The Northern Empire: An Alternate Setting

[Godna]

Now you're thinking with Capitialism!

[G-man64]

Are Changelings susceptible to corruption? And if so how? (By changelings I of course mean based on this ruleset https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bob ... obile=true#)

[Thanqol]

Those numbers for radiation should really be listed in rads/second. Considering a turn is 6 seconds long, an average sprint speed of 15 yds/15AP, 70AP/turn, and the belt being 2 miles wide, a player with 5 END/AGI will take 352 seconds to /sprint/ across the belt with no distractions or interruptions. Walking takes twice that time. Considering the party would move at the pace of the slowest player, times can be expected to be longer when moving as a group. With an average of 850 rads for a hotspot, 450 for a darkspot, 55 for Poppy Bridge, 225 for Shambles, the rads per second should be roughly... 2.4, 1.3, 0.15, 0.6 respectively. Which is... pretty low for a radiation field, but it /is/ 2 miles across.

Which means lethal times would be: 416, 770, 6667, 1667 seconds respectively. Even running across a hotspot for a slower character would be lethal, walking across a dark spot would be lethal for all but the fastest characters, you could hang out on Poppy Bridge for about an hour and 45 minutes before you died (Though you'd get sick long before that), and make sure you don't stop to dawdle on Shambles, because roughly 25 mins is your limit there~

Thank you for that, math and scale and numbers are my super weakness which was why I did it the way I did.

Are Changelings susceptible to corruption? And if so how? (By changelings I of course mean based on this ruleset https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bob ... obile=true#)

I've been intending to talk about Changelings but consistently forgot! I shall get to them!

All the more reason to charge a premium!

As long as your premium is less than the 600 caps required for a party of six to cross the bridge you'll have customers - but I imagine you'd want to try and specialise in folks who are desperate.

Aaaand now I've got ideas for an organised crime group buying up radiation supplies to try and push customers into using their unicorn transport rather than risking the run.

[SilverlightPony]

I've been intending to talk about Changelings but consistently forgot! I shall get to them!

<snip>

Aaaand now I've got ideas for an organised crime group buying up radiation supplies to try and push customers into using their unicorn transport rather than risking the run.

Hooray, world-building!

[G-man64]

What about Alicorns and corruption? Or will corruption just affect them the same as unicorns?

[Thanqol]

What about Alicorns and corruption? Or will corruption just affect them the same as unicorns?

I reckon they can scale up and down the same as regular unicorns.

[The Custodian]

I would think it depends on wether the game is Post Unity or not. Being linked to the goddess would probably stave off corruption. Unfortunately if the goddess is around you wouldnt have an Alicorn character That said... It could be argued that the corruption has the same affect the pink cloud did in Canterlot?Disrupting the goddess?

Anywho. Within the empire, how are species that are members of the Republic treated? Say a walrus who has no ties to the Republic in any way wanted to set up a shop or something And vice versa? You mentioned that ponies in the republic are treated kinda like second class citizens?

[Godna]

As long as your premium is less than the 600 caps required for a party of six to cross the bridge you'll have customers - but I imagine you'd want to try and specialise in folks who are desperate.

Or ponies who want to get in without alerting any authorities.

I would think it depends on wether the game is Post Unity or not.

I vaguely recall that...wasn't the goddess reach somewhat more limited before Redeye began feeding her unicorns? Would her reach even had made it up to the Crystal empire?

I ask because I once had an alicorn's who's backstory involved that except in Saddle Arabia.

[TyrannisUmbra]

Thank you for that, math and scale and numbers are my super weakness which was why I did it the way I did.

Numbers are my specialty, and I loooove coming up with numbers like that, so thank you!

[Thanqol]

I would think it depends on wether the game is Post Unity or not. Being linked to the goddess would probably stave off corruption. Unfortunately if the goddess is around you wouldnt have an Alicorn character That said... It could be argued that the corruption has the same affect the pink cloud did in Canterlot?Disrupting the goddess?

Oh, there's some interesting implications.

Okay, metaphysic mechanics, go:

The Goddess is a *mind link*, not a *soul link*; once she dies, the Alicorns souls start reasserting themselves and they go back to the way they were. Sombra's corruption is a spiritual effect, meaning that the Goddess' mind link would remain active even as individual Alicorn souls are degraded by Corruption. However, since the Goddess does have hivemind elements, all Alicorns could start behaving erratically if one is exposed to enough Corruption.

I feel like the Corruption would be akin to a cancerous growth in the Goddess, and her probable reaction if she realises what's happening would be to kill every tainted Alicorn and then never go North again.

Anywho. Within the empire, how are species that are members of the Republic treated? Say a walrus who has no ties to the Republic in any way wanted to set up a shop or something And vice versa? You mentioned that ponies in the republic are treated kinda like second class citizens?

Ponies in the Republic aren't persecuted - the Republic has a standing 'no Unicorns, no Zebras' policy because they're capable of creating Megaspells. Unicorns who have their horns castrated are fine. The Republic also has a firm 'Ponies don't get to make government decisions' policy because ponies fucked it up when they ran everything. However, once those two catches are out of the way, many Republican races are very firm about giving Earth and Pegasus ponies a completely fair shot and full protection of the law. This is for both practical and moral reasons.

The Republic's perhaps most valuable asset is that they are determined, at any cost, to hold the moral high ground over the ponies. It's intrinsic to their culture, and if the Republic starts committing the same atrocities as the ponies then they lose their coherence and fall apart; their reason for existing is to prove "We can do it better". As a result, genocide is flat-out off the table, as are any high-level atrocities or amoral experiments. They also want to demonstrate to the ponies that they have a viable alternative system, which encourages defectors and weakens enemy resolve. There are just as many practical reasons - the Walrus tribe values trade and there are a lot of ponies to trade with, the dragon loves pony culture so much he'll make sure to vote down any attempt to suppress it, and Bear recognises that skilled earth ponies are invaluable assets in industrial production. Aside from being locked out of government service, a pony in the Republic can naturalise, earn citizenship, serve in the armed forces (up until about Captain rank) and enjoy full protection of the law. Unicorns and zebras can visit for up to two months on a trade visa as long as they're vetted, wear a magic limiter, and don't commit any crimes. It's a pretty good deal.

Worst place to be a pony in the Republic is probably Griffon, which is pretty brutal across the board.

The Empire, on the flipside, is way more unstructured. There isn't anywhere near the same fear, hate and racism of Republican races as there was of the Zebras pre-War simply because there's no government institution of racism. Shining Armour's a decent bloke and has appointed Bear HREC directors before, which is the closest thing the Empire has to a consistent civil service, and there's plenty of other Republican races staying in the Empire long-term. In fact, the Emperor quite likes Republican races because he's got a hate-on for Sombra and they're immune to Corruption. Just because there's no top-down racism doesn't mean it's not there from the bottom up, though, and plenty of ponies have bad memories of Republican raids or sabotages. Even this is less than total because the Republic considers it's diplomatic offensive to be as important as it's military one - it learned the hard way that it can't attack the Empire directly, so it's trying to subvert as much as possible instead.

If the Emperor came to blame the Republic instead of Sombra for the death of his wife things would flip overnight and then the nightmare purges would begin.

Or ponies who want to get in without alerting any authorities.

The Crystal Empire is a big place and the Imperial Guard doesn't actually patrol all it's borders; they can't even keep the entire city under control. If you just pick an isolated part of the Belt and run across, nopony's going to stop you and chances are nopony cares. In fact, if you arrive at the Bridge, figure the toll is too high, and want to just run across the Belt less than a hundred meters from the Bridge nopony's gonna stop you.