[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Harmony Ltd.]

Blackjack's had a theme song for a long time now, though. Hurt by Johnny Cash.

Illustration :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McV7pjwVFbE

[Icy Shake]

Source

Welcome to the Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion Thread!
This is the place to discuss Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons, a Fallout/MLP:FiM crossover fic by Somber. Story discussion is on the left, group therapy to the right. Please try to schedule your emotional breakdowns when they don't conflict with anyone else's.

Rules
We have just a few simple rules here.

1. Don't put down Somber.
   
2. Project Horizons is a grimdark fic which deals with adult topics, so we might discuss subjects that some readers may find uncomfortable. Be mature about it.
   
3. If Somber or a member of the editing team says to end a discussion, please do so.
   
4. Spoilers abound. If you're not current on the fic, we recommend that you catch up before you read on.
   
5. Expect random discussions that may or may not have anything to do with the story.
   
6. Have fun!

People You Should Know
Somber: The author of Project Horizons, creator of Blackjack, maker of awesomeness, is a small gray mare who lives in the head of a guy named David. Ignore her claims of suckage.
Bronode The-Brusher-Formerly-Known-as-Bronode-and-Currently-Known-as-Niphl and O. Hinds: Your editing team. They make awesome writing look all shiny and pretty.
Kkat: The author of the original Fallout: Equestria. Not a participant in this discussion (yet), but you should be aware of her anyway. If you haven't read FOE, why are you even here? Go! Read!

Somber's Tip Jar
Thank-yous of the monetary variety may be made through PayPal. Simply click on Send Money, send it to David13ushey@gmail.com and mark it as a personal gift.

Story Links
GoogleDocs chapter index - Links to every chapter, plus FOE and FOEPH resources, media, and story download formats.
.epub Format - Thanks to Scorch_Mechanic.
LaTeX ebook .pdf - Thanks to ThePowersGang.
Nallar's Fanfic Archive - An auto-updated collection of fics offered in a variety of formats including Kindle .mobi, .epub, and .html.

[Kippershy]

Blackjack's had a theme song for a long time now, though. Hurt by Johnny Cash.

Illustration :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McV7pjwVFbE

Thanks, was on my phone at the time.

[Stack Trace]

Bronode is going by a different handle these days. The symbol I use is a better name for me than any string of characters.

Kind of difficult to put a weird circle thingy into words, though. Niphl's fine for now.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Can we call you Niflheim ?

[Stack Trace]

By all means. Just... make sure your hometowns are adequately fireproofed.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Worst come to worst, we'll just release all the dams upstream.

[Derpmind]

Embedded because awesome.

...I just can't stand the guy's voice. At all.
It sounds so whiny...

I think his voice is weaker in this song than in his others. Anyway, LivingTombstone's native language/accent is Hebrew. He did one song in Hebrew over here, so judge for yourself if his voice sucks in general or not.

Bronode is going by a different handle these days. The
symbol I use is a better name for me than any string of characters.

Kind of difficult to put a weird circle thingy into words, though. Niphl's fine for now.

Nice butt picture!

[cb5]

I think his voice is weaker in this song than in his others. Anyway, LivingTombstone's native language/accent is Hebrew. He did one song in Hebrew over here, so judge for yourself if his voice sucks in general or not.

Yeah, it's kind of biased of how people are getting on him for being a non-native english speaker.

[Derpmind]

Yeah, it's kind of biased of how people are getting on him for being a non-native english speaker.

It's not obvious to everyone when someone's a non-native speaker. And you can still dislike his singing voice anyways. If you're talking about youtube commenters, though, youtube comments are mostly an amorphous mass of irrationality.

[Icy Shake]

I think his voice is weaker in this song than in his others. Anyway, LivingTombstone's native language/accent is Hebrew. He did one song in Hebrew over here, so judge for yourself if his voice sucks in general or not.

Yeah, it's kind of biased of how people are getting on him for being a non-native english speaker.

I'm not proud to admit this, but I've never been the biggest fan of his accent—at least as it relates to singing—though I do wonder if part of my reaction to his voice is due to auto-tune, as it sometimes seems slightly tinny to me. I do find his voice to work very well in some more inflected songs, though, like "Guncakes" and "Reading for Days."

"Fly",by the way, was good; thanks for linking to it.

Anyway, another week, another chapter reread! In this episode: "Everything is my fault!" (and it's not just Blackjack saying it!); "What's consent?"; "Oh, shit, that really happened."; and much, much more!

Chapter 12 Editing:

Other Old Chapter Editing:

[O. Hinds]

I think his voice is weaker in this song than in his others. Anyway, LivingTombstone's native language/accent is Hebrew. He did one song in Hebrew over here, so judge for yourself if his voice sucks in general or not.

Yeah, it's kind of biased of how people are getting on him for being a non-native english speaker.

I'm not proud to admit this, but I've never been the biggest fan of his accent—at least as it relates to singing—though I do wonder if part of my reaction to his voice is due to auto-tune, as it sometimes seems slightly tinny to me. I do find his voice to work very well in some more inflected songs, though, like "Guncakes" and "Reading for Days."

"Fly",by the way, was good; thanks for linking to it.

Anyway, another week, another chapter reread! In this episode: "Everything is my fault!" (and it's not just Blackjack saying it!); "What's consent?"; "Oh, shit, that really happened."; and much, much more!

Chapter 12 Editing:

Other Old Chapter Editing:

Ah, thank you very much, as usual.

That I tripped wasn’t special; it could happen to anypony. (Included for context.)
That I tripped over a fresh corpse: only my luck could be that bad.

The portion before the colon in the second line isn't an independent clause, so the colon should be either a dash or a comma, or a verb could be added:
That I tripped over a fresh corpse was:

I pondered this for a short while. You're right about the fault, I think, but I ended up deciding to leave it for stylistic reasons. Sorry.

Lastly:
1) Is there meant to be a distinction between "machine gun" and "machinegun"? Both are used at different points, and I don't know if that's intentional.
2) Is it "EFS" or "E.F.S."?

1: There's not meant to be a distinction, no.
2: I'm not sure; I've forwarded that to Somber.

[Cptadder]

2) Is it "EFS" or "E.F.S."?

2: I'm not sure; I've forwarded that to Somber.[/quote]
It could be E.F.S or EFS depending on context. As it's Eye's Forward Sparkle, EFS is proper in reports, casual discussion or shorthand while E.F.S in trade journals or technical documentation.

Man it's been awhile since I used my old school document writing because the rules governing when you write out the dot dot dot VS just combining them are all kinds of archaic.

[SilentCarto]

See, now i kind of want to make a FoE:PH version of the Arkham Horror board game, we could only have 1 old one, but it wouldn't be too hard....at least i don't think it would be.

I was thinking the same thing when I posted that. Now I kinda want to make it work...

Brain, stop thinking about game mechanics... seriously, stop it right now...

Source

Did... you just...


THAT'S MY POST YOU POST STEALING SON OF A STUD!

Nah, seriously, thanks for doing that. I can't catch page 34 every time.

[O. Hinds]

It could be E.F.S or EFS depending on context. As it's Eye's Forward Sparkle, EFS is proper in reports, casual discussion or shorthand while E.F.S in trade journals or technical documentation.

Man it's been awhile since I used my old school document writing because the rules governing when you write out the dot dot dot VS just combining them are all kinds of archaic.

Hm, thank you for the information.

[Icy Shake]

It could be E.F.S or EFS depending on context. As it's Eye's Forward Sparkle, EFS is proper in reports, casual discussion or shorthand while E.F.S in trade journals or technical documentation.

Man it's been awhile since I used my old school document writing because the rules governing when you write out the dot dot dot VS just combining them are all kinds of archaic.

Hm, thank you for the information.

That's certainly workable, and thank you for the input, but I just did what I should have done from the beginning, but didn't because—Heylookoverthere!—and checked FoE. Turns out there were only three instances of "EFS," all over the course of four pages in a single chapter and in contexts indistinguishable from most uses of "E.F.S.," which reinforces the complete absence of "SATS" to suggest, to me, that in context it might just be "E.F.S."

Also, SilentCarto, I'm glad you're okay with me stepping on your turf in this case.

[FeatherDust]

Not everyone can have the voice of [insert awesome singer here; I'd want Devin Townsend for this, for my part, he can hit the notes this song wanted to hit and then some], sadly. But injecting some aggro into this song's vocals definitely would have made me like it more. The actual tune and beat and stuff were pretty enjoyable. Not all that complex, but fun. An enjoyable texture.

His voice doesn't bug me, but sadly I don't like this song. It's what I think of as "mishmash music" -- there's effectively no melody or chording, it's just one big mess of sound, and then it stops.

[FeatherDust]

And that's why you don't want to use Paypal for anything serious.

Let it stand as a lesson to anyone wanting to mount any kind of business that Paypal is not to be trusted under any circumstances.

Seriously, you could fit an entire tumblr with Paypal Horror Stories...

Okay.... I've been hearing that from a lot from bronies recently: "that terrible Paypal and how they keep screwing us".

Do PayPal's policies cause problems for the likes of BUCK and the Past Sins printing project (and presumably for PH printing as well)? Yes, of course. But while there are plenty of things that you can dislike PayPal for, this isn't one of them.

One of PayPal's basic policies is that they do not give out money until the product is delivered, or in the case of an event, until the event has happened. PayPal is not Kickstarter. This is their fraud protection; this stops a criminal from, for example, claiming to start a convention, getting lots of people to pay money, then withdrawing the cash and just not doing the event (or whatever they said they'd do).

I'm not sure of all the legalities there, but there's a good chance PayPal could be on the hook for the money in that case, and either way they'd be paying legal fees to defend against angry users. It can be a problem for people trying to fund projects, but it's the best thing for Paypal from a business standpoint, and it's not as if this is secret information. It's part of the agreement you have to sign when you set up a Paypal account.

I sympathize with those who had problems because of that policy, but it's not PayPal doing something horrible. (Unless that's not what caused the problem for the PH project, in which case never mind me.)

[WavemasterRyx]

I need to listen to the Living Tombstone's song a few more times without distractions. I think I ended up giving it a premature assessment.

This piece seems quite lovely though.

[Ketchup]

This piece seems quite lovely though.

Spoiler:

I like this. Reminds me of some of the music from A Link to the Past.

[SilentCarto]

I sympathize with those who had problems because of that policy, but it's not PayPal doing something horrible. (Unless that's not what caused the problem for the PH project, in which case never mind me.)

There's plenty of reasons to dislike Paypal, even so. Not necessarily reasons they could control, but still.

Paypal and eBay are based out of California, which means that they're beholden to California laws on all their transactions whether or not any items ever pass through the state. (They went to court over this, but the state won.) The result of that which affects me personally is that both services are tremendously unfriendly to weapons of any sort. You can't even use Paypal to pay for any gun parts or accessories unless the seller is a registered firearms dealer, even if the parts are not legally considered firearms (such as barrels, sights, and magazines.)

They also seem to exercise a pretty draconian "one strike and you're out" sort of policy that can be a shock to a lot of people. Paypal's policies are geared toward businesses, which will generally be very cautious about the legalities of their situation, while most "civilian" users aren't prepared to deal with that level of legalism. So someone who thinks everything is fine suddenly gets a locked account and a surprise nastygram, and naturally turns around and tells all their friends what horrible people Paypal is run by.

[Caoimhe]

Bronode is going by a different handle these days. The symbol I use is a better name for me than any string of characters.

Kind of difficult to put a weird circle thingy into words, though. Niphl's fine for now.

Posting to inform that you are now known as Niphlball, wherein I will throw you at people but they won't get hurt, but you will make a soothing flutter sound.

[FeatherDust]

...But while there are plenty of things that you can dislike PayPal for, this isn't one of them.

There's plenty of reasons to dislike Paypal, even so. Not necessarily reasons they could control, but still.

Right. Like I said. While there are lots of things you can complain about, I don't think "we don't pay out until the job is done" is a legitimate one of them. It's a feature, not a bug, as they say.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. [wheezing laugh] Saw a Goddess falling to its knee... Cities drowning under the boiling seas... All these moments will be lost in time [cough] ... like dust in the desert...

Time... to die.

Spoiler:

[Valikdu]

Spoiler:

[Harmony Ltd.]

Spoiler:

[Harmony Ltd.]

Alternate version :

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe. [wheezing laugh] Living waves of fire and steel, clashing on the bladed shores of a forgotten land... Rays of the purest light dancing in the dark skies of the longest night... All these moments will be lost in time [cough] ... like dust in the desert...

Time... to die.

[Meleagridis]

I wanted to say "I looked into the heart of a dying star", but I can't remember if it was Goldenblood or Horse who showed the Tokamare to what's her face with the shield.

Well I remember that Horse invited her to the showing. Golden was at the party beforehand, though.

By the way, any thoughts on that fancy shield taking the blast of several tonnes of moonstone and starmetal?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Reserved.

That may well go either way : perfect containment, or at the reverse catastrophic containment failure.

...

though now I'm imagining channeling all the blast's energy through a modification of the shield's geometry to utterly destroy the Core above while leaving the rest of Equestria unharmed...

[cb5]

Reserved.

That may well go either way : perfect containment, or at the reverse catastrophic containment failure.

...

though now I'm imagining channeling all the blast's energy through a modification of the shield's geometry to utterly destroy the Core above while leaving the rest of Equestria unharmed...

Or use the core's own energy to make a shield and collapse in on itself?  Now before you say, "wouldn't that create a blackhole and destroy the world?", no physics wise collapsing the area the size of the core, or the eater of souls, would make a micro blackhole and due to entropy it would last on the matter of planck time, lose energy rapidly and then disappear.  A star the size of our sun would make a blackhole the size of roughly the size of the earth, the earth would make a nickel size blackhole.  Also blackholes do not have increased gravity, rather the gravity well is focused at a point.  If the sun suddenly turned into a blackhole we would have to worry about the ecretion disk exerting charged particles killing all life, not the gravity cause the gravity would be the same, just more focused.  A blackhole the size of the core, or the eater of souls, would make a blackhole less than the size of a molecule and would on planck time expend it's energy.

Think of entropy as like a house and how hot it is inside.  A large house takes much more energy to heat up, but it retains it's heat for much longer.  A smaller house(with the same amount of insulation) retains it's heat for much less time and takes much less energy to heat up.

If the eater of souls was collapsed into a pinhole blackhole, then what the people outside the shield would see would the shield crushing everything until molten, heat up and waves upon waves of intense heat and brighter and brighter light from energy loss as heat.  As the ball became smaller and smaller it would turn from white hot to black, more and more ultraviolet radiation, blacken completely, pump out tons of xrays, then gamma rays becoming the size of a couch, then the size of a baseball, the size of quarter, the size of a dot, then invisibly small and then disappear completely due to rapid energy loss.

The downside is that it would have to be ONLY the EoS on the inside of the shield and it would be putting out so much heat, radiation, xrays and gamma rays that it would completely melt anything and everything inside to lava and the city above beginning to sink down from no longer being supported with the buildings crashing into each other as it became a crater.

The good side is the eater of souls would be completely and totally gone forever.  The downside is the entire chamber would be reduced to a extremely radioactive sludge of lava and whatever is above would sag down to fill the empty hole.  The left over crater would be so hot and radioactive that the lava sludge would take years to cool down.  If the chamber was partly under water it would cool down much faster, but it would create a insane amount of steam that the the entire region of Equestria would be blanketed in steam.  Not to mention it would be so radioactive that not even ghouls or alicorns could travel into it or have their cells burst and liquify them in seconds turn into a puddle.


That would be a pretty badass ending to Project Horizons.  Blackjack activating the program, rapid fire teleporting as much as she can to save time, the ocean rushing in, her running through melting hallways trying to escape busting down doors hot enough that the hinges are melting, her fire protection suit melting with each drop of lava.  All while the roof is collapsing and her mechanical parts malfunctioning and breaking from the heat and her skin and organic parts overheating.  Only to get far enough away that lacunae or rampage could go in and get her while taking in insane radiation with lacunae rapid fire teleporting them, get exhausted and sick and rampage dragging them both to minimum safe distance while crawling.

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