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Where we left off…

Everyone gets settled as the airship takes off. Rainbow is especially excited, climbing all over the seats and going WHAT'S THAT? WHAT'S THAT?? at everything. Twilight is pleased and goes into full Teacher mode, so there was going to be a big infodump here — I figured it'd be a good time to sit back and talk to the Questions for a while, though there were also a few specific things I wanted to cover!


STEAMQUESTRIA/CLOUDSDALE

First, it's been sorta-shown but not outright stated that Steamquestria is a floating island — a flying island, actually, moving slowly through the sky via Element power. A large satellite ship, the S.S. Cloudsdale, is in charge of the steering and control of the islands' movement; sometimes to avoid mountains (there is land below, although I hadn't quite figured out how much or what to do with it) but mainly to drive the island through different weather patterns and seasons. (This probably doesn't make a lot of sense scientifically, but it's a fantasy world, so let's pretend.) The navigation is plotted by the Locational Optimization Volt System, aka Shining Armor's Guard Post, aka Cadance…but more on her later.

Cloudsdale
Cloudsdale is also the hub for the Wonderbolts, wing-augmented officers who monitor airship traffic and general air…stuff. Twilight's not that interested in them so she doesn't go into too much detail (giving me more time to decide what to do with them), but Rainbow thinks they're SUPER RAD as they fly by, and wonders if they'd take a robot! Twilight informs her that they're mostly made up of humans who were…let's say dedicated enough to undergo augmentation for a pair of permanent, expensive-to-maintain wings (augmentation is not a pleasant process, and usually avoided except for medical necessity). They are extremely serious about flying, and expect every Wonderbolt to be just as passionate. To which Rainbow is like "yeah, and?"

Some other stuff that may or may not have been covered here: the University where Twilight pursues her elementology research, which is analogous to Canterlot Castle (I wanted to call it Clangterlot but everyone agreed that was too silly-sounding). At its top is the Everfree Clocktower…

University and Clocktower
Celestia used to be the head of the University board, until she suddenly resigned one day without comment. Why? No one really knows! She still does the occasional bit of tutoring, including of our own Twilight, and otherwise just kind of goes around making Scientific Achievements and generally working to improve the world. Twilight is more than happy to list off her many important accomplishments, including: revamping the way corrupted Elements are handled, refining the Crystal Heart System, building the Locational Optimization Volt Engine, and…this is about where everyone tunes out.

(For the record, Celestia is not the government leader — none of the princesses are; it seemed like too much in addition to what I was planning for them. I didn't have anything solid yet on how Steamquestria's government runs, beyond some thoughts about Blueblood being a hilariously-incompetent figurehead monarch, and maybe getting Coloratura in somewhere as a literal countess.)

(Also I kind of wanted to have a running joke about how Celestia has a Barbie-esque list of careers and specialities, with an official title along the lines of Her Ladyship, Doctor Chairwoman Distinguished-Professor Pilot Grandmaster Veterinarian Nobilissima Firemarshal The Right Honourable Dame Celestia (esq). But…maybe that was pushing it.)


THE ELEMENTS

Oooh, glowy.

This may have been moved to later on, depending on how the pacing was going (maybe it would've been good for the library?) but I wanted to get it in somewhere here, and people had been asking about it! So Twilight, with the help of her faithful assistant Spike, go on to explain the Elements:

Basically, the Elements are unique types of alchemically-produced liquid, used for everything from medicine to an efficient and powerful energy source. Despite their long and well-documented use throughout Steamquestria, many scientists believe that there's still much about them that we have yet to discover, and elementologists like Twi have dedicated themselves to studying these strange and wonderful concoctions.

One of the things that Twilight finds most fascinating is how the Elements are connected to emotional states. Exactly what they react to is up for debate — personally, Twi suspects some sort of brain wave output, though every elementologist has their own pet theory — but somehow, they seem to respond to specific personalities and emotions differently. While the day-to-day varying in emotions doesn't seem to affect them much once they've 'set', it becomes vitally important during the brewing process, when the Element is in a highly delicate state and extremely susceptible to the feelings and people around it.

'Positive' emotions in general will help create a strong batch, while 'negative' emotions will have a much weaker result, and can even render it completely unusable. In more extreme cases, what comes out has been…unpredictable. Hmm.

TWILIGHT: But of course that almost NEVER happens!

If you say so, Twi!

The five distinct strains of Element (as codified by Steamswirl the Bearded) are each named after the trait that produces them most consistently: Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Kindness. All robots are made with an Element-powered core that represents their intended function — workers are more likely to be Loyalty or Honesty, for example, while caretakers are usually Kindness. Twilight's bots are quite experimental, designed to run on much more Element than is standard, in order to observe how that influences their behavior.

In addition, every person is particularly attuned to one (or more rarely, a mix of two) of these Elements, which responds well to their presence and works best with them in medical application. For instance, Shining Armor is a mix of Laughter and Kindness (if you look back, those are the two Elements his arm is being treated with in the flashback :D). Of course, there's exceptions to every rule, and there are the very rare fringe reports of people who seem to be equally attuned to all Elements…or maybe none of them? This is one of the reasons Twilight suspects that there might be a sixth, as-of-yet undiscovered Element. And not just because she herself is one of those one-in-a-million cases.

To sum up: Elements are super-awesome alchemy that can do anything the plot needs them to…and more???

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Posted previously at: 2016-06-26T12:27:12 | Posted previously by: Yoshimon1