Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Vinylshadow]

Cue series of one-off spin-offs that focus on other "What-if" moments...where something else happens that subsequently changes the entire story

[WavemasterRyx]

Rampage, Lacunae, and Boo are best almost-ponies.

[decumos]

Hello, people! What a warm and cosy discussion you've got here, I love it!

Also, Goldenblood is best pony.

[O. Hinds]

Welcome.

[DaWarWolf]

Rampage is best pony and awalys has been. Second goes to Scotch Tape.

[Vinylshadow]

*chokes back a snort* You're welcome to that opinion

[roaring hooting laughter can be heard in the distance]

[Somber]

Thank you so much for clearing that up, and wow Psalm you was actually the reason the world went to shit.

...kinda. There are a lot of "if only" moments in Project Horizons that Somber has elaborated upon over the years. A lot of characters who could have drastically changed the tide if they'd made the right choice... which was typically the opposite of whatever Goldenblood or Luna wanted.
That's what makes it a tragedy!

No.  Goldenblood and Luna screwed up too.

[Scienza]

Rampage is best pony and awalys has been. Second goes to Scotch Tape.

Finally, someone with good taste in psychopathic soul-spliced sorta-ponies.

[Vinylshadow]

Everyone in charge screwed up at one point or another

If they hadn't, Equestria wouldn't have been ruined

Little failures and faults build up and then eventually they all coalesce(?) into one giant "Whoops" and everything goes to hell in a breadbasket

[OneMoreDaySK]

The star orb is the night/evening before Big Mac goes to the battle of Shattered hoof right? So did they rekindle their relationship after Twilight was exposed as Maripony? Or am I completely wrong here?

Big Mac ended the relationship permanently after finding out Maripony was Twilight. He said something along the lines of "It wouldn't be right for a ministry mare to be associating with a grunt like me."

Then she goes on to have her kid get surrogated, gets mind wiped, and focuses on the GoE, from what I recall.

[Caoimhe]

Again, Glory is best pony because 99% of the time she gave Beejuz direction and a tangible goal. Plus she's adorbs. #teamglory >>>>:(

[Vinylshadow]

But terribly prone to mental breakdowns

[WavemasterRyx]

Welcome to the new ponies, I hope you enjoy your stay.

Again, Glory is best pony because 99% of the time she gave Beejuz direction and a tangible goal. Plus she's adorbs. #teamglory >>>>:(

A chapter ago I would have agreed with you.  Unfortunately, Glory has lost any claim to a place on my best pony list.  It makes me sad, but there's nothing that can be done about it.

[Guest]

Personally, if anything I like Glory more now. I was worried the issue of their relationship would be resolved by killing one or both of them. They could still both die, but I'm glad there was a resolution before that happened if it happens.

Curious to see if anything comes from Glory and Tenebra now, Tenebra is going to need a flier to look after her (She has flown right? Pshycoshy and that group flew off together after meatlocker I thought) because high altittudes and seizures don't mix. And she could use a medic to get her through said seizures.

[Vinylshadow]

Ah yes, Glorybra

[Meleagridis]

Wow, look at the new people. Hi new people!

A whole lot of 'almost pony' getting thrown around. Say, if souls in PH canon are essential to a person's personness, what would these 'almosts' be without a soul to cling to? I can't remember exactly, but Boo was more than a normal blank even before Discord, right? But she didn't have a soul without him? And what about Lacunae? If I understand correctly, she was piggy-backing off of Psalm's soul (or Unity, can't remember how it works) to become a proxy person. Without a soul, would she be any different than the Lacunae we knew?

Lacunae and Blackjack are my favorites~

I know, right? An existential crisis is always interesting, and the burden of knowledge is a topic I'm really interested in, and how the burden of guilt leading to an increased sense of responsibility really makes--

So I have a thing for Alicorns in skimpy outfits, bite me~

Oh. Nevermind.

The very story you're editing is pro-sleep. I assume. From that thing just after cyberization. Maybe I'm just looking at it with some heavy personal bias.
Anyways, sleep more blah blah blah.

Yeah, yeah... Where have you been, anyway?
You forgot to remind me about Talk Like Zecora Day!

Moved, lost internet, fell behind, behinder, had to learn to give up my "Read PH Comments Uninterrupted Since Chapter 1" trophy or I'd never catch up.
I caught the Zecora Day warning too late, right before midnight. I say we organize a Clousville specific make-up day for zebra rhyming.

[Vinylshadow]

Wow, look at the new people. Hi new people!

A whole lot of 'almost pony' getting thrown around. Say, if souls in PH canon are essential to a person's personness, what would these 'almosts' be without a soul to cling to? I can't remember exactly, but Boo was more than a normal blank even before Discord, right? But she didn't have a soul without him? And what about Lacunae? If I understand correctly, she was piggy-backing off of Psalm's soul (or Unity, can't remember how it works) to become a proxy person. Without a soul, would she be any different than the Lacunae we knew?

Lacunae and Blackjack are my favorites~

I know, right? An existential crisis is always interesting, and the burden of knowledge is a topic I'm really interested in, and how the burden of guilt leading to an increased sense of responsibility really makes--

So I have a thing for Alicorns in skimpy outfits, bite me~

Oh. Nevermind.

The clothing is just a bonus

[JadedPony]

Rampage can't be best pony because she is suicidal. She has possibly the coolest power known to ponykind, indestructibility and immortality. She could spend eternity making the world a better place, or writing, or painting, or everything and she is just throwing it away because she killed a couple kids. Look, those kids dying sucked, and she needs to address that issue, but trying to die instead of trying to bring hope to the world is such a waste. If she could see the good she could do with her power instead of seeing it as a curse, she would be happy for it but she's a freakin idiot. 

The entire Crusaders attack force needs to charge over a hillside and swarm her with hugs and forgiveness until she stops being stupid.

[SilentCarto]

A whole lot of 'almost pony' getting thrown around. Say, if souls in PH canon are essential to a person's personness, what would these 'almosts' be without a soul to cling to? I can't remember exactly, but Boo was more than a normal blank even before Discord, right? But she didn't have a soul without him?

That's correct. Boo was 'different' even without Discord riding along. That's not so bizarre -- Sanguine's speech about magical frequencies indicated that non-intelligent creatures lack souls, and Snips said that a ghoul that loses their soul becomes nothing more than an undead animal. In other words, being soulless does not mean a creature can't obey instinct or act independently. It does mean that Boo was effectively an animal when BJ first met her; whether she would have grown a soul eventually without Discord's influence can be debated, but his presence certainly jump-started her intellect.

And what about Lacunae? If I understand correctly, she was piggy-backing off of Psalm's soul (or Unity, can't remember how it works) to become a proxy person. Without a soul, would she be any different than the Lacunae we knew?

That gets into the realm of philosophy, but here's how I understand it: Lacunae was a personality, the sum total of a set of experiences. A soul is sort of like the canvas that the personality is painted on; its tone influences the final image, which is why Lacunae shared Psalm's general demeanor. It doesn't directly dictate actions, but it weights the dice, so to speak. It also provides the sense of self, given the example of BJ's experience when her mind was transferred to the clone without her soul.

Cognitum is what happens when you give an electronic version of that personality to a computer -- it thinks in roughly the same way that the original did, but it's an emulator running the personality. Without all the little biological inputs like hormones and autonomic functions, it's not quite the same, and over time, the "not quite the same" parts build up and the core personality changes. Moreover, lacking the "color" of the underlying soul to direct those changes, the copied personality tends toward a computer's cold, calculating demeanor. When Celestia tied her soul to the SPP, she negated that problem -- she's effectively her old self running on different hardware, now.

[Somber]

Jaded, I don't think you understand.  It's not that she killed a couple of kids by accident and that all she needs is therapy.  She killed her kids.  She wants to kill more kids and the longer she's alive, the more people she's going to kill.  If the entire Crusader attack for hugged her, she'd crush them all to death.  And she knows it.

[Vinylshadow]

So yeah, Rampage = Cool pony/zebra/whateverthe buck, but seriously messed up in the head

And apparently some people find that interesting

nothing wrong with that, but I'm not really into murder of small foals, thank you

I'll stick with my suicidal drunk mares and alicorns with mental problems trying to figure themselves out

Looking forward to Lacunae-Psalm Ex Machina

[JadedPony]

Jaded, I don't think you understand.  It's not that she killed a couple of kids by accident and that all she needs is therapy.  She killed her kids.  She wants to kill more kids and the longer she's alive, the more people she's going to kill.  If the entire Crusader attack for hugged her, she'd crush them all to death.  And she knows it.

Oh, I get it, she has the Mercy killer inside her head and if this was the real world, I would agree with you, but this is a land of magical ponies where faith drives back innervation, where friendship gives you sparkly hair and rainbow powers, and everypony has a first, best, destiny that they can live up to or suffer horribly while fighting it. 

To use the musical analogy, everypony is, in their soul, a note in a cosmic chorus. Rampage is just a microcosm of that same idea. Her chorus is out of harmony because she is consumed with self loathing and anger. In the pony universe, forgiveness, faith, love, all of these things can heal, literally. This is why friendship is magic. It's channeling the power of the emotions, the goodness, of a group of ponies into a harmonized, weaponized magic. In the ponyverse, love is energy, and self-loathing, or hate, is a form of negative energy, even without the elements to focus friendship, if you throw enough love at a pony, you can break them of their self-loathing. 

*Changeling shifts into Twilight Sparkle for a moment* 

You can think of it as the waveform of a negative charge being overwhelmed by a positive charge until the negative wave form is canceled and all that is left is the residual positive charge. You would then have to take the effort to build a new negative charge over time if you wanted to overcome the residual positive charge. All we need to do is build a sufficient positive charge to overwhelm the existing negative charge. 

*Changeling shifts into Dues* 
Then we can rape the cunt with love until she stops hating herself long enough to get help!

[Vinylshadow]

Blah blah blah, something about singing stars

[Vergil]

Looking forward to Lacunae-Psalm Ex Machina

Same.

Also, I've been meaning to say this for a while, but every time Lacunae/Psalm/OperativeBJ comes up either here or in the story this pops into my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfK91tJjpoM

(On a related note, every time Cognitum has ever come up I get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiLHKyLlg70)

[DaWarWolf]

I can see why Rampage might not be the best pony with her recent actions. They werent exaclty her best moments. I've awayls liked when ever the story focused on Rampage. They are my favorite moments and I cant really explain it. This is irrealvent anyways- I just lost my train of thought and completly forgot where I was going with this.
Oh well. "Brain fart"

(everpony is best pony)

[JadedPony]

Rampage can be a very sympathetic and caring character when she's in her right mind. Everyone likes those moments where her better qualities come out and she takes care of ponies. She's very much like the big sister we all, always wanted who did too many drugs and lived an interesting life so now they know how to help us with our own fuck-ups. 

That being said, they need to save the good parts of her with a love/faith/forgiveness nuke. 
Save the Rampage!

[Laperlazus]

Except this isn't the ponyverse, Jaded, this is Project Horizons.

Sure, there's some consistency with the world of MLP.

Except, well... it's Project Horizons.

[Zolaheuzis]

Yes but that does not change the fact that she has the Angel of death inside of her and no real way to get rid of her. Well except for dying which is damn near impossible. I love rampage, and just because she's suicidal doesn't mean she's unable to be best pony. That reasoning comes off as really ignorant.

[Meleagridis]

Rampage can be a very sympathetic and caring character when she's in her right mind. Everyone likes those moments where her better qualities come out and she takes care of ponies. She's very much like the big sister we all, always wanted who did too many drugs and lived an interesting life so now they know how to help us with our own fuck-ups. 

That being said, they need to save the good parts of her with a love/faith/forgiveness nuke. 
Save the Rampage!

Don't get me wrong-- I love Dr. Rampage. But one of my favourite moments was aboard the airship when she curb stomped BJ and reminded everyone that she was not a good guy. That she was a Reaper, playing nice for her friends, and that she was not just going to stand in line because BJ said to. Her fall from hero worship is one of the things I love most about her, and just another cherry on the sadness sundae that is Rampage. Found someone with strong enough morals that maybe they could inspire you to greater heights after a hundred some-odd years? Surprise! They betrayed what you believed were a shared set of unshakable morals, not once but several times!

And hell no a blast of love isn't going to 'fix' her. Because a blast of love can't fix capital D Depression, and if there is any recurring real-world issue that PH deserves a prize for representing it is Depression. The early chapters of PH teach you more about it than I ever learned in public schools. I love that this work tries so hard to shed a little light on mental illness where most every other book I've read treat it as just a tool to make side characters more interesting. Blackjack is the only main character I can think of that actually has Depression, not just 'the author stuffed my love interest in the fridge' sadness. It's inspiring.

If Rampage doesn't die at the end of this story, it's not going to be a magical cure-all that flips an unseen happy switch in her head. It's going to be something awful, something that hurts and only half works but it still the best hope a sufferer like her has seen in years. At least, that's my guess.

[Vinylshadow]

Unless Gardens of Equestria somehow 'fixes' her...

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