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More images from my Equestria dreamscape. Along with pegasus, griffins, and dragons there is a relatively newcomer to the skies of Equestria. Airships. While hot air balloons have been known for more than century it has only been within the last couple decades that certain breakthroughs and discoveries have been made that have true airships possible.
First, was the discovery of what are called lifting gases. The type most often used in party balloons, some large balloons and airships appear to be a nonflammable helium-like substance that the ponies can acquire without too much trouble. Hydrogen is known is considered too dangerous for applications like this. There are apparently a couple of magical lifting gases known but they are rarely used do to their scarcity and their odd side effects to ponies.
Second, was power plants that are small and light enough to be used in an airship, but are powerful enough and fuel efficient enough to make the effort worthwhile. Also safety is a great concern to. Yes there have been throughout the years numerous attempts at magically powered airships but they have never panned out in the long term. Within the last decade however the first generation of lightweight, fuel efficient steam engines have started taking to skies of Equestria. Along with the development of lightweight steam collectors they have made airships a viable concept. Some ponies are experimenting with the idea of steam turbines but they are in their infancy. Even more rudimentary is the concept of the internal combustion engine which at the moment apparently just exists on paper.
Third was creation of lighter weight materials to construct airships from. At this time there are no true rigid airships in Equestria but semi-rigid designs have started to make their presence known, and reading the some of the magazines with articles on the topic some ponies believe that a true Zeppelin-like rigid craft is just over the horizon.
At the moment airships and balloons remain primarily toys of the Canterlot and Manehattan elite, but some ponies are starting to consider the airships potential as commercial craft or as scientific vessels . Even more radical a few wild mavericks ponies have even proposed military applications for these behemoths of sky. However at the moment they remain a very tiny minority.
First, was the discovery of what are called lifting gases. The type most often used in party balloons, some large balloons and airships appear to be a nonflammable helium-like substance that the ponies can acquire without too much trouble. Hydrogen is known is considered too dangerous for applications like this. There are apparently a couple of magical lifting gases known but they are rarely used do to their scarcity and their odd side effects to ponies.
Second, was power plants that are small and light enough to be used in an airship, but are powerful enough and fuel efficient enough to make the effort worthwhile. Also safety is a great concern to. Yes there have been throughout the years numerous attempts at magically powered airships but they have never panned out in the long term. Within the last decade however the first generation of lightweight, fuel efficient steam engines have started taking to skies of Equestria. Along with the development of lightweight steam collectors they have made airships a viable concept. Some ponies are experimenting with the idea of steam turbines but they are in their infancy. Even more rudimentary is the concept of the internal combustion engine which at the moment apparently just exists on paper.
Third was creation of lighter weight materials to construct airships from. At this time there are no true rigid airships in Equestria but semi-rigid designs have started to make their presence known, and reading the some of the magazines with articles on the topic some ponies believe that a true Zeppelin-like rigid craft is just over the horizon.
At the moment airships and balloons remain primarily toys of the Canterlot and Manehattan elite, but some ponies are starting to consider the airships potential as commercial craft or as scientific vessels . Even more radical a few wild mavericks ponies have even proposed military applications for these behemoths of sky. However at the moment they remain a very tiny minority.
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Yeah some ponies propose using them as transportation for long range recon units to extend their range. Also some ponies are considering the idea of putting wireless telegraph units on them to speed up communication. And the weather service has used balloons already to lift pegasus and unicorn ponies up to high altitudes for weather research and study.
Don't forget Scootaloo's fireside story she told around the campfire. Here is the cleaned up paraphrased version of it.
Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six did not destroy Nightmare Moon when they used the Elements of Harmony. Instead all they succeeded in doing was driving out the demon that had possessed Luna. This was actually not a good thing since the demon had been feeding on Luna's magic and had grown immensely powerful over its thousand year banishment to the moon. Upon Nightmare Moon's return to Equestria the demon actually attempted to leave her body but Luna was using what power she had left to restrain and keep the demon trapped in her body.
Now free from Luna's body the demon Nightmare Moon cast a hideous necromancy spell that raised all the dead ponies of Equestria to serve as her army of conquest. Tens of thousands undead ponies quickly overwhelmed pony society. Canterlot fell to the onslaught. The government was driven into exile. All that remained of the legitimate government was the two sisters, the Mane Six and a handful of government officials and officers. With the lands overrun with zombie ponies Celestia's government was based out of a small fleet airships. Only a couple of the pegasus cities still stood against the demon's rule, and any ponies ground side not under the yoke Nightmare Night's reign had retreated to Zion-like cities in the hills where they licked there wounds and held on to live another day.
Celestia having lost an eye in the fall of Canterlot was now this Captain Harlock character who fought to free Equestria and all the surviving ponies. From her sky galleon The Solar Flare she struggles along with Luna to be victorious. You asked for it.
Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six did not destroy Nightmare Moon when they used the Elements of Harmony. Instead all they succeeded in doing was driving out the demon that had possessed Luna. This was actually not a good thing since the demon had been feeding on Luna's magic and had grown immensely powerful over its thousand year banishment to the moon. Upon Nightmare Moon's return to Equestria the demon actually attempted to leave her body but Luna was using what power she had left to restrain and keep the demon trapped in her body.
Now free from Luna's body the demon Nightmare Moon cast a hideous necromancy spell that raised all the dead ponies of Equestria to serve as her army of conquest. Tens of thousands undead ponies quickly overwhelmed pony society. Canterlot fell to the onslaught. The government was driven into exile. All that remained of the legitimate government was the two sisters, the Mane Six and a handful of government officials and officers. With the lands overrun with zombie ponies Celestia's government was based out of a small fleet airships. Only a couple of the pegasus cities still stood against the demon's rule, and any ponies ground side not under the yoke Nightmare Night's reign had retreated to Zion-like cities in the hills where they licked there wounds and held on to live another day.
Celestia having lost an eye in the fall of Canterlot was now this Captain Harlock character who fought to free Equestria and all the surviving ponies. From her sky galleon The Solar Flare she struggles along with Luna to be victorious. You asked for it.
"Even more radical a few wild mavericks ponies have even proposed military applications for these behemoths of sky."
Now I want to see Rainbow Dash buzz a tower with a sonic rainboom and make the Wonderbolt officer inside it spill his coffee over his uniform. "MAVERRRIICCCK!!!"
Did I mention my brain works in weird ways?
Now I want to see Rainbow Dash buzz a tower with a sonic rainboom and make the Wonderbolt officer inside it spill his coffee over his uniform. "MAVERRRIICCCK!!!"
Did I mention my brain works in weird ways?
<i>First, was the discovery of what are called lifting gases. The type most often used in party balloons, some large balloons and airships appear to be a nonflammable helium-like substance that the ponies can acquire without too much trouble.</i>
Helium-like... would that mean there's no helium in Equestria?
Helium-like... would that mean there's no helium in Equestria?
Given that on Earth helium wasn't discovered until 1868 by studying solar spectra and not isolated until 1895 its quite possible that Ponies haven't discovered it yet. And even if they have discovered it there is a considerable chance that they either haven't got significant reserves of it in Equestria (distribution of helium reserves is decidedly uneven on Earth with North America having the majority of it), don't do enough oil/natural gas drilling to extract it, or simply haven't discovered that it can be found as a constituent of natural gas (its inert nature makes it hard to detect).
That is all under assumption that their physics and chemistry is any similar to ours.
My personal headcanon - it's not based on particles at all. No electrons, protons, neutrons, all continuous matter of a different kind. Which is kinda neat because enlargement/shrinking spells are possible and the rule of conservation of mass is not written in stone.
My personal headcanon - it's not based on particles at all. No electrons, protons, neutrons, all continuous matter of a different kind. Which is kinda neat because enlargement/shrinking spells are possible and the rule of conservation of mass is not written in stone.
My headcanon has an even simpler explanation for the gas envelopes of the airships: Clouds. Just get a friendly pegasus to stuff a couple chunks of cloud in there, and it will float... because clouds float, right? QED. :D
Then there's the Pinkiecopter. I have no idea what's up with that.
Then there's the Pinkiecopter. I have no idea what's up with that.
Yes but there is one thing to keep in mind about the 20th Century. It had two World Wars and then a 50 years arms race afterwards. That may have accounted for some of the fast forward button being always pressed down as hard as possible in our world.
Also the ponies are not struggling under the same environmental conditions that we existed under; they seem to take a lit bit more of a cautious approach to progress at times. They do not seem have the urge to rip up the landscape just to build more widgets. In fact they would find many of our industrial practices of 19th and early 20th Century downright horrifying.
Also the ponies are not struggling under the same environmental conditions that we existed under; they seem to take a lit bit more of a cautious approach to progress at times. They do not seem have the urge to rip up the landscape just to build more widgets. In fact they would find many of our industrial practices of 19th and early 20th Century downright horrifying.
That implies that "War gives us technological advancement." It's almost a cliche and I don't buy it. Military technology is usually applied research banking off of existing science and industrial base and taking it in a new direction. I'll admit competition tends to give people a kick in the ass, but it doesn't necessarily have to be dire, violent competition.
I've never liked the way the landscape was ripped up just to build more widgets, but it's the world I was born into. o_O I've wondered what an advanced civilization might look like if there was environmental and labor concerns from the get-go - and from what you tell me the Ponies are headed in that direction.
I've never liked the way the landscape was ripped up just to build more widgets, but it's the world I was born into. o_O I've wondered what an advanced civilization might look like if there was environmental and labor concerns from the get-go - and from what you tell me the Ponies are headed in that direction.
And the relentless drive of research cut off so much of the uniqueness that had existed. Look at racing aircraft between the wars;that period produced so many unique designs as different things were tried, then WWII shut all of that down in the pursuit of better weapons. After the war, 90% of the racing aircraft were tweaks of P-51s or F8Fs or other war-surplus fighters, with homegrown designs tucked away almost as second.
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