So it's been a bad week. A very bad, career destroying week. It's at times like this where I need to switch off and unwind...but there's so little I'm watching and playing right now. God knows Singularity's bloody Phase Ticks deserve to go die in a fire (I will be replaying that level over and over again in hell, I just know it), and there's really not a whole lot going on on the Animation front (kinda running out of ideas, Cybersix is definitely a short term solution to things).

 

So let's talk about Creation. The next four weeks, I'm going to be talking about my own work, highlighting and raising the profile of some of my stuff. Call it ego-stroking if you really must, but what else was I going to be talking about - angry people bombing the Metascore of Company of Heroes 2 because it dared to be historically accurate? That forever postponed talk about a certain pompous, egotistical fanbase that makes Bronies and Sonic Fans look sane by comparison? How awesome Pacific Rim was?

 

...

 

...Topics for another day. So,where are we going to start? Well, let's do something drunk, stupid and fairly recent, that's been mentioned previously if you happened to read the entry thrice removed.

 

Let's talk about Equestrian Earth.

 

 

Equestrian Earth is a 2013 Project that had something of a history behind it, the embarrassing story of which I'm going to reveal now.

 

Ever hear of Writing.Com? Well, I wanted to try and bring some quality there. Skim over it's MLP content for a little while - at least a good 66% (and this is me being generous) is all Fetish related material. Your not helping your image there guys. Anyway, after examining a few of them, their work was pretty sub-standard. If I had my way, most of them would be getting a single star rating, and this again is me being generous.

 

Then I found Riptide.

 

 

 

For those not in the know (i.e: Most people reading this), Riptide is my Hetrosexual Life Partner. It's thanks to a big part in his efforts that I was able to finally connect with Bronies on any capacity again, with his role essentially being somewhere between a Priest, a Confessor, a Work Partner and a PILC (Pony I Like to Cuddle).

He was also the one who suggested not making it an Interactive, and moving it into full Roleplay Territory, which we did.

 

And then, the rest is history.

 

 

The "Story" of Equestrian Earth (and I use that lightly given it barely has one) covers a version of our Earth at an ambiguous number of days in the Near-Future. Thanks to an event known as "The Merging", which has heralded by the planet increasing it's own mass, alterations to Colour and various natural disasters to a level you'd think someone like Galactus was invading.

 

The truth was, it was actually our Candy Coloured Friends. Our very large and cuddly Candy Coloured Friends.

 

 

 

Actually before we move on, Fun Fact time - originally, the Ponies were going to be between 400-600ft. For anyone running mathhammer, this makes them roughly Jaeger sized. After further mathhammering that this would result in Dragons, Ursa's and Atlas's that measured nearly 2 Miles in height, the Ponies were cut down to being 100ft (with everything else being scaled down to a more manageable 1700ft at least - remember that this would still make them Giant sized compared with the normal Ponies, so it's about keeping consistancy - this is not Redwall!).

 

Anyway, apocalyptic doom and gloom happened as the Humans took the new "invaders" well. Riots, conflict and panic erupted as the old order collapsed, and from the ashes the new "Block" system was established.

 

A "Block" for anyone wondering is a collection of countries and territories united under a single banner. While fairly stable, each Block has it's own problems to allow for ADVENTURE. It also means I got to listen to a lot of Rush and restudy the Cold War.

 

 

 

Ah yes, my favourite part. The Blocks as discussed previously are a collection of Countries and Territories united under a single banner. Blocks vary in power and size, and have wildly varying ideologies that reflect changes from The Merging. So far, the Blocks discussed publicly are -

• The Free Human League (Crimson) - The FHL occupy what was the former United States, Cuba, Alaska and some of the surrounding islands. The best way to sum up the FHL is a nation of the most militant Anti-Bronies you can imagine. They're a highly militarised, aggressive (but technologically lacking) Block, whose entire strategy revolves around wiping out the "Equestroid Menace" and putting Humans back as the sole dominant power on the planet. They also like to deploy Nuclear Weapons. A lot.
  
• The Human-Equestrian Commonwealth (Blue) - The HEC are where most of the Ponies you know and love live. Here, Princess Celestia has remained in power...but it's not exactly a popular move. As the sole figure of power within the nation, Celestia has caused quite the stir with the Human populace, and as a result there are a lot of internal Racial tensions within the Block. It doesn't help that Celestia also seems bent on uniting the other blocks under her rule - and contrary to opinion, no Celestia is not Tyrantlestia, Trollestia or even Molestia (Molestia WOULD earn you a flat ban).
  
• The Neo Paradigm (Dark Green) - Formerly the Slavic Federation, the Neo Paradigm are a bizarre group who worship the Ponies as living incarnations of the old Slavic Pantheon (for anyone wanting to do research, the main god of the Pantheon - Perun - was a god of Horses among other things). They're easily the most advanced block, but have gotten there with some rather questionable approaches to Science. It also has a pretty huge black market, which sometimes trades in pony pieces from Hooves to Hair to even raw Alicorn (no, not ground up Celestia - it's the substance a Unicorn's horn is made from).
  
• The Equestrian Alliance (Orange) - Taking up Canada, and recently expanding into Nova Scotia and several others, the Equestrian Alliance is a Block entirely populated by Ponies...that make the FHL look like a kitty in comparison. The Equestrian Alliance sees the Humans as crude, boorish vermin, and are just as hell bent on exterminating them and clearing the way for Pony kind. Also to share more fun facts, this group was created on the suggestion of Riptide - originally, Canada was going to be an FHL aligned nation.
  
• The Changeling Wastes (aka Xillith, Yellow) - The Changelings are some of the most brutally effective conquerors in the fiction, having wiped out Central America overnight (with most of the survivors from those nations migrating north and settling in the FHL). For the time being though, they've mostly been idling around since the various Hive Queens are trying to decide on what to do. Also, unlike the Equestrian Alliance, the Changelings mostly kept the Humans alive in Cocoons, and use their love generated to feed themselves, Matrix style. They're also dab hands at Organic Technology, and are capable of breeding specific drones for specific tasks.
  
• The Crystal Federation (Purple) - The youngest and most recently introduced Block, the Crystal Federation is a place to live that isn't a complete hellhole. In fact, Princess Cadence has mostly been pumping the money into public happiness and well being. So much so that trivial things like a Military were virtually non existent until Shining Armour showed up. As a block, they're barely ahead of the FHL technology wise, and have one of the most rag-tag armies of the setting. They're also looking at being invaded by either the FHL or the Equestrian Alliance very soon, especially since the Alliance annexed Nova Scotia (which was in talks to join the Crystal Federation when the Alliance invaded).
  
• The Asian Dynasties (Brown) - The Asian Dynasties are a heavily militarised "Block" that consists of the fiefdoms of various warlords. However, unlike the FHL (whom they regard as backwards and barbaric), the Dynasties borrow more from "Proud Warrior Race Guy". Given that Asia became a hellhole of a place to live however, this has put them at odds with the Neo Paradigm (whom they tried and failed to invade once).
  
• The Protectorate of Atlantia (Teal, may be difficult to see on the map) - The Protectorate of Atlantia is a well, Protectorate of the Human-Equestrian Commonwealth. Occupying the Mediterranean Islands (such as Cyprus, Malta etc), the Atlantians are primarily concerned with Commerce and Trade, and have a rather impressive Navy. They also use Sea Ponies - a battleship sized sub-species of Pony known for their docile if curious nature.
  
• "Giant Country" (Pink) - This last one isn't recognised as a Block, but much like the Pegasi Kingdoms and the Lunar Republic, we're going to acknowledge it here. Madagascar and several other small Pan-African islands basically got turned into Monster Island for housing larger Pony sub species, Dragons and anyone (or thing) else deemed too big and too monstrous to live in a Block peacefully. However occasionally, the rule of Queen Sovereign tends to be ignored, and these giants migrate out into other blocks...
  

In addition, there are two smaller groups not present on the map whom we regard as being official entities, but are neither recognised as Blocks nor represented on the map accurately. They are -

• The Pegasi Kingdoms used to be the floating cloud cities of Cloudsdale, Stratopolis, Aasgard and various others. However when The Merging happened, the Cities decided that it would be for the best if they didn't swear an allegiance to any single ruler (seeing as it would only make the Humans fear them more), and mainly float around, bringing their weather services where requested. The Pegasi Kingdoms have an Ambassador in almost every block that negotiates the kind of weather the Pegasi will bring to that block. While this ability brings gentle sunshine and rain, it can also bring thunderstorms and hurricanes, making them rather uneasily accepted by Humans (who y'know, preferred the old way things worked).
  
• The Lunar Republic was founded after the Lunar War (in shorthand, our interpretation of the (original) Nightmare Moon arc). Princess Luna resides here, though contrary to popular opinion the Colony is NOT named after her, nor does Luna have sole power (instead, she acts as an Advisor for the Lunar Senate - which consists primarily of exactly two Humans, two Scions, two Cyborgs, two Unicorns, two Pegasi and two Earth Ponies - one male and one female from each). Luna tends to have a mixed reaction, but she is winning over the rather rag-tag bunch of Colonists (and we mean rag tag - there are a pair of Changelings that live on the moon!) slowly.
  

And that's everything so far. Future plans would have gone into more detail about the other blocks (I would like to do the Middle East or Africa next - AUTOMATONS ASSEMBLE!), mainly so we could keep players around with new content - hopefully without breaking the game.

 

This leads us onto...

 

 

Equestrian Earth wasn't just planned as a regular Role Playing setting, but was designed to work with Virtual Dice, thus making it the first time I've written a "Pen & Paper RPG", in spite of having practised writing for Tabletop Wargames beforehand. I found the process not all that different.

 

However, it was acknowledged early on that MLP does not exactly translate over to traditional D&D Adventuring well...so we decided that Mechanics would primarily focus on two areas - Combat for the more traditionally D&D minded people (with things like Strength, Dexterity and Will), but there was also an equally big empthesis on Puzzle Solving (with things like Charisma, Intelligence and Harmony), meaning a savvy enough player never needed to use a gun as an option (and most Ponies wouldn't be able to use firearms anyway without assistance - it's not designed for your physiology!).

 

The Harmony Statistic in particular was created to fill some of this - if a person's Charisma is how much of a presence they radiate, then Harmony is their disposition (a low score would result in a rather boorish individual, a higher score would result in a much more social person). It meant quite literally, you could talk your way out of a problem in most situations.

 

And then there were the Races. We chose to focus on Six to begin with -

• Humans, who depend mostly on their puzzle solving skills but are dab hands at Combat when pressed into it, too.
  
• Scions, the remnants of a Psychic Super Soldier program. Naturally, they have Psychic Powers to help them either in Combat or to Solve puzzles (or both, depending on how creative the person playing the Scion is and his powerset).
  
• Cyborgs, who are automatically badass because Cyborgs. Work in a similar fashion to Humans, but they can be further customised into any number of roles with the right implants and cyborg limbs. They're also freaking Cyborgs, so therefore awesome.
  
• Earth Ponies, who by nature are the biggest and strongest of the races, but really have virtually little grasp of Fancy Mathematics.
  
• Pegasi, the Fragile Speedsters of the classes whom can also manipulate the Weather (yes, we would have included rules for Thunderstorms and the like!).
  
• Unicorns, arguably the most versatile thanks to their magic. However, don't put him or her into a boxing match with the Iron Liberator if you know what is good for you.
  

And from there, the mechanics slowly spun themselves out. As a quick example, it was decided early on that Scions would have a set Talent Tree that would steadily unlock useful powers as the Scion went, while the Unicorns had to work to earn their magic, from scavenging scrolls to intensive study under a tutor. Using Psychic Powers or Magic was dependant on a person's ESP or Mana respectively.

 

If your worried about your Dragon/Griffon/Zebra/Changeling/Smooze OC, plans were set up to introduce them later. The only race we agreed would be non-playable would be the Alicorns (outside of set NPC's like Celestia, Cadence and Luna) as they were deemed to be complete game breakers (I mean they know Magic, can fly AND are Godzilla levels of strong). Sea Ponies were also planned as Playable Characters, but they were too cumbersome to work with.

 

In addition, rather than Classes we settled on Traits. These represented skills and unique abilities your character possessed, from Job Training to Personality to anything in-between. Some of these however couldn't be taken with each other (for example, you couldn't take both Powered Armour Training and Mechanoid Training - they're both very complex and delicate pieces of equipment!), and you were limited to three points (and Traits could cost 1,2 or even 3 points, and some even more than that), but you could generate more Points by taking flaws for your character. You would also get points when you levelled up, but some skills (usually those pertaining to character quirks) would be locked off by then (as would flaws).

 

 

Equestrian Earth carries over most of the Characters you know and love. However, Equestrian Earth does not following established continuity. The Continuity behind My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was deemed to be way too open to interpretation and head canon to make it a reliable source (and most of what is accepted Canon is actually Fanon content, such as the incorrect interpretations of Alicorn and Tartarus), contrary to some people's opinion. That, and it allowed for a lot more creative freedom - though when we kept a Canonical Character, we tried to keep it as close to the Canon version as possible, but we did take a new spin on it when we had an opportunity.

 

To point out some examples -

• Twilight Sparkle is a wandering Scholar, sent by Celestia to study and observe Humans and report back to Celestia so she can find out the best way to incorporate them. No she is not an Alicorn.
  
• Princess Celestia has mainly had her rule deconstructed, brutally in some cases. To most people, Celestia's behaviour would come off as the actions of a tyrant, and her actions are typically not popular with Humans as a whole, especially since she's trying to unite the blocks under her own rule. Contrary to popular opinion, Celestia in truth has virtually no idea how to deal with Humans, and is mainly clinging to her old ways because it's what she knows how to do.
  
• AppleJack, AppleBloom and Big Macintosh are infact immigrants from the FHL's stock of Slave Ponies (Granny Smith was too old and frail to make the trip, so she stayed behind with their biological parents), who would later be adopted by Human parents - a pair of Apple Farmers actually. Since then, they've pretty much become the Commonwealth's breadbasket, supplying the Pony population with food...but due to their background, the three are also discriminated by Ponies and Humans alike when something bad happens.
  
• Shining Armour may or may not be Twilight's Brother (we've been kinda if, but and maybe about it - especially since Twilight was born on Human soil in the timeline). However, he was a Pro-Human and very popular member of the Equestrian Knights (a military organisation that replaced the Canterlot Royal Guard), before leaving the Commonwealth to go and work in the Crystal Federation as Princess Cadence's Military Advisor. Shining has feelings for Cadence (something the entire Federation has noticed), but isn't sure how to approach Cadence about them.
  
• Chrysalis is not the de facto leader of the Changelings anymore, but is definitely one of the more militant Hive Queens. Only the ambitions of some of the other Queens have prevented her from invading wholesale into their neighbours.
  

And then of course, there are all the new Characters who are (admittedly) barely developed in any sense of the word, due to world building. However, there are some that are outlined -

• Queen Metamorpho is Chrysalis's main rival. She's more of a Chessmaster than Chrysalis is, preferring long and complex plans rather than aggressive action and is the one queen keeping Chrysalis in check. In shorthand, she is Changeling Tarantulas.
  
• Queen Sovereign is the ruler of Giant Country (meaning she isn't a Changeling), an original creation of Riptides, AND the biggest damned Pony in existence at a mammoth 3000ft tall (I refer you to our earlier statement to bear in mind Pony Scaling conversion). The yellow Earth Pony has a very relaxed approach to Politics and Foreign Relations (with many even doubting her existence), but woe betide what will happen if you cross her or her "citizens".
  
• Colonel Silas Crosby is a Human (yay!) who is totally not Brony Jim Raynor. The Colonel is the leader of a growing resistance against the current President of the FHL, and is surprisingly Pro-Pony - to the point where his dismissal from the FHL armed services revolved around an affair with one of the Slave Ponies, an Earth Pony mare named Long Haul.
  
• Governor Tiberius is the current Land Governor of the Protectorate of Atlantia. He was a former Italian Naval Captain at the time of the Merging, making him one of the oldest Humans still around. In spite of his background, he actually is on very good terms with the Sea Ponies, especially his fellow Sea Governor, the Sea Pony Splasher.
  

 

Mainly because of the Mechanics. It wasn't exactly feasible or viable to use an Online Dice Roller (especially one that links Dice Rolls) mainly because they were exceptionally rare, and also because people could very easily cheat and manipulate rolls, thus making the point entirely moot.

 

As usual with Collab Work, I was also pulling 90% of the work on things. A lot of this stuff I'm going to have to say you'll need to treat vaguely, especially when we're talking about the Asian Dynasties, Equestrian Alliance and even some characters like Queen Sovereign - these are typically Riptide's creations, and as such I'm not really allowed to write for them.

 

And then of course there's Minion, who hasn't turned in ANYTHING, in spite of his (accepted) suggestion of Mercenaries, Private Military Contractors and the like (WE NEED EXAMPLES!).

 

Oh, and then as discussed previously, I'm pretty sure most of the audience we'd have gotten would have been the sort of people I'd disembowel on contact, in spite of us going above and out of our way to do as much de-fetishising as possible (yes, this includes the Xenophilliac pairings - they're more compared to the "issue" of gay marrage in the modern world).

 

AND THEN much like everything else, turned out it shared it's name with another Project in the Brony Community, which I was completely unaware of, meaning the whole Tiberian Eclipse fiasco repeated itself over. We were also unable to come up with a suitable change of name (if your going to suggest Equestrian Rim, GET OUT)

 

But then, such is the way of Fanwork, yes?

 

Anyways, that's it for this week. Next week I'll be picking something else to talk about. Here's Disco Onibaba to entertain you in the meantime.

 

 

Until then, I have been your GABEN...and I'm gonna go watch out for Giant Enemy Crabs.

 

• Timeline of Events - Bear in mind, some of this stuff has been retconned, with the Profiles linked in above being more up to date versions of information.
  
• Major Characters, Part One - An incomplete list of some of the major NPC's we at least had concepts for. No, a Part Two was never created.
  
• Giants - An Equestrian Traveller's Guide - While written with "Show Canon" in mind, many of these may or may not have popped up in EE as well.