Trope A Day-Translator Microbes

Translator Microbes-It’s called a “language package” and you can download one for your implants anywhere.

You can even do accents!

Trope A Day-Deep Immersion Gaming

Deep Immersion Gaming-With modern computer technology, neural interfaces, and powerful enough AIs to handle thousands upon thousands of NPCs that are as real as anything can be, you can get away with this.  And, there are a lot of games out there, only limited by speed-of-light communications and a general lack of FTL communications.  So far, there isn’t any games that will eat your soul or time, and there’s always a way out where you can rejoin the real world.

But, if you want, Principal Celestia is willing to satisfy all your values with friendship and humans…

Trope A Day-The Madness Place

The Madness Place-Like we said before, pony brains are amazingly compact, and they have an amazing amount of sapience for their size.  The problem is…you don’t get something for nothing, and ponies have an issue with their brains going weird on them.  This problem isn’t exactly confined to unicorns, whom have some of the greatest number of sufferers.  Earth ponies, then pegasui have occasionally gone spare this way, as well.

So far, there hasn’t been any alicorns with this issue, but everybody worries what happens when it does.

Trope A Day-The Battlestar

The Battlestar-This is the big thing about the Queen Majesty-class super-dreadnought class for the RESF.  Besides carrying a full weapons broadside-including the powerful and massive stellar converter-the ship also carries eighteen Spike-class ACVs to provide it with drone support.  Unlike the Senate and Minotaur Republic Force and the Imperial Zebra Space Navy, the Royal Equestrian Space Navy has both the funding and the economic depth to maintain specialist hulls for various missions.  The IGSN deploys drones in the same manner as the RESF, but they don’t have mixed-mission hull like the Queen Majesty.

For the SMRF, any ship class larger than a heavy cruiser would have hull mountings for battle riders, giving the SMRF the ability to deploy attrition hulls.  The IZSF’s capital ships all have drone bays, where the RESF would have to send a Sunburst or Princess Twilight Sparkle to provide drone support.  The Changeling Empresses only have battlestars, as the Larva-class ACV serve as the long range offensive weapon of the Changeling fleets.

Ships Of The RESF-Battlecruisers

Oddly under-represented in the Royal Equestrian Space Force, the big issue with battle cruisers is the usual mission role of battle cruiser is commerce denial.  Meanwhile, the RESF’s primary concern was commerce protection, for which heavy cruiser and fast battleships filled the two missions needed for commerce protection (protection against piracy and dealing with pirate ports).  However, the need of a heavier hull ship that wasn’t a full-scale battleship dictated the deployment of battle cruiser hulls.  The main problem of the class, prior to the Horizon War, was that the RESF went by a “cruiser writ large” design doctrine in both weapons and defenses.  This meant that the class was lighter in the framework and systems than the IGSN’s Raptor-class battle cruiser.

The class would see a resurgence post-Horizon War, and the newer classes of ships would be built on the “battleship writ small” design philosophy.  However, they are still somewhat “oddball” ships in the RESF and fleet commands of this class tend to find themselves in odd situations.

(Note-Equestrian ships of battle cruiser weight are called “Unicorn”-ships, and are named after famous Unicorns ponies in Equestrian history.  The initial class names for these ships, like most other Equestrian warships, came from the Elements of Harmony.)

Rarity-class Battlecruiser

At 47,000 tons and 300 meters long, Rarity-class battlecruisers were built according to the “cruiser writ large” doctrine of pre-Horizon War starship designs.  The ship mounts four bow-mounted 10cm buster launchers, eight 8cm buster launchers surrounding the hull, and four plasma torpedo launchers.  Like all RESF warships, the ship has heavier point defense than the “standard” weight of other battlecruisers.  The ship mounts heavy armor for a battlecruiser, but only average shields.  Naval designers believed that it would be easier to upgrade shield technology as innovations came along, but the lighter (by battle cruiser standards) shields were always a problem during the ship’s history.

After the end of the Horizon War, the Rarity­-class would be put into second line service, as the newer Moon Dancer-class battle cruiser would be deployed.  However, the hull would see an extended lifespan in the form of Starswirl-class Exploration Cruisers.

Moon Dancer-class Battlecruiser

Built just after the end of the Horizon War, the Moon Dancer class was designed as a “battleship writ small”, similar to Imperial Griffin Navy battle cruisers.  Massing 52,000 tons and 300 meters long, the Moon Dancer mounts four bow-mounted 12cm buster launchers, eight 10cm buster launchers on the hull, and six plasma torpedo launchers.  Armor and shields are at the standard rate for the class, with slightly heavier shields and point defense.

The Moon Dancer-class would see itself paired with the Princess Luna and Princess Sunset Shimmer-class fast battleships, since both classes share the same acceleration profiles.

Sunburst-class Squadron Drone Tender

The Sunburst-class SDT is a variant hull of the Rarity-class, designed to carry twenty-four Spike-class ACVs, at the cost of secondary weapons.  The class mounts four bow-mounted 10cm buster launchers and the same point defense fit as the Rarity-class.  The primary weapon system of the ship is the Spike-class ACVs, and the ship is built to rapidly repair, recycle, and relaunch the ACVs in fleet operations.  The role of the Sunburst-class depends upon the opposition.  Against the IGSN, the class serves in a counter-force function against the Griffin Pinion-class ACV, while the SMRF uses the crewed Spur-class battle rider in fleet actions.  The major role of the Sunburst is to provide a fleet defense against Changeling ships with their horde of Larva-class drones.

Discussions about a larger version of the Sunburst, built on the Moon Dancer hull are underway.  This version of the ship (tentatively named the Minuette-class) would carry thirty ACVs in the extended hull sections of the ship.

Bright Bulb-class Ground Forces Support Ship

Built to support the Royal Equestrian Ground Forces, the Bright Bulb-class is designed to carry a Ground Forces Reaction Battalion and provide it with 90 days of combat support independent of supply ships.  To this end, the ship is stripped of most of its offensive weapons fit; mounting mostly the bow-mounted 10cm buster launchers and point defense systems.  The ship carries enough dropships to land the Ground Forces battalion of 1,200 soldiers in a single lift, including armored vehicles and support systems.  The ship also carries a wide variety of kinetic energy weapons, from guided anti-armor munitions to area bombardment weapons.  The class mostly sees work in anti-piracy operations, and providing garrison forces during occupations.

The major disadvantage of the class is that it only carries a single platoon of AGV-33 grav tanks, which means that larger support ships (built on a fast merchant hull) are needed to carry Ground Forces Brigade Combat Teams.

Starswirl-class Exploration Cruiser

Like the Daring Do-class, the Starswirl class would remove the torpedo launchers from a Rarity-class battle cruiser for enlarged supplies and laboratory facilities.  Two additional heavy lift shuttles are also carried, designed to allow for the establishment of a ground research facility as needed.  Like the Daring Do-class, these ships fall under the command of the Exploration Service, despite their Navy crews and origins.

Trope A Day-More Dakka

More Dakka-This is tricky.  Most of the species involved in the whole Equestriaverse are not into the whole “leave a huge smoldering crater where your enemy once was” theory of combat.  Too messy, wasteful, etc, etc, etc.

But.

But, sometimes, you just have to kill everything in sight and they have quite a few ways of doing this.  The first is gravity guns-think “magnetic coil gun, but using tractor beam technology”.  Most suits of powered armor mount two of these, with independent targeting systems and all the accessories to allow you to aim a 5mm projectile moving at Mach 30 at a target’s particular eyelash.  Following that up is grenade launchers, firing standard grenades at a target, using the same principals as a gravity gun, just with slower projectiles.  Then, you have many varieties of missiles, from “brilliant” missiles to hypersmart missiles that are probably smarter than the pony firing them.

Following that up is grav artillery, which takes the gravity gun principal and fires volleys of shells, volleys of hypersmart missiles, and small tactical nuclear devices.  Bigger fire support can be launched from orbit in the form of kinetic energy weapons of varying sizes (from “kill that guy on the street corner” to “take out a city” yields).  If you really don’t like a planetary target and have a battleship handy, hitting it with a stellar converter will get everyone’s attention.

Trope A Day-Grenade Launcher

Grenade Launcher–Somewhat averted, in the sense that the modern infantry soldier in powered armor usually has vector manipulators that can toss a grenade very far.  However, there are circumstances where you need a lot of grenades on target in a short period of time, and that’s where modern grenade launchers come into their own.

A grenade launcher is basically a lower velocity grav gun, firing standard grenades very fast and in very large numbers.  This is very useful when dealing with Changelings on the ground, since they attack in huge swarms.  It’s not quite in the whole More Dakka category, mostly because there are vehicle-mounted grenade launchers for grav IFVs that put out even more grenades, and larger grenades.

Trope A Day-Casual Interplanetary Travel

Casual Interplanetary Travel-The joys of anti-gravity and gravity drive technology, you can reach a lot of destinations in days if not hours, easily.  Civilian ships can accelerate up to 5-6Gs, with military warships able to accelerate up to 12Gs and do so as long as they have fuel for their fusion reactors.  So long as the gravity drive doesn’t decouple (i.e. be unable to provide acceleration or deceleration at velocities over 50% to 70% of the speed of light), most ships use high acceleration torchship trajectories.

So far, nobody has done the whole “planet cracker done cheap” because (a) nobody thinks in terms of that kind of violence, (b) it’s hard and isn’t satisfying to rule a pile of rubble, and (c) in many ways, the wealth is from the living beings on the planet, not any material resources (many of which are easier to get from space).

Trope A Day-Spikes Of Villainy

Spikes Of Villainy-Almost a requirement when a pony decides to go all Evil Overlord and do awful things.  The spikes seem to get more numerous, larger, and more impressive.  They get more impressive as the pony tries to impress others of just how Evil they are…

…are we sure it isn’t a mating display?

How Did We Get Here?

“Seriously, how did we get here?”

“Well, first there was a light, then there was the word, then there was…”

“Less theology, more current affairs.”

“Okay, short version?  We missed our target.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You know we have to hit a star to come to a stop from being in Tunnel Drive, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that’s not exactly accurate.  We just need to hit a sufficiently large enough gravitational mass.  Stars are easy, because they’re huge targets.  You can see them a long way away, they move in a predictable way, that sort of thing.”

“Go on…”

“So, we were slightly off target and missed the star we were aiming at.”

“How do you miss a star?”

“It’s a small target when you aim at fifteen light-years or so, with fifteen years worth of light lag.”

“So what did we hit?”

“We hit a very large gas giant, which was literally a pure stroke of luck, who knows how long we’d have been under drive otherwise…”

“So, once again for the back seats, where are we?”

“Haven’t a clue.  We’re off the charts.  I’m running a skywatch program now and…ah.”

“I don’t like the sound of that ‘ah,’ what was that ‘ah’?”

“Good news is that we’ll able to get home soon.  Bad news?  We’ve got two cruisers incoming and they look to be Equestrian.”

“Well, damn.”

“That’s about what I said.  They’re hailing us, do we respond?”

“I’ll respond.  Something about being the ship’s captain, that sort of thing.”