Tornadopelt

Okay, so if anyone's been paying attention to the news recently, you may have heard that Kilauea has been erupting again - thankfully, it seems that this eruption is, so far, nothing like what 2018 brought us. However, news of the Kilauea eruption did bring something to the forefront of my mind. I'd often had "shower thoughts" of utilizing the outputs of volcanoes for different things, but this was the first time I gave the idea some serious thought, and it revolves around mafic lava.

There are three (technically four) types of lavas - first, your felsic lavas, the ones high in silica content. These are responsible for the more famous explosive eruptions like Mt. St. Helens, Tambora, and Vesuvius. Then you have intermediate lavas, ones with a more moderate silica content of the three well-known lavas, and tend to be somewhere in the middle. And finally, you have mafic lavas - fluid lavas with relatively low silica content and a high ferromagnesian content. There were ultramafic lavas before, but the mantle's no longer hot enough to produce those.

Me and a friend hashed this out - namely, cooling the mafic lava via seawater (dual-purpose), crushing the mafic rock into mafic sand and then mafic dust, then using HCl to leach out the metals in the form of MgCl₂, FeCl₂, and FeCl₃, along with other metal chlorides. Those can then be either reduced directly via hydrogen and then melted, or converted into oxides and then smelted, after which the resulting metals can be poured into ingots and sold. My question is such: would it be possible to pull all of this off from a chemistry and physics perspective, and would it be worth the money needed to do such a thing if it is possible?

1 minute ago, PawelS said:

I don't know much about rocket science, but I think we're getting close to sending ponies into space. And we already have an idea what an astronaut should look like, I've seen ponies dressed as them during Nightmare Night.

The first pony in space... I can't wait to see it happen.

Well, Equestria (from what I've seen) has at least the basics of rocketry downpat, including Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation. And considering the ponies can use magic to do quite a bit of stuff (temperature included), they could replace a lot of the technology humans used for their rockets with magitek.

To Luna: humans have sent people to the moon before - not for any committed crime actually, but for (in some cases) science and (in the original case) international bragging rights. Would you be open to ponies setting hoof on the moon for science?

To Chrysalis: In another time and place, do you think that your changelings, rugged creatures as they are, would be adept at exploring new worlds and reaching for the stars?

I've put a total of 2,516 hours into Kerbal Space program...

My main question is on the abilities of Changelings to transform. Is there any limit to what a Changeling could transform into? For instance, an F-15 Eagle, were they to see one?

You can't go wrong with pepperoni, and what's even better is if the pizza has crust stuffed with cheese.

Greetings. I am (insert race here.) I am the last graduate of an Earth-based space academy run by a Federation ripoff, and I had to flee from Earth as a giant tentacle monster tore it asunder. Now I've teamed up with a group of aliens and a retired leader of that same organization. The goal: Find some artifacts. Kill the bad guy. Save the universe.

Well, here's an idea - program a contract into the mod that is, "Rescue Nightmare Moon from the Mun's/Moon's surface." If you want, you could expand it to say "Rescue Nightmare Moon and Dawn from the surface of the Moon/Mun."

"Oh, and invite Luna as well. I'd love for her to see my latest work in the flesh. I call it Harmonious Skies," Thunder said. "She saw it in my dream, but I feel it would be cooler still to have her see it as it happens. You see... I run all my fireworks through a test run in my dreams before I make them in reality. Helps me troubleshoot potential problems, prevent accidents, stuff like that."

"Sure. But still... you will always be the best princess," Thunder said before hugging Luna. "Good luck protecting the ponies of Equestria in their dreams. ..Oh, and,uh, please get me that Tantabus spell if you can. It would be awesome to have a dream buddy." Thunder sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with a hoof. "I mean... you don't have to if you don't want to, but still... it would be quite cool." He soon realized how ridiculous that request was. "On second thought, never mind."

"This is a 500 gram cake I call 'Harmonious Sky'," Thunder said as he brought out the massive firework. "Here we go." Thunder then lit the fuse with a smile and sat down.

All of a sudden, a pink streak shot up into the sky, which then transitioned to orange before blowing up into a yellow sphere of fire. A similar thing happened with a blue streak that broke into a silver "peony". A white streak began shining soon afterwards before exploding into a half yellow, half cyan ball of colored fire. That was then followed by many bursts of multicolored peonies below the now fading yellow and cyan one.

The second part of the display began as a yellow fire ball was overtaken in height by a blue one that transitioned to purple. Bright salutes flashed all over the place and created a sound of thunder that reverberated through the ponies' chests. 6 shots then fired up into the sky, bursting into a pentagon pattern of red, yellow, green, cyan, and magenta peonies with a bigger purple peony in the center. A lone blue streak shot up into the sky and burst into a white ball that faded out of the sky.

It was quiet for a bit and then a white comet made itself known. It burst into four smaller comets as a white sphere exploded behind it. Then, there was a blue and purple sphere that exploded high above the white one. And then came the finale of the display. A red mine burst forth and a cyan sphere exploded above it, the peony fading into rainbow colors. A yellow mine and orange-to yellow peony followed suit, then a green mine with a yellow-to-pink peony, a cyan mine with a pink peony, a magenta mine with a white-to-purple peony, and then a purple mine with a bigger purple peony. A rainbow of mines then shot up into the sky and a final white streak went high into the air, exploding as another half-yellow, half cyan burst as a willow. Salutes and various different colored peonies finished off the grand finale of the firework known as "Harmonious Skies".

"Close by in Ponyville if you would like it to be there," Thunder offered. "Is Twilight you student by any chance? Just wanted to know so that I can use her help if need be. She's the best organizer I know, a bit neurotic, maybe, and I'd give her full marks on assistance if it is needed. Also, if she IS your student, maybe she'd like for you and her to catch up over a mug of yummy hot chocolate."

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice. Started out with me keeping dream journals, then practicing the finer point of the art of the lucid dream," Thunder explained and then processed Luna's second question. "Oh, I was at the castle the other day demonstrating some flameless fire flowers for Celestia. Some of the newest fireworks. And, well, I kinda wanted to see if you'd like to see the full experience. And yes, this is what I meant. I like the Lucid Bomb Range because I don't have to worry about stuff exploding when I don't want it to or blowing up half of Ponyville if something went wrong."

Thunder waited for Luna's next question and said, "Well, not always of this place. This is where I go when I wanna see what new fireworks I can make or when I just wanna have fun with them. And as for nightmares... well, Headless Horse was a recurring one until I taught myself to lucid dream. Then when he next came around, I blew him to kingdom come. No more Headless Horse."

"Hello!" Thunder said with a wave. "Welcome, Princess Luna, to my dream and, quite honestly, my bomb range away from my bomb range. This is where I can think up new designs and ideas for fireworks I want to make in the real world. I make the firework here and test run it here, and then I see if it checks out with what I really want it to be. I can then take notes on it and replicate it in the real world and then, Bob's your uncle." Thunder then realized that the Princess of the Night was still behind on modern phrases. "That means... everything's good."

@@Tornadopelt,

Your next for Dream Group B. Are you still interested?

 

@@Golbez,

Also, Do you want to have Cherry take over for Group A?

Yup, still interested. Don't worry.

(Ready!)

In the corridor to the dream world, an odd door was waiting to be opened. Whether the mark on it was a firecracker or a stick of dynamite was hard to tell at first glance. However, as odd and strange as the mark was, the dream behind it was probably even more so. One thing is for sure, though - the occasional wisp of dream-smoke would drift from the other side of the door with a distinct smell of rotten eggs. All Luna would have to do was open the door to Thunder Storm's dream.

Yes, I'm still interested!

Thunder smiled and said, "I'm hoping that you'd like to come see the Hearth's Warming show I'm putting on this year. VIP seats and all." He really was setting up a show for this Hearth's Warming, complete with a grandiose finale at the stroke of midnight synced up with some awesome Hearth's Warming music. The show had taken a bit to plan, like what fireworks would go off where and at what time. Then came the building of the fireworks and then the the first set of synchronization. "My shows do take a bit to set up, so I always start early."

"Well, one, THESE fire flowers are flameless, mainly because if something did go wrong with the real things... well... let' just say that at best, there would be a tiny issue. At worst, however... let's just say it would not be pretty. Plus, I didn't want to risk the guards arresting me for a possible gunpowder plot," he joked with the last one. "But seriously, I thought it best to take precautions. And I had Twilight help with enchanting these so that they would explode much like my real fireworks, but without the flame."

I'm gonna try and be an oneironaut.

Seriously. You guys talking about LDs as got me hyped for it.

Thunder quickly and expertly set up the various demonstration fire flowers, prepping the area around the demonstration site. "These are the fireworks of the newest T-Storm Fireworks line, 'Royal Sky Show'." He smiled and waited for the first one to reach its ignition time. The flameless firework shot up into the air, leaving behind a reddish trail before exploding in the sky, producing an orange outer sphere and a yellowish-white inner sphere.

The next fire flower took off into the sky, this time leaving a purple trail in its wake before exploding in a similar pattern - except this time it had a blue outer sphere and a silver inner sphere. It was then followed by a pink-trailed fire flower that exploded into a cyan-colored heart and then by a purple-trailed fire flower that exploded into a pink star with a few white plam explosions surrounding it.

Thunder smiled and nodded as Tia explained the situation. "Thank you, Princess. Anyway, as she said, my name's Thunder Storm. I know exactly what I'm doing, so you have no need to fear that. After all, a pyrotech has to know what they're doing, lest someone gets injured. Like I said, I know exactly what I'm doing." He said that to reassure the guards that no harm would befall their princess.

"Eh, understandable." Thunder was willing to make arrangements for Celestia as well. "We can do that." He looked at the day princess and asked, "So, where to?" He was genuinely curious to see where Celestia was leading him, and he had already selected a few of the fire flowers to show some of the best of his business. True, things could get complicated... but that was what made his job fun.