Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Vinylshadow]

I joined the FoE fandom too late then...

...

casually writes my own rape chapters focusing around main characters in majotr FoE stories


....Okay, no, not really, I'm not that twisted and sadistic

Besides, Puppysmiles?

Absolutely not (That, and opening her suit would cause the Pink Cloud to kill the pony stupid enough to try)

[Evilgidgit]

I joined the FoE fandom too late then...

...

casually writes my own rape chapters focusing around main characters in majotr FoE stories


....Okay, no, not really, I'm not that twisted and sadistic

Besides, Puppysmiles?

Absolutely not (That, and opening her suit would cause the Pink Cloud to kill the pony stupid enough to try)

Good thing I joined the FE fandom late too as well. I don't think I would've liked Murky having to deal with that.

Poor Blackjack gets killed twice, nailed to a table, her horn smashed off and her body violated.

Littlepip nearly gets it at the tentacles of a centaur abomination.

But if Puppysmiles, being a child, had been assaulted (impossibilities aside), I'd have abandoned Pink Eyes right then and there!

[Guest]

...You guys could really use a new topic.

[SilentCarto]

(Apologies if this is repeating any posts I haven't read yet.)

I loved the take on the "three riddles to show what the main character has learned"-shtick, where the answers weren't truths but rather what Goldenblood believed. It was hilarious how sure he was that anyone who could get past it would want to end him.

I think the one thing he never expected was empathy. BJ deliberately answered the questions from Goldenblood's own perspective instead of hers. Someone who answered from their own heart but gave the same replies BJ did would indeed have wanted to kill him.

I forgot which chapter this was in:

It was from Chapter 59.

“The twelve tribes are the children of the sun.  The one are the children of the moon.  Each coupling, the land gave rise to the tribe.  The Achu were born of the high and fiery mountains.  The Propoli in a village.  The Carnilia on a fertile plain.  The Mendi in a deep wood.”  I couldn’t help but smile at his tone as he seemed to get into it.  “The Zencori were born on a wind, the Atori on the islands, and the Eschatik in the deserts.  Even the southern snows birthed the Sahaani, and the ice has always borne the springs of steaming water heated by their passions.  The swamps birthed the Orah and the jungles the Tappahani.  The final two, the Logos and the Roamani, were sired in a library and on a battlefield.”

Incidentally, do we know Zecora's tribe? I'd guess Mendi if this was all I had to go on. I wonder if the rhyming thing is cultural, or just her.

And GB lacks some canterlot ghoul abilities. Sanguine for example (Nice touch that he was at the execution.) was able to breathe pink cloud. I don't recall a case where GB accidentally seared someone with his morning breath. Though you could argue his body does produce it. I think this chapter he coughs up blood with a pink cloud in it or something, could be evidence of that.

He coughed up pink phleghm on many occasions, so your supposition that it's somehow being produced in (or reproducing in) his body is probably correct. However, no Canterlot ghoul in FoE spewed Pink Cloud. The ghoul fillies in Celestia's school could conjure it with their magic, but Lionheart and Steelhooves didn't, nor did the ghoul zebras or the residents of Vault City. This idea may have actually originated with Puppysmiles.

I wonder if it was deliberate (on Somber's part) that Goldenblood's main external injuries at Littlehorn -- tearing each side of his body away from vertical metal bars -- would have left a rather zebra-like pattern on his flesh.

[Icy Shake]

The description of Tenebra trying to run from the echo is really quite sad as well...  I'm glad Blackjack was able to save her, even though it hurt (just a "4", heh...), and at least she knew enough to keep her from injuring herself during the seizure.  I imagine the weakened batpony genetics probably plays a big part in what makes the echos so deadly, rather than it /only/ being because Blackjack has been through so much.

Just so you know, apparently that's not the proper procedure for helping someone in a seizure.

So, would this be a good place for an end-note disclaimer on what not to do when someone is having a seizure?  

[Guest]

@SilentCarto

Was lionheart a canterlot ghoul in the original FOE? Guess that just slipped my memory.

Steelhooves was in Zebratown not Canterlot. So he may not have been exposed enough? I'm not sure what gives that ability.

Also could Pip say without a doubt they weren't breathing it? In canterlot she was sorrounded by the stuff.

On a foggy day could you tell if the people around you were cold enough that they were breathing little puffs of mist? I'm sure Pip'd know if they were attacking her that way but breathing it? I have my doubts.

[O. Hinds]

The description of Tenebra trying to run from the echo is really quite sad as well...  I'm glad Blackjack was able to save her, even though it hurt (just a "4", heh...), and at least she knew enough to keep her from injuring herself during the seizure.  I imagine the weakened batpony genetics probably plays a big part in what makes the echos so deadly, rather than it /only/ being because Blackjack has been through so much.

Just so you know, apparently that's not the proper procedure for helping someone in a seizure.

So, would this be a good place for an end-note disclaimer on what not to do when someone is having a seizure?  

Hm, good point.

[SilentCarto]

Because Hasbro is very conservative when it comes to what they think can be trademarked, leading to silly stuff like "Cadance" instead of Cadence (which can be an actual name) or "Shockblast" instead of Shockwave (an actual phenomenon).

I guess I'm sort of glad that MLP isn't the only brand suffering from this kind of stupidity, but... gah.

Hm.  I interpret it a bit differently.  Just "less dependent than they were at the start of the war" would say that, well, they're less dependent than they were at the start of the war.  "less and less dependent every [time period]" would mean that their dependency is decreasing but would not say anything about what level it was currently at.  "less and less dependent on gems than they were at the start of the war" says both.

That's... simply not the case. Some usages in English are subject to opinion and preference, but this is not one of them.

Is it LittlePip or Littlepip?
PipBuck or Pipbuck?
SteelHooves or Steelhooves?

In PH, at least, they're LittlePip, PipBuck, and Steelhooves.

That said, feel free to write them without the camel casing. Kkat went absolutely overboard with the capitals even in cases where she was translating directly from Fallout, such as Pip-Boy, which is hyphenated in the original property. Little Pip should really be two words, just like Big Macintosh, but I think most people eschew the camel and just say "Littlepip".

In chapter 63, which is where we get the time skip, it's said that Hoofington had non-stop rain for three months. Something stopped LittlePip from clearing the weather around Hoofington, which might be Hoofinton's damaged SPP tower or the evil from beyond being annoying.

They stated early on (in the museum, I believe) that Hoofington is naturally rainy due to its geography. Pip may have cleared the sky three months ago, but the clouds would just come right back unless the towers were firing off again every few hours.

Rather fortunate for BJ that the rain stopped so she could walk around outside in the shadow world. *Cough*

It seems that it takes some time for matter to make an 'impression' on the shadow world. They were walking around in the bed of the Hoofington River, remember? Falling and flowing water are apparently just too transient to create imprints. I guess living creatures (or maybe just souled ones) have a stronger presence there than inanimate objects, which would make sense given that dreams are at least sort of real here.

"Yes, I found that odd as well. I'm currently thinking that members of the same family just happen to keep being elected."

Would that mean that the Caesars married a wife from a different tribe each time? Tribe heritage is passed from the maternal side, and a Caesar cannot be elected from the same tribe consecutively.

It's probably kinda like Naboo's elected "Queen".   

I think it's an unspoken rule that abandoned hospitals need to be fucking spooky.

Well, hospitals are already kind of unsettling by default. Emotionally speaking, even when it's clean and shiny, it's a building full of sick people who might possibly be contagious or dead, both of which are instinctually repellent. It's also a place where people get cut open and stitched closed, so you've got body horror. Now grime up those nice, white surfaces a little so you don't have the comfort that at least it's clean, and abandon it so that it triggers the instincts that tell you a lack of animal sounds mean there's a predator nearby, and you've got a real multilevel creep going.

And then you populate it with actual monsters that are silently stalking you as we speak.

Was lionheart a canterlot ghoul in the original FOE? Guess that just slipped my memory.

Yup. He has a Pipleg, "just like the ghouls of Stable 1", and later on is referred to as "the royal Canterlot ghoul".

Steelhooves was in Zebratown not Canterlot. So he may not have been exposed enough? I'm not sure what gives that ability.
Also could Pip say without a doubt they weren't breathing it? In canterlot she was sorrounded by the stuff. On a foggy day could you tell if the people around you were cold enough that they were breathing little puffs of mist? I'm sure Pip'd know if they were attacking her that way but breathing it?

The inhabitants of Stable City were all Canterlot ghouls, from Canterlot, and yet the air in the Stable was totally clear. None of them ever gave even a hint of that ability. The only one that did was Mouse, and that obviously has a source separate from her status as a Canterlot Ghoul.

[Guest]

Sanguine and Goldenblood fairly unique in their cloud-spewing tendencies.

Fair enough on the breathing part. But you can't say just because Pip didn't mention the Vault City ghouls coughing any up that it didn't happen.

That's like saying the ponies of friendship city didn't use the bathroom because Pip didn't mention witnessing it or hearing any sounds that could be taken as someone using the restroom. Of course that happened, but it wasn't mentioned.

And even if Pip said "One of the ghouls coughed into a tissue as I trotted by" would you really say that proved it either way? I wouldn't.

@SilentCarto

Guess they didn't. I'm curious why sanguine did then. I wonder what the cause was.

[pokeperson1000]

@Last

1. steelhooves was in zebra town, yes, but as soon as the shields fell, he pretty much drowned in water that had been saturated with pink cloud. i don't think exposure level is really a factor.

2. the dragon was only exhaling pink cloud because it had ingested a pink cloud producing talisman that had been planted among the gems she was hoarding. after mutation and digestion, she was magically alteredn so even after being transformed into a mouse, she continued to produce pink cloud.

3. Lionheart was using mouse's pink cloud, not producing his own.

4. it is both possible and easy to spot your own breath condensing in your face on a foggy/misty day. i've tried it.

[pokeperson1000]

@Last

Also, stable city is made of ghouls that survived escaping the pink cloud. Stable city itself, where they all lived, was completely free of pink cloud. as SilentCarto has mentioned.

as for the cause, maybe it's just a special case of magical mutation that only occurs by chance.

[SilentCarto]

Lionhart didn't appear to, but he also never opened his mouth at all due to being stuck in canterlot voice. No ghouls have to breathe, so I think it would have had to be a conscious effort on his part.

Well, Sanguine still sort of... leaked. Unless you think he deliberately flooded the lower level of Project Chimera with his breath, but I got the impression that the Pink just collected where he spent most of his time.

Steelhooves was entirely fused within his armor. Air-tight, I believe. I'm not sure how you could call that one way or the other.
The rest, though, do establish enough of a trend to call Sanguine and Goldenblood fairly unique in their cloud-spewing tendencies.

Given Pink Cloud's tendency to erode and bypass any filtration system, I don't think even an airtight suit would fully contain it. I can't speak to Puppysmiles on that matter, though.

Heck, even Puppy doesn't actually exhale Pink Cloud per se, does she? She just sort of exudes it into the suit, right?

("And I can cloud right in my suit any time I want to! *nnnngh* Ahh... see?")

(Yes, I'm still eight years old.)

[Guest]

Pokeperson you might wanna re-read what I wrote. I'm not sure why you think I was saying even half those things.

A moment ago I didn't even know Lionheart was a canterlot ghoul. So I definitely didn't use him as an example.

Not that I would, he's significantly different from the average pony that even if he did breathe pink cloud it's not any gaurantee a unicorn would. In PH pegasus are different enough that to a degree that can't even be affected by the same diseases as other ponies.

I'd imagine batponies are even further seperated than that.

[Guest]

Well Steelhoove's suit was constantly repairing itself. Though I think if he did produce it pink cloud would have probably erupted from his neckhole when he was decapitated.

Which of course didn't happen.

[pokeperson1000]

# 2 and 3 were meant as comments in general. i got lazy when separating them from the rest. (i type down everything i want to say before ordering it, my short term memory tends to be terrible.) everything else, was relevant, just not necessarily to your most recent comment at the time of my previous comment.

[SilentCarto]

Not that I would, he's significantly different from the average pony that even if he did breathe pink cloud it's not any gaurantee a unicorn would. In PH pegasus are different enough that to a degree that can't even be affected by the same diseases as other ponies.

I'd imagine batponies are even further seperated than that.

Eh, we've seen standard and Canterlot ghouls of every pony type, zebra ghouls, zebra Canterlot ghouls, dragon ghouls, dragon Canterlot ghouls, even a ghoul griffin. Both methods of ghoulification seem pretty universal.

[SilentCarto]

Hey, I don't mean to complain (but I'm going to anyway) but I think there's something a bit screwed up in the document. When I download it as a Word doc and then try to open it, Word throws an error message saying it can't find the comments file. If I go ahead and have it ignore the error, there are 300-someodd blank comments tagged all over the document. They're easy enough to remove, but I thought this might be a symptom of something going on in GDocs (or whatever the kids are calling it these days).

[O. Hinds]

That's... simply not the case. Some usages in English are subject to opinion and preference, but this is not one of them.

I'm sorry. It seems clear and well-flowing to me, and I'm not aware of anyone else having a problem with it.

That said, feel free to write them without the camel casing.

We do have internal standards within PH, though.

They stated early on (in the museum, I believe) that Hoofington is naturally rainy due to its geography. Pip may have cleared the sky three months ago, but the clouds would just come right back unless the towers were firing off again every few hours.

Nope. The towers are capable of cloud control without rainbooming. Or they ought to be, at least; for some reason, it's not working in Hoofington.

Also, stable city is made of ghouls that survived escaping the pink cloud. Stable city itself, where they all lived, was completely free of pink cloud. as SilentCarto has mentioned.

Hm, I'd been misremembering that; thanks.

[O. Hinds]

Hey, I don't mean to complain (but I'm going to anyway) but I think there's something a bit screwed up in the document. When I download it as a Word doc and then try to open it, Word throws an error message saying it can't find the comments file. If I go ahead and have it ignore the error, there are 300-someodd blank comments tagged all over the document. They're easy enough to remove, but I thought this might be a symptom of something going on in GDocs (or whatever the kids are calling it these days).

What document?

[O. Hinds]

If you're talking about 67, I'm not sure what you mean about the comments, but I've just tried downloading it as a .odt and didn't have a problem opening it.

[O. Hinds]

With a bit of quick googling, I discovered that OpenOffice Writer does have a comment feature, and I made a comment to test it. I'm not seeing a lot of blank ones, though.

[SilentCarto]

It really is surprising just how many ponies survived the apocalypse when you really think about it.  It goes right up there with wondering how many pegasi are really left with all the dashites that fill PnP games.

Hehe. Well, each stable took several hundred, and you have to figure thousands more managed to eke out an existence in low-radiation areas. Sure, you had green snow in central Equestria, but someplace out on the edges, like Littlehorn, would be reasonably safe. Similar calculations have been made for Earth getting hit by an extinction-level asteroid -- our civilization probably wouldn't survive, but humankind is almost as durable as roaches. Because we brain good.

As for Dashites, you kinda have to figure there'd be one every couple of years. All it takes is the right mix of idealism and rebelliousness. Most of them probably get killed in the first few days, either from the dangers of the surface or getting blasted by the lightning rods while trying to sneak back home. That said, across everyones' games, they're probably sort of like drow -- you can't really play one unless he's a Chaotic Good rebel, yearning to throw off the reputation of his evil kin.

That said, public service announcement: "child of a Dashite" is also an acceptable background.

I imagine the weakened batpony genetics probably plays a big part in what makes the echos so deadly, rather than it /only/ being because Blackjack has been through so much.

BJ has seen the Other Side multiple times, has dived into innumerable memories that belonged to other people, is apparently both blessed and chosen by the stars in some fashion, and is wearing Moonstone. I'm not ready to write off these "echoes" as safe for general consumption quite yet.

Poor Tenebra, sailing through the air, heh...  She was very cute here though.  I know there's a lot of factors involved, but I certainly wouldn't mind if Glory let Blackjack cuddle with her for a bit (or more).

I think Tenebra's just developing a little hero-worship crush. I'll bet nobody's ever taken a bullet for her before, much less someone who's visibly healthy and, well, not related.
Once you go Blackjack, you'll never go back, Jack!  

"If the Caesar won, or Luna won and became a tyrant, the possibility for atrocity were unimaginable." - This sounds a little awkward to me.  I want to say it should either be "possibilities" or "was"... but I'm probably wrong.

You're right, it should be "potential...was", not "possibility...were".

[SilentCarto]

If you're talking about 67, I'm not sure what you mean about the comments, but I've just tried downloading it as a .odt and didn't have a problem opening it.

Try using a .docx. OpenOffice should still be able to open it. I don't know if you'll see the same error, though -- OpenOffice probably has different error correction routines.

[SilentCarto]

Uh. Hmm. In my commentary on this chapter, I asked where the heck Goldie got a star soul.

What if it was there all along? The Star Dream showed two souls rising to the sun and moon. I had assumed that was Celestia and Luna all this time, but what if he's got the literal spirit of the Moon trapped inside Tom?

[O. Hinds]

You're right, it should be "potential...was", not "possibility...were".

Hm, that's better than what I had changed it to, I think; thanks.

Try using a .docx. OpenOffice should still be able to open it. I don't know if you'll see the same error, though -- OpenOffice probably has different error correction routines.

Hm. Still no error message or column of empty comments. The behavior of the doc appears to be nominal.

[Guest]

Eh, we've seen standard and Canterlot ghouls of every pony type, zebra ghouls, zebra Canterlot ghouls, dragon ghouls, dragon Canterlot ghouls, even a ghoul griffin. Both methods of ghoulification seem pretty universal.

But I wasn't arguing transformation. Each ghoul type could have slightly different abillities.

The way dying effects a batpony might grant them different abilities to an earthpony. Maybe feral earthpony ghouls are more dangerous because plant life tends to grow on their back and give them natural camoflague or something.

There's not an example of that happening in the story.

Still I was just saying that just because a batpony ghoul developed an ability doesn't mean a unicorn would or is even capable of it to begin with.

[Vinylshadow]

I wonder...if Canterlot Ghouls came about as a pony's body having slower/gradual exposure to the pink cloud and slowly building up a resistance to it

LittlePip and Goldenblood had minimal exposure to it, and in some cases being engulfed by it, but being healed quickly afterwords before it truly set into their bodies allowed them to build up a resistance to it

LP's exposure was mostly external though, whereas Goldenblood inhaled trace amounts of it into his body

[SilentCarto]

But I wasn't arguing transformation. Each ghoul type could have slightly different abillities.

The way dying effects a batpony might grant them different abilities to an earthpony. Maybe feral earthpony ghouls are more dangerous because plant life tends to grow on their back and give them natural camoflague or something.

There's not an example of that happening in the story.

Still I was just saying that just because a batpony ghoul developed an ability doesn't mean a unicorn would or is even capable of it to begin with.

Well... okay... but the specific example we're talking about is Sanguine, and we know plenty of other C. ghoul unicorns who don't leak Pink Cloud. On one hand you have Sanguine, and on the other you have the unicorn fillies from Celestia's school and about half the population of Stable City, including Twilight's mom. Sanguine and Puppy may indeed be different in some way, but I don't think the difference is in the base species.

I wonder...if Canterlot Ghouls came about as a pony's body having slower/gradual exposure to the pink cloud and slowly building up a resistance to it

LittlePip and Goldenblood had minimal exposure to it, and in some cases being engulfed by it, but being healed quickly afterwords before it truly set into their bodies allowed them to build up a resistance to it

LP's exposure was mostly external though, whereas Goldenblood inhaled trace amounts of it into his body

Well, nothing in Pip's experience even came close to ghoulifying her, despite flesh-melting waterborne exposure and being near death on a couple of occasions. My personal theory is that ghoulification is caused by brief but acute exposure to Pink, such as the ponies who took the full brunt of Canterlot's cloud but escaped into the MWT, or the residents of Zebratown, who were briefly immersed in Pink-saturated water before it flowed away. If that's so, Goldie's experience matches as exposure just short of full ghoulification, either in duration or intensity.

[Guest]

True enough, but for Lionheart specifically I think I was saying that whatever circumstances cause that ability if they were to happen in Lionheart they may never occur for GB.

Where as Sanguine is a better example because same species. Though he is one of the only examples of a pony that could do that. So I pretty much concede the point.

Though I'd like to say where you quoted me from earlier I was only sorta saying he should have that ability.

I was saying to Swicked that it wasn't really surprising he didn't see the canterlot ghoul thing coming. GB in my opinion didn't exhibit symptoms of a canterlot ghoul. He exhibited symptoms of someone who had been exposed to pink cloud.

Though you guys have convinced me that Pink cloud breath was not a symptom I should listed originally.

[Somber]

I like to think that Trueblood did some experimenting on his ghoulish state, making him exhale pink cloud.

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