Pony Steampunk Zombie: Mother Thread

[The Dude]

Guys, something just occured to me. This thing is bigger than we expected. If we want to create a steampunk pony world starting from scratch, we need to look at this in a more closer view. We don't need to look at everything before we start, but I think it'd be wise to at least determine some things before we do, so we'll have a better understanding of how everything in this world works.


We need to know what these ponies will call these pieces of tech, for instance. How their technology will work. At to what extent.


We need to design this place, gents. And what better way than to create a thread to mesh it all together? We can draw, write proposals, and we can discuss everything here. Ideas, disagreements, all of those things can be discussed here in the Mother document.


First thing's first, I sorta need help putting this in a new category XD since this isn't exactly Pony Epic, right?


Second thing: What are the things that we need to determine?


- Lifestyle
- Form of Government
- Technology/Magic
- Names of these tech (like... what do they call those cable things? Cable carriages?)
- City description. The 'areas', the middle class, high class, and low class areas.
- Authority figures/occupations, etc. - particularly since we can choose any possible occupation for our characters


And much more. If you guys got any ideas of what we can figure out before we start the roleplay, please mention it and I'll add it to the list. If you guys think something in that list doesn't belong, we can discuss the reasons why, and take it off the list. 


As GM, I know I'm responsible for setting up everything for you guys, but in this situation I really need your help XD


The plot has already been written, all I need are the tiny details.


Well then gents :D How now?

[hpsandwich]

i can create a new category if need be, but considering we don't use the forum very often idk if we will need it .

i can most defiantly help with tech stuff, fire away what needs names and what you need help with there!

i would also say that you should recruit Mitchell more to help with society because he's studied a lot with societies and whatnot, I'm very novice and topical in that regard. 

this is guna be SO AWESOME!

[hpsandwich]

ok i made a new forum anyways

[The Dude]

Brilliant! Thank you kindly, Wes :D


Diggi is already on the works of drawing/designing weapons. 


B and you are very much welcome to develop this world's society  x D


I'm going to see if we can try to have some of you guys to play as npcs if you want, too :D


This is going to be a story centric roleplay. There will be no 'quests' and it'll be a bit more story driven. Let's just try this out and see if it flows better 


Thanks guys!

[beroulga]

I will society away then, though first I'd like everything you need to happen in the revolution; that's who's revolting weather or not you have leaders of it in your brain, and any inkling of what they are revolting against. if I can get that I think i can put together a pretty good set up and early history for the whole shabang. once I have that I can do my best to make sure that it fits into the rest of the society (that's government, class structure, how the frontier i changing things etc.) also you seem to have some specifics in mind for the army, I'd love that too. 

basically anything you want to be in there, send it to me. else I will likely go in a whole different direction. 

on a similar note, wes I need some tech info if that's all good. snippets whatever, just some stuff so we can figure out like.. jobs and cultural nick nacks. 

also how prominent are we planing on weapons to be? I don't know if this is a question of diggi or for everyone because if they are fairly common i need to make a whole different place than if they are fairly rare and mostly controlled by the government. 

I assume they are quite common on the outer frontier but less so in the city where they would mostly be in the hands of law enforcement and the army.

[The Dude]

Off to send a complete description of what i have in mind to you, b!


Sweet, let's get this thing running then gents :D Let's have some fun with this. Who knows where we end up.

[Sir Knight Lord Diggalot]

Okay guys. So it's time for weapons and stuff. Weapons and stuff. Mostly how they work and not where you find them. That's a question for Lady Rock.

Firstly, there's gunpowder weapons. I expect you all to be familiar to those. In this world you'll find revolvers, repeaters, pistols and bolt-action rifles. They're fairly common. But if you're lucky, you might even find yourself an SMG, or even a semi-automatic rifle. Or you might hit the jackpot and actually find one of those experimental assault rifles!

Now, the magical weapons are a little trickier. There's two types of magic, Beam and Projectile, and two types of weapons, Charged and Cartridge.

The Charged weapons uses magical batteries to power them. Here, the weapon decides what spell to shoot. A heat beam charged weapon can only shoot heat beams(with the exception of prototype weapons that can switch firing mode). Almost all batteries are universal, a charged pistol can use the same type of battery as a charged rifle(although, the rifle will most likely require more batteries). These types of weapons are the most common among magical weapons.

A cartridge weapon, however, works somewhat similar to a normal gun. The weapon uses magical cartridges to fire. A single cartridge may only be used once and is used up after one spell. Therefore a weapon need to store several cartridges to shoot several times before reloading. A cartridge weapon does not have the power to affect the spell fired. The spell is decided by its cartridge. A cartridge weapon loaded with heat beam cartridges shoots heat beams, and the same weapon loaded with explosive projectile cartridges shoots explosive projectiles. So a cartridge weapon can shoot both beam and projectile spells, if required cartridges are present. There's also many types of cartridges, they vary in size depending on their power. A weapon may use any cartridge as long as it fits, beam or projectile. Cartridge weapons are a little more uncommon, but not rare. The projectile cartridges however, are much rarer than beam cartridges.

Now, what's beam and projectile? Beam spells are what they sound like. They fire an accurate beam that hits instantly, but it lacks in power and its power degrades over range. It's mostly heat beams that do heat damage, but some prototypes are in the works, shooting different kinds of spells. Beam weaponry overall is quite common.

Projectile spells are a little more interesting. A projectile spell is slower and less accurate than a beam, additionally affected by gravity. However, the projectile pack quite a punch and vary in their effects. Some are fire, some are ice. Some will electrocute you, others will explode you. Sounds sweet, huh? Sadly, normal heat projectiles are pretty uncommon and anything other than heat projectiles are highly experimental tech. So don't expect to find it laying around your usual dead weapons smuggler.

I haven't really thought about the names. I'll change it to something clever later.

Now onto hoof-guns and two-hoof weapons!

A hoofgun is a small weapon attached to the pony's ankle. It may be fired using two hooves (one to aim and the other to trigger) or used with only one hoof, (one to aim and the mouth to trigger). You don't ever hold the weapon with your teeth(it'll break them!). Here's a sketch I made for Rock's character's hoofgun:
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When not in use, the barrel retracts.


And a two-hoof weapon is held with two hooves, somewhat how you'd hold a rifle as a human. One hoof to trigger, and the other to support the gun. However, being equines, ponies needs their hooves to run. Instead of tripping around on two hooves, one may fold their rifle and attach it to their side. This way, you can run and shoot at the same time, with accuracy suffering slightly. When not mobile, however, it's recommended to detach your rifle and use your hooves. Here's Rose's rifle as an example(disregard magic):
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When attached to her side, the rifle's stock and barrel is retracted.

I'm sure this may have been slightly confusing. Please, if you have any questions, ask em. And if you have any suggestions, please voice them.

[hpsandwich]

   Enjoy my wall of text. BUHUHAHAHAHA!   

         

And here is my proposed tech! (Sorry for not getting it out very fast, been busy.)
First off, I would like to address the main city. The accepted idea that has been floating around is a city that would be elevated, that is to say the buildings would be monumentally tall, and support other buildings; a city on stilts, if you will. To make this work the most efficient and structurally sound option would be to have the city’s general profile be that of an enormous, gradually sloping pyramid/cone.

The internal structure of the city, I propose, is as fallows.  On the outermost perimeter of the city, would be the factory/energy production districts. It’s relatively flat with no high-rise buildings and stilted towers, the largest structures would be the chimneys and smokestacks of the developing industry, generating electricity and channeling it (along with high-pressured steam and water) throughout the city. As you work inwards, you find yourself in a more urban-esk setting. Lots of middle class and factory workers live here. Not exactly a poor district, but by no means rich. This area of the city is where you start to see stilted towers, not extraordinarily high, but defiantly multiple elevations relying on each other for support.

As you work your way into the inner city, the buildings become extraordinarily tall, and are completely reliant on each other as foundations for their support.  The top layer is riddles with gardens and extravagances that relish in the sunlight. There are many top-most structures that are supported by banded helium airbags, such as gardens and enlarged decks. This helps with conservation of space, leaving more room for living space and less for structural supports. In the middle however, this is not the case. Lots of the lower-middle-class lives here due to the less-than prime real-estate. Because of this it would be more ragged.

The bottom of the inner city would be where the lowest of the low live, the poor and the doomed. Lots of the machines that power the towers above are housed here, along with massive structural supports and the lower-sections of buildings (which are little-more than concrete, brick and large hunks of cast iron). There aren’t really properly built houses here, most living areas are built by the people whom live there in-between structural supports, building bases, and machine-housings.

Keep in mind that this is not 1900’s level construction, sky-scraper technology isn’t technically available. So the city attains such monumental heights by relying on each other building. This is why it is of a cone shape, so that the weight is distributed evenly, allowing large cast-iron and brick structures to grow to heights to around that of the empire state building. The inner city’s upper levels are higher than the smokestacks of the outer city’s industrial zone by regulation, so that the upper-class do not have to deal with the air pollutants of said smokestacks. There is a river that runs through the city, which is used for steam engines and general population water. It is also heavily polluted as it exits the city because why not.

I’ve got more on this but this pretty much sums up my ideas for the city’s structure.

Energy production is obviously used with coal/wood powered steam engines, hence ‘steampunk’. I could outline how steam-engines work but I’m sure people get the general idea for that. Sense this is a steam-engine-oriented society, the steam engine has been perfected as the internal combustion engine has been combusted to us. Steam-engines can be as small as 2-stroke bike engines. The limitations of steam engines are that you not only need to re-fill the fuel, but also water; this makes the fuel/boiler tanks the size limitations on devices such as airships and trollies.

There are multiple types of transportation, ranging from airships to car-like vehicles, to motorcycles to trains and elevators/gondolas. Essentially if you can use a steam engine for it, it probably has one. More extravagant gondolas and inter-building train lines mainly go between the upper parts of the city, due to it being easier space-wise. Below that, mostly bridges and elevators are how people get around (aside from stairs obviously). Elevators from the middle section of the inner city are dangerous and rely on large tethers that pull themselves up and down, often moving around un-restrained. Below that, requires special old-elevators built into the buildings themselves from the cities early construction. Unofficially there are elevators similar to the mid-levels tether elevators, but of home-made quality. Most people don’t leave or enter the lowest section of the inner city (at least how I have it set up).

Airships shouldn’t technically happen yet, but for the sake of steampunk, fuck it! Airships everywhere! There are dirigibles and gondola type airships; these are types of blimps that house 3 or 4 ponies each. There are a few rigid-airships (which are commonly referred to as zeppelins). These have a frame with helium tanks in it, which create lighter than air buoyancy. The rigid frame is what makes it keep a specific shape. They should resemble the early A through P Class German zeppelins, nothing as big as the Graf Zeppelin or Hindenburg. The average length of a zeppelin should thusly be around 400 feet long. These will be used as rich luxury liners and top-of-the-line bombers for the air force. Usually, I would imagine, they would be greeted with much pomp and circumstance due to their scarcity and grandiose presence.  I think they should be filled with hydrogen, because WHATS NOT FUN ABOUT JIANT FLOATING BALLS OF FIRE!?!?!

TANGENT TIME!  

I actually did a 15 page paper about zeppelins about 2 years ago, and what I learned is that they are probably the WORST flying machine ever invented, and subsequently the most hilariously depressing. Nearly all exploded or caught fire for practically no reason (aside from being filled with an explosively unstable gas), that is if they weren’t shot down. The only reason they lasted past the early prototype is because they were WAY TOO COOL!!! My favorite story is that during the end of an early test for the LZ-4, Graf von Zeppelin thought it was in the bag, and went to get a drink or food or something while it was docking. When he came back he found what was left of it on the ground burning because the wind blew it into a tree… which caused it to explode… I can only imagine his expression  .
They used to paint these things with ENGINE FUEL!! I MEAN!! COME ON!!

Almost everyone who flew them died.

BUT ANYWAYS  

There are very few car-type vehicles that are owned by civilians, even among the rich. In the city they are rather useless, so they are mostly used to flaunt wealth. They are essentially, at their very core, wagons with steam engines attached to the back or front wheels. The max speed would be around 30mph on a good day. The more advanced and expensive cars would have hubcaps and other things you would expect to see on a car, but the cheaper and more common kind (even among the rich) resemble wagons and trolley trains, but with the appropriate wheels and steering . Armored military vehicles are mostly cars outfitted with metal or wooden plating around the body, making them notably slower.

I decided tanks would be a cool idea, even if they shouldn’t exist, but again, FUCK IT! They are rather huge and somewhat vulnerable if there smoke-stacks are taken out, but they have very thick armor all around them and have all the advantages of a tank. They resemble ww1 German tanks, so small barreled cannons and artillery on the side with large profile-defining treads. The main differences are that they have smokestacks for smoke to flow out. Because they use steam engines and the crew are in a small little metal compartment, they have a tendency to suffocate there crew if they shut all the hatches long enough without breathing apparatuses. Newer tanks have masks that are hooked into air-lines along stations in the cabins, so the risk of suffocation is considerably less.

I want to touch on prosthetics and personal assistance devices. Prosthetic limbs are self-descriptive, but a personal assistance device could be an extra pair of robotic limbs, or whatever you can think of that a pony could use.  It would be impractical to use steam-engines for such things, as a pony would need to carry around a broiler on their back to use their arms. Instead I think magic is perfectly suitable for such things. If the pony is a unicorn, he or she can simply power there device with a horn-attachment. If the pony is not a unicorn, they will be required to replace or charge ‘magic packs’ to power there device. Some newer models use battery technology, but only the super-rich can afford them, due to the advanced and complicated construction of an electrical battery. Electrical batteries tend to not last as nearly as long as magic packs, but they have the convenience of having to only plug into the cities power grid for a quick charge, and then be off on their way. These devices can be utilized in whatever seems needed, but it should be noted that for anything mounted on a car or bigger, battery’s and magic batteries loose there advantages to steam engines due to their reduced power output. Batteries and magic aided devices are for things attached to ponies more than not.

This is all generalized, and honestly I’m trying to keep everything mechanically pretty much the same as they would work in reality, so if you don’t understand how something works, Wikipedia will probably do a good job of explaining it  .

I would draw some of these things (i'll leave the drawing of the city to Rocky sense she is the GM), but I want to only provide data and means for creation, rather than the creations themselves. Essentially I’m just giving ideas and concepts rather than the actual devices themselves sense I'm not GM. please take everything i wrote above as a suggestion and message me if there are questions and yada yada yada...

      hope you enjoyed my wall of text      
        

[Sir Knight Lord Diggalot]

What about mechs/robot things?

[The Dude]

Hmm. Since I don't think their magic is advanced enough to create a machine that has a semblance of consciousness, where it could function like a pony in a believable range of maybe even 3%, it seems a wee bit above their magic/technology margin. Even if we have a sort of powerful special gemstone that can allow this to happen, we need to also consider how far this magic goes, and how powerful it is in comparison to the canon pony universe.

This world's universe so far has limited magic usage to merely - store energy, distribute energy, link things together, etc. All of which are still dependent on control/use from organic beings. Robots, from what I understand, could function on their own after being given programming which they must follow. This suggests that they can function without being dependent on some other pony controlling them with a remote device or something else.

However, that doesn't mean I don't think robots that follow programming on their own can exist in this world. In fact, I already have an idea how. Only the wealthy could have robots, and it's very, very limited and very, very rare because of the 'how' part. Maybe only two of them exist in this world?

If we're talking about robots which can be controlled with a remote device, and can only perform simple, non-thinking tasks (such as repetitive motion; some factory machines controlled by ponies) I think that's possible too. Mechs, I imagine, would still be under the 'I know how it looks like and it's cool, but how do we make it possible without burning or heating things up or avoiding the user choking on too much smoke?' stage. However, advanced robots that can decide for themselves using a programming of sorts can't exist for now, I think.

I mean I know full functioning robots appeared in shows like Treasure Planet, but if it's possible, I think it'd be best to veer away from taking all the properties and technology from other steampunk-styled shows out there, taking only bits and pieces from them if it fits this world's realm of possibility. There's a risk of this pony steampunk world becoming convoluted with various elements which might not fit during its development from year 1 to year 1000.

Let's use the mechanized claw as the tech/magic benchmark in terms of how limited it is. It still requires energy (limited time of usage), it needs to still be connected to the pony's mind physically (dependent on organic being's control), and as such the magic involved makes it a bit more risky (development for this technology is still underway).

Anyway, thanks for raising this issue up, Diggi! :D

[hpsandwich]

realistically, the only way a robot could function as a robot would be to have computers, which there are non. the most advanced electronics in this world would be of the 'tube' generation. early tube generation. robotics with any semblance of a mind would be out of the question with what i proposed. automated devices of a sort that perform a per-designated task, like automatically open a drawbridge at a specific time of day could work, but again, only in the richest part of the city would those exist.

mechs i would imagination would have the same problems as the tanks, and would be viewed as rather specialized, or otherwise impracticable. i would imagine smaller mech suits could be more normal; along the same paths as personal assistance devices. but they would run into the same problems of power longevity. they could be effective shock-troops or something, until there power ran out. i don't think a mech would be larger than the mechs in the Avatar movie though (the one with the blue space Indians not air-bender).

[The Dude]

Well I've been writing down the whys and hows of this roleplay's plot, and I was wondering if you guys would be interested in seeing a reinvented type of zombie? It won't be a traditional zombie in a sense, but they will behave like a zombie with a few minor tweaks. I'll post in the symptoms of the infected soon so ya'll would get an idea of what I mean : )

That said, I think it'll be best if there is a doctor in the group. Someone who knows the symptoms at least, or it will get very dangerous for you lot. If no one is interested in having their character become the doctor, Kickshaw can be the NPC in the group who can heal you. However, if you'd like to have your pony knowledgeable in the art of healing, please tell me and it will be done!

[hpsandwich]

i like the idea of a reinvented zombie! i think it would fit a lot better then a traditional zombie in this universe IMO. iv been playing The Walking Dead videogame and i gota say, traditional zombies are starting to tire me out

my character, having military training, probably knows basic field-medic stuff, like where to put pressure on and how to dress a wound, but nothing beyond the basics.

[The Dude]

All right, fair enough!

However, I think it best to have one of our characters be a scientist of sorts, at least, or a full fledged doctor?

Again, if you're not willing to take on this role, I won't hesitate to be the provider of such a thing :)No pressures 'course.

On another note:

Guys, serious question: at what timeline do you want to start this roleplay? At the beginning of the chaos, or in the middle of the chaos?

That said, I am willing to start this roleplay as soon as possible. Can't have this stall for too long or we won't be able to start this at all We can make the world along as we go along, how about that? We just need to figure out a few things first before starting, questions above included.

[hpsandwich]

from the beginniiinngg ~  

i think it would be cool to gauge our characters initial disbelief and whatnot, and while the chaos begins to overtake everything, do that journal thing and meetup and whatever. but i think it would be fun to write initially in the universe before its all chaotic, then witness it fall apart.

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