Trope A Day-Space Fighters

Space Fighters-Highly, highly averted by just about everybody in the Equestriaverse. What most people would call a “fighter” is the Autonomous Combat Vessel (ACV), which can be accurately described as “an armed drone with a glandular problem”. With only one exception, they’re run by an AI or an uploaded personality, and are considered expendable as needed by their various forces. With few exceptions, they are carried by dedicated tender craft, and are mostly used as a shield against Changeling ACVs (whom use ACVs as their primary long-ranged weapon) and as a “scouting with teeth” option for fleets.

For the Royal Equestrian Space Forces, they use the Spike-class ACV, which is pretty much a 3 cm buster launcher, two point defense turrets, a reactor, a gravity drive, a computer core, sensors, and just enough hull and armor to provide some protection for the whole affair.  Spike-class ACVs have external clamps for four missiles, but they are rarely used as missile carriers. Their primary role in the RESF is to engage other ACVs and engage damaged/crippled warships, rather than be expended against an intact fleet’s defenses.

The Imperial Griffin Space Navy has two ACVs in service with the fleet-the Spur-class ACV and the Valkyrie-class ACV.  The Spur-class is slightly smaller than the Spike-class, mounts a fast-cycling 2 cm buster launcher, and is more dedicated to the anti-ACV role than the Equestrian Spike-class.  The Valkyrie-class ACV, on the other hand, is built for the anti-ship role, mounting a 3 cm buster launcher and carrying four Asp anti-ship missiles on external clamps.  In fleet actions, Valkyrie-class ACVs will engage escorting warships on the fringes of a fleet, cripples, and anything else that is relatively vulnerable.

For the Senate and Minotaur Republic Forces, the idea of creating a sapient AI that would not be able to choose when it was created to serve as an expendable weapon is abhorrent. The nearest class of ship that fills the same role as the ACV is the Hammerhead-class battle rider, which is essentially a corvette-sized warship without a Tunnel Drive, carried into battle by SMRF warships of battle cruiser sized or larger.  Armed as well as a frigate, the Hammerhead serves as an attrition platform and a defensive platform for planetary defense.

The Changeling Empresses and Queens use the Larva-class ACV exclusively as their long-ranged engagement platform. Unlike other races, the Larva-class is technically “crewed”-a specialized adaptation of the standard Changeling drone is used as the wetware AI for the drone.  Since Changeling Nymphs, Queens, and Empresses can communicate instantly at interplanetary distances with their drones, this makes their ACVs more dangerous because they can be controlled instantly. Armed with a 4 cm buster launcher, it is slower firing than most other races ACVs, but it can do a significant amount of damage. And, if necessary, it can always ram a hostile warship. They are, after all, expendable.

Trope A Day-Cuteness Overload

Cuteness Overload-Yes.  Ponies can do this to themselves.  Even without looking in a mirror.

Whomever created ponies had a strange sense of humor.

Trope A Day-City Of Spies

City Of Spies-The capitals of the various powers are a lot of this, but the huge example of this is Melvin’s Reach, which sits in an absolutely perfect location between the four major powers.  Besides being a hub for shipping and travel, it’s also become a hub for all of the espionage services, either setting up spy rings into the other powers or keeping an eye on the competition.

It hasn’t gotten to the point of requiring carpools for surveillance tails, but you can safely assume that every third person you meet is in the Great Game somehow, all of the good dead drop locations are either in use or under constant surveillance, and it is never just the wind.

Trope A Day-Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous Consumption-Not exactly a thing by most of the races in the Equestriaverse. Even the most extreme examples of this tend to be more of the “look at me” more than “look at what I’ve got”. On a species basis, ponies (especially unicorns) will do a lot of this when showing off their wealth and power, with griffins just right behind them. Zebras are more into the whole Simple Yet Opulent idea of dealing with things-a sort of “I have all this wealth, and look how restrained I am with it.” Minotaurs tend to not be like this, as this kind of thing is seen as foolish-“you’re spending your money on that, rather than using it for something practical?” is the mentality in effect here.

It doesn’t mean that most species won’t show off-they just have different ways of doing it.

Trope A Day-Klatchian Coffee

Klatchian Coffee-There are quite a few blends of coffee in Equestria that can do this. But, if you want this trope in its full, eye-peeling, mind-bending glory, this is the blend that is only known as the Two Sisters Blend.

In the whole realm of “crack is cheaper“, Two Sisters Blend is pretty much the exclusive coffee blend of the Diarchy and the alicorns.  You could buy a starship-and not a small one-for the cost of a pound of Two Sisters. It’s given as a diplomatic gift and as something that you can drink one cup and start having caffeine hallucinations.

(Taste?  Pretty damn good.  Oh, and the LD=50 for the caffeine amount in it is at the amount of three cups for anyone that isn’t an alicorn.  Drink softly.)

Trope A Day-Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness

Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness-If you’re doing anything in either the Day or Night Courts of Equestria, for the love of Mother Faust, don’t do this.

Princess Celestia is infamous for listening to someone try this on her, and having her summarize the entire exchange in less than a paragraph. For the occasional amusement, Princess Celestia has occasionally reduced whole massive speeches designed to try and conceal what the speaker has done to about 140 characters or less.

(Yes, Princess Celestia has literally reduced huge speeches to tweets.)

In the Night Court, Princess Luna has been known to demand that the speaker come to the point and do so immediately.  Or, she will start to get sarcastic at them.  Or threaten to get ironic.

(Rumors to the contrary, she hasn’t had anybody executed for trying to spin bullshit into brown silk.)

Trope A Day-Shoulder Cannon

Shoulder Cannon-Well, “torso cannon” is sort of the default for any major weapons used in powered armor (since only a few species have, well, hands).  Most suits of powered armor have two or three independently articulated mounts, usually mounting rifle-caliber weapons and/or light support weapons such as grenade launchers or rocket launchers.  There’s usually an ammo feed to a central ammo supply on the user’s body, and they always mount sensors on the weapons so they can be safely poked around corners and fired around hard cover.

This doesn’t count for heavy weapons, which are usually carried by one of any number of drones that can provide support and be expended as needed.

Trope A Day-Cryo Prison

Cryo Prison-Commonly used by the Griffin Moot and the Zebra Kingdoms, it’s just easier to pull the cortical stack of your really bad criminals, stick them in a virtual environment that can hopefully work towards rehabilitation, and not have to worry about things like escape attempts or prisoners hurting each other.  And, since you can run the prison at accelerated speeds, you can turn a fifty year sentence into a year, easily.

The Kingdom of Equestria avoids this-they prefer to use more conventional prisons, restraining bolts, and AI-assisted therapy in real-time to help criminals to find their way to something that is healthier than being evil.  Sometimes this works very well, sometimes this just teaches the criminal how to do things better.

The Senate and Minotaur Republic makes the most of prison planets, where criminals have to work towards getting back off the planet by one means or another.

Trope A Day-Everyone Is Armed

Everyone Is Armed-Part and parcel of what makes up the Senate and Minotaur Republic.  If you’re a voter, you’ve served in the military and your militia rifle is probably in your closet, kept clean and in good shape and ready to be presented when you come to vote.

In most other nations, being armed with an actual weapon is dependent upon the location and general need. Of course, since just about everybody has a vector controller implanted that is powerful enough to feel like you were hit by a bullet-shaped hunk of energy, the need to carry an actual weapon is open to debate unless you’re facing really heavily hardened targets (like in powered armor) or large numbers of targets.

Trope A Day-Military Moonshiner

Military Moonshiner–Extremely common in the Exploration Service, where figuring out what you can make alcohol out of safely is one of the job requirements. Otherwise, it’s not that common because most of the military forces provide alcohol (and good alcohol) as a part of the rations, at minimum in the form of a ration round for dinner at base. The wonders of modern nanotechnology means that you can quickly switch from “drunk” to “sober” in only seconds, so even if you’re completely drunk you can get back onto duty immediately.