Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Silver136]

See Mass Effect 3 ending's nerdrage.

I thought it was kinda funny. In fact I compared the Equestrian Games build up (and horrible disappointment) to the ME3 ending.
Also, did you know there's another ending if you shoot the Reaper hologram kid in his stupid face?

[Vinylshadow]

Four Alicorn Princesses can't stop a slow-falling frozen cloud

haha...by Moonbutt's cold [expletive removed], that is completely idiotic...

Well...Blackjack's mind is now in control of the Core, her blank body's been kicked over the edge of a pit and Princess Luna is royally screwed

[FeatherDust]

Four Alicorn Princesses can't stop a slow-falling frozen cloud

Yes, because they all had their magic sealed at the "metal detectors" the same way Rarity did.

Which seems absurd; why would you seal the princesses?  But, perhaps it's fridge brilliance: Somebody noticed or figured out that it was Twilight and not Spike who lit the torch, and got worried that one of the princesses would interfere with more than just the opening ceremonies..!

[Icy Shake]

“You there!  Halt!  Who--” a mare in a maintenance suit shouted.  Without hesitating, without even thinking about it, I drew my IF-44 submachine gun and put a three round burst in her chest.  A curious hollowness filled me as I trotted over her body and walked to the door, entering a security bypass password that opened to a tunnel filled with magical radiation, reeking smoke, and screams.  It was a promise of what was to come if I did not serve and receive absolution for my sins.

So for her, at least, it didn't seem to be very redemptive.

Psalm is a bit of a bad example. She was purposely manipulated into becoming more and more of a mindless zealot, devoted to doing anything she thought Luna commanded of her without question. We still don't know if Luna put her up to this personally, or if she was a product of an OIA agent indoctrination program, which might have even tailored their means of motivation to each individual agent, Psalm's pressure point being having her do more and more horrible things to make her feel more and more spiritually indebted. It was a very clever, vicious cycle.
Besides, her "religion" was entirely based on redemption that could only be granted by Luna, it seemed. SHe only ever seemed reverent to one goddess, after all, likely due to Golden's prodding. If her faith was part of something older than Luna's return, you'd expect it to include Celestia as a source of possible redemption.
But if this was bigger than Pslam, I'd expect it to be a product of Image, creating and nurturing a faith to rival that of the zebra's in order to drive their soldiers to be as ferocious and unconcerned with their lives as the zebra were, preferring to secure their afterlives instead.

I won't say it wasn't unbalanced; it was. But her religion was devoted to both Celestia and Luna[1][2], but I wouldn't particularly doubt that there was some prodding to make her more aligned with Luna. But I don't know just how much was necessary: Celestia was the princess who took away her best friend (actually, prompted her to force him away), while Luna comforted her, empathized with and confided in her, and found her a new home and the closest thing she ended up having to a family (basically, I think a good deal of the difference is purely personal)[3]. It's possible, of course, that that particular understanding of Hell came from outside prodding, but it's worth remembering that Psalm considered herself unworthy of happiness from a very young age, not to mention considering herself a mass murderer from the start of her military career, if Twist is to be believed. On top of that, I have to imagine that she stopped praying to Celestia after Shattered Hoof Ridge; I just have trouble seeing her praying to the goddess she killed for forgiveness.

On the point that it could be related to whether her religiosity extends past Luna's return, I'd just point out that the best guess for her age is roughly the same as Twist, so she was pretty young at the time.

[1]:

[2]:

[3] (I'm just quoting the whole section because frankly it's worth it.:

...well, it's not hard to find, yet people kept saying they couldn't find it, soooo...

Oh, I know. I think it's actually a symptom of a good underlying development: for the first time in probably over a year, there's enough activity for things to be lost in the shuffle even though it's not in the immediate aftermath of a chapter going up.

So, I've been trying to figure out BJ's virtue. Yeah, again and all, but seriously. Found this post I made, and I gotta ask: Does anyone think this might actually be a bit closer to the mark?

Kinda makes me wonder how she hasn't already become dulled to that kind of things, by now.

I know she's The One Pony Who Always Try To Do better, but still...

After all the shit she's been through, it really is impressive that she still give a damn about others.

Compassion is BJ's coping mechanism to deal with all the shit she's lived through. If BJ tried to only care about herself, she'd also have to not care about all her flaws and failings too. I think both of these are parts of her character that are impossibly difficult to change. Without that drive to help others, BJ would have self-destructed long ago.

Besides that, is there not there the heroic ideal of the person who selflessly helps everyone they are able to? How much pain must one endure before they give that up?

Compassion? Maybe selflessness? Eh, maybe I'm just reaching. I know one thing though: As amusing as it is, the whole secretly being Go Fish thing is just way too far from who Blackjack is. Why don't we speculate about much more plausible things anymore, like P-21 + Rampage shipping?

If I had to choose one narrow virtue, I'd have to go with forgiveness. For she's built on a foundation of seeking, not absolution, it's true, but a balancing of her past wrongs, and at the same time finds it within herself to forgive almost everyone far, far more than she ever asks for herself. Beyond that, one of the major recurring points is that for the world to be better in the future, people need to let go of the grudges and resentments of the past, to work with those who had in the past wronged them, even being their enemies. We've seen it with the failures of the war, the sand dogs, P-21 and 99 and the Society, Deus, and I'm sure many more. The close link with Psalm is (see, for example, [2] above), to me, only the foremost characteristic of the story pointing me in that direction.

Also, she's clearly Pony Jesus.

[Borsuq]

And Virgin Mary at the same time!

So... she one-upped Twilight by becoming a Queen, then again by becoming a cyber alicorn (even if it was hurtful, emotion-wrecking, and temporary); she one-upped Littlepip by... okay, had anybody even bothers keeping count at this moment as to how many times she one-upped Littlepip? Check swicked's skits list... but in the latest chapters, she one-upped her by loosing both cutie marks.

And she one-upped Jesus, by being both him and his mother... Okay, if Blackjack becomes real alicorn at some point, I will say that she is also God and we will have the whole Holy Trinity! (yeah, I know that the third is the Holy Spirit/Ghost, not the Mother, but this is funny!)

[O. Hinds]

Aye on that last part. I probably should have chosen a different phrase, but I mean like, literally before the war. They throw it around a lot on the show.

Ah. And the war almost certainly would have magnified anything already there...

Reapers in the sense of immortal robot cuttlefish from space.

Oh, is this a Mass Effect thing? I assumed that you meant the Reapers based out of the Arena.

I think it's actually a symptom of a good underlying development: for the first time in probably over a year, there's enough activity for things to be lost in the shuffle even though it's not in the immediate aftermath of a chapter going up.

Yes, it is rather nice to have the forum bustling a bit again!

[Scienza]

@Virtue
 
I'm struggling to find a word to describe this, but I think one of Blackjack's most important virtues is that she's effectively personality fertilizer. Sort of like how the Element of Magic is the spark of friendship which reveals the other five, Blackjack nurtures the spirits of the people around her and helps them to develop into their own identities. You can see it in pretty much all of her active companions. She just sees that little spark inside someone and helps that to blossom, even in her worst enemies.

@Reapers
Yeah, it was just sort of a one-off joke since the ME Reapers use space magic to brainwash those they come in contact with, and since BPM has a similar psychic effect probably arising from something insidious and space-related.

[O. Hinds]

Ah. I don't know enough about Mass Effect to get the joke.

[SilentCarto]

Unless you're talking about actually before the war rather than just before the apocalypse.  FoE used "prewar" for "preapocalypse" because that's what Fallout did.  The problem is that it was fine in Fallout because the last war both started and ended with the apocalypse; in FoE, unfortunately, the apocalypse was just the end of a continuous twenty-year-long war.  Though you probably know this already, I thought that I'd just elucidate the somewhat confused meaning of that word/phrase.

That's... not entirely accurate. The nuclear exchange in Fallout came at the end of a war that started as a conflict between China and the US over oil reserves in Alaska and escalated into something approaching a world war. The development of power armor gave US forces a decisive advantage, so when their unstoppable advance approached Beijing, the desperate Chinese government launched a simultaneous nuclear strike against the US army on Chinese soil and the mainland United States itself. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Still, it's not as weird as the Reaper indoctrination

What do you mean?  Am I forgetting something?

Mass Effect. Reapers (giant aliens in the form of spacecraft) constantly emit a psychic field that, over time, can mind control anyone into being their sleeper agent at the cost of degenerating mental capabilities. It's poorly explained and generally serves as a bullshit excuse for pretty much anyone turning out to be secretly Chaotic Evil.

[O. Hinds]

That's... not entirely accurate. The nuclear exchange in Fallout came at the end of a war that started as a conflict between China and the US over oil reserves in Alaska and escalated into something approaching a world war. The development of power armor gave US forces a decisive advantage, so when their unstoppable advance approached Beijing, the desperate Chinese government launched a simultaneous nuclear strike against the US army on Chinese soil and the mainland United States itself. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Oh dear, I believe you're right; I'm terribly, terribly sorry. Thank you for correcting me.

Mass Effect. Reapers (giant aliens in the form of spacecraft) constantly emit a psychic field that, over time, can mind control anyone into being their sleeper agent at the cost of degenerating mental capabilities. It's poorly explained and generally serves as a bullshit excuse for pretty much anyone turning out to be secretly Chaotic Evil.

…Ah. And why CE? Wouldn't LE be more useful for sleeper agents?

[Scienza]

For most of the series, the only appropriate term would be chaotic evil, since the Reapers operated by motivations that nobody could comprehend or possibly understand. They had their own objectives and motivation, they were just beyond human comprehension, like Cthulhu.

[Silver136]

Well, interestingly enough I kind of sympathized with the reapers. They were trying to leave space open for less developed species, that way no one species became too powerful. At the same time they weren't wiping out older species, they were collecting...consciousness from them? Minds? Anyway they were preserving the older species in some way. They were really just trying to maintain a balance.

[OneMoreDaySK]

At the same time, the balancing served as a limiting status quo. Still haven't played the games to completion yet (still on ME 1 redoing stuff after a crash wiped my save, and I lost interest in playing), but status quo means a lack of innovation. 'tis why humanity is so feared in the games. They never stop trying to progress.

[Stringtheory]

At the same time, the balancing served as a limiting status quo. Still haven't played the games to completion yet (still on ME 1 redoing stuff after a crash wiped my save, and I lost interest in playing), but status quo means a lack of innovation. 'tis why humanity is so feared in the games. They never stop trying to progress.

I tried to play Mass Effect, but the game didn't make it easy for me with the shitty third person combat and the rather wooden dialogue at some points ("Tell me more about..."). I'm playing Dragon Age currently and I'm finding the combat to actually be playable.

[Vinylshadow]

Littlepip: Sacrifice (Fallout Equestria)
Blackjack: Perseverance (Project Horizons)
Puppysmiles: Innocence (Pink Eyes)
Silver Storm: Compassion (Heroes)
Murky: Hope (Murky Number Seven)

Based off this

starting to wonder if there's any other popular cross-over fanfics between fandoms
Like The Elder Scrolls (Equestrian Scrolls?) or Star Trek/Star Wars

[OneMoreDaySK]

Eh, I cheesed my way into getting more or less final gear for Sheperd. Makes most things a breeze, heh.

Re: Blackjack's virtue
Have already called it a long time ago: forgiveness. And I thought we already establised that Blackjack was pretty much pony Jesus back in 33?

[Stringtheory]

starting to wonder if there's any other popular cross-over fanfics between fandoms
Like The Elder Scrolls (Equestrian Scrolls?) or Star Trek/Star Wars

FO:E's the only one that got famous and spawned its own side-stories. Not sure about any others.

[Vinylshadow]

Yeah, I saw the Forgiveness virtue as well, but it's also been stated her talent is also victory, and she's rather persistent too, she's died, what...3 times now?

[Silver136]

Seahorse, Hightower, and the core if you consider her soul removal and mind swap "death." So 2-3 depending on what constitutes "death."

[OneMoreDaySK]

Re: Equestria Games
The implications that a device could actually anti-magic the princesses is disturbing. I'm chalking it up to the writers letting Spike have the limelight for that one, instead of trying to give myself an anuerysm trying to logic out the uselessness of princesses.

[Dutcher]

For most of the series, the only appropriate term would be chaotic evil, since the Reapers operated by motivations that nobody could comprehend or possibly understand. They had their own objectives and motivation, they were just beyond human comprehension, like Cthulhu.

I wish it was still that way..
But no they had to bring that awful "WE MUST STOP AI"

[Vinylshadow]

Re: Equestria Games
The implications that a device could actually anti-magic the princesses is disturbing. I'm chalking it up to the writers letting Spike have the limelight for that one, instead of trying to give myself an anuerysm trying to logic out the uselessness of princesses.

That, or Celestia's one heck of a troll to her little ponies

  "No, no, let them figure it out"

I can't believe that 'emoticon' even exists


Rainbow Dash and Applejack were also watching DD getting the snot beaten out of her XD

[OneMoreDaySK]

If 'Tia actually wanted them to learn, she needs to start phasing herself out of the ruling class, instead converting the government to something aside from a diarchy.
...
And I'm still in the firm belief that that particular episode was actually a fanfic by Dash.

[Vinylshadow]

I hope we see less of Celestia in Season five and have Twi going through the problems of running a kingdom

Even though she technically stole part of Celestia'a Kingdom by growing a castle in the middle of Ponyville...

and on another note, after seeing the Tree of Harmony, I imagine Spike's Crusader Maneframe that he's got set aside for Gardens of Equestria to be the Tree of Harmony, magically transplanted to a remote cave to keep it from Zebras or something

[Guest]

Guys, you're kinda getting a bit off topic. This thread is for PH general discussion goes in the official.

[Borsuq]

Yeah, I saw the Forgiveness virtue as well, but it's also been stated her talent is also victory, and she's rather persistent too, she's died, what...3 times now?

Going back to those earlier comments about her being a pony Jesus... Does anybody feel like we need something like this, only with Blackjack instead of Optimus?

[Dutcher]

Anti-magic device?
I'm sure someone made an EMP megaspell with this technology

Yes we need BJ vs Jesus

[Vinylshadow]

ALRIGHTY THEN

BLACKJACK TIME

Read chapter 66, don't remember most of it...something about Princesses and Viziers and Blackjack getting her mind back

[Scienza]

On a semi-unrelated note, going back to discussion of elements, the Element of Magic would be really, really hard to find. The Element of Magic isn't a pony that's really good at magic, it's somepony who possesses the spark of the magic of friendship and is able to unify the others through that. So, it's more than just finding a bunch of ponies and sticking them in a room, you need someone who connects with them on a deep level.

[Dutcher]

On a semi-unrelated note, going back to discussion of elements, the Element of Magic would be really, really hard to find. The Element of Magic isn't a pony that's really good at magic, it's somepony who possesses the spark of the magic of friendship and is able to unify the others through that. So, it's more than just finding a bunch of ponies and sticking them in a room, you need someone who connects with them on a deep level.

Magic and the spark are different according to the wiki.
Little Pip is the spark.

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