Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Rayndalf]

If Blackjack is forced to accept the she can't save Glory it'd probably be worse that those 20 foals and stable 99, and Scoodle. Blackjacks just going to find a soggy mattress and bury her head in it or two and make a sad sandwich.
Somber's kinda like Oprah; "you get a soggy mattress, and you, and you, everyone gets soggy mattress"

I hope the Legate is sane enough to find 'value' in keeping Glory alive. He'll need her if he plans to fight Blackjack again. If hes really evil, he'll rig Glory with a bomb, then fight Blackjack, and when she wins, Glory asplodes. 

Tomorrow, they should all schedule a group therapy session at Happyhorn.

Alternatively what if by honoring her friend's wishes, and putting the World before them, Blackjack is finally able to exit the Happy Horn simulation she was in the whole time?

#HappyHornItsLikeInceptionExceptWorse


Completely missed they were all on the same ship. Anyone got a spacesuit?

Good point about the space center's defences.

Its like build-a-bear, the only iffy part is conscience transferal

[Rayndalf]

The Legate need Glory alive if he hopes to kill her in front of Blackjack. Glory might feel obligated to kill herself, to keep the Legate from using her as leverage.
 
Blackjack goes two ways from there either she finds the starmetal sword, and lets it control her and rampages him, or she leaves in search of a burned out, mattress store. It depends on how she breaks.

Edit: Better upvote your downvoted comment to preserve neutrality

[Rayndalf]

Blackjack has already "escaped" so to speak, the only reason she would return to the the space center, and not teleport somewhere else as the spacecraft neared ground after reentering the atomosphere would be if she thought Glory was alive. 
As far as we know Blackjack assumes Glory is dead, so if Glory survived, and is being held by the Legate, Glory would make an effort not to be used as leverage. Regardless of Glory condition, Blackjack must avoid the Legate, until either the starmetal sword or Folly are recovered.

The only way to win is not to play

[Vinylshadow]

Well, we all know if Blackjack breaks, she's screwed and so is the Wasteland and Horizons goes down in Fo:E history as the end of the world...

Plus it would undo everything Littlepip did to save the Wasteland from Red-Eye and the Goddess and then we have another 200 years where new generations of ponies grow up learning about the...

Language!:

But all we can do is wait and see what goes through Somber's head; and with losing Chapter 72 - especially if he was greatly through it - might cause him to be less than merciful to characters...

*cue scene of Somber in a dark basement surrounded by plushies of Horizons characters as he carves a ritual circle with their innards to resurrect his flash drive*

[O. Hinds]

No one seems to have mentioned the possibility that, in that situation, Blackjack might break in the other direction.

[Rayndalf]

No one seems to have mentioned the possibility that, in that situation, Blackjack might break in the other direction.

The one that's going to become a soggy-mattress sandwich?

[Silver136]

I hate to break the current discussion, but has the forum updated or somehing? It seems to have gone through some kind of format change on my phone and now everything is weird.

[SilentCarto]

With all the technology unlocked by Blackjack, you could effectively rebuild a pony from a soul, and a live brain.

Now there's an interesting thought! Build a new best friend out of the dead! All you really need is their soul and a sample of their genetic material.

I know you're being facetious, but souls don't carry memories and mental capacity. She'd be unable to understand speech, care for herself, or... anything. She wouldn't be Glory anymore. The live brain Rayndalf mentioned would be critical for resurrecting the original person rather than a new individual with a similar general disposition.

[Rayndalf]

How was Blackjack's consciousness transferred in the first place?
Wait... was it really transferred at all or is 'Blackjack' just a clone that thinks its Blackjack?

[Epsilon]

I hate to break the current discussion, but has the forum updated or somehing? It seems to have gone through some kind of format change on my phone and now everything is weird.

It looks the same on my phone as it always has, so that sounds like it's probably an issue on your end. What phone/browser is it? If things are displaying incorrectly, I'd try killing the process and then clearing the cache.

I know you're being facetious, but souls don't carry memories and mental capacity. She'd be unable to understand speech, care for herself, or... anything. She wouldn't be Glory anymore. The live brain Rayndalf mentioned would be critical for resurrecting the original person rather than a new individual with a similar general disposition.

True, they'd need her mind to be backed up on a Crusader or elsewhere. Though thinking back, wasn't Blackjack still conscious and aware while in soulspace after her soul was briefly rended by Snips' curse? I really need to re-read FoE and PH sometime...

How was Blackjack's consciousness transferred in the first place?
Wait... was it really transferred at all or is 'Blackjack' just a clone that thinks its Blackjack?

Cogs originally transferred Blackjack's mind into the supercomputer that she had previously occupied and had Snips put her soul into the blank's body. When Steel Rain destroyed the computer, it shunted Blackjack's mind and memories into Charm's brain (As she was also connected to the computer at the time) which Horse and Dawn then took and transferred back into the blank. So no, she's not a clone per se. Her current body was cloned, yes, but her mind and soul were just shuffled around quite a bit.

[Rayndalf]

I really ought to reread that chapter. Blackjack is still Blackjack, assuming consciousness can be transferred as data. If, however, consciousness doesn't transfer, it would merely create a new entity that is identical to the old one. 

I guess it is safe to assume the first option, as the pov shifts appropriately.
Its odd, because that means 'Blackjack' will pass on when Cogs dies, but Blackjack's memories will share a body with Luna's soul(?)
The souls inside of Rampage can manifest themselves... could the same happen to Cogs or Blackjack?
 
Assuming Consciousness is transferred with one's memories, does it take priority over one's soul? 
Is Blankjack Luna with Blackjack's memories or Blackjack with Luna's soul?

Blackjack's existence is almost as muddled if as Rampage's

I really need think twice before thinking about it. 

[O. Hinds]

The one that's going to become a soggy-mattress sandwich?

No, that's the one the conversation has been about, isn't it? I mean the one that started in Yellow River and lead to Happyhorn.

I hate to break the current discussion, but has the forum updated or somehing? It seems to have gone through some kind of format change on my phone and now everything is weird.

I don't see anything different.

I know you're being facetious, but souls don't carry memories and mental capacity. She'd be unable to understand speech, care for herself, or... anything. She wouldn't be Glory anymore. The live brain Rayndalf mentioned would be critical for resurrecting the original person rather than a new individual with a similar general disposition.

Hm. I don't think that that's how it works, and, while Somber's version of FoE souls differs from mine, as far as I can recall at the moment, this is an area where they agree. Still, I could be wrong.

[Rayndalf]

The one that's going to become a soggy-mattress sandwich?

No, that's the one the conversation has been about, isn't it?  I mean the one that started in Yellow River and lead to Happyhorn.

Those events to closely related chronologically, so it might be better to compare her rampage when Glory was branded, and her suicide attempts after 99. 
Once again shes a dying star, the only question is how shes going to break. Hopefully a new star will form in the debris, a smaller more sustainable one; what it lacks in raw power it makes up in longevity. 
Given what we've seen, some kind of existential mattress crisis is unavoidable. 

Sure she might try to just bury her feelings, but even then, she'll have to address them #Tomorrow (Granted she lives that long).

[Silver136]

The one that's going to become a soggy-mattress sandwich?

No, that's the one the conversation has been about, isn't it?  I mean the one that started in Yellow River and lead to Happyhorn.

I'm kind of behind that in a dark sadist kind of way. I wouldn't go "kill everyone" nuts (at least I hope not). But the whole second chances theme of PH up until now? It'd be interesting to see that disappear.

As for Glory, I'm with swicked. PH up till now has been one feel after the other, and now that it's endgame I'm expecting the feel train to be running full throttle. I still don't think she survived the bomb, but it would certainly be a huge kick in the gut if she's used as leverage. Especially if the legate was bluffing about the bomb.

[O. Hinds]

Bluffing about the bomb?

[SilentCarto]

How was Blackjack's consciousness transferred in the first place?
Wait... was it really transferred at all or is 'Blackjack' just a clone that thinks its Blackjack?

Her mind was transferred by the gold mesh cap that snaked out to her at the Tokomare. As for the other question... what's the difference, really? Her actual, factual soul is there -- transferred by Snips, and we saw what she was like without it -- so what would be different between a mind moved and a mind copied? Cogs is a copy of Luna, and she certainly thinks of herself as being as good as the original. For that matter, Celestia is explicitly a copy, too -- she copied her brain into the Crusader, leaving behind the original, which then died after she moved her soul.

True, they'd need her mind to be backed up on a Crusader or elsewhere. Though thinking back, wasn't Blackjack still conscious and aware while in soulspace after her soul was briefly rended by Snips' curse? I really need to re-read FoE and PH sometime...

Yes, and so were the soul wisps in the Core. It seems like free-floating souls retain some kind of mental imprint and some capacity for reason. But, on the other hoof, she wasn't able to retain any memories from soul-space, so it seems that souls lose that imprint when placed in a body. On the third hoof, Luna's soul apparently retained herself as a separate entity when placed in Cogs, since she was able to talk to BJ in Shadowland afterward... but on the fourth hoof, she's an alicorn with a specific connection to the shadow realm, so she might not be a good example of a standard-issue soul.

Its odd, because that means 'Blackjack' will pass on when Cogs dies, but Blackjack's memories will share a body with Luna's soul(?)
The souls inside of Rampage can manifest themselves... could the same happen to Cogs or Blackjack?

Assuming Consciousness is transferred with one's memories, does it take priority over one's soul?

In answer to both questions, we briefly saw what happens when the two are in conflict. When Cogs transferred BJ's mind out of the cyber-alicorn and put herself in it, she experienced a severe reaction because BJ's soul utterly rejected Cogs' amorality. However, when she implanted Luna's soul, they seemed at least... compatible, though the fact that Discord convinced her to put it there makes me suspicious that it's a curse in disguise. Point is, when mind and soul are close to one another like this, I'd assume they will gradually move into alignment -- either the soul will eventually corrupt enough to accept the mind's morals, or the mind will accept the soul's feelings of guilt and change its ways. Or they'll meet in the middle somewhere.

I suspect having a purer soul than you're used to would be something like Scotch Tape's fear of going underground -- you'd feel guilty about something, but it wouldn't be attached to the memory of any specific incident. So, uh, I guess it'd be something like clinical depression, actually... (Or, in the opposite case, the person would probably find themselves prone to unexplained impulses toward whatever the soul's proclivities were.)

Of course, people don't operate on just one axis. It would probably be equally difficult to have a foreign soul of similar moral attitude spliced into your body -- you'd probably find that the things that used to interest you had started to pale, and you would feel at peace doing something that previously didn't mean much to you. It would be intensely frustrating, I'm sure, to find that the skills you'd developed over a lifetime bored you but you were no good at the things that drew you.

Is Blankjack Luna with Blackjack's memories or Blackjack with Luna's soul?

Blankjack is Blackjack's mind and soul together. Cogjack is Cogs (née Luna)'s mind and Luna's soul together. At no point (that we know of) did BJ's mind and Luna's soul occupy the same body.

However, your questions are interesting because they require more definition and stray into philosophical territory. The answers depend on exactly what you think makes you "you"!

Is "you" your body? If you kept cutting off parts, which bit, or what percentage, would make you stop being you?
Is "you" your personality? If you started scrambling neural connections, when would you become a different person? Are you a different person if a drug is currently interfering with the normal function of your brain?
Is "you" a soul? That leads to new questions about defining what a soul is, how it works, what function it serves.

There's no right answer. A personality is an emergent behavior from a collection of imperfect conductors. A body is a mass of atoms, which form molecules, which form cells, each of which is individually expendable. There's no one neuron, no one atom that is the sine qua non of "you". So if you want to decide whether BJ is still herself, the first step is to figure out what consists of her "self". Only then can you determine whether she still has it!

[Silver136]

Bluffing about the bomb?

I like to consider every possible thing. Its not likely, but we know Amadi is intelligent. I don't think so, but it's possible he lied about the bomb.

[O. Hinds]

But what do you mean, lied about the bomb? Lied about it in what way?

[Silver136]

But what do you mean, lied about the bomb?  Lied about it in what way?

In that he didn't launch it. He wanted Blackjack to panic, think she was out of time. She rushes, something or someone screws up (I.e. Glory left behind and presumed dead), and then that thing bites Blackjack later. Like I said, I believe the bomb was very real and blew the place to glass, but it's an idea. Amadii is certainly intelligent enough.

[O. Hinds]

Hm.  You think that the detonation we saw might have actually been something else?

[Silver136]

Possibly flame from the rocket launch, some kind of illusion, or flame caught in the magical forcefield. I've been surprised by the turn of events in this story too many times to take things at face value anymore. 

[Shady]

Cheers, it was a selfie of my Blackjack cosplay from BUCK Con this year.

I don't think that's likely tbh, I mean Glory becoming disfigured is basically just role reversal between Blackjack and Glory at this point. Glory was there for Blackjack all the way from increasingly horrifying mutation to death to cybernetic augmentation (literally watching as her equinity was slowly stripped ever further away) and beyond, and likewise Blackjack was there for her in turn when she lost her wing, and literally became somepony else. I think ghoulification/disfigurement etc. would be just another rock on their road at this point.

Got trough the chapter and the topic here, most of the stuff has been said is been said now.
To be honest, the foreshadowing of Glory's sudden but inevitable (assumed)death. I was actually pleased that it kinda leaked out before the chapter, I remember the death of Steel Hooves to be quite sudden and dramatic. Had to read the part 3 times and do something else before my brain accepted the killingof of my favourite character.

[O. Hinds]

Possibly flame from the rocket launch, some kind of illusion, or flame caught in the magical forcefield. I've been surprised by the turn of events in this story too many times to take things at face value anymore. 

Ah. :D

[SilentCarto]

Hm.  You think that the detonation we saw might have actually been something else?

What, you mean the "sunrise from below"? I'd interpreted that as the rocket rising into the sunrise that hadn't reached the launch site yet, but I guess if that was the bomb going off it would match with the transmission cutting out...

Which pretty much means there's no way Glory survived that. Launch Control was right on the outer wall of the building, protected by a window thin enough that BJ thought about shooting it out. I mean, unless they managed some kind of miracle with the bulwark fields, but given that Glory was on camera until it cut off... yeah.

[JadedPony]

I hate to break the current discussion, but has the forum updated or somehing? It seems to have gone through some kind of format change on my phone and now everything is weird.

I know I'm way late on this, I've been traveling, but if you click the three box icon in the top corner of your web browser and select "Request Desktop site" the page should reload into a more usable version. That's the way I view it on my tablet.

[JadedPony]

Luna's soul into cogjack's body...

Into.. well, technically... Yes, I would say it is defiantly inside cogjack's body.

As to the bomb being fake and not killing her. Nope, sorry, she's dead. She's so dead that people in the highlands are probably sneezing her radioactive ashes right now.
Don't be sad though! Have faith! There is a way there can still be a happy ending. There can still be a tomorrow.

However, in the interim, I'm going to be calling her Morning Glowy the radioactive Pegasus ghost.

#TOMORROW!

[Rayndalf]

“...I’ll try,” Glory said quietly.  That set alarms off in my head.  More gunshots sounded, now from both my foreleg and a speaker in the capsule.  I spotted a terminal showing the control room.  Heaps of dust, dead zebras, and slain Brood littered the place.  Glory looked up from a terminal and smiled at the camera.  Almost instantly, a unicorn Brood teleported into the room.  Glory immediately whirled at the flash, the beams from her gun lancing out and biting deep into it.  Magic bullets slammed into her as her beams cut down the machine, the jacket absorbing many of the hits… but not all.  Her wings and haunches wept with dozens of wounds.

Dafuq?
Really didn't expect to see that... sounds like Blackjack can teleport to the control room to save Glory (and fight the legate).

[O. Hinds]

@Rayndalf:
Only if that indicated that the teleportation denial system was down entirely. As the Brood seen teleporting was a member of the faction controlling the system, though, I think it more likely that it used some sort of IFF exemption system that Blackjack doesn't have time to crack. Or they dropped the field just long enough for that teleport and then raised it again. And then there would be the question of whether Blackjack could teleport out and then teleport herself and Glory back to the rocket in time.
(And, of course, Blackjack didn't think of it, having gotten used to not being able to teleport here. Though I wonder if it'll occur to her when thinking back on it...)

[JadedPony]

Dafuq?
Really didn't expect to see that... sounds like Blackjack can teleport to the control room to save Glory (and fight the legate).

Lets not forget Blackjack doesn't exactly have the best record with teleporting while carrying passengers.

It would have been just heart crushingly cruel to have her jump in, see that look of hope and love on Glory's face, throw her arms around Glory then teleport out just in time to fall flat on her face inside the launching rocket because she didn't actually snag Glory with her spell properly. That would have been the most likely chain of events and I don't think Somber could have survived the extra trauma of writing that.

#TOMORROW!!

[Silver136]

I hate to break the current discussion, but has the forum updated or somehing? It seems to have gone through some kind of format change on my phone and now everything is weird.

I know I'm way late on this, I've been traveling, but if you click the three box icon in the top corner of your web browser and select "Request Desktop site" the page should reload into a more usable version. That's the way I view it on my tablet.

I use the desktop version by default. I fixed it though, just cleared all my old site data then told it to go back to desktop version.

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