--Thunder Bolt--

I like him. His color scheme is excellent, and I really like the cutie mark design. The only thing about it that might be worth changing would be to make it look more like an F than a P. If that were my artwork, it would have taken me forever to achieve that level of quality, but since it's you, and you can churn out stuff like that pretty quickly and with apparent ease, you might contemplate making him more big and buff like Big Macintosh, since he's a blacksmith. But he looks great as he is. I'm picturing a steel collar, hoof-bracelets, or "arm" cuffs wrought in Viking-style knotwork. Uber-manly, but also shows off his skill and craftsmanship (craftsponyship?). Along the lines of this in terms of design aesthetic and levels of skill and craftsmanship, but (probably) not sword-related. If you're planning to post him to the Character Database (i.e., have more room for writing than that nifty "trading card" style portrayal allows), I think it would be good to see more of his personal back-story in addition to the family back-story given, along with some personality attributes, flaws, quirks, and so on. Anyway, I think he's a great OC, and I'd be delighted to be in an RP with him.

Sunyatay had forgotten to "turn off" her diagnostic spell, so as Repsol talked, she sensed the beginnings of a new headache. And this one was all her fault. "I'm sorry!" she said. "I could try to explain better... But that would probably require magical diagrams and equations to do properly, and it'd just make his headache worse! she thought. "Or maybe you'd like to meet those other two ponies?" she said, nodding her horn toward Minty and Pacific. If he can get into a friendly conversation with them, then I could make some excuse and go without being rude, right? They seem pretty normal...

I think it was Yogi Berra who said "Prediction is hard, especially about the future." But, I'm gonna give it a go anyway. I think the future is going to be complex and multifaceted, like now. IOW, it won't be a shiny techno-paradise with a jetpack in every garage, or an Apocalypse (Zombie or otherwise) with people picking through the ruins for canned food and rags while fighting off Raiders with punk-rocker hairdos. It'll probably be some of both, with a lot of other things besides. There will be both positives and negatives, as always. Major Trends: Here are what I think will be the major trends that will shape the foreseeable future: Decline of Fossil Fuels: Currently, world fossil fuel production is at a "bumpy plateau," unable to continue increasing significantly, but not yet in an irreversible decline. However, in terms of net energy, or EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested), we are already past "Peak" oil. At the dawn of the petroleum age, high-quality ("light, sweet") crude oil was easy to get at. It was possible to produce about a hundred barrels of oil while investing the energy-equivalent of about one barrel. That cheap, high-quality oil is running out. Nowadays, the fossil fuel industry is ramping up production of "unconventional" oil (fracking, tar sands). These products are harder to get at, and require more energy to convert into oil. As EROEI drops, oil prices rise, until "demand destruction" (economic downturns, fewer people being able to afford oil) forces them back down again. As time passes, there is less oil available at prices people can afford. A way of life that is built around being able to produce 100 barrels of oil with the energy of 1 barrel of oil cannot work in a world where producers can only put out 5 barrels of oil with the energy input of 1 barrel. For those who predicted lower gas prices...sorry, that is not going to happen. Gas prices will go up and down, but the long-term trend is going to be up. Climate Change: Climate change is already underway, and there is no sign of any efforts of sufficient scale and rapidity to transition away from hydrocarbon energy sources in time to reduce its effects. Positive feedbacks such as methane releases from the arctic, the melting of Siberian permafrost, and loss of ice cover (ice is reflective; once it's gone, the ocean or land it once covered will absorb more sunlight, causing more warming) mean that warming will tend to cause more warming. This, in turn, will cause greater climate instability, with more extreme and less predictable weather. There will be more droughts and floods, causing higher food prices, which will cause political instability, as is currently taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. As ice sheets (such as Greenland) melt, sea levels will rise. Cities holding the lion's share of the human population will have to either build massive--and expensive--levees and sea walls to hold back the water, or abandon some areas and rebuild on higher ground. This, combined with the effects of climate instability on food production will cause large scale migration of "climate refugees." Financial Collapses and Disruptions: The current global capitalistic economic system is predicated on the idea of permanent exponential growth. Investments and loans are made on the premise that there will be more economic activity in the future to provide profits/repay the loans. Without growth, investments and loans (as a whole; particular investments and loans may buck the trend and yield profits while others lose money) cannot provide the promise of more money in the future as a return for money input in the present. It isn't possible to sustain exponential growth (e.g. "GDP growth of 2 percent per year") on a finite planet any more than it is with yeast cells in a petri dish. We have reached a point where limits on the availability of cheap fossil fuel energy and other resources (arable land, topsoil, potable water, phosphorus, "rare earth" metals, etc.) are starting to make continual economic growth impossible. Which means, there will be less and less reason to invest or loan money to fund business operations rather than hoard it or use it to purchase agricultural land. Already, the financial industry has largely abandoned investments and loans for practical things like factories and such for dubious monetary shell-games, to the point that the putative "value" of "derivatives" (credit default swaps and other financial shenanigans) utterly dwarf the real economy of resources, goods, and services. Advancing Automation and Artificial Intelligence: Increasingly capable (and cheaper) robots and artificial intelligence software are undermining the structure of the current economic order, and will probably continue to do so on a larger scale in the future. The current prevailing system defines a person's worth and place in society on "having a job." As robots and computer programs--which can work 24/7/365, never get sick or complain or join unions--are able to perform more and more of the activities humans can do, there will be fewer "jobs" for people to "have." This is especially the case for unskilled labor. Automation wasn't as much of a problem in the past for a number of reasons. Economic growth combined with a strong labor movement and the threat of Communism encouraged industrialists to use machines to increase the productivity of human labor rather than replace it entirely (also, the machines were not versatile and capable enough to do so), so that an unskilled laborer who would have been an impoverished peasant in previous eras could take home enough to support a middle-class standard of living. Since 1973 however, wages for the working class and middle class have stagnated, with the gains from economic growth being captured by the top 1% of income earners. In addition, the new jobs being created by automation aren't for factory workers, they're for highly-trained and skilled computer programmers and technicians. A factory worker, warehouse stocker, grocery store cashier, etc. replaced by a machine can't just go and learn how to build robots or code algorithms for natural language processing. Even if they have the aptitude (no guarantees there), years of very expensive education stand between them and the promise of a job in the "new economy." In addition, resource and energy constraints mean that the rapid economic growth of the past cannot be sustained. On the other hand, automation could make it possible to shorten work-weeks, or provide a "Basic Income Guarantee" that could give people the ability to spend more of their time and energy engaged in creative projects of their own choosing rather than "working at a job." It depends on how we choose to use the robots, and what sort of economic and political structures we set up. Transition to Renewable Energy: As fossil fuels become more expensive and scarce, it will ultimately become necessary for societies to transition to renewable energy sources. Renewables are also becoming cheaper and more efficient. However, renewable energy sources are very different in nature from fossil fuels. Social structures and infrastructure built around the characteristics of fossil fuels will not be suitable for renewable energy, and vice versa. Fossil fuels are easily storable, portable, and extremely energy-dense. Pour a cup of gasoline into an empty gas tank and see how far and fast you can drive the car on it. Now get out and try to push the car that far and fast. Fossil fuels made it possible to build and operate a centralized electrical grid (large power plants provide economics of scale) and a massive transportation infrastructure. 24/7 baseload power and salads whose ingredients traveled as much as 3,000 miles to your dinner table. Renewable energy sources (wind and solar) are diffuse and intermittent. They have to be collected (by windmills and solar panels) over a wide area, and concentrated to useful intensities. The wind does not always blow (and doesn't blow at the same rate when it does), and it's not always sunny (especially at night ). While there are various ways to store renewable energy and use it later, they all involve energy conversion (storage in batteries, molten salt, etc.), and those involve thermodynamic losses. EROEI strikes again. When the whole process of energy generation is factored in (building whatever technologies you use to acquire, store, and transmit the energy, and whatever technologies you need to build those, etc.) nothing comes close to the energy density, storability, and portability of fossil fuels. A civilization built on renewables will have to use much less energy, and use it differently, than the way we use energy now. For example, renewables favor decentralization, in which energy is used close to where it is produced and if possible, when it is produced, to avoid the losses inherent in converting, storing, and transmitting the energy. Intermittency means that any large-scale electrical grid based on renewables has to be "smart" enough to move energy back and forth through a network from many sources to many users rather than just increasing or decreasing the output of a single power plant on demand. Decentralization: Decentralized energy + decentralized information creation and distribution (e.g. the internet, YouTube, etc. in contrast with big book publishers and movie studios) + decentralized manufacturing (3D printers becoming more advanced, able to produce a wider range of products) + decentralized mechanisms for cooperation and perhaps eventually, governance (e.g. web-based systems like Kickstarter and Kiva, crowdsourced information databases like Wikipedia, etc.) + the current dysfunction of national and international political and financial institutions could add up to the breakup of large nation-states into smaller--and more varied--polities. As the mega-scale built environments of the hydrocarbon age (freeway systems, suburbia, etc.) become too expensive to use (due to rising gas prices) and maintain (due to falling government revenues, rising debt, and the need to deal with the effects of climate change), people will need to build new types of infrastructure better suited to the new realities. I think it will most likely take the form of "Traditional Cities" (cities built the way they were before automobiles, with narrow pedestrian streets, buildings side-by-side and up against the street, but hopefully with good plumbing and electricity). Climate change might also spur the development of various kinds of "tech-nomadism," people living on sailboats, floating cities, or all-terrain gypsy wagons that migrate when their portable wind turbines and solar panels collect enough energy to fill the graphene batteries. I think we might see a wider range of technology levels; permaculture communes where people live off of "forest gardens" modeled on natural ecosystems which they tend by hand, not too far away from TechGnostic monasteries where people strive to leave their meat bodies behind in favor of virtual realities. --- Whelp...what was meant to be an introduction has turned into a long treatise in its own right, which is probably gonna be TL;DR'd in favor of everybody else's bullet lists anyway, so I'll stop here for now.

"Yes, I have eight legs. You got a PROBLEM with that?!"

"I'm sstho embarrathed...my 'ongue ith th'uck 'o thith lolly...heeeeeelllfth!"

"You thought the Reaper was a skeleton in a hooded cloak with a scythe? Yeah, that's totally out of date. Now I'm a giant jet-robot with a filly-cannon. By the way...time's up!"

Jolly Green Giant Uh, lessee, Meadow Rock? Turning Leaf Green Riff Stage Flight Stratocaster Copper Metal (Metal for the rock & roll aspect, Copper because his Feather Star version is roughly copper-colored, and copper tarnishes to green when it's left out in the weather, like the Statue of Liberty. With this name, you could have it in his backstory that his dad wanted him to follow his hoofsteps as a copper miner or copper smith, but he said, "Nooooo...I wanna rock!")

Nah, the anti-brony would probably just go, poke around a little, ask a few questions, then write an article for a conservative "news magazine" about how bronies represent the erosion of Real, True Manliness, and thus, the decline and fall of civilization itself. But that's not very good grist for a comic.

"Yo, I'm DJ P to the O to the N to the E, "Dishin' out the wubs, lemme hear you squee"

"You Equestrian ponies realize that there's no such thing as just one Roman Legionnaire, right? Yeah. You'd better start learning how to say 'Hail Caesar!' instead of 'Sweet Celestia!'"

@@repsol rave, Sunyatay scrambled for words. What'll he do when he finds out what a freak I am? "It's...hard to explain...I don't fully understand the operating principles of it myself. The simplest way to put it is...my 'talent' is to be invisible and incorporeal. I have to concentrate on manifesting physically in order for you to see me at all, and even then, most of the time you...or anypony...would just pass through me. It also makes it harder for me to use magic on anything other than myself. There are...ways I've found to become more real but...it's hard, and it takes time."

Really long legs? Check. Snazzy accessories? Check. Over-the-top mane and tail? Check. Wings? .... AY! WHERE ARE MY GORRAM WINGS?!

@, "Awwww, yeah," Thunder Bolt said to himself, spotting a nice, plump thunderhead below. He dove like a falcon, pumping his wings for still more speed. He plunged down at it, wings howling like a dive-bomber. At the last second, he spun in the air, hitting the cloud with his back hooves. He smashed through the center, turning the remnant of the cloud into a roiling smoke-ring. The lightning it held crackled beneath him. "Booyah!" he cried with delight, riding the crackling bolt into a high, sweeping carve. He looped down onto another cloud, glancing off of it into a high 360, following up with an off-axis spin before landing on the next thermal and diving down into a steep descent. He carved in tight S-curves, increasing speed until he started trailing a glowing gold-and-white streak. Finally, he pulled up just before hitting Ponyville's town square, landing on his hooves with a thunderclap and an electric flash. "BAM! Thunder Bolt is in the h--" Somepony thudded into him, knocking him flat. Scrambling to his hooves, Thunder Bolt shook his head to clear the derpy-eyes, then turned to see who'd hit him. It was a little pegasus* whose white coat was smeared with mud and bits of gravel, more mud, and twigs tangled in her mane. "Whoa! You OK there, little Moon? I totally didn't see ya comin'. Sorry for...uh..you know...landing in your runway..." [OOC: *I'm assuming Luna Lights is a pegasus since she's from Cloudsdale. Please correct me if I'm wrong.]

"Hi. I'm ScootaLou."

"It ain't easy, being green." Ninja'd by the person I was originally gonna caption, before I got ninja'd by two other people while I was writing the following: "I love to read letters from my students telling of their fumbling attempts to learn the things I send them to study. They make marvelous blackmail material."

"The Sun rises and sets by my command. So, what do you do for a living?"

This smug look on my face? Completely justified.

Hmmm. Goldenshade? CM could be a gold nugget, gold pan with crossed pick and shovel behind it, or something else to do with gold mining. Or she could be a spy (Goldeneye, but with shades). Caramel Mocha (maker of gourmet coffees, owner of Star Bucks, that coffee chain with the Sea Pony logo ) Caramella Chocolat (she makes chocolates and fudge, from Prance or Andalusia)

The new Sealy Spiderpedic Bed! Guaranteed comfort. Guaranteed nightmares.

@@repsol rave, Sunyatay felt a rush of delight to see Repsol so happy. Before she could say 'You're welcome,' he trotted toward her, then went through her to faceplant on the ground. Did he just try to...hug me? she thought, blushing at the possibility. "Are you alright?" she said, reaching out with her telekinesis to try to help him back up.

I finally finished my first piece of pony vector art! Disclosure: I did take a shortcut with the clouds in the background, but the pony, the lightning, and the cutie mark design were all vectored the old fashioned way. If you've seen Castaway, remember that scene where Tom Hanks triumphantly shouts "I! HAVE MADE FIRE!"? Yeah. I feel like that right now.

Movie poster for Indiana Jones and the Lawyers of Doom