Sister forum[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Retl Mon Mar 31, 2014 1:35 am
- Finished Chapter But Lost Response Post:
"00:54 <Retl> That chapter did not end quite like I expected. o.o interesting"
I rambled on and on for about half an hour in the quick reply bot, accidentally click on someone's profile link, clicked the back button, and found all of it wiped ot. So points going from memory:
I liked the fluid processor in the bots and all the roboty bits and the holography and shiny glowy magic stuffs. Good fun. I wonder if Applebot has the same fluid processor. Good fun ideas there.
I like this interpretation of Discord. He makes me laugh sometimes.
Echo's death made me feel a little sad. The more direct feeling of loss in that they were kinda *just talking* and then died. But I suppose that brings to mind some of the same reason I still feel unhappy when I reread/relistento Scootle's death. Or however the frig her name is spelled.
Yay, more Rampage! Well until the whole dying thing. Maybe there'll be a bunch of tribute pornarts drawn aftewards. Also, the word balloon came up again. Yay! Popping too! Yay!
I got kinda confused at the point with the holograms and stuff, partly because I was playing a videogame while listening. I'm not completely sure if everyone dying horribly in mass was a projection of what could be, or what was occuring as she witheld the password. Though from the way she was responding, I'm guessing it was actually occuring. Oh well. Every living thing dies sometime... Though also sometimes they get better, too, so... And then there's the whole complication with ghouls in the mix.
The moment Scotch came up I was reminded that I never did get around to drawing screwdriver funtime. Oops. One of these days, I definitely want to.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by SilentCarto Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:46 am
- Chapter 65 Commentary:
Nice summation, there. I almost feel like starting a "Stable Pony Problems" meme.Times like this really highlighted for me how surreal my life really was at this point.
You and me both, BJ. I've been noodling this for weeks, and every 'probably' just spawns more 'ifs'.Boo? Discord? I wanted a time out for some notes or something...
Er... is Legate protected against his magic, or is Discord suddenly realizing he's unable to snap when he's in Boo? Because he hasn't had any trouble protecting her with happenstance up until now...She raised a hoof, twitched it, twitched it again, and then stared at it a moment. “Oh snap…”
Of screwing up his plans, century after century? Heh...“Well, I suspect it’s because I have this nasty itty bitty little habit of…” Boo began, tapping her hooves together sheepishly.
“Being an insufferable, conniving, degenerate wretch!” roared the zebra.
Hold on a minute!“Coyotl?” Rampage asked in confusion. I nodded tersely and she continued, “It is my people’s name for the one you call Discord. Coyote. The Trickster.”
*drink drink* *SPIIIIIT*
Oh... oh crap. And BJ's eyes have been feeding data to someone, somewhere...If you took Project Steelpony and Project Chimera, you could have a mass-produced army of utterly loyal automatons. And there had been a zony in charge of that project…
Pfffthahaha! I'll bet being made a fool makes Vitiosus even moreNot that she wasn’t getting some licks in. As we raced towards them, he struck out with a double hooved stomp that would have crushed Boo if he'd landed it. Instead, after rolling aside, it found the end of a flat tipped shovel. The handle flashed up, smashing the stout wooden handle across the Legate’s skull helmet.
So... he's got the Hoof of the North Star?The Legate stood smugly. “A simple disruption of your body’s biorhythms and connection to your soul. The imbalances build and resonate until–” He reached out and poked the stricken mare’s chest. Suddenly her whole body spasmed and seemed to compress all at once. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, and blood erupted from her maw.
I love this tag-team style-swapping. XDInstead, her hooves swapped and grabbed the leg in a hooflock that was familiar to me. “You have the right to shut the fuck up or die, you sick son of a mule!”
Welp, that's confirmation at last... pity to waste that bypass bullet, though.“Rampage, he’s got a phoenix talisman too.”
Is there a word for an event that you felt was inevitable but you still feel bad when it happens?I couldn’t trust her now; ending her life was the most precious thing to her. “Well, thank you for your intentions.” I turned my back on her. “Goodbye,” I said softly.
...
All my learning had gotten me was misery. Right now… I wished that I could have been just as ignorant now of my friend as I had been about everything else so many weeks ago.
It would have hurt so much less...
Is Boo still speaking in her usual voice? I'm trying to reconcile Discord's delivery with Boo's voice, and it's... difficult.“Don’t you want to question me about something?” Discord asked, her voice teasing and high, obnoxiously probing for a reaction I was in no mood to give.
Huhhh. So that suggests that Discord has been upgrading base-Boo and mostly just guiding her, rather than strictly possessing her up until now. Interesting.She blinked. “Imma here Bwackjack,” she said, her eyes suddenly pale before giving me a nuzzle. “Imma sowwie I didn’t tell. He say it was a secret.” Her ears flopped in worry.
Maybe it had something to do with that big rock under Hoofington.“Who knows? Maybe Twilight said the wrong thing in one of her letters. Perhaps Princess Grumpypants woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe they didn’t sing one of their annoyingly cute pony songs on key. Whatever it was, instead of Twilight becoming an Alicorn, she remained an ordinary mare. Instead of Equestria being a folksy land with a few cities and lovely pastoral countryside, there was a consumer culture with a rampant thirst for coal. Instead of love and tolerance, you had hate and suspicion.”
Woah. Well. That's. Huh.“Boo is unique. Precious. An individual. Why, she’s growing her own soul and everything. And she’s as immortal as I am. Plus she sees things as they really are, which is probably why she loves you no matter how scary you become.”
Well now. That's even more. Huh.“Now THERE’S an idea!” She beamed. “Emperor Boo! Ruling the wasteland with my army of…” her face twisted up, and Boo’s pale eyes returned as she scowled. “Stoppit Discowd! Imma not gonna be bad! Imma gonna be like Bwackjack!”
Somepony could give Fluttershy a run for her money in the 'leashing Discord' department.
I'm an appreciator stories that cast excessive order as a bad thing. Proceed.“This whole city is a testament to unchanging corruption and stagnation, to what happens when order goes too far. And that’s not even mentioning what’s under it…”
Heh, this reminds me of an old theory of mine: the Eater of Souls is a powerful force for order, which drew an equally powerful spirit of chaos to Equestria. But the Eater was quiescent at the time, so Discord was too much chaos for ponykind to bear, and he had to be sealed away.
That is beautiful. XDThe barb was attached to a creature resembling a scorpion, if someone who had never seen a scorpion before had been given a vague description of one and had been so taken with the general idea of it that they’d hastily rushed to build the biggest scorpion of all time... and had neglected such trivial things as proportion, symmetry, and checking their work for errors.
The wordplay, I mean, not the creature.
And up the ante! XD Uh... um... fire! We need total tissue destruction! Fire, incineration beams, plasma, something like that?The red mound twitched rhythmically, and then a half dozen eyes bubbled open.
Two fleshy tendrils sprouted, wrapping around my neck and horn, and as it pulled itself closer, a large mouth filled with toothy protrusions snapped at what little face I had left. “You have got to be kidding me!” I shouted, reaching up with my hands and tearing it away. The meaty mass quivered under my metal fingers before I ripped it into two halves, then smashed them to paste against the case. “There... done!” I said, staring at the red goo in my hands.
The goo quivered and formed tiny mouths that snapped at me. I stared for three seconds, then flung it off the side of the train! “I quit! I quit I quit I quit! Undying flesh is where I draw the line!”
Ahahaha! Well, it wouldn't be the first time she kissed Discord, actually...I could kiss Discord so hard her hooves would… wait… no. That’d be weird. A hug would suffice.
It's good to see an artisan enjoying her craft.Still, I fell into a moment of peace. Shoot. Jump. Kick. Blast. Run. Dive. Reload. Grab. Smash. Shoot. Toss. Smile. Retreat. Lunge. Cast. Shoot. Block. Twist. Stomp. Twist. Reload. Shoot. Laugh.
New Headcanon Acquired: A shoe company in Hoofington made Air Macintosh sneakers.I was no Rainbow Dash in the air. More like an Air Macintosh.
Quest Perk added: Kissed by BlackjackIf I ever saw that snaggle-toothed son of chaos again out of Boo’s body, I’d give him a kiss that’d make his antler... horn... – whatever! – pop right off.
Wait wait wait. Teal eyes... sister that either hasn't died or wasn't caught by the Eater... that wasn't Luna, was it? It shouldn't be... the Eater of Souls should be able to eat Luna, right? Because she's a piece of the star it ate before? Or did Luna and Celestia escape being consumed because they were... somehow unpalatable? Mortal souls endowed with celestial power? But I'm still working on the assumption that Luna was the soul being tortured in the Tokomare that so horrified BJ. (I had an alternate theory that it was the EoS itself, but the voice from the pit sort of put paid to that idea.)I’m still waiting for my sister to join me... and horrified she will...” She hung her head mournfully.
...
“Who are you?” I murmured as tears ran down my eyes.
"Someone who knows what it’s like to deserve to hurt,” she replied in a whisper, the light fading out around us.
It's odd that she mentioned both Echo and Lacunae. Echo hasn't been in circulation for 200 years, and Lacunae didn't exist until after the apocalypse. So unless Echo introduced himself, one ghost to another, I can't imagine who this would be...
And how can a soul mote send help, anyway?
Okaaay, color me tremendously creeped out... are these soul motes in control of bits of undying flesh? Or have some of the liquefied residents of Hoofington managed to pull themselves back together?The mottled, horrifying visage of an abomination pony met my eyes. It only had one eye, a maroon orb on the left side of its face. Only the fact that my EFS was blue kept my magic bullets in check. Another one behind it, with vestigial membranous wings, held a second gem in a mustache made of a brush of tendrils. There were more behind those, each holding a small gemstone.
If they're motes inhabiting bodies of ew-flesh, I suppose that would explain how a ghost could call for help. One mote to another.
I guess that answers that.Every now and then, one would misstep and tumble, coming apart like wet roadapples. A mote of light escaped and wandered away. The bloody goop would form spiders, or scorpions, or other skittering things that I occasionally had to splatter with Boomstick. Once, I watched as a mote slipped into a puddle of bloody goo which then coalesced into a tiny weird griffin.
Blackjack is someone else's Mysterious Stranger.“She has the knack for that sort of thing. It really is a useful perk for arriving just in the nick of time and save the day. Quite aggravating.”
Almost as good as keeping a nuke in your basement!There were also dozens, perhaps hundreds, of crates of weapons, ammo, chems, and body armor. Enough for a small army. Shaky foundations and lots of explosives? Even I could see the potential...
Oh, that's not promising at all...Five glass jars were arranged on the left side, each one shrouded in shadow cast by the machine, and a sixth sat next to a small wrought iron table.
Oh, hell. Echo...Within was the prone form of a yellow, emaciated earth pony who was barely breathing. “Oopsie. Wrong jar.”
Well, I guess he's definitely not the one in the Redoubt, then. I kind of suspected his own creation would have turned on him.“Ah, Horse!” she said gaily, a broad smile on her face. The crane whirled and deposited another jar. In it was what appeared to be a skinned pony. Bare, sightless, emasculated. I got the impression of looking at an adult-sized fetus.
Old one?... does she have the lopped-off pieces of BJ's old body? Those should have been in Tenpony Tower, well outside of her reach.I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help transfer your soul to a new container, or back to an old one.” I frowned at that last part. Back to an old one?
I can't help but wonder if there might be some way for BJ to sabotage her body before handing it over to Cogs.
Oh. My. Fuck. You probably could have come up with a more convincing argument than this freakshow of horrors, you know.“Yes, she did,” Cognitum said as the crane returned with the fifth jar. “But she’d viewed them first.” The jar dropped from the ceiling. Within floated a much smaller unicorn. Cables ran from the top of the jar down to her shaved scalp, where cybernetic plugs had been drilled in. “I simply access them directly.”
Crap.“I’m sorry, Blackjack,” Dealer whispered miserably in my ears, “but I don’t want to die.”
Suddenly, words flashed across my vision: Command Override: Cut Strings.
I was wondering when he'd come up.
Double crap...“I regret to say that a blank is incapable of carrying a foal to term. Perhaps a blank could be used as an incubator for a foal nearly ready for birth, but blank reproductive systems lack proper hormonal regulation for pregnancy. A fetus implanted this early would miscarry long before birth.”
The True Maiden of the Stars. Looks like Legate gets his fight, and I'm rooting for both sides to lose.“Now,” Cognitum said with my old mouth as the Sweetie Bot stood as still and lifeless as a statue, “Are you ready to work with me?”
Uh. Except for that rather precious cargo Cogs is still carrying.
There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this... treachery!I now had enough blood to appreciate the sensation of it running cold. “You were Applebot.” The robot went dead again, and my old body nodded. “But why?”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!Suddenly the scrolling blocks of code and symbols vanished, replaced by a single static line with a blinking prompt below it. ‘Enter Password’
Cognitum froze with all the abruptness of a mare on the edge of climax getting doused in ice water. Her head twitched back and forth. “What is this? Password? What password? What is going on?”
This reaction seems rather at odds with the horrors she's inflicted on Horse, Charm, and Dawn. But, hey, crazy computer.There was a resounding clang as Cognitum popped her hands out, grabbed Steel Rain, and threw the silver-armored stallion to the ground. With cold contempt, she said softly, “Never, ever, suggest such a thing again.”
What.“Goldenblood commandeered Horse’s mechasprites and sent them to the moon on a clandestine rocket to build a facility and to collect and fuse moonstone into a projectile massing several hundred thousand tonnes. With a few more secret launches of Flux to fire it...”
WHAT.
You built a space gun on the Moon big enough to launch a mountain?!
I had always dismissed that idea simply because it would be impossible to build covertly and the launch would be insanely costly. But then mechasprites and flux. Damn. Just... damn.
Wait, you're telling me this thing creates zombie flesh when it generates power? That crap isn't people liquefied by the Enervation, but something that just oozes out of the fucking starmetal itself?!“Biomatter. A byproduct of the Tokomare’s Enervation field. The cell structure defies analysis, but it’s an organic soup similar to the tissue of ghouls, neither dead nor truly alive. It will be flushed once the Core is restored,” she said with a disdainful sniff.
Whaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuuck?!
Ah. Okay. Guess that makes "sense".Tom – that’s what the moonstone projectile is named, for some reason – will fuel a complete restoration of the Core.
Yyyyeah... I'm betting that's Luna's soul.In the center of the platform was a strange, vaguely familiar design etched in the metal floor plates: a circle with a six-pointed star in the middle. Six unicorns, one standing at each point, were trying to keep a ball of brilliant white contained in the middle. Green lighting from their horns raked across it, forcing it back whenever it drifted. The black robes they wore were a little much.
I have completely lost the ability to even.I felt something moving through me, searching for something integral to myself. Not my soul, precisely, but linked to it. I could feel it on a fundamental level, like my baby moving within me in my old body. The dark violation found that something, and I felt a tear inside. Instinctively, I glanced down at my flank and saw the twin cards fade from view.
Oh, hell yes. Does that mean something here recharged Discord? Or is this his one final trick?A snap cracked through the air, and Dawn disappeared in a flash, the spear clanging to the plates. Cognitum whirled as a male laugh echoed softly in the cavernous space. “Who’s there?” she demanded of the air.
“You’re doing it wrong,” the voice said. “I have to start it off like this: ‘knock knock’?”
Knew it!“What?” I gasped, sitting up a little and staring at the glow. Maybe it was having organic eyes again, or maybe it was Discord’s presence, but as I stared, I detected something within the mote. Something beautiful and wonderful and mysterious. Dark, but not the bubbling evil that had been inflicted on me before. It was glorious and terrible, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away as I beheld it.
The soul of princess Luna.
Huh. So that was his one last trick, and it doesn't seem to have slowed her down much... but, hey, guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens, because Discord did seem to know what he was doing with all that...“Fools! Fools! All of you, fools! I am the Queen of the Night! And this world is mine!” she crowed, her wings spreading as her red and black magic mane and tail snapped in the air behind her. “Bow before my greatness!”
Okay, I take back all my reasons that the Legate isn't Amadi. Celestia damn it. This is gonna suck.Amadi.
“What?! How are you...” I screamed at the top of my lungs, rising to my hooves as I gestured at him. “But you! You’re the Legate! And why– And she’s the Maiden! But she– And you’re friends?!” I waved my hooves at them both. “What the hay is going on here?”
Goldie, you magnificent bastard...“Project Horizons Command AI,” the voice rasped.
Yeah, that ruse will last, what, two seconds?“I must go reunite with Blackjack’s friends. Tell them what we need to do. The Luna Space Center may still retain something useful.”
Pfft, we passed Game Over like thirty chapters ago.Footnote: >Start New Game: Y/N?
I'm sure I'll post a ton of further thoughts over the next week. For now, I'm just going to let this all simmer.
- Editing:
Apologies if any of these are dupes -- it's nearly 2am and I'm not bothering to reload the doc and double-check the errors.
It isn't necessary to put this in past-perfect tense. Just "The stairs led to a basement..." should work fine.The stairs had led to a basement, just as preserved as the rest of the building.
Comma after "pale".“Imma here Bwackjack,” she said, her eyes suddenly pale before giving me a nuzzle.
Comma after "Oh".Oh don’t give me that. I’m a spirit of chaos.
Comma after "mean".I mean even besides what happened to me, there was so much waste of potential and material for amusement...
Comma after "quake".Not a major quake but somehow much more disconcerting.
You've been using "she" for Biscord all this time. Couple of occurrances of "he" here.That was putting it mildly. I wondered if he knew, specifically, what Luna had done. Before I could ask, he was continuing in a nattering rush.
Comma after "with".War is the worst kind of chaos to begin with regardless!
Uh... if this was deliberate, I would say, "She closed Discord's eyes".She closed his eyes.
She.For a moment, he was oddly serious.
She, her, she.He suddenly leaned over, grinned, and rubbed a hoof in my mane. I glared at him, and he pulled back and coughed.
I would strike "most" here. "Ideal" is a superlative, like "best" -- you wouldn't say "most best".And while Penance was an exquisite firearm, it wasn’t the most ideal weapon for use against a swarm of opponents.
Sail? That's a very odd simile. I don't think sails are particularly good for flinging.The pincer hand reached up, grabbed a flatbed, and flung it at me like a giant sail, pummeling me with a rain of metal containers.
ItI ran away from the abomination as in continued its barrage.
"Countless amounts" seems like a weird combination. What is an "amount"? The units should be something countable, like "rounds", "crates", or even "bits' worth of".Countless amounts of materiel were being lost down the hole.
Was the doubled "But why?" deliberate?“But why?” I asked as my daughter gave a little burp, and didn’t vomit down my back for a change. Mom’s suggestion to add a little rice to the milk had worked after all. “But why? Why does it draw you here?”
And yet.But yet it craves us and keeps us trapped within this place.
Excess question mark there.“Someone who knows what it’s like to deserve to hurt,” she replied in a whisper, the light fading out around us?.
Oh, I“Or, I daresay she’ll be around soon enough. When it’s dramatically appropriate,” Discord replied, her voice echoing softly in the tunnels.
Period after "dismissively", comma after "Well".She waved a hoof dismissively, “Well fear not, Boo will come to no harm with me.”
Technically speaking, Cogs should have no idea that BJ knows about that event. It was a memory orb she saw while the Goddess was driving. This should be written as if BJ didn't know what she was seeing.The air above us shimmered and ghostly holograms filled the room. I recognized Horse and the slew of other visitors trying on the shimmery, golden-threaded and gemmed cap. “That day, when Horse was showing of his latest innovation, the cap happened to land on the head on one mare who attended the meeting in disguise.”
Surrogate instead of... what? I suspect you had a different word in mind.Not only did I have many secrets he could exploit, but he found me a most desirable surrogate.
Accessed“I simply access them directly.”
CreakI felt my ribs creek.
SilentCarto- Alicorn
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:12 am
Ah, thank you.SilentCarto wrote:
- Chapter 65 Commentary:
“Being an insufferable, conniving, degenerate wretch!” roared the zebra.Hold on a minute!“Coyotl?” Rampage asked in confusion. I nodded tersely and she continued, “It is my people’s name for the one you call Discord. Coyote. The Trickster.”
*drink drink* *SPIIIIIT*Oh... oh crap. And BJ's eyes have been feeding data to someone, somewhere...If you took Project Steelpony and Project Chimera, you could have a mass-produced army of utterly loyal automatons. And there had been a zony in charge of that project…Pfffthahaha! I'll bet being made a fool makes Vitiosus even moreNot that she wasn’t getting some licks in. As we raced towards them, he struck out with a double hooved stomp that would have crushed Boo if he'd landed it. Instead, after rolling aside, it found the end of a flat tipped shovel. The handle flashed up, smashing the stout wooden handle across the Legate’s skull helmet.So... he's got the Hoof of the North Star?The Legate stood smugly. “A simple disruption of your body’s biorhythms and connection to your soul. The imbalances build and resonate until–” He reached out and poked the stricken mare’s chest. Suddenly her whole body spasmed and seemed to compress all at once. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, and blood erupted from her maw.I love this tag-team style-swapping. XDInstead, her hooves swapped and grabbed the leg in a hooflock that was familiar to me. “You have the right to shut the fuck up or die, you sick son of a mule!”Welp, that's confirmation at last... pity to waste that bypass bullet, though.“Rampage, he’s got a phoenix talisman too.”Is there a word for an event that you felt was inevitable but you still feel bad when it happens?I couldn’t trust her now; ending her life was the most precious thing to her. “Well, thank you for your intentions.” I turned my back on her. “Goodbye,” I said softly.
...
All my learning had gotten me was misery. Right now… I wished that I could have been just as ignorant now of my friend as I had been about everything else so many weeks ago.
It would have hurt so much less...Is Boo still speaking in her usual voice? I'm trying to reconcile Discord's delivery with Boo's voice, and it's... difficult.“Don’t you want to question me about something?” Discord asked, her voice teasing and high, obnoxiously probing for a reaction I was in no mood to give.Huhhh. So that suggests that Discord has been upgrading base-Boo and mostly just guiding her, rather than strictly possessing her up until now. Interesting.She blinked. “Imma here Bwackjack,” she said, her eyes suddenly pale before giving me a nuzzle. “Imma sowwie I didn’t tell. He say it was a secret.” Her ears flopped in worry.Maybe it had something to do with that big rock under Hoofington.“Who knows? Maybe Twilight said the wrong thing in one of her letters. Perhaps Princess Grumpypants woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe they didn’t sing one of their annoyingly cute pony songs on key. Whatever it was, instead of Twilight becoming an Alicorn, she remained an ordinary mare. Instead of Equestria being a folksy land with a few cities and lovely pastoral countryside, there was a consumer culture with a rampant thirst for coal. Instead of love and tolerance, you had hate and suspicion.”Woah. Well. That's. Huh.“Boo is unique. Precious. An individual. Why, she’s growing her own soul and everything. And she’s as immortal as I am. Plus she sees things as they really are, which is probably why she loves you no matter how scary you become.”Well now. That's even more. Huh.“Now THERE’S an idea!” She beamed. “Emperor Boo! Ruling the wasteland with my army of…” her face twisted up, and Boo’s pale eyes returned as she scowled. “Stoppit Discowd! Imma not gonna be bad! Imma gonna be like Bwackjack!”
Somepony could give Fluttershy a run for her money in the 'leashing Discord' department.I'm an appreciator stories that cast excessive order as a bad thing. Proceed.“This whole city is a testament to unchanging corruption and stagnation, to what happens when order goes too far. And that’s not even mentioning what’s under it…”
Heh, this reminds me of an old theory of mine: the Eater of Souls is a powerful force for order, which drew an equally powerful spirit of chaos to Equestria. But the Eater was quiescent at the time, so Discord was too much chaos for ponykind to bear, and he had to be sealed away.That is beautiful. XDThe barb was attached to a creature resembling a scorpion, if someone who had never seen a scorpion before had been given a vague description of one and had been so taken with the general idea of it that they’d hastily rushed to build the biggest scorpion of all time... and had neglected such trivial things as proportion, symmetry, and checking their work for errors.
The wordplay, I mean, not the creature.And up the ante! XD Uh... um... fire! We need total tissue destruction! Fire, incineration beams, plasma, something like that?The red mound twitched rhythmically, and then a half dozen eyes bubbled open.
Two fleshy tendrils sprouted, wrapping around my neck and horn, and as it pulled itself closer, a large mouth filled with toothy protrusions snapped at what little face I had left. “You have got to be kidding me!” I shouted, reaching up with my hands and tearing it away. The meaty mass quivered under my metal fingers before I ripped it into two halves, then smashed them to paste against the case. “There... done!” I said, staring at the red goo in my hands.
The goo quivered and formed tiny mouths that snapped at me. I stared for three seconds, then flung it off the side of the train! “I quit! I quit I quit I quit! Undying flesh is where I draw the line!”Ahahaha! Well, it wouldn't be the first time she kissed Discord, actually...I could kiss Discord so hard her hooves would… wait… no. That’d be weird. A hug would suffice.It's good to see an artisan enjoying her craft.Still, I fell into a moment of peace. Shoot. Jump. Kick. Blast. Run. Dive. Reload. Grab. Smash. Shoot. Toss. Smile. Retreat. Lunge. Cast. Shoot. Block. Twist. Stomp. Twist. Reload. Shoot. Laugh.New Headcanon Acquired: A shoe company in Hoofington made Air Macintosh sneakers.I was no Rainbow Dash in the air. More like an Air Macintosh.Quest Perk added: Kissed by BlackjackIf I ever saw that snaggle-toothed son of chaos again out of Boo’s body, I’d give him a kiss that’d make his antler... horn... – whatever! – pop right off.Wait wait wait. Teal eyes... sister that either hasn't died or wasn't caught by the Eater... that wasn't Luna, was it? It shouldn't be... the Eater of Souls should be able to eat Luna, right? Because she's a piece of the star it ate before? Or did Luna and Celestia escape being consumed because they were... somehow unpalatable? Mortal souls endowed with celestial power? But I'm still working on the assumption that Luna was the soul being tortured in the Tokomare that so horrified BJ. (I had an alternate theory that it was the EoS itself, but the voice from the pit sort of put paid to that idea.)I’m still waiting for my sister to join me... and horrified she will...” She hung her head mournfully.
...
“Who are you?” I murmured as tears ran down my eyes.
"Someone who knows what it’s like to deserve to hurt,” she replied in a whisper, the light fading out around us.
It's odd that she mentioned both Echo and Lacunae. Echo hasn't been in circulation for 200 years, and Lacunae didn't exist until after the apocalypse. So unless Echo introduced himself, one ghost to another, I can't imagine who this would be...
And how can a soul mote send help, anyway?Okaaay, color me tremendously creeped out... are these soul motes in control of bits of undying flesh? Or have some of the liquefied residents of Hoofington managed to pull themselves back together?The mottled, horrifying visage of an abomination pony met my eyes. It only had one eye, a maroon orb on the left side of its face. Only the fact that my EFS was blue kept my magic bullets in check. Another one behind it, with vestigial membranous wings, held a second gem in a mustache made of a brush of tendrils. There were more behind those, each holding a small gemstone.
If they're motes inhabiting bodies of ew-flesh, I suppose that would explain how a ghost could call for help. One mote to another.I guess that answers that.Every now and then, one would misstep and tumble, coming apart like wet roadapples. A mote of light escaped and wandered away. The bloody goop would form spiders, or scorpions, or other skittering things that I occasionally had to splatter with Boomstick. Once, I watched as a mote slipped into a puddle of bloody goo which then coalesced into a tiny weird griffin.Blackjack is someone else's Mysterious Stranger.“She has the knack for that sort of thing. It really is a useful perk for arriving just in the nick of time and save the day. Quite aggravating.”Almost as good as keeping a nuke in your basement!There were also dozens, perhaps hundreds, of crates of weapons, ammo, chems, and body armor. Enough for a small army. Shaky foundations and lots of explosives? Even I could see the potential...Oh, that's not promising at all...Five glass jars were arranged on the left side, each one shrouded in shadow cast by the machine, and a sixth sat next to a small wrought iron table.Oh, hell. Echo...Within was the prone form of a yellow, emaciated earth pony who was barely breathing. “Oopsie. Wrong jar.”Well, I guess he's definitely not the one in the Redoubt, then. I kind of suspected his own creation would have turned on him.“Ah, Horse!” she said gaily, a broad smile on her face. The crane whirled and deposited another jar. In it was what appeared to be a skinned pony. Bare, sightless, emasculated. I got the impression of looking at an adult-sized fetus.Old one?... does she have the lopped-off pieces of BJ's old body? Those should have been in Tenpony Tower, well outside of her reach.I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help transfer your soul to a new container, or back to an old one.” I frowned at that last part. Back to an old one?
I can't help but wonder if there might be some way for BJ to sabotage her body before handing it over to Cogs.Oh. My. Fuck. You probably could have come up with a more convincing argument than this freakshow of horrors, you know.“Yes, she did,” Cognitum said as the crane returned with the fifth jar. “But she’d viewed them first.” The jar dropped from the ceiling. Within floated a much smaller unicorn. Cables ran from the top of the jar down to her shaved scalp, where cybernetic plugs had been drilled in. “I simply access them directly.”Crap.“I’m sorry, Blackjack,” Dealer whispered miserably in my ears, “but I don’t want to die.”
Suddenly, words flashed across my vision: Command Override: Cut Strings.
I was wondering when he'd come up.Double crap...“I regret to say that a blank is incapable of carrying a foal to term. Perhaps a blank could be used as an incubator for a foal nearly ready for birth, but blank reproductive systems lack proper hormonal regulation for pregnancy. A fetus implanted this early would miscarry long before birth.”The True Maiden of the Stars. Looks like Legate gets his fight, and I'm rooting for both sides to lose.“Now,” Cognitum said with my old mouth as the Sweetie Bot stood as still and lifeless as a statue, “Are you ready to work with me?”
Uh. Except for that rather precious cargo Cogs is still carrying.There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this... treachery!I now had enough blood to appreciate the sensation of it running cold. “You were Applebot.” The robot went dead again, and my old body nodded. “But why?”Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!Suddenly the scrolling blocks of code and symbols vanished, replaced by a single static line with a blinking prompt below it. ‘Enter Password’
Cognitum froze with all the abruptness of a mare on the edge of climax getting doused in ice water. Her head twitched back and forth. “What is this? Password? What password? What is going on?”This reaction seems rather at odds with the horrors she's inflicted on Horse, Charm, and Dawn. But, hey, crazy computer.There was a resounding clang as Cognitum popped her hands out, grabbed Steel Rain, and threw the silver-armored stallion to the ground. With cold contempt, she said softly, “Never, ever, suggest such a thing again.”What.“Goldenblood commandeered Horse’s mechasprites and sent them to the moon on a clandestine rocket to build a facility and to collect and fuse moonstone into a projectile massing several hundred thousand tonnes. With a few more secret launches of Flux to fire it...”
WHAT.
You built a space gun on the Moon big enough to launch a mountain?!
I had always dismissed that idea simply because it would be impossible to build covertly and the launch would be insanely costly. But then mechasprites and flux. Damn. Just... damn.Wait, you're telling me this thing creates zombie flesh when it generates power? That crap isn't people liquefied by the Enervation, but something that just oozes out of the fucking starmetal itself?!“Biomatter. A byproduct of the Tokomare’s Enervation field. The cell structure defies analysis, but it’s an organic soup similar to the tissue of ghouls, neither dead nor truly alive. It will be flushed once the Core is restored,” she said with a disdainful sniff.
Whaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuuck?!Ah. Okay. Guess that makes "sense".Tom – that’s what the moonstone projectile is named, for some reason – will fuel a complete restoration of the Core.Yyyyeah... I'm betting that's Luna's soul.In the center of the platform was a strange, vaguely familiar design etched in the metal floor plates: a circle with a six-pointed star in the middle. Six unicorns, one standing at each point, were trying to keep a ball of brilliant white contained in the middle. Green lighting from their horns raked across it, forcing it back whenever it drifted. The black robes they wore were a little much.I have completely lost the ability to even.I felt something moving through me, searching for something integral to myself. Not my soul, precisely, but linked to it. I could feel it on a fundamental level, like my baby moving within me in my old body. The dark violation found that something, and I felt a tear inside. Instinctively, I glanced down at my flank and saw the twin cards fade from view.Oh, hell yes. Does that mean something here recharged Discord? Or is this his one final trick?A snap cracked through the air, and Dawn disappeared in a flash, the spear clanging to the plates. Cognitum whirled as a male laugh echoed softly in the cavernous space. “Who’s there?” she demanded of the air.
“You’re doing it wrong,” the voice said. “I have to start it off like this: ‘knock knock’?”Knew it!“What?” I gasped, sitting up a little and staring at the glow. Maybe it was having organic eyes again, or maybe it was Discord’s presence, but as I stared, I detected something within the mote. Something beautiful and wonderful and mysterious. Dark, but not the bubbling evil that had been inflicted on me before. It was glorious and terrible, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away as I beheld it.
The soul of princess Luna.Huh. So that was his one last trick, and it doesn't seem to have slowed her down much... but, hey, guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens, because Discord did seem to know what he was doing with all that...“Fools! Fools! All of you, fools! I am the Queen of the Night! And this world is mine!” she crowed, her wings spreading as her red and black magic mane and tail snapped in the air behind her. “Bow before my greatness!”Okay, I take back all my reasons that the Legate isn't Amadi. Celestia damn it. This is gonna suck.Amadi.
“What?! How are you...” I screamed at the top of my lungs, rising to my hooves as I gestured at him. “But you! You’re the Legate! And why– And she’s the Maiden! But she– And you’re friends?!” I waved my hooves at them both. “What the hay is going on here?”Goldie, you magnificent bastard...“Project Horizons Command AI,” the voice rasped.Yeah, that ruse will last, what, two seconds?“I must go reunite with Blackjack’s friends. Tell them what we need to do. The Luna Space Center may still retain something useful.”Pfft, we passed Game Over like thirty chapters ago.Footnote: >Start New Game: Y/N?
I'm sure I'll post a ton of further thoughts over the next week. For now, I'm just going to let this all simmer.
- Editing:
Apologies if any of these are dupes -- it's nearly 2am and I'm not bothering to reload the doc and double-check the errors.It isn't necessary to put this in past-perfect tense. Just "The stairs led to a basement..." should work fine.The stairs had led to a basement, just as preserved as the rest of the building.Comma after "pale".“Imma here Bwackjack,” she said, her eyes suddenly pale before giving me a nuzzle.Comma after "Oh".Oh don’t give me that. I’m a spirit of chaos.Comma after "mean".I mean even besides what happened to me, there was so much waste of potential and material for amusement...Comma after "quake".Not a major quake but somehow much more disconcerting.You've been using "she" for Biscord all this time. Couple of occurrances of "he" here.That was putting it mildly. I wondered if he knew, specifically, what Luna had done. Before I could ask, he was continuing in a nattering rush.Comma after "with".War is the worst kind of chaos to begin with regardless!Uh... if this was deliberate, I would say, "She closed Discord's eyes".She closed his eyes.She.For a moment, he was oddly serious.She, her, she.He suddenly leaned over, grinned, and rubbed a hoof in my mane. I glared at him, and he pulled back and coughed.I would strike "most" here. "Ideal" is a superlative, like "best" -- you wouldn't say "most best".And while Penance was an exquisite firearm, it wasn’t the most ideal weapon for use against a swarm of opponents.Sail? That's a very odd simile. I don't think sails are particularly good for flinging.The pincer hand reached up, grabbed a flatbed, and flung it at me like a giant sail, pummeling me with a rain of metal containers.ItI ran away from the abomination as in continued its barrage."Countless amounts" seems like a weird combination. What is an "amount"? The units should be something countable, like "rounds", "crates", or even "bits' worth of".Countless amounts of materiel were being lost down the hole.Was the doubled "But why?" deliberate?“But why?” I asked as my daughter gave a little burp, and didn’t vomit down my back for a change. Mom’s suggestion to add a little rice to the milk had worked after all. “But why? Why does it draw you here?”And yet.But yet it craves us and keeps us trapped within this place.Excess question mark there.“Someone who knows what it’s like to deserve to hurt,” she replied in a whisper, the light fading out around us?.Oh, I“Or, I daresay she’ll be around soon enough. When it’s dramatically appropriate,” Discord replied, her voice echoing softly in the tunnels.Period after "dismissively", comma after "Well".She waved a hoof dismissively, “Well fear not, Boo will come to no harm with me.”Technically speaking, Cogs should have no idea that BJ knows about that event. It was a memory orb she saw while the Goddess was driving. This should be written as if BJ didn't know what she was seeing.The air above us shimmered and ghostly holograms filled the room. I recognized Horse and the slew of other visitors trying on the shimmery, golden-threaded and gemmed cap. “That day, when Horse was showing of his latest innovation, the cap happened to land on the head on one mare who attended the meeting in disguise.”Surrogate instead of... what? I suspect you had a different word in mind.Not only did I have many secrets he could exploit, but he found me a most desirable surrogate.Accessed“I simply access them directly.”CreakI felt my ribs creek.
The confusion is deliberate. We debated several different ways of handling the pronoun problem and eventually decided on that.SilentCarto wrote:You've been using "she" for Biscord all this time. Couple of occurrances of "he" here.
:DSilentCarto wrote:Nice summation, there. I almost feel like starting a "Stable Pony Problems" meme.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by WavemasterRyx Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:42 am
O. Hinds wrote:I hope that you enjoy it. :)
*hugs you both again* It was, it really was a good chapter. I don't think I could have asked for a better birthday present...Somber wrote:So, okay chapter then?
... but it also hurt... a lot. More than 33, and probably even more than 62b...
I don't know when I'll be able to write up my comments... but I'll try as soon as I can. I really do hope you'll be okay, Somber, I'm sorry I can't do more to help... I wish you the absolute best luck with the science position, or anything else to make your life easier.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:47 am
Ah, yes; I already wished you a happy birthday on your Tumblr, but, as that was using a different name, here it is again: happy birthday!
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Exodus Hero Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:58 am
Would somebody kindly explain the ending to me?
A minor gripe about the ending:
Chapter as a whole:
- Spoiler:
- Like who Legate actually is? (Amadi?) I don't recall the name and took the shock factor from me and I'm not sure where to look up the character up. Also, is Cog now Luna for certain? Not sure if I'm following that right or not.
A minor gripe about the ending:
- Spoiler:
- I personally didn't like how they just made up the prophecy after building it up so much throughout the story. (Kind of feels like having a gun in the novel and the story's been building with this tension that someone is going to use the gun only to find out it's made of chocolate.)
Chapter as a whole:
- Spoiler:
- I did like the pacing throughout this chapter and the characterization of Discord and how he starts explaining outside the universe, that was pretty neat.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by CD Mon Mar 31, 2014 5:46 am
Holy shit that was a doozy. Poor, poor Blackjack. I feel so bad for her. This must be the second worst thing that has happened to her. Arguably, her dying on the Seahorse at least happened with her mind at peace. For a moment I felt for sure this was it, the final chapter. But no, her suffering will continue.
Also, Discord was a magnificent bastard.
Also, Discord was a magnificent bastard.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by SilentCarto Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:45 am
Okay, wait just an apple-buckin' minute.
- Ch. 65 Spoilers:
- The whole "Maiden of the Stars" thing was total BS, right? A prophecy Vitiosus made up himself. And yet, he was able to pick out and target the mare who would ultimately become the vessel for Princess Luna.
There's still something screwy going on here...
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Scienza Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:48 am
HOLY HELL HOW DID I MISS THE NEW CHAPTER RELEASE?!
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Guest Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:03 am
@Somber
"So, okay chapter then?"
@Exodus Hero
@SilentCarto
"So, okay chapter then?"
- Spoiler:
- Ja. I'd put this chapter at around... trying to think of a metaphor that actually makes sense to someone who isn't me; difficult at the moment, on cold meds and not much sleep... not very good cold meds, either, they want me to wait for four hours between doses but only seem to work for like, one... Oh, well, it was pretty fuckin' excellent. Hell with metaphors. I do not need their ilk. Except for, y'know, thinking, since they're integral to human understanding and stuff or whatever. Although IIRC there's a mental condition that leaves people unable to understand them? Fuckin' weird. I'm digressing. Point is, I really liked this chapter. Also, it made me want to pull a GRRM fan on you, a bit, in terms of "oy get the next one out already" because, y'know, cliffhanger 2: revenge of the cliffhanger. But I won't. But I want to.
Let's just say I eagerly anticipate the next one.
Aaanywho, uh, some more specific thoughts... Really liked the ending. Really liked how Boo and Discord were treated and all that (really really liked Discord throughout this, in fact). Liked the interactions between everyone in down in the bowels of the Evil Headquarters of Evil. There are a lot of threads being plucked right now, and I'm going to need to see the final pattern of 'em before casting judgment, but I'm definitely liking the weave thus far. I don't expect to see Blackjack floating in the computerized ether too long, for my part; and also, we all know what happens when a pony takes on another's cutie mark, and it ain't gonna be pretty for Cognitum. Which reminds me, the little references in this chapter to ponies things and FOE fanon/canon theories worked quite well, I thought, which is rare because usually I'm the kind of reader to sort of skip over references and suchlike. Oh, and also the combat bits with the flesh bits were interesting, mostly because of the pony-flesh; the scorpion-flesh scene was done well, but I mean, y'know, it was kind of whatever - didn't feel purely obligatory, but it did a little bit. That's me, though, the I-get-bored-of-combat-scenes-usually guy. Uh, quoi d'autre? Liked Rampage, here; liked the interaction between her and Blackjack, both accepting that the other's going to do what they always do 'cos of how well they know one another. Interesting things about identity coming in through Rampage and Cognitum, incidentally. We'll see how that all plays out, anyway.
As said, looking forward to the next one! Thanks for writing and editing this 'un, Somber et al.!
@Exodus Hero
- Spoiler:
- Amadi's the zebra Horse had hanging out with him and his international team, working on the Tokomare project. He gave important information like, "What, does the Eater of Souls myth have any truth to it? Naaaah." and "You should totally listen to this starmetal tuning fork, Horse. Doooo eeeet." For reference, when I need to look stuff up, I use this! It updates quickly with all the new PH chapters in one handy place, all the better for CTRL+Fing your way through the ginormity that is Project Horizons. :)
@SilentCarto
- Spoiler:
- Ancient evils, yo, not malfunctioning machinery. Amadi has a history of playing ponies in power who underestimate the EoS. Not saying that's a for-sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if his motivations clash with Cognitum's. He's been in the game longer than her, and the Starkatteri have been in for longer still (well... maybe longer. He seems to be immortal, after all).
Guest- Guest
Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Harmony Ltd. Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:17 am
(reposted from the setting thread as it's also a comment on the story)
So, Discord's ultimate fate is now accounted for.
*strike a line from his notepad*
... What's this thing leaking from my eyes? Another malfunction? Ugh.
Anyway, Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.
So, Discord's ultimate fate is now accounted for.
*strike a line from his notepad*
... What's this thing leaking from my eyes? Another malfunction? Ugh.
Anyway, Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Evilgidgit Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:44 am
Have fun causing chaos in the next world, o'great Spirit of Chaos!Harmony Ltd. wrote:(reposted from the setting thread as it's also a comment on the story)
So, Discord's ultimate fate is now accounted for.
*strike a line from his notepad*
... What's this thing leaking from my eyes? Another malfunction? Ugh.
Anyway, Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Harmony Ltd. Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:58 am
Pinkie Pie and Rarity both have teal eyes, sister(s), and good reasons to think they deserve to hurt.Silentcarto wrote:Wait wait wait. Teal eyes... sister that either hasn't died or wasn't caught by the Eater... that wasn't Luna, was it? It shouldn't be... the Eater of Souls should be able to eat Luna, right? Because she's a piece of the star it ate before? Or did Luna and Celestia escape being consumed because they were... somehow unpalatable? Mortal souls endowed with celestial power? But I'm still working on the assumption that Luna was the soul being tortured in the Tokomare that so horrified BJ. (I had an alternate theory that it was the EoS itself, but the voice from the pit sort of put paid to that idea.)
It's odd that she mentioned both Echo and Lacunae. Echo hasn't been in circulation for 200 years, and Lacunae didn't exist until after the apocalypse. So unless Echo introduced himself, one ghost to another, I can't imagine who this would be...
And how can a soul mote send help, anyway?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by geekladd Mon Mar 31, 2014 11:09 am
Thank you for another amazing chapter! eyes are kinda burning now and kinda feeling likeSomber wrote:So, okay chapter then?
cuz I read it on my phone most of the night (slow reader), but it was worth it
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Guest Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:57 pm
- 65 editing:
"if stopped to think about it for even a second"
If I?
"Far more valuable that any pawn"
than any
I could be betrayed by anypony
This one if I remember right was missing a quotation mark at the end.
"A giant glowing imagine of the filly"
Think you guys meant image
"Any why I shouldn't"
Maybe supposed to be "Any reason why"?
"I don't think we can't hold it much longer."
I liked Discord.
Guest- Guest
Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 1:47 pm
Ah, thank you.Last wrote:
- 65 editing:
"if stopped to think about it for even a second"
If I?
"Far more valuable that any pawn"
than any
I could be betrayed by anypony
This one if I remember right was missing a quotation mark at the end.
"A giant glowing imagine of the filly"
Think you guys meant image
"Any why I shouldn't"
Maybe supposed to be "Any reason why"?
"I don't think we can't hold it much longer."
I liked Discord.
No, unfortunately. That's just one of the less sensible, in my opinion, rules of English.Last wrote:This one if I remember right was missing a quotation mark at the end.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Valikdu Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:14 pm
How much worse could the situation get?
Couldn't tear myself away from the chapter for three hours, read it from beginning to end. It's great.
- Spoiler:
- The Tokomare is shaped like two corkscrewing pillars, it emits a signal that creates undead things... oh god.
- Spoiler:
- make us whole again
- Spoiler:
- So, um... What will happen if there's too many souls there?
Couldn't tear myself away from the chapter for three hours, read it from beginning to end. It's great.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by MSCA Mon Mar 31, 2014 6:55 pm
CHAPTER WAS AWESOME
- Minor pet theory:
- What if Blackjack's special talent isn't victory / winning? Cognitum only interpreted it that way in the context of her name being Blackjack, which isn't her real name. What if Blackjack's cutie mark represents something else, and stealing it is somehow going to backfire on Cognitum?
Also, major props to SilentCarto for figuring so much out before this chapter.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Somber Mon Mar 31, 2014 6:58 pm
"Um... 'Princess Luna'? Why have you been playing Spider Solitaire for sixteen hours straight?"
"I CAN'T STOP!"
I am glad that most people liked it. Even 4chan seems to be quiet on the chapter, which is a standing ovation from them... or it's really not worth their attention, which I guess is good too.
"I CAN'T STOP!"
I am glad that most people liked it. Even 4chan seems to be quiet on the chapter, which is a standing ovation from them... or it's really not worth their attention, which I guess is good too.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:10 pm
Oh, now that's an interesting idea...MSCA wrote:CHAPTER WAS AWESOME
- Minor pet theory:
Also, major props to SilentCarto for figuring so much out before this chapter.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by SilentCarto Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:03 pm
I hate you...Derpmind wrote:"Once upon a time, I’d been a security mare in a diseased stable teetering on the edge of systemic collapse, bloody revolution, or both."
And then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
...Huh! Interesting thought. Could be, could very well be...Derpmind wrote:"“Trottenheimer’s firing trajectory is unaccommodating for interception,”"
...oh fuck me sideways, Folly is Goldenblood's backup plan. The backup plan to the 'destroy the planet' plan. Project Horizons fires, and Folly intercepts it and destroys it.
Oh, you think? I kind of assumed it was totally real. She was able to fire on the Warden, after all.Derpmind wrote:...damnit, she's good enough at holograms that all of this is probably fake. I hope.
Pinkie and Rarity (and AJ) are accounted for in the afterlife. (Ch. 34)Harmony Ltd. wrote:Pinkie Pie and Rarity both have teal eyes, sister(s), and good reasons to think they deserve to hurt.
I moved closer still and saw a second light, a soft orange point that sang the other sound. And then a third was born, a cheery pink. Another, majestic purple.
MSCA wrote:
- Minor pet theory:
- Spoiler:
- Oooh. I like that idea. I was thinking that her cutie mark story didn't really involve any particular victory -- it was just a filly getting killed by an accident.
That made me giggle.Somber wrote:"Um... 'Princess Luna'? Why have you been playing Spider Solitaire for sixteen hours straight?"
"I CAN'T STOP!"
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by SilentCarto Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:12 pm
Random thoughts that have percolated after a good night's sleep and a day at work:
- Spoiler:
Thrush isn't dead until I see a body.
Did Rover get hit directly by the beam? That was what I understood, but I want to make sure I read it right.
BJ's dream seemed to indicate that she was carrying twins. Interesting...
Cutie marks mean destiny, right? What happens if you have two different destinies? Was that Discord's game?
If Boo can grow a whole soul, can BJ regrow a missing chunk of one? Or did she just get promoted to Avatar of Chaos? Discord made quite a bit about BJ being such an excellent bringer of chaos in the cause of good. When he was petting her, was he literally grooming her for the role?
I had somewhat expected BJ to get her body back. I wasn't prepared for how unhappy Cogs made it. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, not something that was, let's face it, tantamount to rape.
Seems odd to me that the blank body can't carry a child. Surely she meant to say that the body wouldn't be hormonally prepared in time to accept the foal(s)? It would be a pretty crappy "exact" copy, otherwise.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by FeatherDust Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:20 pm
Just a few initial thoughts.
Cogs is still thinking of the Eater as a mere thing, but it's not. It's alive, in a way. Or perhaps undead. I thought it was rather nice irony that the Eater's influence continually creates and destroys random life-forms. Irony: The eater forges flesh and blood into tools, the same way flesh and blood ponies forge starmetal.
As they went down though the city's roots, I was struck by another bit of irony: Cognitum's dream of a chrome future is literally built on a rotting foundation.
Cogs is still thinking of the Eater as a mere thing, but it's not. It's alive, in a way. Or perhaps undead. I thought it was rather nice irony that the Eater's influence continually creates and destroys random life-forms. Irony: The eater forges flesh and blood into tools, the same way flesh and blood ponies forge starmetal.
As they went down though the city's roots, I was struck by another bit of irony: Cognitum's dream of a chrome future is literally built on a rotting foundation.
- A couple editing issues:
>>She closed her eyes in an almost orgasmic expression of bliss.
Blackjack's body still doesn't have eyelids, remember?
>>“Finally,” she said, and closed her eyes as if she’d climaxed.
AGAIN! I hate to harp on this, but...
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Derpmind Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:40 pm
SilentCarto wrote:Oh, you think? I kind of assumed it was totally real. She was able to fire on the Warden, after all.Derpmind wrote:...damnit, she's good enough at holograms that all of this is probably fake. I hope.
Well, she is "Cognitium" so going logically, if she has the capability to make holograms indistinguishable from reality, (and we know she has good enough intel and sensors for the data to make it accurate,) then not fake it when actually doing it is going to get you the same quality pictures and cost you lots of peasants? Cognitium did spend a good deal of the chapter reinforcing her tendency to keep ponies around in her stasis pods. Why burn villages down when she can rule over them instead?
MSCA wrote:
- Minor pet theory:
Also, major props to SilentCarto for figuring so much out before this chapter.
- I don't think this belongs in spoiler tags but whatever:
- The closest we've gotten to hearing BJ talk about her cutie mark is a traumatic story that suddenly stops midway through. I think BJ's been repressing something since she was a child. I definitely don't think it's victory.
Also, all of us here have been thinking and figuring things out together since we first posted comments up on EqD. I know you meant no offense, but it's a little unfair to everyone to say just one person figured things out. Besides, he's been wrong plenty of times just like the rest of us.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:47 pm
Argh, I thought that we'd gotten all of those. Thanks!FeatherDust wrote:Just a few initial thoughts.
Cogs is still thinking of the Eater as a mere thing, but it's not. It's alive, in a way. Or perhaps undead. I thought it was rather nice irony that the Eater's influence continually creates and destroys random life-forms. Irony: The eater forges flesh and blood into tools, the same way flesh and blood ponies forge starmetal.
As they went down though the city's roots, I was struck by another bit of irony: Cognitum's dream of a chrome future is literally built on a rotting foundation.
- A couple editing issues:
>>She closed her eyes in an almost orgasmic expression of bliss.
Blackjack's body still doesn't have eyelids, remember?
>>“Finally,” she said, and closed her eyes as if she’d climaxed.
AGAIN! I hate to harp on this, but...
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by MSCA Mon Mar 31, 2014 10:14 pm
Derpmind wrote:Also, all of us here have been thinking and figuring things out together since we first posted comments up on EqD. I know you meant no offense, but it's a little unfair to everyone to say just one person figured things out. Besides, he's been wrong plenty of times just like the rest of us.
I admittedly skim this thread because there are a lot of posts and I don't have a lot of free time. I happened to notice a couple of good predictions about this chapter. I never said no one else figured things out, or that he's never been wrong.
Like you said, I didn't mean any offense, I just wanted to highlight something cool.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon Mar 31, 2014 10:29 pm
...Um, the corrections are already made (I don't make the post until I've done the corrections, unless the chapter is too crowded) and weren't just deleting the sentences. This is the standard procedure. If Somber wants to change something I did, he's of course welcome to, but I think that I recall at most one complaint on one correction out of the dozens and dozens of chapters I've been doing this with. I see no reason to by default take up Somber's valuable time and slow improvement of the story for small issues like this.swicked wrote:If these are the only two instances that finally got through, I'd call it a job well done.O. Hinds wrote:Argh, I thought that we'd gotten all of those. Thanks!FeatherDust wrote:Just a few initial thoughts.
Cogs is still thinking of the Eater as a mere thing, but it's not. It's alive, in a way. Or perhaps undead. I thought it was rather nice irony that the Eater's influence continually creates and destroys random life-forms. Irony: The eater forges flesh and blood into tools, the same way flesh and blood ponies forge starmetal.
As they went down though the city's roots, I was struck by another bit of irony: Cognitum's dream of a chrome future is literally built on a rotting foundation.
- A couple editing issues:
>>She closed her eyes in an almost orgasmic expression of bliss.
Blackjack's body still doesn't have eyelids, remember?
>>“Finally,” she said, and closed her eyes as if she’d climaxed.
AGAIN! I hate to harp on this, but...
I think Somber should probably make those corrections, though, rather than nuking the sentences or anything.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by SilentCarto Mon Mar 31, 2014 10:38 pm
I don't know... there's so many odd little details. Things like the Seahorse getting scorched but probably escaping. Rover pulling Fifi out of the line of fire of the first strike, then being somewhere in a crowd that got blasted by the beam. If she was trying to apply pressure by showing BJ her friends getting killed, wouldn't she, you know, show said friends getting killed?Derpmind wrote:Well, she is "Cognitium" so going logically, if she has the capability to make holograms indistinguishable from reality, (and we know she has good enough intel and sensors for the data to make it accurate,) then not fake it when actually doing it is going to get you the same quality pictures and cost you lots of peasants? Cognitium did spend a good deal of the chapter reinforcing her tendency to keep ponies around in her stasis pods. Why burn villages down when she can rule over them instead?
Moreover, there are better targets to offer if she was simply making it up. Glory or P-21, for instance. Scotch Tape.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by FeatherDust Mon Mar 31, 2014 11:49 pm
Just because the prophecy was made up doesn't mean it isn't also true.SilentCarto wrote:Okay, wait just an apple-buckin' minute.
- Ch. 65 Spoilers:
There's still something screwy going on here...
But yes, something is definitely screwy. Blackjack does indeed have a connection to the stars unlike any other living pony; from Sparkle, to an ancestor who visited the moon in utero and had 'stars in her eyes', to being personally saved by the stars on multiple occasions and at least one full on soul-visit to their realm.
She didn't just stumble into a fake prophecy. It may be that Amadi is himself a pawn in a game much deeper than he suspects.
As to Blackjack's cutie mark, I kind of tend to agree that there's something 'off' with Cognitum's analysis. Primarily because Blackjack's name isn't Blackjack. The symbol only means victory in a game that she isn't even named for. In Go Fish, that's an unmatched set, a losing hand... I can't accept that her mark means "big win" based on a nickname. (Of course I always kinda have a problem with the "I don't know what my cutie mark means!" trope. As far as I'm concerned, a cutie mark comes from the mind and soul of the pony who got it; it's inherently meaningful to them, and you could no more get a mark without knowing its meaning than you could write your name and not know who it's talking about.)
Do we know if Blackjack even started going by that name before she got her cutie mark? Actually does anyone recall where her cutie mark story was given? I can't recall and searching for "cutie mark" is a needle in a haystack operation.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Icy Shake Tue Apr 01, 2014 12:11 am
Wow. That chapter was something. Too late to add much right now, given consecutive nights of insomnia, a travel day yesterday, and work in the morning (heck, it's really too late already), so just the basics.
- Chapter Sixty Five Running Thoughts:
- “You’ve interfered for the last time,” the Legate growled. Something about his voice was so… familiar.
Crack theory: the Legate is Goldenblood.
“Enough,” he bellowed, leaping at him... her... ugh, Discord was in a mare’s body… but male…
You'd think that after watching Glory get used to Doctor Morningstar she'd be less flustered. Granted, I guess there's nothing indicating Discord's embraced it quite like she did.
“Ole!” Boo cheered, and I glared back at her. “Ah. Yes. Wrong side and all that. Boooo! Hisssss!”
Well, Discord's all about fun, and it's fun to cheer a winning team, I guess.
He tried to dive under me and heave me out of the way, but I’d put on a few hundred pounds since we last danced.
Blackjack fat joke #23927.
Really, I was fairly certain that he could have done much more damage to me if he really wanted to. Why was he taking it easy on me?
I was not expecting a Grease reference in this story. Now, though, we need a Palomino to show up in the chapter.
“And Coyotl as well, for the time being,” Rampage said as she scowled down the street. “If he wishes to kill him, it must be for a reason.”
Whaaa? Okay, that's interesting. Granted, he is a shapeshifter.
As we raced towards them, he struck out with a double hooved stomp that would have crushed Boo if he'd landed it. Instead, after rolling aside, it found the end of a flat tipped shovel. The handle flashed up, smashing the stout wooden handle across the Legate’s skull helmet. He whirled, kicking out at Boo with his back legs. Again, she dodged aside. His hooves smashed into the wall behind her, and the wobbly stones at the top fell and thudded down on him.
Discord fighting classic Warner Brothers animation style? I can dig it.
And impacted with six hundred pounds of cyberpony as I swooped from above and slammed into him, knocking him completely off target and giving Boo a chance to scramble out of the fray. “Next time, don’t talk,” I chided, shoving him away.
The irony isn't lost on me.
“Get off of me!” he roared. “You should be dead! Why aren’t you dead, you red-striped freak?!” He rammed the skull helmet back, one of its horns gouging her eye socket.
You'd think he'd have better intel than that.
“Oh no you don’t, you motherfucking Pink!” she swore, biting his mane and struggling to keep on top of him.
Okay, so far Shujaa, Twist, probably Officer Softheart, now Razorwire. I have trouble believing Doc Oc will make an appearance as a fighter, but now I want the Angel. And it could be interesting to see her post-therapy.
“I’m sensing a lot of aggravation from you. Perhaps you can calm down and tell me about your mother?” Rampage grunted into his ear.
See, not much fight there.
“Don’t you start!” I warned her, then resumed stomping. The head was starting to regrow, a pink mist slowly spreading up and forming into tissue. Just like… “Rampage, he’s got a phoenix talisman too.”
Yeah, we all saw this coming.
“Dawn was the one that wanted you dead. Cognitum is prepared to wipe the slate clean and let bygones be bygones.” She gave a weak smile. “Just imagine it, Blackjack. No more shit in your life. The Harbingers will leave you alone. You can go to Star House with Glory and turn my old bedroom into a nursery, and boink each other’s brains out all day. Be head of Security for Chapel or Stable 99, or wherever. All this shit could be over. Just… over.”
Yeah, I don't think Blackjack is going to buy this, and even if she did, there's still the matter of the cost to everyone else.
“You know, I was never supposed to stay a villain. My role was very clear. Open antagonist to challenge Twilight Sparkle’s presuppositions of friendship and make her face having her friends turn on her at the outset, and then I was supposed to grow into a grudging ally of sorts. I had the scripts, and I was quite looking forward to my time with Fluttershy. Rehabilitation. Yay,” Discord said sarcastically, pressing her hooves together and fluttering her eyes, then slumping. “Only it never happened. I stayed a statue, and things went… wrong.” I arched a brow at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t give me that. I’m a spirit of chaos. I’m a connoisseur of wrongness.
I . . . really don't care for this, but let's see how it goes.
“Ugh, I’d forgotten how gushy you ponies can get when it comes to your winged unicorns.” Discord made a gagging noise. “Yes, a princess the same as Moonbutt and Sunnyflanks.
And see, that's a small part of it; sure, we don't really know what they are in the show, but we do in PH, and it just seems that's really not the same.
Even Princess Sunnybuns could be wonderfully manipulative at times.
"at times," right.
“Boo is unique. Precious. An individual. Why, she’s growing her own soul and everything. And she’s as immortal as I am. Plus she sees things as they really are, which is probably why she loves you no matter how scary you become,” he said, regarding herself in a puddle on the floor for a moment before going on, “But the Brood… mindless, soulless, immortal automations of magical flesh and steel. I look forward to seeing you take them all apart.”
Maybe without the fourth wall breaking exposition earlier, this wouldn't be too much, but even then it would be a lot. And I get that there are many threads to be wound up in probably not much space left, but having big parts of it in exposition from an omnicient Discord doesn't help.
“I’m hurt, Blackjack!” she said with a simpering pout. “Didn’t I say I was forced to be a villain? Cast in such a role by powers beyond your comprehension?” She sat and pushed a hoof to her brow, then smiled and rolled her eyes.
Okay, this one was a little better.
“Well, however adorable it might have been, you freeing the God of Chaos and telling him to start obeying traffic laws or whatever, you were doing it because you thought that that was good. And looking around at the shameful sort of chaos you’ve been having to deal with, I suppose that I can’t blame you too much. You’ve done good and sown disorder, but you haven’t gotten the spark that links them in your head yet. Look around a bit harder.” She swung her forehoof in a wide arc. “This whole city is a testament to unchanging corruption and stagnation, to what happens when order goes too far. And that’s not even mentioning what’s under it…”
Nice speech there.
“Cognitum wants stasis. She wishes to freeze the world into the state she thinks it should be, optimally with her on top. Funny how that’s usually the case,” Discord said with a grim smile.
Like locked in an eternal night?
Boo blinked, “Wazzit, Discowd?”
Still not 100% convinced she's separate at all. There could still be value in keeping up a charade.
The red mound twitched rhythmically, and then a half dozen eyes bubbled open. Two fleshy tendrils sprouted, wrapping around my neck and horn, and as it pulled itself closer, a large mouth filled with toothy protrusions snapped at what little face I had left.
Ew. Also pretty threatening.
And while Penance was an exquisite firearm, it wasn’t the ideal weapon for use against a swarm of opponents. I was missing my Boo luck charm, too. “Damn it!” I shouted, slamming my hooves against an intact, tipped-over container as I wondered if I could fly back to the hole without getting puked on.
The lid broke open, and dozens of twelve-millimeter semiautomatic weapons tumbled out around my hooves, each still in its translucent plastic wrap.
You were saying?
Two more blobs dropped onto me, one tangling in my wings with ropy masses and hooked limbs, the other ripping into my rump and legs with scythe like blades, tearing rents in my armor. Okay, that sent my ‘oh fuck no’ level through the roof.
Yeah, sounds about right.
An IF-84 Stampede riot shotgun. In a flash, I tore the translucent wrapping paper off, took in the sharp scent of lubricant, and popped out the drum. I selected the ammo with my PipBuck organizer and loaded the gun with red-banded shells. With a distinctly manic grin on my face, I murmured. “I shall name you Boomstick.”
Blackjack shops smart.
Still, I fell into a moment of peace. Shoot. Jump. Kick. Blast. Run. Dive. Reload. Grab. Smash. Shoot. Toss. Smile. Retreat. Lunge. Cast. Shoot. Block. Twist. Stomp. Twist. Reload. Shoot. Laugh.
Blackjack wanted to know where the mare who sang while blowing through a place was? Never too far away.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding!” I shouted as it grabbed another flatbed car and sent it whirling at me.
There have been a lot of those this chapter, and Oh, come on!s.
Then the train’s engine came shooting out the tunnel, half rolling and half falling, it streaked towards the monster. I activated my wings, launching myself off the last flatcar and into the air. Like a hammer striking a chisel, the flatcar sheared right through the outstretched claw hand and then clean through the monster’s body. A millisecond later, the engine rammed right into it with an enormous crash, splattering it against the wall. For good measure, I sent a missile flying, not at the monster, but the rock wall beneath it. Then the whole messy, bloody, flaming mess fell into the crevasse, tearing down the bridging tracks with it. I watched it fall…
Nice climax to the fight.
“You were no different. If anything, you were worse.” I gave a skeptical sniff, and she grinned at me. “It’s true. And you didn’t limit yourself to milk. How you got your hooves on your father’s apple cider, I’ll never know.”
Funniest part of the chapter so far.
She looked up at me with teal eyes and smiled a little before glancing back down. “Most ponies don’t have as much experience with mind games as you, Blackjack.” Tears began to run down her cheeks.
I wonder what the teal eyes mean. Luna/Cognitum?
“Perhaps it delights in tormenting us. Or maybe it thinks it’s protecting us from the Everafter. It can’t get all of us. I’m still waiting for my sister to join me… and horrified she will…”
Luna
“Someone who knows what it’s like to deserve to hurt,” she replied in a whisper, the light fading out around us. She scooped up my filly in her other hoof. “I’ll look after your babies till you return.”
And they will be born abominations, already knowing more than most ever do; the son will wed the daughter, and rule for five thousand years over an equinity in stasis, readying it for it to expand beyond anything it had imagined before upon his death at the hands of the one thing he couldn't forsee and loved most of all.
The mottled, horrifying visage of an abomination pony met my eyes. It only had one eye, a maroon orb on the left side of its face. Only the fact that my E.F.S. was blue kept my magic bullets in check.
Man, I thought you were over the ugly-equals-bad thing long ago.
I had to trust that they knew where we were going. The pipe led to a crevasse which led to a partially collapsed subway which led to a rockslide. All the while, I passed by more and more abomina… weird things. Plenty were ponies, but I spotted others that appeared to be griffins, or zebras, or even hellhounds. They stood around, or wandered aimlessly. Every now and then, one would misstep and tumble, coming apart like wet roadapples. A mote of light escaped and wandered away. The bloody goop would form spiders, or scorpions, or other skittering things that I occasionally had to splatter with Boomstick. Once, I watched as a mote slipped into a puddle of bloody goo which then coalesced into a tiny weird griffin.
Nice atmosphere here, and neat concept. But then what was animating the great terror, and why were the bits thrown off able to operate on their own?
“Was you really bad?”
Discord didn’t answer for several seconds, and when he did it was soft and reflective, “I suppose I was, dear Boo.”
This little exchange has been the best part of Discord's appearance so far this chapter.
“Dear me. Two centuries locked in a starmetal tomb, and I’ve gotten all mopey. But then, the mope is in high style around this horrible place.”
Now that's how you do a fourth wall reference right!
“Is yous gonna be bad again?” Boo asked innocently.
Fuck, the only thing separating her from Jar Jar is an "a" on the end of her yous. Just have to get that out there after the last couple chapters.
But I can’t help but think that, even if her mane’s a little short and she can be so terribly depressing at times, Blackjack does remind me of what a certain yellow pony would have been. I mean, seriously, freeing me, no questions asked or deals demanded? Telling me to do better? She needs someone around to tell her to stop apologizing to the dragon trying to eat her. And take her out drinking! I like Drunkjack.”
It's weird. Even here it's better. I think it works because it's more oblique. Too direct, and too much at once hurts it. Somehow I think the voicing is better, too, though I can't shake the feeling that part of it is just the Drunkjack. But he would like her, wouldn't he?
“Oh, absolutely delightful. Wonderful place to sit around and linger,” Discord replied, rolling her mismatched eyes. “I’m thinking of setting up a summer cottage. The view of the horrific abyss is quite lovely this time of year.”
Still might be better than Fluttershy's cottage a few months before.
“An alien device of immense complexity that may also be an eldritch abomination of mindshocking power projecting a field that liquefies flesh causing that flesh to transform and alter into monsters of grotesque magnificence?” Discord gushed, her red and yellow eyes growing by the second as she leaned towards me. Then she gave a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Nah. Couldn’t be. Personally, I think there’s something in the water. Fluoridation. Look it up.”
No! I am not surrendering Discord to the Precious Bodily Fluids crowd! They do enough damage, and not in fun or interesting ways! Well, except General Ripper, of course.
“Or shine. They’re very proud of the shining. And the singing. Stars… ech,” she snorted, waving her hoof dismissively. “Primadonnas, every one of them. Always needing the spotlight. Never standing to be upstaged for even a moment.” Then she blinked, and touched her chest at my smirk. “What?”
I couldn’t take time to enjoy Discord’s blatant hypocrisy though.
I can work with this. 'Course, wasn't the whole point of almost every star that they weren't about upstaging each other?
It’s like saying there’s no difference between ‘Blackjack’ and ‘messiah archetype’ or ‘Twilight Sparkle’ and ‘Fussypants protagonist’.
That got a good laugh out of me.
I made my way through the basement as silently as I could manage. I knew Cognitum wasn’t alone, but she didn’t know about me or Discord.
I wouldn't be too sure; did just use EC-1101, after all.
Heavy structural reinforcement beams had been attached to the side, and for some reason a crane arm had been mounted on top.
GlaDOS?
The crane hummed overhead, and a new pod was set down beside the table. Within was the prone form of a yellow, emaciated earth pony who was barely breathing. “Oopsie. Wrong jar.” It was whisked up once more. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that these jars function the same as the stasis pods. Quite useful technology. It can keep a body preserved… forever.”
Eh, can't say Horse deserved a very good end.
The crane whirled and deposited another jar. In it was what appeared to be a skinned pony. Bare, sightless, emasculated. I got the impression of looking at an adult-sized fetus.
I guess the first wasn't him. But in fairness, how many characters were yellow earth ponies from before the war?
You’ve killed thousands. You’ve killed foals, Blackjack. Helpless foals. You’ve killed indiscriminately. Your hooves are far bloodier than mine. So let’s not throw about that ‘E’ word so casually, thank you very much
Ah, ah, ah. If you're Luna, which I'll readily grant, your hooves are bloodier by far than Blackjack's. And that's before counting any actions after the bombs fell.
Oh, she was good. Very good. Rational and reasonable… and worst of all, I thought she might be right.
And yet, that's the problem. Perhaps not writ large, but certainly in this argument; for when has Blackjack been driven by her mind rather than her heart?
“I want her dead! No, wait, not dead. I want her alive. Like, take her legs off. And make sure some Harbingers fuck her up her tail. Like, ten times. At least!” the filly said with a cruel grin. “Maybe you can set her up on a stand somewhere and we can get a whole row of stallions to fuck her over and over. Like, the whole Hoof.”
Ah, the charming Charm.
“We can bring peace to the Wasteland, unity to all the races that inhabit it, safety and security to all that crave it!” Cognitum pleaded as she stepped before me. “I know you don’t approve of my methods, and I don’t expect you to, but I know you desire the same ends I do. Work with me, and you can help return the world to its glorious state!”
It's not quite Vader's appeal to Luke in Empire verbatim, but it's close.
I shoved her aside hard as the crane lifted the jar up into the air and returned it to the side, seizing the last one. “Tell me!” I yelled, a final time, the missile ready to fly.
You know, Blackjack is now rather echoing the old "Give it to me" of, I think, the Cyberdemon.
“And if she gets out of line, the Twilight Society can blast the Core with Celestia One, or the Lightbringer can drop a hurricane on this place. It doesn’t have to be you,” she said as she stared into my eyes in earnest, the pale gaze sincere and craving my acceptance of her decision.
I'm not so sure that would work, though. Especially with the Tokomare up and running.
The metal tendril climbed over and into the jar, and the golden netting spread out to cover the blank’s head.
Wait. Is it a blank if it was templated?
The mare floated there in a jar, looking at a black cyberpony, a frozen unicorn robot, and a striped mare struggling against the hooves of a pony in glittery silver power armor. Dimly, she was aware of something terrible having happened, but she didn’t care. She simply bobbed in the jar, hearing the black cyberpony talking to the striped mare about what was best for Blackjack, Rampage, and the world. More than once, they regarded her, gesturing with sweeps of their hooves. She just waited, indifferently.
Huge decompression right there, going from the cliffhanger to this. And I think it's going to work.
Then the black cyberpony backed away as the bony skull began to cast a spell in concert with the black cyberpony. A swirling black disk bubbling with bursting green and purple boils began to whirl about the black cyberpony, and she struggled as if in agony once more. From the midst of the disk came a small white orb. The jagged black spiral caught the orb, which jerked as if caught in a powerful wind. The orb was blown over to the floating mare and pushed against her chest, and a warm sensation flowed through her.
It'll be weird having Blackjack not be on the edge of invincibility anymore. But it does open up the door for a happier ending than I ever expected, even if that's still not my base case.
Sweetie Bot’s eyes flickered to life, and she said in filly’s high-pitched voice, “I reckon, if y’all want to find out, you should jes follow the routin’ path to wherever it was tryin ta go. That’s yer best bet ta find what Horizons is.”
I now had enough blood to appreciate the sensation of it running cold. “You were Applebot.” The robot went dead again, and my old body nodded. “But why?”
This might just have been more surprising than Discord.
“You used me,” I said, ashamed and disgusted that I never questioned the routing taking me straight to my enemy.
“You like being used.
In fairness, it's kind of true. And not just the sex part.
‘Enter Password’
Cognitum froze with all the abruptness of a mare on the edge of climax getting doused in ice water. Her head twitched back and forth. “What is this? Password? What password? What is going on?”
“What do you mean?” Steel Rain asked. “Don’t you know it?”
Ha ha ha! Better help Echo soon! But then, I bet you can't.
Hint: The name he likes so much.
P-21, or Whisper?
She’s lying. She must be lying,” Steel Rain insisted as he stood beside Cognitum.
“No. She’s not.” Cognitum answered.
“How can you be sure?” Steel Rain replied.
Because she rarely lies, and doesn't play games like this?
“You should interrogate her, still. Tug off that pendant and see how she likes having her soul torn out,” Steel Rain replied, then paused and continued, in a lower tone, “Or... you have her baby...”
There was a resounding clang as Cognitum popped her hands out, grabbed Steel Rain, and threw the silver-armored stallion to the ground. With cold contempt, she said softly, “Never, ever, suggest such a thing again.”
Well, contact with Blackjack makes people better. And how much more direct could you get?
Through the gloom ahead of and below the platform, I made out a massive body of... mist? Water? Something was churning far below.
Flux. No wonder Discord was in bad shape.
I stared in awe at the largest, most beautiful bullet in all of creation flying through the void… towards Equus and Equestria below.
That's new. Haven't named the planet until now. Seems like a popular name, lately.
Okay, bad guess; sounds like the Flux didn't end up at the Tokomare.
“Give me EC-1101, and perhaps I will be able to negate the Tokomare’s Enervation field,” Cognitum answered smoothly
Color me sceptical.
Yeah. Maybe. “Why is touching my ‘purest Blackjackness’ so intolerable?” I asked sourly from inside my jar. “I know I’m not the best pony, but–”
The prompted a laugh from my old body. “Oh dear. And I know you mean that too.” She sighed, shaking her head.
Uh oh. You just went and called your OC "best pony" in your own fic. Batten down the hatches.
“Of course,” Cognitum nearly purred. “That is... if Blackjack tells us what she knows about EC-1101’s key.”
why haven't they just ripped it from her yet? seems like it's within the capabilities of Cognitum.
“It’s time for you to be rewarded for your loyalty and devotion, Echo.” She stuck out her hoof. “Snips, please transfer him back.”
Oh, duh. I may need to reread the Echo scene later.
“I’m not letting the world die. You underestimate my friends. Glory and P-21 will learn what has happened to me. They will contact others. LittlePip. Homage. Calamity. Grace. Others that respect the cause I work towards. They will find a way to stop Horizons, with or without EC-1101. Then they will end you,” I answered, the truth so clear and simple to me that even here, like this, I felt a great sense of peace. “It’s not about you, Cognitum.”
I don't think it's been Blackjack who's said "it's not about you" before! All the better because of the implicit "it's not about me, either" attached.
“No!” I yelled as the green beam swept out, blowing the roof off one of the campus buildings. Even wartime Equestrian overengineering melted and exploded into flaming debris as the beam blasted through everything. Ponies wheeled about in a panic, struggling to find somewhere safe. The harsh green glare of the deadly line focused on the foundation of one structure and bored in. Flames exploded out the basement windows, and then the first story, then the second, and then ponies with their manes and clothes ablaze scattered out. “Please! Please no!” I screamed, the green line sweeping across the medical school, tearing the facade away.
Wow. Quite a way to rack up the death toll.
“You said you didn’t want my soul. Couldn’t bear to touch it,” I said as I stared up at her.
“And I don’t,” she replied in that terrible, soft voice. “I want victory.”
Stealing a cutie mark. Interesting.
"Your special talent . . . is being the protagonist!"
“Oh please. Where’s the fun in that?” he asked as he disappeared and reappeared dressed in fine evening wear, considering Cognitum. “Hmmm... clearly dadaist in the melange of cobbled together elements. Really, it looks almost as if it were thrown together utterly at random. A selection of Jungian shadows mixed with soaring inferiority complexes pasted together with narcissistic delusions of grandeur in a purloined body. Really. I don’t think I could do better if I tried. And believe you me, that’s saying something.” He smirked down as they stared from him to each other in bafflement, and then he gave a permissive wave of a claw. “Oh, and if you want to go grab a dictionary right now, go right ahead. I have time.”
Not bad.
Then he regarded me, and his eyes softened a moment. “And this poor pathetic little lump of a mare. What is she doing here? She clearly doesn’t belong in this assembly at all.” He swept me up in his arms, stroking my mane gently. “A pony of my very own! I will hug her and stroke her pretty mane and call her George.”
Aww. But I don't want Blackjack snapped or crushed.
“I knew Princess Moonbutt back when your ancestor was an abacus. I don’t know what you’re supposed to be, but you’re no Princess.” He then gestured at the bright soul being held by the straining unicorns. “THAT is a princess.”
Of course!
“You’re a bit of a packrat, aren’t you, Cogwheel?” he asked with a grin, going back to petting my head as if I were a cat.
And after all this time I've been saying Boo was a cat.
Then I dared to look at the center of the platform. Cognitum crouched there, black wings covering her head. “Please be good, Luna. Please be good, Luna,” I prayed over and over again.
Or, "Please be Good Luna." : )
Then she rose. Was it just me, or was she now... larger? She threw back her head, her mane streaming behind her like a bloody banner streaked with soot. Her armor seemed sharper now, the laser-etched filly and ‘Security’ gone. She stood before us all, a Princess of Death. Her red eye panels blazed with light as she began to laugh, high and exultant.
“Fools! Fools! All of you, fools! I am the Queen of the Night! And this world is mine!” she crowed, her wings spreading as her red and black magic mane and tail snapped in the air behind her. “Bow before my greatness!”
Not seeming that way. Even with the better soul, I guess the mind was too much.
I stared at the scene, my brain locked up at the sight of the zebra, his face covered in bright red magical tattoos resembling the orbits of planets. At his neck, they inexplicably became black, save for a few lines where Rampage’s tail had scraped him earlier. He knelt, lips pressed to the tip of her hoof, then pulled away. “Beautiful. You are beautiful, my Maiden.” Then he regarded me in amusement as she stopped the crackling lightning, and I realized that I knew this zebra...
Amadi.
Well. That happened.
“Your friends are now my friends,” Cognitum replied smoothly. “I’ll have to deal with other heroes abroad, I’m sure. Perhaps use a smaller version of Tom against the SPP. There must be some force strong enough to split that egg open. Regardless, you’re done.” She patted my head. “If you’d been loyal from the outset, I might have had a future for you as well. Now all I want is for you to see me triumphant.”
Somehow I doubt that they'll buy you. Just sayin'.
Then everything went dark all at once. The hologram. The terminals. Even the maneframe. Cognitum turned her head wildly in bafflement, the only illumination coming from the stream of lights circling the spire and Cognitum’s red glowing eyes. “OH, COME ON!”
You had to get one more in, didn't you?
Then a familiar rasp filled the air. It was long and low, wet and labored. And a gravelly, wet voice asked, “Identify yourself.”
Cognitum froze. She glanced from Steel Rain to Vitiosus to me, then answered, “I am Princess Luna reborn, rightful heir to Equestria! You will transfer control of EC-1101 to me, immediately.” Nothing happened. Then she asked, her voice a little more wary. “Who is this?”
“Project Horizons Command AI,” the voice rasped.
Hi, Goldie! And here's yet another person who will know the real deal from fake Luna.
Or maybe not.
- Chapter Sixty Five Editing:
- “Hello everypony! Did I miss anything?"
Should have second space after exclamation mark.
My work concerns had been limited dealing the occasional incident of indecent exposure, tracking down fillies raiding the supply stores for parties during their sleep shifts, and tracking down males who’d either been misappropriated or needed to be retired.
"limited" should be followed by "to," a comma, or a colon.
and trying to talk another mare into coitus.
Between them, two mares don't have the equipment for coitus
Today, I was a cybernetic mare, pregnant, in the middle of the deadliest place imaginable and facing an enemy who had beaten me like a drum.
final serial comma after "imaginable"
thematic aspect of ‘badassness’! Come on
should have second space after the exclamation point
The last time?” Boo taunted from behind me,
should have only one space after quotation
"I couldn't help but notice how roomy it was! How homely! After all, it was built from my blood. My stolen blood, I remind you." He explained, his voice taking on an increasingly dark and dangerous tone before he fizzed back to enthusiasm. "Wher
second space needed after each period, exclamation point, and the quotation.
Either taking my advice to heart, or simply pissed off beyond words, he charged me without a word.
With the "either," I think the first comma isn't necessary.
“You have the right to shut the fuck up or die, you sick son of a mule!” Rampage replied,
“Blackjack! Headshot!” Rampage cried
“Don’t you start!” I warned her, then resumed
should have only one space after quotation
A zebra phoenix talisman… the zebras had stolen project Chimera and project Steelpony.
the "project"s should be capitalized
With Rampage on my back, I trotted to Boo. “Now, you
only one space after period
“not to put too fine a point on it, but perhaps we should be moving along? One thrilling chase was quite enough for me for the moment.
closing quotion mark needed
“Au Contraire,” Boo contradicted.
I don't think "Contraire" should be capitalized.
and you don’t have any questions?” Discord said with a sickly grin.
should have only one space after quotation
Whatever it was, instead of Twilight becoming an Alicorn, she remained an ordinary mare.
"Alicorn" shouldn't be capitalized
That is, unless you don’t take the role yourself.
"unless you take" or "if you don't take"
Can you… I don’t know… control the brood of Coyotl since they’re made of Flux too?”
"brood" should be capitalized
Discord… Coyotl… flux… Boo… “Brood of Coyotl… they’re blanks! Just like Boo! Made with flux
"flux" should be capitalized
“Ages?” I asked with a frown
should have only one space after quotation
this planet's ever seen. I would have been quite
She then paused. “Hold that
only one space after period
“We should be attacked right about…. Now!”
should have only three dots in ellipsis
Okay. I could do this. I got out Penance as I backed away… then balked. “What do I shoot?”
Note that Penance was broken down at this point.
the wall a few feet above my horn. “Okay!
Three spaces after the period
“You have got to be kidding me!” I shouted, reaching up
“Damn it!” I shouted, slamming my hooves
Where are the damned bullets?” I asked as I ran
should have only one space after the quotation
hoofslams to knock it back. Physical blows wouldn’t
only one space after period
“Owww!” I hissed, gritting my
should have only one space after quotation?
into the launcher. Time to
only one space after period
I just needed to hit it hard…like with a boat
space needed after ellipsis
As its flailing limbs dispersed more and more of the smoke, I hope to see at leas–
"hoped"
Then the train’s engine came shooting out the tunnel, half rolling and half falling, it streaked towards the monster.
first comma -> semicolon
I was only hopeful that I would land somewhere in the vicinity of Boo, Discord and their
comma after "Discord"
“I’m glad you’re here, mother.
Outside the window came a colossal flash of energy, turning mother into a black silhouette.
"mother" should be capitalized
“Who are you?” I murmured as tears ran down my eyes.
should have only one space after period
“Is yous gonna be bad again?” Boo asked innocently.
should have only one space after quotation
Primadonnas, every one of them.
it's two words
What stakes could be higher?” Discord declared grandly, hooves
should have only one space after quotation
simply controlling , repairing, and utilizing infrastructure
shouldn't have space before first comma
I paused, then frowned, and glanced at my Pipbuck.
"PipBuck"
the blue barred ultra sentinel, wary of it turning red and vaporizing me
"Ultra-Sentinel"
a missile till it behaved. “Cognitum,” I said as I slowly
four spaces after the period
“That day, when Horse was showing of his latest innovation,
"showing off"
to land on the head on one mare who attended the meeting in
"the head of"
A few seconds worth, before he jumped into the stasis pod,”
"seconds' "
I was princess of the Moon, of the night!
"Moon" shouldn't be capitalized, or "Princess
should be (and maybe "night" too)
Not at all.” Cognitum said
period should be comma
eye sockets like stars. “Hello, Blackjack,”
only one space after period
collected over decades of hard work by one King Awesome.” Cognitum replied with a smirk as Snails was
period to comma, should have only one space after quotation
“I want her out of that jar, now.” I ordered, about to smash it
period to comma
“Do you accept my offer.
Period to question mark
“Purge? What fool purges a super critical megaspell program after two fails?” Cognitum asked incredulously. ‘Who is ‘he’, Echo?
three fails, not two, and four spaces after the period
“Can’t you hack the password?” Steel Rain demanded, incredulously.
should have only one space after quotation
"Of course I could. The problem is that
only one space after period
been flesh and blood. I’d been
three spaces after period
Cognitum replied. “The mechasprites only
only one space after period
“Tom must descend within eighty degrees of the Core’s vertical axis for the modified F.A.D.E. shields to catch it.”
Wouldn't that be ten degrees? Or over eighty degrees from the plane defined by the axis?
Soul ripping was a byproduct? “You think
only one space after the question mark
transformers, and starmetal girders. A hole had been bashed clean through
only one space after the period
The soul is the being of self.” Snips said from inside
period to comma
The inclinator slid into a berth, and there were a series of clangs as plates locked the mechanism into place.
"were" to "was"
I picked out a few Sand Dogs in their midst, and one in particular that I knew.
"Sand Dogs" shouldn't be capitalized
Luna in you... stop.” I begged
period to comma
I saw Rover and other Sand Dogs directing the ponies towards the subway station
"Sand Dogs" shouldn't be capitalized
I didn’t win then!” I argued
should have only one space after quotation
you’d find some way to do so.” Cognitum replied evenly
period to comma, should have only one space after quotation
pouring from the tip of Snip’s cracked horn.
"Snips's"
now, go right ahead. I have time
only one space after the period
The soul of princess Luna.
"Princess" should be capitalized
manage second-rate villainy.” He said with a disdainful
period to comma, should have only one space after quotation
magical wind blowing Cognitum’s mane The Legate stared
need period after "mane"
“OH, COME ON!” She screamed, then demanded. “What is going on
if the scream is the quotation, "She" shouldn't be capitalized and there should be only one space after the quotation. If not, that's fine, but in either case there's only one space after the period.
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