[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Access code]]

* Where did Velvet Remedy get the door access code to leave Stable 2? It's shown to be on her [=PipBuck=] and encrypted, but how did it get on there and how did she read in the first place?
** It was Rarity who made that recording, and Velvet is a direct descendant of Sweetie Bell. So probably a family heirloom or something.
** Actually it was one of the CMC's that made the recording of the access code, but yeah, they sent it to Sweetie Belle who was the Overmare at the time. Then she must have either forgotten about it or just left it there. Does seem kinda weird that they'd pass the same Pipbuck down that many generations though.
** This all seems very unlikely. There's no reason to think [=PipBucks=] are handed down. Seems like they're issued by the Stable. Maybe the file itself was passed down, instead of the hardware, but then what would make Velvet Remedy sit on the code for years before she finally left? Audio recordings can exist separate from [=PipBucks=], and I think can be downloaded onto them, so maybe the recording... I don't know... fell behind a table in the family's quarters or something.
** Why is it unlikely that PipBucks are handed down? Fallout lore states that Pipboys are removed from the deceased, inspected for damage, repaired if necessary and handed down to younger members of the Vault; there's no reason to think that most of this doesn't also apply to the Pip Bucks in the Stable system, given that they have no means to manufacture more.
** Re-reading chapter 14, it was Apple Bloom who made the access code "[=CMC3BFF=]"
** The latest chapter reveals that the Overmare of Stable 2 gave Velvet all of Sweetie Belle's old stuff, which apparently contained Applebloom's file containing the access code. Apparently the Overmare didn't think Velvet would use it.
** In Fallout 3, during the Lone Wanderer's birthday, the radio broadcast says that proper maintenance of PipBoys will ensure they can be there for the use of future Vault citizens.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Chimera eggs]]

* Those chimeras in Stable 24 can lay eggs in whatever they bite [[spoiler:and one of them bites Calamity in the neck]]. Even after [[spoiler:Littlepip gives him the antidote to chimera poison, wouldn't the eggs in his neck still hatch and kill him anyway?]]
** [[spoiler:My interpretation was that the eggs were the poison, and the antidote was some kind of insecticide.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Littlepip's pre-war knowledge]]

* If Velvet Remedy already knew about Fluttershy and the Ministry of Peace, [[spoiler:and Applejack was the only pony in Stable 2 to ever receive an actual grave,]] then how does Littlepip come off as needing Watcher to tell her about things like the Ministries, the Elements of Harmony, or even that [[spoiler:Equestria wound up the way it is because of a war against zebras]]?
** Given Littlepip's rebellious nature when she was in the Stable, it may just be a simple case of AsleepInClass.
** Stable 2 is not shown to function in the same way as Vault 101 where, even though you were given your Pipboy at age 10, you still received six years of general education before taking your G.O.A.T. Instead, in Stable 2, a pony gains her [=PipBuck=] when she discovers her "special talent" and thus gains her cutie mark. This event simultaneously marks her career assignment, the end of general education and the beginning of her apprenticeship. With only a few short years of general education, such schooling would have stressed the basics such as reading, writing, arithmetic and the skills and knowledge needed to live in the stable. If history was taught at all, it would likely have focused on inner-stable history. Any pony seeking to broaden their knowledge and education would likely do so through reading -- clearly, books were available. Velvet Remedy's apprenticeship would have included pre-apocalypse music, and her personal studies at least ranged to learning about medical history. Littlepip, on the other hoof, preferred technical manuals, as seen by her choice of book to take with her when she left.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Arbu angst]]

* Why in Luna's name is there so much angst and character conflict centered around [[spoiler:the destruction of Arbu]]? [[spoiler:The bastards deserved to die, just like Andale did.]]
** Before, things were pretty black and white for [=LittlePip=]. [[spoiler:Arbu]] however showed that not everything is as clear cut as it seemed, and that sometimes actions done in the name of good can backfire greatly.
** The citizens [[spoiler:were murderers and Equestria was better off with them dead. This was not established with certainty until after they were killed. Also, they were killed in front of the children, which was not necessary.]]
** Elaborating on the whole "not black-and-white" thing. This was a town that [[spoiler:showed them hospitality, that they saved from bandits, that they killed inexperienced Steel Rangers to get water talismens for. To find out that they were cannibals wasn't just another "they're bad and must die" moment. It was a crashing feeling of utter betrayl and horror over all that both the Arbu pony's did and what they did for them. This wasn't a cold and calculated "Okay, they need to pay, and here's how we'll do it." This was heat-of-the-moment "YOU BASTARDS AAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!" And yes, as someone said, Littlepip slaughter the town in front of the children (and Littlepip even slaughtered one barely-got-her-cutie-mark child in her blind rage), which led to them fearing her, which led to that one child being killed in Friendship City because she tried to run away from Littlepip.]]
** Indeed, Calamity articulates this pretty well (barring his dialect and questionable grammar), saying that he can't easily justify what the party did. The only reason he's able to forgive [=LittlePip=] and himself is by insisting that she's still a good pony and that she reacted the way she did because she hasn't experienced the wasteland long enough to become jaded with it the way he has. As for the foals? [=LittlePip=] forgot what Dr. Helpinghooves told her earlier in the story, in regards to her mother's alcoholism [[spoiler:making [=LittlePip's=] Mint-Al addiction easier]], that nopony's destiny is necessarily determined by their cutie mark; she outright [[spoiler:slaughtered one who just gained their mark]]. Even Steelhooves, who sided with her actions, acknowledges that she acted rashly and emotionally, and that it'd backfire on her.
** Xenith's perception of the incident (I notice nobody commented on what she had to say about it) holds a salient point- they would do what was necessary in order to survive, which in itself is not necessarily a crime. The shade of gray in the whole incident revolves around discerning [[spoiler:who the folk of Arbu ate and how they were killed]]- if it was as Calamity said and they only [[spoiler:consumed ponies that were threatening them]], the reaction might have been less severe; yet Littlepip comes across [[spoiler:the skull of one of the Goddess's "preachers", which suggests that they, like the "good folk" of Andale, might have been preying on just about anybody unfortunate enough to be in their territory who wasn't a merchant.]] Nobody in the team disagrees that there was a problem in Arbu; but it was not handled well.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Caps]]

* Who's backing the value of caps in Equestria? Every town and settlement except Fillydelphia doesn't seem big enough or powerful enough to have that kind of pull in trade, [[spoiler: and that last place takes orders from Red Eye]].
** That's really more something for the {{Headscratchers/Fallout}} page. They don't seem to be backed. The reason people accept bottle caps is that they can use them to buy things from other people, and they're more convenient than other methods of trading.
** This may actually be a case of {{Reality Is Unrealistic}}. Something similar has happened to Somalia's currency since its government collapsed.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ponyville raiders and Red Eye]]

* If [[spoiler: Stable 2 was built on top of Sweet Apple Acres and Red Eye's Cathedral is practically right next door out in the Everfree]], how are raiders able to occupy [[spoiler:Ponyville]]? Wouldn't that place be part of supply lines going to and from [[spoiler: Fillydelphia and the Cathedral]]? Could [[spoiler: Red Eye possibly see symbolic meaning in occupying the former home of all six wartime Ministry heads]]?
** [[spoiler:The raiders mainly occupied Sweet Apple Acres while it was still locked. If I remember correctly, Red Eye's Cathedral wasn't built until the raiders were largely cleared out.]]
** They might have even had an agreement with Red Eye. He was employing plenty of slavers and raiders.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:SPP and the person inside]]

* Could somepony explain to me what the big deal is about [[spoiler:Littlepip being in the SPP]]? If I recall the situation well enough, [[spoiler:the special cloud cover rearrangment]] only needs to last a year. And she needs to get out [[spoiler:to activate the Gardens of Equestria]] spell anyway. Yeah, [[spoiler:she promised to stay with Celestia]], but surely there's a way to make proper arrangements.
** Actually the plan was to keep the clouds clear permanently, and they estimated that the pegasi would have only a year before their food supply runs out; which is why the [[spoiler:Gardens of Equestria]] needs to be cast within that timeframe. [=LittlePip=] doesn't have to be the one to cast it, and [[spoiler:once hooked up to the SPP she can't leave.]]
** But the whole thing about the cloud cover in the first place was because the Pegusi left the factories on. Can't they just turn them off, or barring that blow a few up? [[spoiler:And what do you mean [=LittlePip=] doesn't have to help cast the [=GoE=]? Isn't she the Twilight of the group? The galvanizing Spark of Friendship?]]
** That would still allow the pegasi to maintain the clouds themselves. [[spoiler:The SPP allows [=LittlePip=] to remove massive amounts of clouds at once, preventing the Enclave from fixing the clouds before any pegasi muggles see the surface. And Spike mentioned that she was ''a'' spark, not ''the'' spark. Anything that gets the Element Bearers to realize their purpose/friendship would suffice as a spark. Once all 6 are found even Spike can activate the Gardens machine.]]
** This fanfic postulates that "the Spark" and the Element of Magic are not the same. "The Spark" is the thing which reveals who the Elements are. Twilight Sparkle was the bearer of the Element of Magic, her epiphany about her friends was The Spark, revealing to her that her friends were the proper Bearers and that the spirits of those virtues rested inside them. Remember how Nightmare Moon said "The spark didn't work!"? She was as confused as Twilight. But Celestia and Luna found the Elements of Harmony and used them before. If the spark had always been an epiphany about friendship, or even always been connected to the Element of Magic, then Nightmare Moon should have known better. To explain this apparent inconsistency, [[spoiler: Fallout: Equestria explains that The Spark always changes, manifesting differently each time. (As Twilight told Nightmare Moon, her epiphany was "a different kind of spark" than what had happened before.) As such, this time around, Littlepip was the new "Spark", revealing four of the Elements and initiating the call to action which would help identify the other two. But she wasn't actually a Bearer of one of the Elements, and thus she wasn't needed to actually activate them.]]
** About Seven Seasons later, and the show actually ended up giving material that can adress this.[[spoiler: The precursors of the Elements of Harmony, the Pillars of Equestria, were brought together by Stygian. Stygian wasn't a Pillar like the others and wasn't needed for them to use their powers, he was just the spark that united them, just like how Littlepip wasn't an Element Bearer, but the spark that caused the unification of the new elements.]]
** A slightly different version: Why couldn't [=LittlePip=] leave and visit Homage from time to time, or take shifts with somepony else? Why couldn't she reconnect the computer, so [[spoiler:Celestia]] could control it? She wouldn't think of that because she's a MartyrWithoutACause, but that doesn't explain why nopony else talks some sense into her.
** [[spoiler:Celestia]] sat in that room for 200 years unable to do anything because Rainbow didn't trust robots, and [[spoiler:Celestia]] already uploaded her "brain" into the system, effectively making her an AI. Pip does take breaks with Homage, the helmet can be taken off, but the main reason Pip stays connected all the time is because her body was so damaged from being shot at, radiation, Pink Cloud, etc. that her lifespan was effectively shortened. The SPP kept her body in stasis, and sort of fixed the lifespan problem.
** It is stated in either the afterword or the epilogue that [[spoiler: fixing the Maneframe and reconnecting it to the weather control systems would involve deactivating it and tearing it apart to get at the problem. In doing that, Celestia would be KilledOffForReal this time, so they decided to leave the system as-is. Littlepip]] stays in the Single Pegasus Project full-time to keep the weather docile and under control, which is what the pegasi did before the war, and to keep the injuries she's accrued over the course of the story from killing her. (She ''does'' exit out of the hub for smexytime with Homage on her birthdays, though, so it's not all bad)
** I thought her lifespan was dramatically lengthened due to [[spoiler:the taint making her part alicorn]].
** Yes, but just because she doesn't age doesn't mean that all the horrific injuries don't add up. She might eventually be able to come out of the pod for good, but she's frail and fragile. She needs time to heal, assuming that the suspended animation pod will even let her heal.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Soul invulnerability]]

* Souls. They make anything invulnerable, except for ponies, where it would actually be useful. It's assumed that possessing a computer with an upload running on it would have the same effect on the computer as it would on a flesh-and-blood pony, rather than either doing nothing, or crashing it completely, the almost-certain result of any change whatsoever. Also, why are souls associated with consciousness?
** In this fic, there's a difference between souls being "attached" to something and souls "residing" in something. Dark magic can be used attach a soul to an object, making it nearly invulnerable as souls are extremely hard to destroy. However, living ponies (who have souls) aren't invulnerable, as souls only "reside" in one's body, and freely leave when the body dies. Theoretically, I guess, if dark magic were used to attach one's soul to their own body, they would become invulnerable, but that wasn't brought up in the fic.
** It seems odd that ponies evolved to create souls which are capable of making objects invincible, but don't do it to the ponies in question. Did they originally evolve invincibility, but lose it through some kind of mutation? Also, Elder Cottage Cheese would have no interest in uploading himself if he could just skip the mainframe and bind his soul directly to himself. Since souls seem to be able to project emotion onto people that are simply nearby the object the soul is bonded to, they would clearly allow the user to think normally.
** Second, "uploading" souls onto computers were only done with the Crusader Maneframes, of which there were only three in existence, and were specifically designed to house consciousness.
** This could explain how some of the ponies knew the result of uploading a pony, but not all of the ponies who knew that had access to that information. Also, unless it was specifically designed to hold souls, that wouldn't explain why it was capable of interfacing with them correctly. It's not as if this is even an obvious way for it to fail. Emotions are conceptually easy to understand, and are one of the few well-understood things about the brain. Emotions connect pretty much the whole brain, meaning that tracking the connections between neurons is unimportant for them. Small errors would just change people's temperament somewhat, and would be comparable to a drug. Compare this to an error in wiring, which would be comparable to a stroke.
** Third, souls and consciousness are only associated in the sense that the fic implies that the two are incomplete without the other. Consciousness and intelligence without soul might be considered little more than advanced AI, while soul without consciousness is just a stream of unthinking emotion.
** Yes, but why? You wouldn't say that intelligence without an appendix would be considered little more than an advanced AI.
** Why are the uploads assumed to be imperfect? There doesn't seem to be any given examples of them testing it. It may have been obvious to the ponies designing it, which would explain how Rainbow Dash knew, but not the later ponies. Also, they're assumed to not be the same as the pony being uploaded, which is a deep philosophical question.
** The issue is that as designed, all "uploading" a ponies brain did was make a flash copy of their personality and knowledge and essentially create a very high end AI of it. It was a copy, being run by a computer program, not the original. However this could be altered to be TRUE uploading of the actual ponies consciousness and soul, only through black magic found in a book, that as far as we can prove, only Rarity, and Celestia had read.
** Again, several of the ponies talking about it did not know how it was designed. Few if any knew much about souls either. Remember, the only authority on them was the black book, which few ponies actually read. Consciousness is a deep philosophical concept, and it's unlikely the ponies would all agree on how it works, at least without knowing that the uploads are totally lacking in emotion.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Time Travel]]

* Time Travel Megaspell? Could have been worth a shot... Though the story was probably fleshed out before Time Travel was canon (nor would it make things interesting). Could turn into NecessaryFail or ConquerorFromTheFuture. Still, would be interesting. Perhaps some crazy recursive fic.
** Time travel wasn't canon per se, but the Pinkie sense was, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. On the other hoof, since the Pinkie sense was somehow done by an Earth pony, it's probably a lot harder to make into a megaspell.
** Add in that what Time Travel we've seen implies all time travel in Equestria's universe of of the StableTimeLoop type, having a time spell wouldn't be able to alter anything.
** Use a memory alteration spell for epic TrickedOutTime. Just because you remember spending your whole life in a post-apocalyptic wasteland doesn't mean that you actually did.
** As of season 5... Yeah. Now we know that a time travel spell, with some rewriting, could use a powerful enough magic source to bypass the stable time loop requirement. Like the Tree of Harmony, the power source of the Elements. Or, say, a time travel megaspell. Although I suppose one could claim that since the stable time loop that gave Twilight the knowledge of Time Travel spells or that they're in the Starswirl the Bearded wing didn't happen, Twilight simply didn't know they existed. But this isn't a valid excuse either as Celestia and Luna would certainly know that and even if Celestia hid their existance, Luna would certainly permit their use.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Calamity's mother's stories]]

* During the exploration of Stable 24, while Littlepip is fuming at the "Stallion in the Moon" historical revision, Calamity mentions that he remembers his mother told him the story of The Mare in the Moon. Later, we learn [[spoiler:his mother died due to complications from childbirth, so who told him the story? Or was she just severely weakened and ill because of said complications, yet lived long enough for her to tell him the story because of said complications?]] This is something [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse Kkat has acknowledged was a contradiction that could have been addressed within the story but simply wasn't, but there's still no answer given.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stable 1 door]]

* Going back to the Stables, specifically Stable One, Scootaloo designed it so that the door wouldn't open until all the residents of the Stable (or at least the Mane Six and the Princesses as stated above), were dead. In the fic, we find out that [[spoiler: neither Celestia or Luna made it into Stable One, nor did any of the Mane Six.]] But couldn't the Princesses, Twilight or Rarity just teleport beyond the Stable door? It's doubtful Scootaloo would have been able to get the [[spoiler:Ministry of Arcane Sciences]] to put a bypass spell over the door.
** It might not need such a powerful spell; apparently normal shields prevent teleportation. Besides, Canterlot outside the Stable was the most horrifying part of the Wasteland, so they wouldn't want to go out anyway. Not that it matters, since no one who could teleport ever got inside.

[[/folder]]