Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[SilentCarto]

I think that the AP rounds came first, and were used to punch through Big Mac's combat armor. They did reference him being shot with a bullet they developed, and Trottenheimer had been making various specialized ammo in the very early days of the way before AJ shut him down.

Can't be. Steel Ranger armor was prompted by Mac's death, and it was in use before the anti-machine bullet was invented. And, to quote Steelhooves,
“The biggest row Applejack had was over the anti-machine rifle. On one hoof, I couldn’t really blame them. You wouldn’t either if you saw some of the robots the zebras had begun to deploy on the battlefield. But I knew how bad that hurt her, and how deeply personal she took it. Only made it worse that she had family in Ironshod. Whole thing just about tore her apart… Damn thing was, the zebras came out with armor-piercing ammo a few months later anyways. Not as effective as an anti-machine rifle at taking down my fellow Rangers, but a well placed round from a rifle could punch through a Ranger’s helmet.”

Therefore, Mac was not killed by an enchanted armor-piercing bullet. Just ordinary kind.

...Excuse? By the ratios shown in the show itself, in every six ponies you have one stallion and five mares.

I'd like to note that, in real life, horse birth rates are a 50-50 split of male and female. In the wild, weaker males have a higher mortality rate for a variety of reasons, so the adult population has a heavy female tilt, but that wouldn't be the case in pony society.

I reject the notion that there's any female tilt in the general population. There is such a tendency in the show, but that's a bit like watching 300 and then concluding that there are roughly 300 men to every woman in Sparta. When we see ponies in social situations, such as the Canterlot parties, the female bias mysteriously vanishes. This is especially true in the later season, since the pilot and early episodes leaned pretty heavily on copy-pasted background characters.

[Sindri]

I reject the idea that there's any female tilt in the general population. There is such a tendency in the show, but that's a bit like watching 300 and then concluding that there are roughly 300 men to every woman in Sparta. When we see ponies in social situations, such as the Canterlot parties, the female bias mysteriously vanishes. This is especially true in the later season, since the pilot and early episodes leaned pretty heavily on copy-pasted background characters.

Look through crowd scenes. Iron Will's seminar, the Best Young Flier competition, the ponies running in the background when Discord attacks, Pinkie's spontaneous parade, every time anypony walks down the street... even the royal wedding. Regardless of setting or context, if you look at a random scattering of ponies there will be overwhelmingly more females. The even ratio at the Gala says more about the biases of the Canterlot elite than about the actual gender ratio; the guest list seems to have been specifically picked for an even balance that you don't see naturally anywhere.

Unless you can think of a reasonable explanation for why most males are absent from not only marketplaces, but also sporting events, Nightmare Night celebrations, panics at disease outbreaks, audiences of plays, cider sales, and classrooms without also being effectively removed from the breeding population.
Even if they were all inducted into the guard (which would only make sense on this scale if Equestria was in a state of total war but for some reason forbid mares from fighting and didn't have any resource shortages or manufacturing increases), or kidnapped for Molestia's private harem or something, they're still not interacting with the general populace.

I don't know what the birth ratio is, but the population is overwhelmingly female. That might be because more fillies are born, it might be because colts die off and are never spoken of, it might be because every stallion is taken away somewhere for unknown purposes, but the population is what it is. Unless you start with the assumption that everything we've seen is a lie, at which point you can make up anything you want.

[SilentCarto]

Look through crowd scenes. Iron Will's seminar, the Best Young Flier competition, the ponies running in the background when Discord attacks, Pinkie's spontaneous parade, every time anypony walks down the street... even the royal wedding. Regardless of setting or context, if you look at a random scattering of ponies there will be overwhelmingly more females. The even ratio at the Gala says more about the biases of the Canterlot elite than about the actual gender ratio; the guest list seems to have been specifically picked for an even balance that you don't see naturally anywhere.

And if you count frames in Star Wars, you can calculate that blaster bolts travel about 30 miles per hour in some scenes and hundreds of mph in others. At some point, you have to acknowledge that allowances are made for ease of creation and what looks good on screen.

The animators naturally have way more female models than male, so when they create random crowd scenes, they end up with more female models. Or do you also assume that there are twelve copies of Bonbon living in Ponyville alone? And that most ponies are facially identical except for their hair style and coloration? And that some ponies' cutie marks change from moment to moment? If we're gonna pick this show apart, let's get to work!

[Regolit]

Well, I only said that amount of FF is UNREALISTIC. And I perfectly sure what in FiM sex ratio is 50 to 50. Stallions simply not showed much. I not understand why no one else thinks like me.

[Sindri]

Yes. If you assume that everything we have seen is false, then my evidence disappears. Along with all other evidence for all other arguments. And the entire debate becomes meaningless because there is no longer anything to be debating about.

If they wanted more stallions, they could make them in literally seconds because of the models you mentioned. It's not a limitation of the medium, it's a clear choice on the part of the people making the show.

[CamoBadger]

Well, I only said that amount of FF is UNREALISTIC. And I perfectly sure what in FiM sex ratio is 50 to 50. Stallions simply not showed much. I not understand why no one else thinks like me.

I'm not so sure on that, considering in the show Ponyville seems to have only a few recurring males, and a huge number of mares.
(of course this may be balanced out if we anticipate that most stallions are in the Royal guard, as that seems to be where the largest numbers of stallions appear. And then this will lead to discussions of a large Equestrian military in anticipation of invasion [it ended oh so well with the Changelings XD] or perhaps in wait of war with the *pulled off stage for going so far off topic*)

[Sindri]

Well, I only said that amount of FF is UNREALISTIC. And I perfectly sure what in FiM sex ratio is 50 to 50. Stallions simply not showed much. I not understand why no one else thinks like me.

I'm not so sure on that, considering in the show Ponyville seems to have only a few recurring males, and a huge number of mares.
(of course this may be balanced out if we anticipate that most stallions are in the Royal guard, as that seems to be where the largest numbers of stallions appear. And then this will lead to discussions of a large Equestrian military in anticipation of invasion [it ended oh so well with the Changelings XD] or perhaps in wait of war with the *pulled off stage for going so far off topic*)

I thought about the Guard, but to see a 5:1 gender ratio from that, 40% of the population of the entire nation would have to be military. That says total war to me, and we haven't seen any sign of such a thing elsewhere; no rationing of resources, no heavy industrial production... even if they never spoke about it on-screen there would be signs.

And it doesn't explain the colts. If you look at the school in Ponyville, the population ratio is the same as the rest of the town. There are few enough of them total that it might not be statistically significant... and I suppose that they could be starting the training young... but then suddenly we shift from "idyllic utopian society with occasional monsters" to "police state in constant bloody warfare against an unknown enemy" and I think that's a bit too much to assume without a lot more evidence.

And don't worry, we never stay on one topic here.

So, who has move evidence that Equestria is in a state of total war during the time period depicted in the cartoon?

[Snipehamster]

Well, I only said that amount of FF is UNREALISTIC. And I perfectly sure what in FiM sex ratio is 50 to 50. Stallions simply not showed much. I not understand why no one else thinks like me.

I'm going to go out on a limb here. Are you Death Cloud, from the TV Tropes forum?

[CamoBadger]

I thought about the Guard, but to see a 5:1 gender ratio from that, 40% of the population of the entire nation would have to be military. That says total war to me, and we haven't seen any sign of such a thing elsewhere; no rationing of resources, no heavy industrial production... even if they never spoke about it on-screen there would be signs.

And it doesn't explain the colts. If you look at the school in Ponyville, the population ratio is the same as the rest of the town. There are few enough of them total that it might not be statistically significant... and I suppose that they could be starting the training young... but then suddenly we shift from "idyllic utopian society with occasional monsters" to "police state in constant bloody warfare against an unknown enemy" and I think that's a bit too much to assume without a lot more evidence.

And don't worry, we never stay on one topic here.

That is true, but now my mind is starting to think about other duties the guard may have to perform. They mentioned Tartarus and how it was guarded by Cerberus, but I personally think that unless they completely trust a dog that can apparently just run away when he gets bored, they'd have to have guards there. And from Twi's description about "ancient evil creatures" which would apparently destroy equestria if they escaped (not even 'try to' she just straight up said destroy), I'd anticipate quite the massive number of guards there to prevent such an event. (on that, if they could destroy equestria, does that mean they could defeat Celestia and Luna too? So would that mean Cerberus could defeat the Princesses if he's supposed to stop the ancient evils from escaping?).

But now I'm droning on about stuff we'll likely never see, so I'll drop this rediculousness (and think about it all day )

[Stringtheory]

But now I'm droning on about stuff we'll likely never see, so I'll drop this rediculousness (and think about it all day )

no that's called Wild Mass Guessing, and it is awesome, so why stop?

[WMG] Ponyville does have a siren, so they're prepared in case of a disaster, plus with the appearance of a radiation suit, we can assume that Equestria knows about/has nuclear weapons and is currently is in some kind of cold war/MAD situation with some other nation, or that the war hasn't reached Ponyville, or maybe this is all left over from some previous war? Humans maybe? because we all know that Equestria is the USA after humans get wiped out [/WMG]

[Sindri]

Okay, I'd but 10% of the population on monster suppression, maybe. But 40%? And none dedicated to the Everfree, or seen in the vicinity of Froggy Bottom Bog? Not to mention that the "heavy security" when Caterlot was directly threatened seemed to be in the dozens or maybe hundreds, instead of the tens of thousands they'd have if the standing army really was that big.

I mean, 40% of the population on military duty, full-time, that's like 40K Imperial Guard numbers.

[Kattlarv]

@Swicked: (Door) who says it's a conventional door? xP

@Ketchup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KetQoZwEFcA&feature=plcp and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQbLXF_ACI&feature=plcp (not my channel btw (or is it? dun-dun duuun), nah, actually I got her from my brother, whom made the videos, but now it's my gecko... mine... *hiss*)

@Ice: (Minding things) That's pretty much my attitude as well, to most things.

(TMI) Trust me, the "TMI" tmi, still gets put in spoilers xD

@Feather: (Door) Again; who says it was a "average, normal door"? Who says Twilight didn't have it pimped up? "Why yes, I will take a normal everyday door with a lock for my super secret/private study room!"
And just extra mention for Styg: You likely missed the whole debate but: There's been several mentions of why he is seen as selfish and whatnot. One of them being that he only though of his own needs during the sex.Yes, it could be brushed off as batponies being semi-stupid and not having any sex ed at all, so it's possibly he doesn't even know females can orgasm.

@Defender: In FoE, I was quite sure that somewhere, it was mentioned that AJ made the steel ranger thingies, and that Breaburn made anti steel ranger ammo, or was that... that other company? I am 95 % sure AJ shouted at someone for making anti ranger ammo, and that the zebras stole said ammo, or something. Despite it was mainly made to shoot their robots... even if the ranger armour was kind of the "test subject" for it.

@O.Hinds: (Psalm+O.I.A and whatnot) I have to say "Dude..." a bit to it, since really, they had tech that was waaay beyond even what both the top pony and zebra forces have. Kind of a level 10 D&D forgotten realms campaign, with one guy having level 20 gear, from both there and eberron.

(BM+AJ) Well, thanks for reminding me at least. I knew there was some something that made her upset.

(Door) See? I am useful for some random, weird things other don't think of xD

@Defender: *Gigglesnort* Rarity had a carpet... her friends "walked" on
On a more serious note, didn't she actually have a sort of "mirror" soul mirror?

@Jeremy: (Gay) Actually, it partially is, Somber goes hard on Kkat's "everyone in the mane six is straight, cept for Dash, she's bi when drunk" words. At times going a bit ooc or odd events to "prove" this, but eh. (Swicked) As for the CMC, they were in a blurry "grey field" if I recall. Only Sweetie had children, and that didn't even have to be with a stallion, technically, or I mean, she didn't even have to be straight to have them.

As for the whole "gay" thing in general. One male in FoE was gay, rest were straight, and majority of them didn't mind raping females. And two females were gay from what I recall, rest were straight, and goodie four shoes, mixed between "capable of killing" and "generic damsel" none of which would ever even consider raping as it's not something women can do, not even the raiders. Which totally makes sense in a wasteland where said raiders impales heads on sticks, tortures and eat other ponies. Since yes, they have to keep their dignity and gender stereotype regarding sex. (You all know my regular rant by now xD) some few bi's have popped up in PH, but I don't recall any in FoE, in which even the ghouls got laid in the end xP

@Ice: I did a calculation of that, if we went with our worlds "base instinct hard-wiring" you would at 10000 ponies (I think it was) have an exact balance between sub/dom males and females with a 65/35 % gender ratio. Anything above and you'd have more women, anything under and you'd have more men. This is ofc, just going with "hard wired sexual tendencies". If you now add up the wasteland to that... I'd link to this tribe somewhere in wherever run by women as an example, but I couldn't for the love of me remember what they were called. But basically, they got reversed gender roles there, and kind of the "don't be silly" mentality when hearing about the opposite.

@Random: (Kkat) I actually have to agree in that sense... since it's quite "female aimed" with about all of the violence. Only women get raped, Pip gets mentally and physically tormented, can't really recall any male getting "particularly hurt", worst I recall Calamity getting is shot in the wing and grounded for a few whiles. Plus, she did get a called shot in the cunt, which I both cringe at, and respect, since it's like, never mentioned in other stories or movies, just for males. And that hurts like fuck. (passed out once from it)

@Kipper:

Spoiler:

Drugs: Thanks. And I actually knew about that, I'm well educated in stuff you don't need to know xD Mead at least and some other alcohol, was rather "thick" with what was in it, it's why it was called "poor man's bread" since it contain enough nutrition to survive on it, and it was cheaper than bread. So yeah, it was mostly used as a supplement for water, since water was "bad" xP
Also: *yay* ;P

And actually, yes, I would very much need that. Can't get it as it is currently however.
And thanks to both of those :P

@Silent: (Styg) I agree that he is not manipulative, he lacks the intelligence for that xD At least from what I've seen so far, or the finesse. But yeah, he is eager to please himself, and has a odd chivalrous thing going on.

(Pinkie) I forgot, were both places in the same town or? And still, it pierced two shield, one of which was a full capacity, either really fortified wall or fortified window, saw x kilometres far, WITH x-ray, it was just a bit derped for me how overly high tech gear she got.

(Door) As said, why would it even have a lock? "This door can only be entered by me. - Haha! I locked your door by lockpicking it! - Well... fuck, there is no key. Ah well, I'll just teleport inside." bad explanation apart, thing is, why would she put in a door with a lock, when a lock is not needed? She'd just take a normal door, without a lock. It's like making a levitating platform, with wheels or something. Assuming her magic barrier she made could withstand bugger all breach attempts, otherwise a weak normal door would make even less sense.

(BM) I can agree to Twist not seeing about anything, still don't recall where they were standing though. Ah well.

(Gay) Ah yeah, thanks for reminding me of Calamity's brother.

@Sindri: (BM) Neat, it turns out I didn't remember that all wrong as it seemed :3

(Frequent complain) Hey, I am proud over my frequent complain about that, it has backed up logical evidence... and stuff xD

@Everypony: (Sex ratio) Just to pull the non-serious joke again: The stallion are at home, in the kitchen, where they should be xP

[CamoBadger]

But now I'm droning on about stuff we'll likely never see, so I'll drop this rediculousness (and think about it all day )

no that's called Wild Mass Guessing, and it is awesome, so why stop?

[WMG] Ponyville does have a siren, so they're prepared in case of a disaster, plus with the appearance of a radiation suit, we can assume that Equestria knows about/has nuclear weapons and is currently is in some kind of cold war/MAD situation with some other nation, or that the war hasn't reached Ponyville, or maybe this is all left over from some previous war? Humans maybe? because we all know that Equestria is the USA after humans get wiped out [/WMG]

I had forgotten about the suits actually, and how freaked out I was to see them...
Because there really is no reason for them to have such a thing unless there are/were nuclear/biological/chemical threats to Equestria (I realize it was probably just for a joke, but because we are a fandom we must analyze everything way too much, and I enjoy that a lot). And that siren is also a bit disturbing, but in a place which is under threat from giant monsters it makes sense to me.

Okay, I'd but 10% of the population on monster suppression, maybe. But 40%? And none dedicated to the Everfree, or seen in the vicinity of Froggy Bottom Bog? Not to mention that the "heavy security" when Caterlot was directly threatened seemed to be in the dozens or maybe hundreds, instead of the tens of thousands they'd have if the standing army really was that big.

I mean, 40% of the population on military duty, full-time, that's like 40K Imperial Guard numbers.

Okay, I might have been exaggerating that a bit, but they would need at least some percentage to fight back the ridiculous monsters (it's almost like ponies are the bottom of the food chain in Equestria...) that we've seen and haven't seen. And I find that a bit distressing too. Build a town right next to a forest with giant creatures who can destroy the town and eat a pony in one bite, but provide it no protection aside from a siren to freak them all out? And I would say "magical barriers", but that's sad if they could be broken by 1 ursa minor. I can only imagine that's why they tell ponies not to go into the Everfree and presumably Froggy Bottom Bog, "if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone" and all that jazz they used to tell you when you were a kid.


Also, completely random and so far off topic it hurts, but I found this pretty cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMqz_vc22_g&feature=autoplay&list=PL7AFD4069CFDA3F33&playnext=6&shuffle=630950

[Ketchup]

@Ketchup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KetQoZwEFcA&feature=plcp and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQbLXF_ACI&feature=plcp (not my channel btw (or is it? dun-dun duuun), nah, actually I got her from my brother, whom made the videos, but now it's my gecko... mine... *hiss*)

Heh, small reptiles are funny.

@Everypony: (Sex ratio) Just to pull the non-serious joke again: The stallion are at home, in the kitchen, where they should be xP

This is possible. Why not?
Or they may ALL be working away from home./stereotype/

[Derpmind]

I don't think that the ratio of mares to stallions seen in the show was much of a solid "This is how it's going to be" decision; instead, a bunch of stuff like the repetition of background characters, the fact it's a girl's show, small decisions to use X amount of females in one scene causing subsequent scenes and episodes to have to use that amount again, and in general a lack of importance for that detail in regards to the actual episodes of the show snowballed together to create the ratio we see in season two. IMO there's more fun in headcannoning and examining possibilities than trying to squeeze concrete facts from the maleable taffy of the show.

[SilentCarto]

If they wanted more stallions, they could make them in literally seconds because of the models you mentioned. It's not a limitation of the medium, it's a clear choice on the part of the people making the show.

Do you believe that they deliberately made an effort to depict the population of Equestria is 80% mares, then? Because I believe it's just laziness -- all the mare models are in the same folder, and it's easier to open that one and pull out fifteen mares than to do seven or eight, switch to the stallions folder, and grab an equal number of them.

[Stringtheory]

Also, completely random and so far off topic it hurts, but I found this pretty cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMqz_vc22_g&feature=autoplay&list=PL7AFD4069CFDA3F33&playnext=6&shuffle=630950

seen it already, but it is awesome, it brings up a valid point of why do some crossovers work really well (like FO:E, and now Bioshock with Harmony), while I have yet to see a really good 40k crossover (though I have yet to read Archives of the Friendquisition), and I haven't seen a Song of Ice and Fire crossover yet either, I guess it really depends on the skill of the writer

plus both Fallout and Bioshock are video games, I wonder why they work so well...

[Sindri]

Your gecko is adorable.

(door) My guess would be that somepony, when designing the building, decided that "this is the door for the private office of a Ministry Mare; it should have a good lock." Then Twilight arrived, saw this, and said "mechanical lock? screw that, imma magic it." And so the door was magicked, but physically identical to a normal secure locked door because she wasn't going to waste time getting somepony to come and replace her door with one that didn't have a lock just because she wasn't going to use it.

(Styggie) I don't think that you can use the sex as evidence of Stygius being self-centered or greedy. No matter how well-meaning they are, it'd be unlikely that a virgin could make a mare come through penetration alone on their first try. I admit to a lack of experience, but as I understand it it would take skill and experience that he just couldn't have at that point. He managed it on the third try, which is better than a lot of men IRL. The selfish ones are those who continue to have sex and just don't bother to learn, not those who have never had the opportunity.

(sexual dominance ratios) Those are largely culturally influenced; it's about 65%/35% here and now, but in various cultures it's varied from 90%/10% or more to even, or skewed the other direction. In Equestria you have a matriarchal society, legal and social equality for centuries at least (to our decades), and if nothing else a gender ratio that would leave a lot of sub/sub pairings by those numbers.

And I'm well aware that those complaints are valid; I was using them as additional evidence, not trying to refute them.

...I should not have laughed at that.

[Icy Shake]

(Styggie) I don't think that you can use the sex as evidence of Stygius being self-centered or greedy. No matter how well-meaning they are, it'd be unlikely that a virgin could make a mare come through penetration alone on their first try. I admit to a lack of experience, but as I understand it it would take skill and experience that he just couldn't have at that point. He managed it on the third try, which is better than a lot of men IRL.

I'm in agreement here. I'm also inclined to say that this should be regarded as something of a team effort. Blackjack, at best, stacked the deck against him by entering the encounter with the primary goal of getting through it without lashing out at him violently. Add to this the fact that she's normally a doormat in bed, so he's not likely getting much useful feedback or direction, and it's a real surprise she got there on the third try.

TL;DR version: you get out of it what you put in, and BJ wasn't putting much effort into getting off, but into getting through.

YMMV.

[Sindri]

Do you believe that they deliberately made an effort to depict the population of Equestria is 80% mares, then? Because I believe it's just laziness -- all the mare models are in the same folder, and it's easier to open that one and pull out fifteen mares than to do seven or eight, switch to the stallions folder, and grab an equal number of them.

It is possible that they chose to make the population 80% female because it was easier. Or because it's a show aimed at little girls. Or because they're cuter. Or for hundreds of other little reasons. The point is that they chose to make the population 80+% female. If they wanted to portray a gender-balanced society, it would not require additional effort on their part; with the time taken to position, animate, etc. each background pony, opening a different folder is irrelevent.

The medium does not dictate that the ponies must be female or make it significantly easier to make female ponies, the gender ratio has never been used as a joke, and the presence of males as a minority means that there is nothing preventing them from being shown. The remaining options are that everything we see is a lie, or the creators of the show have chosen to portray a mostly female population, for whatever reason.

[Rafafidi]

I guess the male/female ratio talk won't go anywhere, so instead I'll say something totally of topic:
Eventually, Blackjack will find and remove everypony from the EC1101 list and will be the last in the line of sucession, finally able to gain full access to PH. But for some reason, she won't be able to activate the process by normal ways. That way, the only remaining way to activate PH will be finishing Psalm's job, killing herself.
I can totally see Somber writing that T.T

[SilentCarto]

@Swicked: (Door) who says it's a conventional door? xP

@Feather: (Door) Again; who says it was a "average, normal door"? Who says Twilight didn't have it pimped up? "Why yes, I will take a normal everyday door with a lock for my super secret/private study room!"

Somber does.
Everypony was gathered before two large doors. They were of sturdy light wood and beset with amethysts.
Sounds like ordinary doors to me, with the added equipment for its magical lock tacked on.

Also, interesting note... she closed her eyes before trying the door, so if the amethysts sparkled when she touched the handle like the one on Twilight's office did, she couldn't have seen it.

(Door) As said, why would it even have a lock? "This door can only be entered by me. - Haha! I locked your door by lockpicking it! - Well... fuck, there is no key. Ah well, I'll just teleport inside." bad explanation apart, thing is, why would she put in a door with a lock, when a lock is not needed? She'd just take a normal door, without a lock. It's like making a levitating platform, with wheels or something. Assuming her magic barrier she made could withstand bugger all breach attempts, otherwise a weak normal door would make even less sense.

Because when you're building a skyscraper, you don't manufacture every door individually. You buy 1200 identical standard doors with all the holes pre-drilled, and 1200 identical standard locks and latches. If you didn't put a lock in the door, it would just have a gaping hole in it that would kind of obviate the point of having a door in the first place.
You're assuming that this room was always what it is now, as if Twilight wrote "Super Secure Lab" on the blueprint rather than deciding at some point, "We need a new super-secure lab for the Flux cleanup project. Empty out the storage room on the 124th floor and I'll slap some extra security on the door."

(Pinkie) I forgot, were both places in the same town or? And still, it pierced two shield, one of which was a full capacity, either really fortified wall or fortified window, saw x kilometres far, WITH x-ray, it was just a bit derped for me how overly high tech gear she got.

Yes, the MoM hub (above Hoofbeats) is in the same city as the MAS hub (Tenpony Tower). They're not all that far apart.
And shields don't block outbound attacks -- otherwise Lacunae couldn't shoot out of her bubble. The Alicorn Behemoth was a special case, in that its shield was so powerful it had to open a hole to fire out.

[Sindri]

Does anyone hear read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

It's on my list. I'm afraid I've only finished the original, this, Pink Eyes, and Wings. I'm part way through Heroes, along with a few (dozen) non-FoE materials.

[Derpmind]

Does anyone here read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

Yeah, MNS's premise is really dark, (a slave tries to escape Red Eye's rule in Filydelphia) and the story goes even darker. I'm not sure that I would quantify PH as hard, it's more hardcore, but nightmare is an accurate description. I'd definitely recommend giving MNS a try to everyone here, since if you can handle PH than you can handle MNS, but it's definitely not a happy story.

[Aonee]

Does anyone here read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

Yeah, MNS's premise is really dark, (a slave tries to escape Red Eye's rule in Filydelphia) and the story goes even darker. I'm not sure that I would quantify PH as hard, it's more hardcore, but nightmare is an accurate description. I'd definitely recommend giving MNS a try to everyone here, since if you can handle PH than you can handle MNS, but it's definitely not a happy story.

Aye, it is a great story. It's been dark so far, but, there's Glimmer. You can't quite knock on Glimmer.

[RoboRed]

Does anyone hear read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

I would take murky over pink eyes any day.
This story is somber level.

Okay...if I don't get around to starting MNS by the end of this week, I give all of you permission to kick me in the balls. Because it's been on my list for quite some time.

[CamoBadger]

Does anyone hear read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

I freakin' love Murky, probably my favorite of the FO:E stories I've read (no offense to Somber and PH). I'm only on Ch4 (and really need to catch up), but I love the characters so much, and the story makes me want more after every chapter (too bad I fell off after going 2 weeks without internet and then being worried that reading it will get me out of the mindset for my own story).

Spoiler:

[Snipehamster]

Does anyone hear read murky number seven? I think I'm going crazy from how much I love this story, and I've only read two chapters so far.
If FoR is played on normal and PH is on hard, MNS is on freaking nightmare.

Seconded hard. MN7 is a fantastic story that deserves a lot more attention than it gets.

[CamoBadger]

I would take murky over pink eyes any day.
This story is somber level.

I'd agree. I enjoyed Pink Eyes, but honestly I love the darkness of Murky. Sure, Pink Eyes had me a bit emotional at some points ("Mom, I can't remember Daddy's colors"), but it lacked the suspense of Murky since you kinda knew what was going to happen at the end of Puppy's travels.

[Paper Airplane]

I still don't like Stygius though. I don't see what anypony sees in him, he's pretty manipulative, selfish, and just not very smart. Yet he's instantly loved by anypony who sees him.

I don't see it. Manipulative? "Hey, you're hot and I would really like to have sex with you. Oh, you think I'm attractive but you aren't ready for that? That's fine too, I'll just help you out with whatever you're up to and see what happens." He's been nothing but straightforward. Is it possible to manipulate by telling the unvarnished truth?

Selfish, I can see an argument for, but honestly he never struck me as particularly self-centered, so it's no worse than "I'm helping you do what you want to do in hopes that you'll do what I want to do." He's not trying to kick off a relationship here. She's just sexy.

And I have yet to see any evidence that he's stupid, other than the "stupid teenager hormones" kind of dumb. If anything he seems simply inexperienced. In many ways, Stygius is like a stable-dweller who is entering the wasteland for the first time. The caves clearly have more contact with the outside than a sealed vault, so he has a better awareness of what's out there than an ignorant vaultie, but they're also very much cut off and protected there, so he's really experiencing the wasteland for the first time himself.

I think if he wasn't selfish, he would have backed off after Blackjack said she was recently raped, and she had a girlfriend. He doesn't seem to care that much about her well being. He's more concerned with his own pleasure.

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