Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest
- Thread starter Questor
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- I think somewhere. I might be nowhere though
It doesn't. I was pretty blatant about it because I literally talked about building spy networks. Your not understanding that doesn't mean I worded it bad. It means you just went to the worst possible interpretation you possibly could instead of assuming that I am in any way a rational actor.
That said, I would say you should be quoting more often. This entire conversation you've just been posting without being specific and it makes it really difficult to talk in more than a non-generalized way. I need to know your specific sentences you are contending against as otherwise I have to argue my entire idea instead of the parts you disagree with.
It's not. Look at history dude. Economic rivals literally try to compete over trade privileges as well as common markets. We share neither of those traits as we (A) do not try to gain exclusionary/favored trade rights and (B) I've already said we aren't really in competition over specific goods. Like, be specific. Where exactly do you think we're rivals? The far-off islands we don't care about that Neighpon will probably discover first? The Emerald Isles where we don't really care about gaining any form of economic or political dominance (though it would be nice)? Even Libertalia, which is opened to investors from everywhere, still has just as much use for us as a crossroads port as it would being dominated by us and thus we don't have reason to compete. The entire thesis you started out with is that Neighpon, because they explore more often, is competing with us to gaining access to new markets. That assumes our sphere of interest is even across the entire world. We have enough going on here on the continent for the continent itself to be our sphere, of which Neighpon largely doesn't interfere unless we ask them to do so.
As I said before, they could begin to overlap in the future, but they are not as of now overlapping.
I would argue that these are somewhat contradictory points, the Thestrals are such a small minority that Equestria can legitimately get away with pretending they don't exist and we wouldn't even know they did if we didn't specifically go looking for skeletons in Equestria's closet. I would even say that a lot of Equestrians don't even know they exist and think they're just made up monsters
Which means that any Thestral uprising would be very short lived against the full might of the Equestrian military and would give the Princesses the excuse they need to reign the nobility in
It won't stop them from being competition but realistically there's nothing we can do that would do that except full on war or constant bloody sabotage which would inevitably lead to war
However stealing the Thestrals does help limit how much of a competition they are in several ways
- Diplomatically: It gives us a blatant example of their hypocrisy we can use to harm their glowing reputation and first impressions if necessary
- Industrially: It denies Equestria of a workforce that would happily work through the night
- Martially and Intrigue wise: It denies them of flying units that are experts of flying and operating at night while giving us those same things who know a fair amount about Equestria
May I ask what you mean? I'm just curious
I mean, we did just send our recently of age dragon daughter off to visit the dragon ruler of Neighpon with a big fancy giftYou know me. Been advocating for marrying a Qilin into the royal family for many turns now!
Equestria is a long way off industrialising, especially when the have a lot of cultural and societal issues with even the idea of itThe fastest way to get it to stop sleeping is to trade with it further and help it industrialize. Also, the whole point of building spy networks is to be able to do it in a way that isn't obvious. Durr
And I absolutely agree with expanding our spy network, just not what we should actually have them do
Oh I completely understand that you aren't advocating for open actions, I just don't think there's much we could do that would genuinely delay them becoming competition without it being obvious
For me the big thing is deniable sabotage, anything that would actually prevent Equestria from being competition would be expensive, constant, spill out elsewhere and inevitably obvious that someone was doing something whereas a few subtle bits of manipulation, like needling nobles into acting out, acquiring secrets or just beating them to the punch where relevant is cheaper and more sustainable and the Thestrals provide the perfect opportunity to do just that
I am imagining it now, a hypothetical negaverse where one turn equestria is put in a crisis mode as the threstles, Luna, and disenfranchised ponies seemingly disappear, only to find they went to gryphonia.
GM said:
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- Italy
well, we're catching up... up to a point.
Simply put, we started from "no magic at all". We're now at "we have the crystal ponies, some pony refugees and a few advisors from Neighpon and Canterbury (and we still don't know how trustworthy the earth pony and pegasus are, actually).
We won't be magically illiterate and incapable anymore, but we won't catch up to Equestria's finest for decades at the very least, and even that is the best case scenario in which we manage to leverage Maretonia's knowledge and (if we're lucky) the hippogryphs new abilities, whatever they may be.
Good news is, what we don't have we're rich enough that we can probably buy, be it from Maretonia's mages, Canterbury or Equestria, at least as long as we're not dealing with state secrets/forbidden magics...
magic is definitely better for peak performance, but it's also a lot more expensive due to... well, experience spellcasters and mage-crafters being rare. Unicorns are explicitly mostly restricted to telekinesis and a few personal spells in canon, with the exception of a minority of actual magic researchers/scholars.
For US, the most important things not-race-specific-magic can offer are shortcuts/improvements to our technology. I'm still thinking of that "mage-powered-flame" to use in place of normal fuel for our steam engines. If we can make the flame be powered by any magical races... well, that means that suddenly trains and steamboats have no range-limit except for the crew's magic-pools!
...of course there ARE things magic is just better at. Mostly the racial magic, like the pegasi's weather control and earth ponies' agriculture boost, but even those are mostly supplementary things. Well, and obviously actual high-level artifacts are also invaluable, but those will never really become wide-spread anyway. Simply put a couple of enchanted mirrors connected to each other would be nice for secure communications for agents or rich people, but they'll never take the place of, say, a telephone network. And such network has the advantage of network effect (the more user of that tech, the more value it gives to everyone. Think the advantage of 2 people having a telephone vs 1 million of people having it) and spreading the cost among a whole society. Higher total cost, much lower per-capita cost.
I disagree with this.
Simply put, among ALL the races in MLP, ponies (and especially unicorns) have always been shown to be the most magical, and Equestria has both the most ponies AND (presumably) access to knowledge from Starswirl the bearded, widely acknowledged as the best wizard of his time (and apparently still up there in modern times, considering the only ponies shown as maybe better than him in canon were Starlight and Twilight... which actually brings up another point: magic doesn't seem to progress that much generation to generation.)
...I digressed. My point is, Equestria definitely can do more things than any other country we know of, at least if Celestia and Luna put some focus on magical research and education.
...though, now that I think about it, Equestria was also Discord's homebase, so they probably started from a worst position than basically any other country... this actually makes their current situation even MORE impressive, as they recovered pretty quickly.
...wait, we REALLY didn't try to have her in the presence of the heart?
I'm actually a bit surprised. Though, admittedly, we might not have wanted to risk it IC.
my guess in simple words
1)We have nobility and social classes. that kinda goes against "equality", though to be fair there's a bit more social mobility than in actual feudalism... still, a farmer, a merchant and a noble are NOT equal.
2) we don't really have multiculturalism, we just absorb, integrate and subordinate other cultures into our own. Just look at the dogs and Crystal Ponies, they're now basically gryphons by culture, with very slight differences.
Religions are really the one thing we didn't quite homogenize.
if we're using our spies right, nobody will ever be sure we used them at all
...except those times EVERYONE knows we used them but just can't prove it or we didn't even bother to try and hide their actions (think Maretonia "free our people" ops)
lockingbane
If you're crazy and you know it clap your hands!
- Location
- Waxahachie tx
I just want to say i love the debate and discussion. Im just sitting here with popcorn and watching the big brains go at it.
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- Very very lost
Same here Buddy
Still think my theory of Love overload turns Proto Queens in full Queens Is right
Oh I agree that it'll be a while before we catch up fully but in thirty years we've gone from being literally incapable of magic to having a sizeable magic capable population, several experts in their fields and a magical academy that matches the best ones in any other known nation
Between that and our close relationships with several other magically gifted nations the gap is only going to shrink, especially since we don't need to match their heights just their average to matter
Exactly, sure an extremely high level mage will probably be able to outdo technology for the foreseeable future they are few and far between and the average mage can be outdone in most areas quite easily
There definitely are things that Equestria can do with magic than other countries but the major question is how widespread those things are, because if a couple dozen master mages and the princesses can do a thing but nobody else can it doesn't matter, and how long it will take other countries that understand magic to understand it once they get their hands on it
That's true to a certain extent but I would argue that there's more than a bit of social mobility since while we do have nobles anyone can theoretically raise to their level of influence with enough work in their chosen field
I'd say that this isn't really fair, the Crystal Ponies don't have a unique culture because Sombra had completely erased it by the time we saved them but all our other cultural groups do
The Diamond Dogs have their own unique pack culture and build massive underground cities, there are entire Maretonian districts of critics where they can celebrate their culture (minus the slavery) and Yak and Neighponese culture has been accepted and celebrated since the Winter War
Plus religion is a pretty massive part of culture
Of course but I just can't really think of a way that we could continually sabotage Equestria's ability to be competition without it quickly becoming apparent what we were doing
I would compare the great slave escape to recruiting the Thestrals, a potentially unpopular action that we can't really be blamed for and would cause them a lot more problems to pursue
We wouldn't be changing her nature, we'd be taking advantage of it. We know that a changeling gyne turns into the new queen when the current one dies. The queen has a hives worth of love and is worshiped by an entire nation of ponies. I believe that taking the queen's place as the recipient of all that love and adoration is what causes the metamorphosis to happen. The Crystal Heart could let us recreate those conditions although with an extra step since the love and worship would be going through the artifact instead of directly to her.
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- Goose Land
I'm aware of this, and even expressed excitement about Equestria's potential to rival us.
I'm REALLY not comfortable with the Idea of sabotaging and bringing Civil Strife to Equestria. Even aside from the fact that a Failure will bring down the Wrath of two Godesses on us, the way you Guys phrase it just sounds...evil.
Like, "Oh no, there is a Power that COULD be an Economic Rival? Better sabotage and harm them, even though they have literally done nothing against us and aren't likely to do anything in the Future!"
This is the Attitude I expect from IRL Colonialist Empires in places like Africa. I really like to think we are better then that.
Also, on the Thestrals: I think you People are vastly exaggerating on how badly they are treated. From the Turn Results, we know that they face 'some Level of discrimination' and 'mostly live in isolated Settlements', which they likely do voluntarily as to not having to deal with as much trouble. Sure, the fact that they face any discrimination sucks, but from what we heard it's not really widespread outright hatred either. They are not hunted down, imprisoned or put in Extermination Camps by angry Mobs of Equestrians or something like that.
Plus, it's not like the Sisters are just letting this happen. Luna is actively working on improving the Thestrals Public Image and overall Situation, likely with Celestias full approval, which the Bat Ponies love her for. I don't think 'nabbing them' and convincing them to join us will be nearly as easy as you make it out to be.
Like, "Oh no, there is a Power that COULD be an Economic Rival? Better sabotage and harm them, even though they have literally done nothing against us and aren't likely to do anything in the Future!"
This is the Attitude I expect from IRL Colonialist Empires in places like Africa. I really like to think we are better then that.
Also, on the Thestrals: I think you People are vastly exaggerating on how badly they are treated. From the Turn Results, we know that they face 'some Level of discrimination' and 'mostly live in isolated Settlements', which they likely do voluntarily as to not having to deal with as much trouble. Sure, the fact that they face any discrimination sucks, but from what we heard it's not really widespread outright hatred either. They are not hunted down, imprisoned or put in Extermination Camps by angry Mobs of Equestrians or something like that.
Plus, it's not like the Sisters are just letting this happen. Luna is actively working on improving the Thestrals Public Image and overall Situation, likely with Celestias full approval, which the Bat Ponies love her for. I don't think 'nabbing them' and convincing them to join us will be nearly as easy as you make it out to be.
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That could work. But we also don't know if there is a significant Number of such young Thestrals who hold this View. All we do know so far is that the Thestrals adore Luna for what she's doing to improve their Situation, not much else.
We know they have isolated communities away from the major population centers, we know the primary/only population in the cities are the guard.
The guard is predominantly a royal guard, and while it probably has support staff that are also thestrals, it's not going to be all of the thestrals who'd like to try city living.
Unless it's fucking huge and far more expansive in both mission statement and jurisdiction than is implied by the role of a royal guard, then there's probably plenty of other ambitious young bats that would very much like to try their hooves elsewhere, especially if they're not inclined towards military/law enforcement.
The guard is predominantly a royal guard, and while it probably has support staff that are also thestrals, it's not going to be all of the thestrals who'd like to try city living.
Unless it's fucking huge and far more expansive in both mission statement and jurisdiction than is implied by the role of a royal guard, then there's probably plenty of other ambitious young bats that would very much like to try their hooves elsewhere, especially if they're not inclined towards military/law enforcement.
Fair. I suppose we'll have to further investigate to find out.
The thing is Luna is the militant sister and the Three tribes have a let us call it an aversion to Violence due to their almost extinction by windigo.
She goes out with the troops to deal with Hostile monsters Wildlife and other things which considering that world can likely talk.
So she and her troops save a town, village, or hamlet from said rampaging things likely splattered with the residue of said things.
The towns beyond the leaders likely shun Her for the doing even though it was necessary to save lives.
The Pegasi with their militant traditions would be her biggest supporters while the other two tribes Celestia would have it all.
She goes out with the troops to deal with Hostile monsters Wildlife and other things which considering that world can likely talk.
So she and her troops save a town, village, or hamlet from said rampaging things likely splattered with the residue of said things.
The towns beyond the leaders likely shun Her for the doing even though it was necessary to save lives.
The Pegasi with their militant traditions would be her biggest supporters while the other two tribes Celestia would have it all.
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- Very very lost
Wow calm down there partner, Your british is shown'
Jam jar binks
Thing Futzer
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- Maybe!
Hey, lets not sabotage the second strongest country yeah?
afaik the pros to doing so are something like;
- prevents them from becoming a rival/problem
- maintains our superiority
- better bargaining position?
while the cons go something like;
- prevents us from having healthy competition
- reduces total world strength
- less innovations coming from them
- pisses off two fucking goddesses if they find out
- makes the population of equestria hate us if they find out
- will probably cause dissent in griffonia if they find out
- kind of a dick move
I'm all for sabotaging enemies, but right now, we have no reason to, and very little benefit to doing so.
Its a GOOD thing to have rivals in a system like this, otherwise you get monopolies. nothing inspires catch up / innovation like having a rival.
also, they have a whole perspective on magic that would be incredibly useful, if we don't fuck them over potential future problems
While things won't be too bad if nothing gets out, there is still a very real chance that it will. Also, like, dreamwalking is a thing? And that's a huge op-sec nightmare. EDIT: potential inception bullshit :/
if theres any pros i missed lemme know, but those are the only pros i can see.
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in regard to the thestrals, we should try to yoink them. more people and more cultures are very good. after all more peoples means more points of view means moreSCIENCE! innovation.
its not british if they WANT to join us
afaik the pros to doing so are something like;
- prevents them from becoming a rival/problem
- maintains our superiority
- better bargaining position?
while the cons go something like;
- prevents us from having healthy competition
- reduces total world strength
- less innovations coming from them
- pisses off two fucking goddesses if they find out
- makes the population of equestria hate us if they find out
- will probably cause dissent in griffonia if they find out
- kind of a dick move
I'm all for sabotaging enemies, but right now, we have no reason to, and very little benefit to doing so.
Its a GOOD thing to have rivals in a system like this, otherwise you get monopolies. nothing inspires catch up / innovation like having a rival.
also, they have a whole perspective on magic that would be incredibly useful, if we don't fuck them over potential future problems
While things won't be too bad if nothing gets out, there is still a very real chance that it will. Also, like, dreamwalking is a thing? And that's a huge op-sec nightmare. EDIT: potential inception bullshit :/
if theres any pros i missed lemme know, but those are the only pros i can see.
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in regard to the thestrals, we should try to yoink them. more people and more cultures are very good. after all more peoples means more points of view means more
its not british if they WANT to join us
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- Location
- Very very lost
Fair enoughits not british if they WANT to join us
Anyway who's up for more expeditions into the big wide world
- Location
- Italy
mh, I wonder just how much of a problem that is.
We don't know if Luna has a range limit.
We don't actually ever see her enter the dreams of any non-pony I think (...though maybe he goes into Spike's once?)
She can see the dreams, but she didn't show the ability to see anything beyond what that person is dreaming, so... accidental leaks of informations are possible, but targeting specific bits of intel might not be possible for her.
and of course any of this limitations could simply not be there. FOr all we know she can freely control someone's dream, basically putting them in any situation she wishes and seeing how they react, which would allow her to basically predict anyone's action and access to any kind of known intel.
About Thestrals it's honestly easy and we don't have to do anything controversial: we just make them one of the targets for the immigration campaign action. A note of "we welcome people of any known race. Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, Thestrals..."
We could very well make a complete list of all known races in there, plus a note along the lines of "if you do not belong to any of these races we're even MORE interested, as we've never heard of you!"
...and I'm now imagining a few changelings coming to us unmasked because of it
Depends on the form of sabotage, if we consider nabbing the Thestrals as sabotage then it would introduce a whole new race to the Empire and there's not really anything Equestria could do about it
I kind of have to disagree with this one since with how much people love Garrick they'd probably just shrug their shoulders and assume we had a good reason
I would be, but only if we can fit it in between the stuff we need to do in storm country, caribou lands so they don't start mucking with the doggie again, and Canterbury.
Those zebra seem like possible customers, and alchemy might have all sorts of neat tricks.
Maybe we could set up some sort of joint exploration venture with Neighpon?