Set six years after season 6, Occupied Equestria presents an alternative history where the Changelings have conquered half of Equestria, while a former Equestrian colony - soured to Princess Twilight's notion of harmony with all creatures because of their encounters with griffins - Invaded and took the other half. In Baltimare and the Equestrian Southeast, the magic of friendship has weakened, as Communists, Changeling infiltrators, Fascists, gangs, and corrupt creepy politicians threaten the city. This role play is based in large part upon the Equestria at War mod for Hearts of Iron 4, and uses D&d 3.5e mechanics
Shimmering Spark, Onyx Steel, and Brie Achtungsex now make the perilous crossing into the Changeling Lands. In Baltimare, Dark Star prepares for his next big assignement, while Silver concludes his mentoring of traumatized foals. Much further away, Iron stands under jeweled nighttime skies, preparing his next move
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>>106546*ruffles the fur of the Silver pony*
>>106547*floofy fur is ruffled*
This makes the Silver pony happy
*nibbles ears*
Cower before me!
>>106575WTF, filly doesn't want to take a bath?
>>106454Blue Skies shakes her head by half, and responds
"Maybe, but it's not necessarily so simple. There are a great number of officers that would need to be tested. Something like a thousand in Baltimare PD, a equal number in other jurisdictions in the Baltimare department, about as many officers as that combined amount in Moonlight shores and Duskaway, besides a large number of support staff. And who would do the testing? About a third of our own IS police have been siphoned off by the Manehattan collaborationist government for their own little frolic. We've lost our area's pony territorial gendarmes for the same reason, besides the consistent problem of the Army mobilizing the new territorials who volunteer. Baltimare PD itself, despite its size, is short staffed, since so many of them either volunteered into the Equestrian Army - they were exempt from conscription - or quit after the war, because they did not want to be indirect collaborators. And then, not just any pony can administer the test. They have to be specially trained to administer it and interpret the results. And you need to have two of them together to administer the test because of the possibility of one of them being replaced or otherwise compromised. Plus you have to a couple armed guards in case you
do find a changeling, and she reacts. And then if you have the ponies there to test them, you still have to get the officers there to be tested. Many of them will be out on patrol.
There's also the issue of willpower to do the tests. Baltimare PD finds changeling infiltration embarrassing, and might want to cover it up rather than risk exposing more. The Caretaker government might rather not risk antagonizing a large foreign government by trying to expose changelings. And then, there may be ways of getting around it. For instance, its known that ponies with certain eye conditions, or even just iris colors on the blue green spectrum - by far the most common changeling eye colors - can show up as false positives. There are other tests to verify whether a suspected pony is a changeling, but it still gives the opportunity to try to wiggle your way out of it."
>>106448Iron rights himself in the water, and presses his hooves down in the mud. The bottom is a bit odd feeling, as much dead plant life ends up here, and who knows what else is in this lake and on its bottom. From above, a sound and a diving figure. It's Cauldron, diving in for Iron, and trying to tug him up, with little success. Iron is able to paddle and walk forward to some real degree, with the weight of the gold on him giving him traction he would otherwise lack
>>106582Darn. This is not good.Iron, deciding not to jeopardize Cauldron's possibilities of having water-free lungs, points to the edge of the lake opposite of the temple, moving his forelegs in a punching motion and then pointing at the ice.
(I go to edge underwater and punch my way through the ice. I hope I made that clear.)
After this, he points at Cauldron and the opening available, followed by the water punching and pointing the ice again.
(You go outside and try to help break the ice.)
>>106580"Hmm...well, I suppose one would not have to test
all of their employees. You could make public-enough showing of changeling testing using only small sample size to give
appearance of complete testing. You would not catch them in act, but it might be enough to dislodge them and remove one more threat to stability in region." Silver carries a bunch of books to Blue Skies' office. "I do not know fix for willpower issue, but I do know that Chrysalis would not dedicate group of her valued infiltrators for just
any high-risk long-term job, especially not something as simple as reconnaissance. If there were infiltrators in Baltimare PD, then it is clear there was something in Baltimare PD that Chrysalis wanted done, something very important to her and her cause."
>>106583She looks at him with massively wide eyes, and a definite expression of fear. She points a hoot up, then down at the pots, the a swiping motion, then back up at the opening
>>106584"Who knows... It could be as simple as wanting to safeguard honeybees from getting caught by monitoring the police situation. I can tell you though infiltrators running away isn't really the desired outcome. It's catching them"
[1d20 = 12]>>106585Godangit. I want a Cauldron potion business!Iron uses the magic of empathy to try and understand if she means he needs to leave the pots or Cauldron is saying she'll take the pots off one by one and getting them to the surface.
[1d20 = 9]>>106587Dangit, I knew she'd say that, specially after the whole blossoming of romantic interest.Before committing to the action Cauldron wants to do to ensure Iron's well-being, he attempts to swim up towards the opening in case he has the strength to do it.
I roll a swim check for it.
>>106588He definitely cannot swim away
>>106585"To pick their brains, so to speak, for what it is they were looking for and how much they have sent back to hives. From personal experience, watching Equestrian Army deal with infiltrators in their ranks, that is always preferred outcome, but it is difficult to do, even on small-scale. At scale of entire army division, or entire police department, it feels almost impossible, so most settled for plugging leaks."
Silver continues to bring books from the cart to the office. "Traditional methods will not work to catch them. You will need to find way to either quarantine small groups of them at time for testing, or to test them all
at once."
>>106589Stomping his hoof on the ground in frustration, he decides to accept Cauldron's offer in order not to risk her drowning as well.
However, he places his foreleg over three of the pots, trying to at least get something out of it.
(Cut the ones that are out of the foreleg's cover. That should lighten the load enough to maybe make it out of here.)
Since I go from heavy load to medium load by losing about 160lbs if I'm not mistaken. >>106591How many pots do you think he has?
Iron can also just proceed anyways
>>106590"And that's part of why testing won't likely happen now. They'll hope that more agents will be available later, and put it off in the hopes they can test them all at once"
>>106592Silver is silent for a bit while he considers this. "Do you believe they would be willing to cooperate with Black Hooves, should you all decide you are ones to administer testing?"
>>106592The amount is 5 pots maximum, each weighting 80lbs each. 1 pot would be light load, 2-3 is medium and 4-5 is heavy load. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to walk at all.
As for the option to go with it...
Iron, instead of complying with the extremely worried zebra and confident of his ability not to drown in a pool of water, starts the trek towards the edge.
Something worth mentioning. I have either 13 or 1 round/s of not drowning depending on what character score means. After that it's a fort save not to inhale the water, which should be helped by endurance. >>106595Iron dismisses the neurotic zebra, and tries to walk on along the bottom
>>106596“The current police chief was confirmed in place after the surrender, and while the administration has not been loyal enough to be reliable as an instrument of the caretaker government, neither have they been rebellious. Besides, if they didn’t comply, we could just dissolve the current administrative structure and replace it with a new one. The SSA has ultimate authority to do pretty much anything in the occupied regions, so long as it is in keeping with its mission.”
>>106597Iron does so, maintaining a straight line towards the edge furthest from the temple and the scary things that spawned with it.
(I cannot say whether it is safer down here or above ground where everything bleeds from the eyes.)
>>106597"Perhaps I am wrong in my assessment, but I do not think it would be outside of abilities of Black Hooves to take over administration of changeling testing, should Black Hooves determine it to be severe enough security threat and they get complete cooperation of police administration."
>>106598More dice rolls!
>>106599“Again, we’re more than a little short staffed at the moment, and the same with Baltimare PD, so it’s less than perfectly certain they’ll take... however long it would take to get it done now”