A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
Initially it was my issue as well, but after some thinking and research it makes sense, even if the reasons it makes sense are only glimpsed over.
I get what they might have been going for, they just did a bad job of explaining it enough. but even then, it would take years for any trees to grow enough to bear fruit, and in the meantime, those bats end up eating way more then they would end up producing. The resolution just feels to.. to... basic?
Plus, the Fridge Horror of just what were the bats eating after Twi's spell?
edited 28th Dec '13 5:37:39 PM by Seraphem
Because it is impossible to explain on a children's show without going into nasty details. From my experience of working on a farm, I can attempt to explain. The seeds from apples that normally fall don't fall far enough. So the reason fruits like apples are so tasty to begin with is to attract animals, that would eat the apples, go far and, well, leave it there with the products of their lower backsides. The... aww fuck it, the animal poop contains things that do help a plant to grow bigger, faster, and better, which is why at least on the farm I worked on animal poop was pretty much used for that reason, to help the trees grow.
Fluttershy defends the bats because bat-poop makes for better trees. You try to explain that on a children's show.
Seems to me the bat sanctuary will, in the short term, hurt their profits far less than, say, the contest with Flim and Flam, which destroyed several trees. And in the long term, it gets them more and better produce.
And depending on how fast they can make trees grow in Equestria, it may be not that long term.
To each his own, but I was personally wondering why they didn't go with Fluttershy's suggestion from the beginning. Seemed the better solution. Localize the infestation (by making it no longer an infestation) to only a small area rather than the whole orchard, and use them to boost production.
edited 28th Dec '13 5:45:58 PM by Enlong
I have a message from another time...They were probably in mass hysteria mode at the time.
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Ahem, Wild Kratts, anyone?
edited 28th Dec '13 5:48:32 PM by KingKix
Dakota's blog An odd agent of justiceWell, there are some problems with it, like the issue of containing an airborn pest in the first place, the time it would take to set up the enclosure and how much they would destroy in the meantime, and the fact that nopony but fluttershy is a naturalist - Twilight lived in the big city, Rarity doesn't like nature much at all, Dash pretty clearly doesn't get animals based on MMM(and of course, her alcoholism influenced her decision), and Pinkie... is Pinkie, I dunno. And AJ, as we saw, is in a career that's pretty much opposed to nature in a lot of ways. There was just nobody else who would understand why letting the bats be is the better option.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Except, one, they seem to be spitting the seeds out, they never even eat them. Fluttershy said it right out. It's not they don't digest them, they never even eat them in the first place. Second, even then, it seems odd to me to let that happen. Seems for something like an orchard, you'd want more control of where and when the trees grew. not just have them planted randomly around. But be able to have them growing in rows, and not to many that they end up fighting for space and nutrients. Keep a specific amount of trees. So having them going around spreading seeds all over and random seems like a bad idea to me.
Except you can uproot the saplings and move them fairly easily - shit, they did it with a grown tree.
And even without the guano fertalizing it, it's possible the fruit bats had special enzymes in their saliva - which would help with liquefying the apples - that could improve the health of the resultant tree. I'm not sure any real animals have that, but then, there are also no real animals made from animated lumber, so, you know... magic?
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.![]()
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Didn't Twilight do just that? (the domesticating part) and look where it led to.
edited 28th Dec '13 6:02:38 PM by MorningStar1337
Domestecizing would be either training them on a steady diet of apples, or tricking them into biting a fake apple to farm their saliva every so often.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.Hey Orion. We're discussing Vampire Fruit Bats!
Ever seen any up close?
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.@Orion Well apparently our favourite band of ponies took these things on and not just that they had to deal with as weird as it sounds a vampire pony. And you'll never guess who it was. No go on just guess, Orion, guess.
edited 28th Dec '13 6:17:34 PM by Starscream759
"Transform and Roll out!" Optimus PrimeThat's a shame. Bats are neat animals.
Did you know that Bats are almost completely genetically unique? They're the only animals in their order(Chiroptera) and are closest related to horses and dolphins, genetically, which at that point is similar to saying that humans share DNA with a Banana - that is to say we do, but it's not a matter of relation so much as coincidence.
Birthright: an original web novel about Dragons, the Burdens of Leadership, and Mangoes.
Wait a minuet, did you say horses?
