your tricks!” he managed to say, and after about a minute or so he shook off most of the paralysis. By then both ponies were gone, so he rushed out the door to chase after them. He could not be allowed to fail. However, something was now in his way: a huge brown bear. He began to charge it, but with a swipe of its huge paw it knocked him to the ground, the lingering effects of the stare making his reflexes slower. Another strike and he was knocked out. When he regained consciousness he was bound by chains and surrounded by royal guards. Not according to plan.


“There, there, you should be all right now,” the nurse told Fluttershy, “there will probably be scars, but otherwise you will be just fine.” Her friends were visibly relieved.

Fluttershy coughed, but responded with a smile of her own. Then she remembered. “What about the filly? There was a little filly who…”

“Don’t you worry about that, sugarcube,” Applejack assured her, “Lil’ Fragaria is back with her parents, and guards are there too. Whatever’s going on they’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Pinkie moved uncomfortably close to Fluttershy. “You know what you need? A party! Nothing helps a pony to recover like a party, you know. Just last week, I…”

They all continued to be cheerful and happy, but one of them felt uneasy. Rainbow Dash had thought about it ever since she heard what happened, and she was worried. She was the only one of them who was familiar with griffons, and she had dark suspicions. If this was what she thought it was… WHO she thought it was…

[EsperDerek]

[/AppleBloom] I WANT THIS NAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

In all seriousness, this may well be the first fighting game I would play. AND I WOULD PAY FOR IT TOO!

I don't know much about fighting games, I'm absolutely terrible at all of them (except for obscure Dreamcast fighter Tech Romancer), but for ponies, I will try to find a way to get good at this.

[Aotrs Commander]

Personally, I think that rule of cool has no place with monofiliment stuff.
In as much as a weapon whose explanation for badassery is basically Yay Science!, doesn't get as much leeway with, you know, science.

Exxaactly.

If thou shalt invoke science in thy fiction, thou shalt at least have a first clue as to thou art talking about, unless thou is most desirest of a rocket launcher beating applied to thine internal organs.

Thy soul's internal organs.

I don't mind psuedo-scientific bullcrap, if at least you've tried. Monowhips are so utterly stupid, they are in the "the aliens have a different periodic table to us" territory or "making the bolt inherently aerodynamically unstable means it makes it more accurate for shooting at targets that can dodge"¹.

Whips made of little connected blades? Fine. Whips made of energy? Fine. Whips made on the basis of thin equals sharp? Pass me my Snake Launcher.

I'm fine with monomolecular edges, though. They are at least less painful to my brain than 'vibro' weapons.

I dunno. Vibroweapons - and they are a fairly common thing in sci-fi and often different in each one, so exactly what you've been exposed to varies - are not quite as unreasonable, depending on the occilation of the weapon. The ones that I first encountered (in Douglas Hill's books) were the ones that I associate with vibro-weapons; essentially they work a bit like an electric carving knife. (One assumes that in most if not all cases, the handles would be shock-absorbant, so the vibration doesn't reach the wielder.) This improves their cutting ability, as basically it meant they worked a bit like a saw, kinda.

How. Ever.

It must be said that the vibrational effect in a lot of sci-fi is waaay over-stated; it improves the cutting ability (for a given value of "cut"), not makes a blade into a fragging lightsabre.

(After all, there are some things that use the same sort of principle in the real world.)



¹Actually, the tumbling bolt deserves a special mention for being quite probably the Most Stupid Thing I Have Ever Encountered.

As I once (infamously) said:

Who can forget the delight of Sword and Fist's tumbling bolt? I certainly can't, and I've tried. Even after repeatedly cleaning my skull with anti-francium, the horror remains.

Yes, let's make the attack more accurate by making it aerodynamically unstable. (Fer crying out loud, they used the word tumble! If you had an aircraft 'tumble' it usually means it's about to make unwelcome aquaintence with the ground, assuming it gets that far!)

This is not so much raping the laws of physics (which D&D and fantasy do as a perfectly acceptable matter of course), as violating the laws of physics in front of it's parents, juvenile siblings, various friends and acquaintences and any nonevil ecclesiastical personality of your choice, then sueing the laws of physics for damages incurred and winning.

[Athaniar]

I don't know much about fighting games, I'm absolutely terrible at all of them (except for obscure Dreamcast fighter Tech Romancer), but for ponies, I will try to find a way to get good at this.

I've only played the Super Smash Bros. games to any real extent, myself, and have little experience with the style of fighter this appears to be, but I share your determination! Because of Pony!

[Kairaven]

Also, Fighting Is Magic posted a new update on the game:

maybe it's just me, but it looks like pinkie is all smiles as she is being hit, and masochist pinkie is all I can think of now.

I am a bad bad pony.

[byaku rai]

*more snipping*

I agree with you, I just have an irritating habit of attempting to play Devil's Advocate in any given argument.

I'm just the Element of Contrariness, I suspect. ^^"

@vibroblades: I'm fine with them as long as they're portrayed somewhat realistically. They wouldn't be able to cut through absolutely anything (in fact, their primary use would be in penetrating body armor and allowing soldiers to cut through obstructions, two areas in which they are hopelessly outclassed by modern tech), and they'd probably be limited to small blades like knives without some sort of technobabble explanation for why the oscillation doesn't increase towards the tip.

@fighting games: I'm also mostly used to SSB. ^^" but I'd be happy to give this game a shot as long as it isn't full of MK Walkers.

Oh right ponies:

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[Zevox]

Also, Fighting Is Magic posted a new update on the game:

Very nice. And hearing Twilight's theme confirms the expectations from AJ's - music in that game is going to be very good.

Zevox

[Beacon of Chaos]

Purple unicorn, green hair I think. If I recall correctly, think Spike's color scheme on a pony. No mustache though.

Neat. I may have to draw that sometime.

I don't know much about fighting games, I'm absolutely terrible at all of them (except for obscure Dreamcast fighter Tech Romancer), but for ponies, I will try to find a way to get good at this.

*Gasp* Someone else who played Tech Romancer! On Dreamcast, no less! Hell yeah!

Anyway, I love fighting games. I'm terrible at them, but love them all the same. And Fighting is Magic is not on one of the new consoles, so I'll actually be able to play it! Woo!

I hope it's going to be online. We should get a tournament going

[Gamerlord]

I don't know much about fighting games, I'm absolutely terrible at all of them (except for obscure Dreamcast fighter Tech Romancer), but for ponies, I will try to find a way to get good at this.

Same here. The only fighting games I ever played were Street Fighter Alpha 3 and a game where you played as mecha I cannot remember the name of, and I was terribad at both. But this is a pony fighting game, and I WILL master it!
Though I am still worried the game could end up on the receiving end of a Cease & Desist from Hasbro...

[Callos_DeTerran]

Very nice. And hearing Twilight's theme confirms the expectations from AJ's - music in that game is going to be very good.

Zevox

I've got to try and find the themes on Youtube. Most videos I've seen have sound effects or people talking in the background. Can't get a good listen of them.

[Grif]

Just a little something I been working on.

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[Gamerlord]

Just a little something I been working on.

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How did you do this?

[Grif]

How did you do this?

Mods. Well, learning how to mod anyway. The avatars and badges are fairly easy to do since the art is already available.

[Gamerlord]

Mods. Well, learning how to mod anyway. The avatars and badges are fairly easy to do since the art is already available.

All of a sudden I regret not getting the game while it was on sale...

[otakuryoga]

just finished reading "the ballad of twilight sparkle"

i havent laughed so much in ages

[Soras Teva Gee]

Hmm I take a break for a few days and I miss half a ponythread... anything massively weird happen that I miss?

[EsperDerek]

Neat. I may have to draw that sometime.


*Gasp* Someone else who played Tech Romancer! On Dreamcast, no less! Hell yeah!

Anyway, I love fighting games. I'm terrible at them, but love them all the same. And Fighting is Magic is not on one of the new consoles, so I'll actually be able to play it! Woo!

I hope it's going to be online. We should get a tournament going

Tech Romancer was, and still is, my favorite fighting game. I got stupidly good at using Kikiaoh/G. Kaiser and Dixen.

Now I want to dig out my Dreamcast...

Same here. The only fighting games I ever played were Street Fighter Alpha 3 and a game were you played as mecha I cannot remember the name of, and I was terribad at both. But this is a pony fighting game, and I WILL master it!
Though I am still worried the game could end up on the receiving end of a Cease & Desist from Hasbro...

The game with the mecha was most likely Tech Romancer.