Why not regular physics?

@the-furry-railfan  
Cartoon physics save the day.
 
And the psyche of everyone who lives with someone who likes to inflate themselves every now and then.

@Kowalskicore  
Eh, yeah, popping is a danger, but I play by the concept that if someone bursts, they just end up flopping back to the ground, completely unharmed but quite dazed, and surrounded by appropriately-colored confetti. Y’know, more cartoony, silly sorta stuff.
 
It might involve real-world guns and weapons, albeit slightly modified, but all this is just for fun.

@the-furry-railfan  
You certainly can stuff an implosion-type nuclear warhead into a 155mm or 203mm artillery shell though. Oh, and “density” isn’t really the right word, I believe you mean “concentration” or something to that effect. I could see gas warfare with P-235 being pretty horrifying though, with the internal pressure buildup any kind of loose shrapnel or sharp object might cause whomever gets inflated to explode in a rather spectacular fashion.

@Kowalskicore  
More or less, but nah, not for destruction, just more means of inflation - can’t really fit a full implosion-type warhead in a 40mm grenade or 105mm artillery shell, heh. Basically all I do is take any given real-world explosive weapon (bombs, projectiles, missiles, et cetera) and shove P-235 in where the explosives usually go. Thanks to the magic of plot convenience, the only destruction they cause is what gets shoved around by the rapidly inflated target. It’s only P-235 in a solid state that explodes in such a way, gaseous P-235 isn’t dense enough. Good for being used in a gas shell, though.

@the-furry-railfan  
Am I correct in the assumption that we’ve gone from a radioactive element being used as a plot device for inflation, to actually using said radioactive element as the “explosive” component in actual weapons used for destroying things?
 
Also, good catch with Little Boy - I made a mistake there.

@Kowalskicore  
Well, while it is true we’ve had implosion and gun-type atomic weapons (Little Boy was the latter - utilized U-235, was not tested prior to deployment because they were confident that the simpler gun-type design would function on the first attempt) for the better part of 73 years, can’t really say the same for Equestria. I mainly just use P-235 as a straight stand-in for Uranium or Plutonium, overlooking the fact that there’s a lot more science and calculations that goes into the actual cores of nuclear devices. Simpler that way, not too much real gain going that far down the rabbit hole. Best I could think of is taking the concept of boosting a core with a small sample of Tritium, and applying it in the sense of taking a core of P-235 and changing the effects of the resulting blast by putting a small sample of a potion inside the core. That one tends to lean more heavily on magic effects, mind.
 
Ah, when I say ‘conventional’, I more just meant taking metallic P-235 and using it as a stand-in for normal high explosives, such as Amatol, PETN, TNT, et cetera. As designed, it still technically detonates, just is an asymmetrical blast so there isn’t a full proper nuclear explosion. Means less distribution scale-wise, but sizes of the affected are greater since it’s more of a dirty bomb-type deal, the radiation is more concentrated.
 
Aye, true again, in that case I was just more going with what seemed like the most pony-esque stand-in for diesel/any liquid burnable fuel, and given alcoholic cider has been an unspoken thing that exists since Flim & Flam first made their appearance it seemed like the logical choice. Plus one of the characters I frequently draw is a super huge Applejack fan (much like their owner - isn’t myself, incidentally), and they’re usually utilizing machinery that requires combustible liquids in the engines for either straight propulsion or at least burners in a boiler, so it’s also an excuse to have them on acquaintance terms with the farmpony.

@the-furry-railfan  
Implosion type nuclear weapons are already a thing, both the ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ bombs were of the implosion type, and mushroom clouds can be formed by any explosive. You may also want to consider the weight of what you’re porposing there, as metallic P-235 is more than twice the weight of an equivalent unit of volume of metallic plutonium, which is already rather heavy at almost 20 grams per cubic centimeter. Depending on… stuff, you might also not need the neutron action, as the spontaneous disintegration of the P-235 nucleus could be triggered by an impact from P-radiation. I’ve also never heard of conventional explosives causing inflation, but I’m not really into that kind of thing so I haven’t seen or heard much. Beyond the obvious cartoon physics example of eating a lit stick of dynamite or something and instead of exploding into a shower of flesh and bones, simply going “poof” and, well, inflating to a silly size.
 
 
Hard cider could be used as a combustion fuel depending on the ethanol content, but pure ethanol would be a superior fuel due to hard cider having impurities which might impair proper combustion and produce excessive pollution, or even damage the engine over time.

@Kowalskicore  
Well, only spot of bother is there’s still gotta be some neutron action going on at least within the sample of P-235 itself, mainly because of one little thing I need to get around to introducing sooner or later since I’ve finally found a suitable launch platform for it. Namely, a little thing known as the implosion-type nuclear device - because if it’s worth making conventional explosives (or, well, have P-235 undergo the fictional phenomena known as shock fission, and thus cause not-really-nuclear-scale blasts) cause inflation, it’s worth going full monty and bringing about the P-nuclear age, with a bit of fiddling around anyhow. Not that it matters too much, given even the regular explosions still cause mushroom clouds because artistic license. A P-nuke affects a larger area at the cost of smaller sizes of the affected, compared to a pure P-235 warhead.
 
Definitely do like throwing science and real-world physics in when I have the choice. Hell, lotta the vehicles I draw also utilize hard cider-fueled compression combustion engines, and I have actually been toying with the idea of dragon scale-lined jet turbines for things, likewise powered by hard cider. Dragon scales have exceptional insulative properties, makes sense really.

@the-furry-railfan  
All’s well, and an idea I just had was that perhaps the neutrons aren’t emitted, but rather converted into the magical energy that allows the P-radiation to even exist in the first place.
 
I used to write a ton of sciency explanations a couple years back when I had a sci-fi RP going with a friend, practically everything had a somewhat plausible explanation in the end. Bits and pieces of trivia like that can add a lot of flavour, and a special pony-made element that decays into helium is certainly an interesting spin on the inflation thing.

@Kowalskicore  
Yeah… that bit I tend to handwave off by means of saying ‘magic!’, or more specifically the energy released in that matter that doesn’t split apart other atoms of P-235 is transmuted into magical energy that maintains the semi-stability of the P-radiation. I do understand why it absolutely wouldn’t work like that, but the concept of thought-out inflation-causing radiation/radioactive element is good enough to want to overlook some of the science here and there.
 
It’s all in the name of fun, really. Explaining the science out some is just something I like doing every now and again. My goal is to have an interesting little concept I can claim as my own which others can use, that just adds a more exciting spin on a kink and is in no way meant to cause harm to characters affected by it.

@the-furry-railfan  
I appreciate the effort you put into that explanation, but that stuff would still most definetely be a lethal radiation hazard. Neutron decay is also a form of ionising radiation, though indirectly so.
 
While neutrons are not inheritly dangerous, when a stray neutron from say, a decaying nucleus hits a hydrogen atom, the latter is ripped from whatever chemical bond it was in, possibly creating a free radical, and ionises every particle it comes across until it runs out of energy and comes to a stop.

@Kowalskicore  
P-235 is a fun lil’ fictional superheavy element I’ve came up with over the years, exists on an island of stability far off the end of the table - the ‘235’ is the atomic number, not atomic mass. Through the power of plot convenience magic, it exists in both a malleable metallic state and gaseous form at STP, and is radioactive in a fairly unusual way. Rather than decaying into lighter elements in steps, the atoms just sorta disintegrate into neutrons, beta particles, and alpha particles, all at once. Given the size of each atom, that tends to be a lot.
 
Most folks just care about this part, the radiation it gives off is P-radiation, which basically is an alpha particle and two beta particles held in a semi-stable state thanks to magic, and when this ball o’ fun enters a target it magics itself into an atom of helium. Thus, we get a mostly scientifically described method of inflation by means of specialized radiation.
 
That small tank there contains just enough to turn an average-sized pony into a McMansion-sized pony, more or less.

P-235?
 
What a peculiar thing to call it. Can’t be plutonium though since plutonium is “Pu” on the periodic table of elements, and doesn’t have an isotope with an atomic weight of 235.

go on…..