Frontline Dispatches: Mares' Co Ponies Turn Churn 'n' Boil Reactor Off.

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In our last frontline report, we covered the heavy fighting taking place around the Churn 'n' Boil reactor in the north of the shepherd town of Ewe-Crying. The Mayor, stand-up comedian Cheese Sandwich, reports that armed security forces led by Pie Tin have managed to capture the derelict reactor and have forced staff to turn it off.

Experts fear that a crisis is imminent.

What is the Churn 'n' Boil Reactor?

This reactor is the oldest gas processing plant in all of Equestria. Originally a (relatively) green and pleasant means of generating power, it was purposed by the previous owners of the town to extract fuel from clay and also fertiliser. This biomass plant generated a large amount of gas which had to be extracted safely.

  

What's it used for now?

Currently the plant is still used for fuel by the current Mayor Cheese Sandwich to power facilities in the U Laughing Campus, and the surrounding shepherd town of Ewe-Crying. However, he also repurposed the gas to use as fart gas and other amusements in his chain of joke shops. As the name implies, this is achieved through the plant's boiling facilities. However, the gas in its unfiltered state is toxic.

Why is turning it off such a hazard?

Several years ago the plant fell victim to an explosion when a newly trained engineer, sent from Mares' Co to help oversee construction on a new set of monitors, ignored the primary safety rule:

Mares' Co, the research and homewares company of which Maud 'Pie Tin' is the current owner, and surrounding town, built the plant. Global experts from multiple countries have stated that poor construction was to blame. Mares' Co deny all responsibility, stating it was due to insistence of “a desire by Ewe-Crying's estates team and engineers, who we worked with to build the plant, to use Western bourgeois imperial units, creating confusion among the different teams in construction.”.

As an effect of the explosion, fart gas vented for three entire nights, leading many of the sheep farmers several miles away, surrounded by their woolly manure machines, to complain about a 'bad smell.' The fact that farmers were noticing a bad smell was considered a sign of its severity, and many were forcibly evacuated to other parts of Equestria.

This toxic gas was covered over with a large concrete dome, with constant filtration and cooling systems running to prevent the gas rising to toxic levels. With this turned off, fears are the gas may reach critical pressure, or even spark, and “going off like a massive stink bomb with all eggy smells and watering eyes.”

This map shows the health effects posed by Churn 'n' Boil should its fart gas reactor go critical.

Map size = 3 by 3 miles.

How are the workers faring? 

The workers have currently been working double shifts (sixteen hours each) and forcibly confined to the complex by Mares' Co soldiers. This has led to them suffering sleep deprivation and living in slave like conditions, in parallel to a certain event taking place in another dimension. In all seriousness, this is causing genuine concern among everyone, including this reporter.

It is unclear, in this reporter's opinion, how Pie Tin can claim to be searching for chemical weapons and that they are a threat to Mares' Co, and expect such claims to be taken seriously on the international stage while taking such foolhardy and reckless military tactics, including but not limited to firing high powered party popper shells at this 'chemical weapons complex'.

All such claims have so far been unverified by experts. This reporter hopes, genuinely, that no disaster occurs. He is, as you can imagine, quite scared, and is watching with the rest of the pony continent with tense and baited breath. But we'll do what we can to cover this and help get you through in a professional and dignified manner.

 

Who are the experts that have released statements?

The BRRAAAAP (Board of Realtime Reacting Awesome not Annoyingly Anal Analyst Ponies), and their experts in the Hot Air Division.

In other news, there has been backlash to comments made comparing the current struggle in Ewe-Crying to the Griffish Isles' Eggsit Referendum, by current Prime Minister Birdhorse Johnson.

Experts suggest they could take cues from human methods of replenishing gas stocks, as detailed in this promotional photo of Air Biscuits, a Documentary by Dr. J Fartpants.