(though it is distracting me from my work somewhat.).
You’re the second person to mention that I’ve managed to induce at least a minor case of JOMT, which I take as a high compliment.
Missy seems to be able to reconstruct quite a lot of technology
entirely from memory, which stretches my suspension of disbelief somewhat.
This may be a case of generalising from a single example but while I understand radios in theory I doubt I could build one (the amplifier idea is interesting though, nice to see a difference emerging in the physics of the world).
I could probably build a very basic firearm with time and materials, but not the complex one Missy seems to have produced quickly.
I probably over-did it with getting a firearm manufactured so quickly. I’d recently read a news article about some 3D printers now being capable of creating most parts of a firearm; I decided that Missy is more into the Maker subculture than I am, and not only looked into the mechanics of how an automatic pistol worked, but remembered enough about specific details to be able to put together plans for Royal-sponsored workshops to build from.
The most implausible part about Missy’s wireless device… is, actually, the earphones; unamplified crystal radios output a signal requiring earphones with a different resistance from standard ones.
A minor spoiler for the chapter I plan on finishing writing today: Missy is about to try to grab a new revenue stream, independent of her previous sources of funding, by ‘inventing’ a whole series of easily-manufactured Earthly items… a set which is much more plausible to put together than even a radio.
I’m enjoying the musical interludes, the general theme of mid-century vocalists is nice, gives some thematic unity.
I’ve been discussing with some of the other authors about switching musical channels after chapter 60, going to They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, Weird Al, and their ilk. Haven’t firmly decided one way or the other, yet.
Missy as a character seems a little under-defined other than her rationalism. We don’t really hear much about his life on earth and what background they have. Is that deliberate? Possibly some fleshing out of their past would make their rationalism and encyclopaedic knowledge of science more plausible.
Now this… is both a good point, and something that I can try working on.
I’ve been using the excuse that Missy has been trying to hide her Earthly origins entirely, to avoid going into that; but it’s entirely possible I’ve been pushing too far with that. I’ll see what I can come up with that helps the story.
The pony world seems a lot darker than in canon or most fan works.
It is. Several other stories have pointed this out, and the conceit is that the cartoon we see has been framed to exclude any of the aspects of the setting which don’t fit into its TV rating.
Once one of the founding stories established in one of its first chapters that one of Equestria’s neighboring countries had a great many slave mines, which the Princesses weren’t doing anything about… the floodgates were opened. I actually wrote a short chapter specifically to point out that despite all the bad things going on, there were still lots of places which were as pleasant and peaceful as implied in the cartoon—they just tend to get skipped over in favor of describing more exciting locales.
Having them as a cow is a really cool idea, not just in physical limitations but the situation of being transferred into the body of an oppressed minority makes for some interesting situations.
Making firearms is not actually that easy. The 3D-printed one was actually just part of a firearm, and not the part that takes the highest stresses.
Missy should, in practice, have had at least the following problems:
For a breech-loading firearm, you need high-grade steel of a particular and uniform formulation. Up until quite recently, humanity did not understand the chemistry of steel well enough to do that. Ponyland is unlikely to. The alternative, unfortunately, may be the firearm blowing up in your face.
Very particular chemistries are required for the propellant. Gunpowder is hard to set fire to, makes smoke, and doesn’t provide much energy. The modern ideal of a propellant that explodes when hit hard, doesn’t explode when hit even slightly lighter, doesn’t explode if heated, doesn’t explode under production, doesn’t explode if you cool it down and doesn’t randomly explode if you stare at it is.. actually pretty hard to manage. You also want it to not produce too much smoke. Guncotton is one of the better alternatives at your tech level, but it involves nitroglycerin.. ’nuff said.
If you’re interested in the details of recreating modern science, I suggest you look up the 1632 series; the writers have done a lot of careful research. For what it’s worth, though, even doing a two-century jump (to late 1800s tech) is still a multi-year project when supplied with thousands of modern people, tens of thousands of down-timers, and a small modern city.
It wasn’t the part that takes the highest stresses, but it -is- the part which is identified as the firearm in the US—sort of like the motherboard isn’t the component of the computer which takes the highest stresses (that would be the processor), but is the part which is recognized by an OS as the computer. Additionally, it takes little machining skill to finish the gun from that point out of supplies you can find in most hardware stores. (Much less assembling the rest of the gun out of unregulated parts.)
Smokeless gunpowder is only desirable if you care about being spotted. Regular old gunpowder is easy to make (my chemistry lessons from my father—I was homeschooled for a substantial portion of my childhood—were very practical, and this is one of the things I learned to make.) and perfectly practical for just about every application you could want it for. Additionally, guncotton does not in fact require nitroglycerin; that’s only one of the two types that can be produced. (It invariably requires large quantities of nitric and sulfuric acids, however. Nitric acid is harder to come by than the raw materials for gunpowder, especially in the quantities needed, which will generally attract law enforcement attention. It’s not impossible to produce yourself, but difficult.)
Given that the firearm creation occurred some 50 chapters before what I’m writing now, and the result was successfully used for at least one plot-point, it would be a bit impractical to revise it just now. However, I can still keep these notes in case I do an eventual full rewrite; and these comments can be useful for filling in some as-yet-undescribed blank spots, such as helping to explain why none of the other game-pieces have managed to assemble their own modern firearms.
In case it was buried where some LessWrongers here didn’t read it, the point in the story that goes into the most detail about arranging for the creation of a firearm is in chapter 13, and reads:
“There is a certain project I had been meaning to get started, but which I haven’t been able to figure out how to introduce under the auspices of either The Dairy’s public or private sides. But as a quiet royal initiative...”
She nodded in understanding, and I went on. “It involves the production of a certain dangerous alchemical substance. Improper care and handling can easily lead to the loss of a hoof, or worse—but when finished, it has a number of applications. The final product consists of about two-thirds cellulose nitrate, which is produced by exposing cotton fibers to an equal blend of sulfuric and nitric acids; about one-third glyceryl trinitrate, which is made by adding glycerol to a similar acid mix, subsequently gelatinized with ether; and about one-twentieth part paraffin or petroleum jelly. There are a number of precautions which need to be taken in order to prevent accidents of various sorts...” I went on describing how to manufacture a generic sort of cordite from raw ingredients—sure, black powder was a lot easier to throw together, but why settle for an inferior product—and wondered whether it would be a good idea to also have Luna be in charge of putting together a hoof-compatible pistol and individual cartridges… but decided to handle that end of things myself. Most likely, I could get away with having a few lab-techs in the Dairy get the individual pieces put together, compartmentalized so none of them knew what the whole project was. I might have to get a bit of help figuring out a decent trigger which could be aimed and worked with hooves, but had a few basic ideas based on the chest-mounted cameras I’d seen in use.
So, trying to take as a given that the single firearm was, in fact, successfully built, then the next time I write about it, I could try describing the additional difficulties currently being described, and how overcoming those difficulties was accomplished.
For example, at that point in the story, the main character had access to the capital city’s top engineers and technicians, as well as the local magically-enhanced forges and manufacturing techniques. So while the gun itself may be entirely non-magical in its operation, Equestria might not be able to manufacture it without applying magic during the metal-casting processes. (Or something of the sort.) In general, Equestrian technology is roughly in the 1850′s-1870′s range, with various exceptions (eg, sound systems, airships) that often turn out to have a magical base.
Another background detail that is potentially useful for such not-quite-retconning is that the Princess to whom all this was being described has been shown to be able to collect information by appearing in other people’s dreams. It’s possible that she used this technique to help gather details that the protagonist didn’t know she knew, to help fill out any blanks required for proper manufacturing.
You’re the second person to mention that I’ve managed to induce at least a minor case of JOMT, which I take as a high compliment.
I probably over-did it with getting a firearm manufactured so quickly. I’d recently read a news article about some 3D printers now being capable of creating most parts of a firearm; I decided that Missy is more into the Maker subculture than I am, and not only looked into the mechanics of how an automatic pistol worked, but remembered enough about specific details to be able to put together plans for Royal-sponsored workshops to build from.
The most implausible part about Missy’s wireless device… is, actually, the earphones; unamplified crystal radios output a signal requiring earphones with a different resistance from standard ones.
A minor spoiler for the chapter I plan on finishing writing today: Missy is about to try to grab a new revenue stream, independent of her previous sources of funding, by ‘inventing’ a whole series of easily-manufactured Earthly items… a set which is much more plausible to put together than even a radio.
I’ve been discussing with some of the other authors about switching musical channels after chapter 60, going to They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, Weird Al, and their ilk. Haven’t firmly decided one way or the other, yet.
Now this… is both a good point, and something that I can try working on.
I’ve been using the excuse that Missy has been trying to hide her Earthly origins entirely, to avoid going into that; but it’s entirely possible I’ve been pushing too far with that. I’ll see what I can come up with that helps the story.
It is. Several other stories have pointed this out, and the conceit is that the cartoon we see has been framed to exclude any of the aspects of the setting which don’t fit into its TV rating.
Once one of the founding stories established in one of its first chapters that one of Equestria’s neighboring countries had a great many slave mines, which the Princesses weren’t doing anything about… the floodgates were opened. I actually wrote a short chapter specifically to point out that despite all the bad things going on, there were still lots of places which were as pleasant and peaceful as implied in the cartoon—they just tend to get skipped over in favor of describing more exciting locales.
Thank you—I tried. :)
Making firearms is not actually that easy. The 3D-printed one was actually just part of a firearm, and not the part that takes the highest stresses.
Missy should, in practice, have had at least the following problems:
For a breech-loading firearm, you need high-grade steel of a particular and uniform formulation. Up until quite recently, humanity did not understand the chemistry of steel well enough to do that. Ponyland is unlikely to. The alternative, unfortunately, may be the firearm blowing up in your face.
Very particular chemistries are required for the propellant. Gunpowder is hard to set fire to, makes smoke, and doesn’t provide much energy. The modern ideal of a propellant that explodes when hit hard, doesn’t explode when hit even slightly lighter, doesn’t explode if heated, doesn’t explode under production, doesn’t explode if you cool it down and doesn’t randomly explode if you stare at it is.. actually pretty hard to manage. You also want it to not produce too much smoke. Guncotton is one of the better alternatives at your tech level, but it involves nitroglycerin.. ’nuff said.
If you’re interested in the details of recreating modern science, I suggest you look up the 1632 series; the writers have done a lot of careful research. For what it’s worth, though, even doing a two-century jump (to late 1800s tech) is still a multi-year project when supplied with thousands of modern people, tens of thousands of down-timers, and a small modern city.
It wasn’t the part that takes the highest stresses, but it -is- the part which is identified as the firearm in the US—sort of like the motherboard isn’t the component of the computer which takes the highest stresses (that would be the processor), but is the part which is recognized by an OS as the computer. Additionally, it takes little machining skill to finish the gun from that point out of supplies you can find in most hardware stores. (Much less assembling the rest of the gun out of unregulated parts.)
Smokeless gunpowder is only desirable if you care about being spotted. Regular old gunpowder is easy to make (my chemistry lessons from my father—I was homeschooled for a substantial portion of my childhood—were very practical, and this is one of the things I learned to make.) and perfectly practical for just about every application you could want it for. Additionally, guncotton does not in fact require nitroglycerin; that’s only one of the two types that can be produced. (It invariably requires large quantities of nitric and sulfuric acids, however. Nitric acid is harder to come by than the raw materials for gunpowder, especially in the quantities needed, which will generally attract law enforcement attention. It’s not impossible to produce yourself, but difficult.)
Given that the firearm creation occurred some 50 chapters before what I’m writing now, and the result was successfully used for at least one plot-point, it would be a bit impractical to revise it just now. However, I can still keep these notes in case I do an eventual full rewrite; and these comments can be useful for filling in some as-yet-undescribed blank spots, such as helping to explain why none of the other game-pieces have managed to assemble their own modern firearms.
In case it was buried where some LessWrongers here didn’t read it, the point in the story that goes into the most detail about arranging for the creation of a firearm is in chapter 13, and reads:
So, trying to take as a given that the single firearm was, in fact, successfully built, then the next time I write about it, I could try describing the additional difficulties currently being described, and how overcoming those difficulties was accomplished.
For example, at that point in the story, the main character had access to the capital city’s top engineers and technicians, as well as the local magically-enhanced forges and manufacturing techniques. So while the gun itself may be entirely non-magical in its operation, Equestria might not be able to manufacture it without applying magic during the metal-casting processes. (Or something of the sort.) In general, Equestrian technology is roughly in the 1850′s-1870′s range, with various exceptions (eg, sound systems, airships) that often turn out to have a magical base.
Another background detail that is potentially useful for such not-quite-retconning is that the Princess to whom all this was being described has been shown to be able to collect information by appearing in other people’s dreams. It’s possible that she used this technique to help gather details that the protagonist didn’t know she knew, to help fill out any blanks required for proper manufacturing.