Re: Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

[Fuzzy]

I just had a physio appointment today, checking out my neck and spine, oddly. I'm sure they have some nervous system reasoning behind it. More exercises, to come off my medicine soon and then the real thing will matter...whether it's fixed once the painkillers wear off...

So we'll see. Here's hoping! Thanks for asking. :)

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

i suppose they want for you to continue with the exercises even after you're set for normalcy, you know for preventative measure...

[Fuzzy]

Absolutely, and I'm happy to do so. The sooner I can write, the better I'll feel.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

its like you have these ideas that are pouring from you and you must put them down on paper or something so you don't forget them, how many ideas have been lost already!?

[O. Hinds]

I haven't seen any other names for it, other than "inevitable" if you ask some people. :p

Why do I feel some of your other ships mentioned last night are beginning to get thought of in your mind for names too now, hmm? ;)

It's odd, but ship naming seems to be an exception to my general nature of being bad at naming things.

So... since you've challenged me, let's see (though I may not remember all of the ones mentioned last night)...
Blackjack/Glimmerlight: Blacklight
Blackjack/Murky: Murkyjack
P-21/Murky: Murky Number 21 (MN21 for short)
Glory/Murky: Murky Morning
Lacunae/Master Chief (Yeah... it was a bit of an odd conversation...): ...I don't know. Halo is a foreign fandom to me. Goddess Chief?
Lancer/Murky: ...Sneakshipping? I don't know. It's a pretty ridiculous crack, anyway.
Blackjack/Lighthooves: Blackhooves

Those are the only ones I at the moment remember us mentioning that didn't already have names.

[Doctor Whooves]

I don't know, 'Inevitable' sounds good to me. See also: Obvious, Blatant, Cute and Delicious.

[hawkeye92]

I had a whole page of text written out then my browser derped as I was finishing up so I lost it all. Curses.




First off, hello! I've been lurking on the PH thread for a while but I didn't look at Murky Number seven until last week. Since then I've been reading it in pretty much any spare time I've had and I'm nearly caught up.
It's absolutely amazing. There's so many good points I couldn't possibly hope to point them all out but in a very brief summary I have to say the world-building is nothing short of excellent. Although it never leaves Fillydelphia there's a real depth and richness to the environment and it's denizens.

The world is also particularly grim and bleak even by the wasteland's standards and it comes across well. But there is the occasional piece of humour (often from Murky's sketchbook or Glimmer) which does help lighten the mood a little.

Also I haven't noticed any real laggy parts where everything slows down a little too much or starts to fall down, something which is the constant plague of stories with chapters of this kind of length (something which was notorious with the original especially towards the end).

The main protagonist is great as well. Murky is about as far from your typical FoE hero as you can get, which is refreshing. It also makes threats much more real and significant where other heroes would simply laugh it off in some cases. But, even the weak, indoctrinated slave that he is, Murky can still pluck up the courage to be monumentally heroic. I'm glad as the story progressed he hasn't become much stronger than he used to be- the fact that this is more about internal conflict than external really helps his character.

The characters in the spotlight are all nicely rounded with strengths, weaknesses and flaws (Brim and Glim particularly worth noting there). Similarly, the antagonists are well thought out and three dimensional, especially Wicked Slit and Protégé. The only character which seems more two dimensional is the Master, Chainlink Shackles. Fortunately, this isn't such a bad thing since he is genuinely one of the most genuinely terrifying people that I've come across in the written word. With each chapter he gets more devious, manipulative and evil. Matched against a more traditional FoE hero or indeed any competent fighting force (remembering the hatred of pegasi for killing lots of his fellow slavers- I wouldn't be surprised if he personally had to turn tail and run from an Enclave scout at some point in the past), he would probably be killed off fairly easily, but in Fillydeplpia where cruelty is a part of life and there are lots of easy pickings of weaker ponies he really has his chance to shine. And shine he does, the evil bastard.
I know it's implied that the Master is Murky's son, so it certainly says something about Shackles' character to want to single out his own son for cruel and unusual torture (whether or not it's an outlet for inward loathing at carrying the genes for his most hated of races or serious parent issues himself is probably looking at it too deeply). His speech being made in bold also adds to his sheer presence on the page which just adds to his overall being a really awesome bad guy. I really hope we don't come to pity him like the bad guys in other FoE stories.
Being two dimensional isn't always bad.

I haven't caught up yet and I was going to wait until I had before posting this, but I read the second half of Sixty Minutes in Hell over lunch and all I can say is Gods almighty. That was some of, if not the most nerve shredding reading I've ever had the pleasure of coming across and has firmly cemented this story in my 'best writing of all time' list. It got to the point that I realised my hands were shaking and my breathing had gone haywire and didn't stop until the end of the chapter. The tension just kept going up and up and up!
There is only one issue in an otherwise absolutely perfect piece, which is the formatting of 'the game' and use of bold within. Bold font, especially on a computer, tends to draw the eye or at least be noticed as soon as it appears. Because 'click' and 'BANG' are effectively their own paragraphs there was a real danger of realising the result of a round before t was read. Luckily I was reading it on GDocs on my phone and so I only had Caduceus' death spoiled by a few lines, but I did cover the bottom half of the screen and force myself to read line by line afterwards. I think if I were reading it on a full sized monitor the tension would have been pulled down a little which would be a shame. Unfortunately I have no idea how else it could be written without losing some of its visceral brutality.

Reading through the Google Docs version I did notice a couple of spelling/immersion issues which I noted down where I saw them. Nothing has jumped out at me for the last couple of chapters though.

Chapter 4- 'Other things to,' - 'Other things too,'

Chapter 9- 'Sooty Morass' is named 'Sooth Morass' at one point.

Hands. There are hands everywhere, which sometimes breaks the immersion. Normally it's not an issue for stuff like handy or left hand side etc. (though the latter you could probably lose the hand), but there are a couple of points where it really jumps out, like 'hand written birthday card', and 'came out empty handed' all in chapter 5. It kinda breaks the immersion a bit since they don't have hands.

There's also a lot of handing things over sprinkled in as well but I only realise through ctrl f so it's not really an issue. I guess you could knock out every instance of the word hand with clever wording but it would be a lot of hassle for little gain. With things like handing over, changing to hoofing over sounds quite forced.

So, in short, this story is pretty damned awesome- I'm going to carry on reading and finish the last few chapters off.

[O. Hinds]

There is only one issue in an otherwise absolutely perfect piece, which is the formatting of 'the game' and use of bold within. Bold font, especially on a computer, tends to draw the eye or at least be noticed as soon as it appears. Because 'click' and 'BANG' are effectively their own paragraphs there was a real danger of realising the result of a round before t was read. Luckily I was reading it on GDocs on my phone and so I only had Caduceus' death spoiled by a few lines, but I did cover the bottom half of the screen and force myself to read line by line afterwards. I think if I were reading it on a full sized monitor the tension would have been pulled down a little which would be a shame. Unfortunately I have no idea how else it could be written without losing some of its visceral brutality.

I often keep the active paragraph at the bottom of my screen, read it, scroll the next paragraph into view, repeat. It works for everything past the first page or so.

[Fuzzy]

Hawkeye92 - Thanks so much for that amount of feedback! Especially the typo corrections and "hand" denotions. I'll get on them tomorrow to correct on both GDocs and FimFic. So much thanks for spotting them!

Really so happy you're enjoying it, I often worry I'll never be able to top "Six Shooter Surprise" in terms of tension ever again. But then I often wonder if I even should or if it'd just seem to be deliberately trying to top it. My plans more try to focus on other emotions and let Six Shooter shine as the top "tense" moment of the story as a complete whole. Other emotions still have chances to come! The response to Chapter 12 was amazing, I feel so happy for taking the extra time on it.

But when you say "two dimensional isn't always bad" I agree so much! That was a defining trait of the Master, I felt that people would really appreciate a badguy you could just love to really hate. To tak satisfaction or frustration from his failures or successes against the heroes. Writing Glim and Brim has been a real ride too. Awesome that you like em. :)

With the bolded BLAM, I kinda wrote myself into a corner with that one. Protégé's revolver was already pretty written in that it was a bolded BLAM sound if done. So I tried all I could to distract from it, hide it and position it away from paragraphs that many could read line by line or paragraph by paragraph. It's tough to do those things and I kinda wish I hadn't set that precident now. But it happened, so I had to roll with it. :p

Again, thanks so much for such a big post of feedback, mightily appreciated and it makes me want to recover and get told by the medical teams I can use my wrist to write again. (It's getting better, I mean look at this post)

OHinds - That's how I read too. :)

Swicked - You would laugh at that, but then I admit I rather enjoy your thoughts on the story, they are often pretty unique and insightful in differing ways from many people! It makes me laugh to know it made you laugh too, even if it's in a way that's almost a bit daft. xD

[hawkeye92]

All right, nicely caught up now. It's still kept up nicely. I liked the return of 'the mare' however briefly. I thought there was something up with Unity's name, figured it had something to do with the goddess but the penny didn't drop until the end. It's a pretty tragic end to her tale if that's the last we see of her.

Life with the Master is just as brutal as I thought it had be- the irradiated slave collar and psycological blow of the journal is heartbreaking. At least he has his family back. I did think that it was going to be all over after the fight with glimmer.

I like the small nods to the past sprinkled in with the pipbuck recordings and the things lying around- especially the message from Pinkie.
One thing I did think that felt off was the way Murky was finally captured. Lifted pretty much straight from the season two ending, I don't know, it felt kinda forced. The other big lift from the show, find a gun, worked because it was meant to be lighthearted and cheesy. But with such an important piece- pretty much the beginning of the end of hope- I don't think it worked as well as it could have been.

It's a small nitpick though, it's not a major thing.

WARNING! Wild speculation ahead!

Spoiler:

[Fuzzy]

Big review! I'll repond with as usual! Thanks so much. As the norm, I'm not "disagreeing", I'm just offering my side and always always thinking on what is said.

Spoiler:

Phew...that was a long review! I gotta admit I absolutely adore and look forward to your portrait based reviews, but I can totally understand that you don't have the time to do them. They must take so much time!

All the same, I highly value your feedback, I have no objections to you going with a shorter format if that aids you. Thanks so much for the effort all this time.

...still won't do 15.5 though, I'm afraid. Sorry. :p

I'm...loathe to say it because I know what your mind would be like if "set up" but Chapter 16 is very easily the darkest chapter in the entire story. A lot of Shackles' intentions are to break Murky...and Chapter 16 is where he really makes a move now that he's built Murky in and locked him down. There's something to be said for how many times Shackles 'loses' him as you said...the question is whether he genuinelly cares or even if he intends for Murky to think he can keep escaping.

Chapter 16 will answer a lot of that. The moment I'm recovered, I'll be on it. You can see how much I've typed here and I feel fine so...we're almost there, medically. So so close to writing again now.

Again, thank you!

[O. Hinds]

Kim is one of the Project Horizons commenters... and yeah, she makes stuff like that. Not clop fics, but definitely of a certain style of content...

Oh, she's written clop. Some of it's on FIMFiction. They're about what you'd expect...

[Fuzzy]

Yeah I see what you mean about Shackles, swicked. I guess I just decided to go with the slightly more over the top 'abstract' side of it for a bit more drama. I think no-one would disagree I have a penchant for the 'dramatic' when writing. ^^;

Still, as I said, I am looking over the thing as a whole. In general my personal answer inside my own head is that outside of Murky, he's a lot more practical and logical with his work. Murky's just the special case and I don't imagine even Grindstone goes away from a scene without a shake of his head about how Shackles has really lost it after so many years. :p

@ Hawkeye92

I am so sorry I missed your post to respond before! But thanks so much for reading through! The Chapter 14 end wasn't actually originally to be the Canterlot Wedding style 'part 1 end' but the more I looked on how the scene was going, the more it just felt natural what with their connection. I think it's always a weigh up of 'Oh it's THIS scene' vs 'Oooh, history repeats itself...' every time I do something like that (which I try and keep low).

Thanks so much for commenting on theories and stuff. As ever I never even touch whether people are right or wrong regardless of what they said I can't say too much, but I love seeing theories and stuff. Helps me know what I'm angling people at or away from! Hope to hear more from you once I'm back in the game when my wrist is healed. (We've had a setback today when a nerve pinged badly...but it's healing quicker than last time.)

[O. Hinds]

(reposted from the PHCC chat thread)

Harmony Ltd.'s analysis and comments:

Red Eye analysis

Something occurred to me last night: what if the mass loss of life was eventually incorporated into the plan? At the beginning it was probably just "Yes, this is unsustainable, but it's a stopgap." As time went on, though, the difficulty of fully civilizing the slavers in his workforce would become apparent, leading to the working in of the unsustainability. The slavers, after all, would resist reforms much less if they had no other options due to a scarcity of slaves; while there'd be some idiot holdouts, most would eventually come to recognize that they weren't getting any new ones and had better take care of the ones they have. The depletion also has the advantage of clearing the way for the more "civilized" ponies of the future; once the reforms are in, Red Eye's foals have started assuming positions of power, and Red Eye himself has ascended to godhood and gained a personal army of alicorns to keep the remaining subversive elements of the population in line, expansion of his ponies into the rest of Equestria can be for the most part free of guilt and "moral soiling". Sure, it's terrible what the previous generation did to the people who used to live here, but, well, that's not our fault, is it? And we might as well take advantage of the land that that freed up...

The GPE might be a problem in this plan, though; depending on how the war with them went (assuming that there would eventually have been a war and that it wouldn't be a total loss, since a total loss would be failure of the plan anyway), the slavers might be able to take large numbers of pegasi, delaying the reforms becoming obviously and immediately necessary. A negotiated peace might actually be better for Red Eye, under this plan, than a full conquest; it would probably also be easier, given that roughly a third or so of Red Eye's forces would be unable to fight the GPE on its home territory.

What do you think?

[Fuzzy]

Generally, I agree with Harmony Ltd on basically every point, which might surprise some folks. Red Eye's current status isn't sustainable, but I never personally believe it was supposed to be (as you mention, O. Hinds).

The wasteland is filled to the brim with uneducated, sick, unfit, violent, drug abused, selfish or badly antagonistic ponies. These aren't the kind you can just point at a job and say "Hey, do that and I'll give you some food." Survival instincts and 'lone wolf' mentalities run wild in that sort of environment and attempting to craft a workforce for rebuilding something no-pony actually knows about or understands the magnitude of is going to be a doomed endevour.

Not to mention, an incredibly slow one. And Red Eye can't count on there being somepony else as charismatic and "well intended" (loosely said) as him to not simply take over after he dies and undo everything he spent his life slowly building toward. Red Eye needs a framework to base a future self sustaining growth on...and he needs it fast.

This is my theory. Red Eye never intended to created a 'better world', he simply intended to force rush out a framework and a rough gist of what would take on a life of its own and continue to unstoppably grow long after he had passed away. (Or become a God, whatever)

His plan seems to support this theory. He's preparing a new wave of foals to take the reigns of this framework. Who will both steer it and work it on their own rights. He is creating a generation of better ponies who are not as uneducated and ill-directed as the wastelanders...while using the slaves to knock together something they can inherit and use. Once this comes into play, Red Eye's slavery will very likely quickly fade away.

Of course, we all know that never happened in the end, but that's the future.

FOE supports this a lot, Red Eye never talks of slavery being an ongoing thing, but simply a means to a short term goal which will "kickstart" a new method that is better supported and most importantly protected due to the arms race he kicked off. (Red Eye himself admitted he never forsaw the Enclave going quite as over the top in response as they did)

Really, I think the best way that he looked on it was that the current generation of ponies were 99% waste. Whos only good they could do was via being forced into manual labour to give the next generation something better. For those caught up in it? Well, tough luck, take comfort in making a better world, right?

Well, for poor slaves, they won't see it like that and we then enter the nightmare of Fillydelphia. The destruction of a generation to save the next one. A short term brutal life of work, toil and sacrifice of both body, mind and life to smash out the framework for a better world. Not a saved world...but one that the next generation might be able to use in a way that isn't based on forced labour and horror.

At the very core...corrupted generosity. Destroying to give.

[Moodyman90]

Granted I do need to re-read FOE, but what I remember agrees with what Fuzzy said.
Red Eye always did go on to Little Pip about how he's only doing what he did to provide a future for the next generation, especially for the foals under his care.

But I love how these stories can bring up such deep and varied conversations.

[O. Hinds]

RE : "Red Eye Analysis"

Well, just to say how shitty my previous post was, I managed to get mixed-up between Camo and Rum


Anyway...


First, Camo. You say that feeding 10K slaves would cost a fuck lot. That's true. That's why you don't pay for food. You use the slaves to grow the food.

In parallel, if they're well fed, and in good physical condition, they're also in better condition to revolt. That is also true. But that's why from the start you have to present them with the Carrot that you're going to not only free them, but give them stuff after one year of service (Full Citizenship and the associated rights).

The goal, at medium-term, is to offer conditions of employment such that you can eliminate the need for slavery altogether as people will want to join you and work for / with you of their own will. Slavery is just a stop-gap measure. [note : As for the logistic of the thing, I want to say "It's the economy, stupid" : who say you have to use caps for internal trade ? And who say you have to play by free-market rules in your internal economy ? If you control the food supply from top to bottom, and are self-sustaining from that point of view, you already eliminated most of the need for internal trade - and you could just provide your workers with "Credits" for trade inside the Empire/Republic/Whatever]



Regarding the establishment of a new Nation upon the ashes of the Old World, I'll draw a parallel : in Fallout, how was the NCR built ? You had a little agricultural community, Shady Sands, that through the vision and charism of its leaders Aradesh and Tandi, managed to rally years after years more and more communities into a bigger whole, which by working together, united under a common Law, managed to build something greater that they could individually achieve.

And they achieved that without slaves. Or, more accurately, they achieved that -because- they didn't have slaves. That's my uneducated opinion, at least.



For me, the Original Sin of Red Eye, was his lack of faith in the capacity of something good to be achieved without him at the helm. This skewed all his plans from the get go to be achieved under a very limited timespan, forcing the use of methods that can be, at best, described as inhumane (inequine ?).

Losing faith in the abilities of ponies to do good - when all of pre-war Equestrian History was a shining example of the contrary, he locked himself into a worldview that was destructive to his own long-term vision.

That would be my main criticism of him as a Leader - everything else is just a consequence of it.



I do not doubt that Red Eye found a way to incorporate the high rate of casualties brought by his activities into his plan, and knowing how ruthless the character is in his pursuit of his Vision, I wouldn't be surprised he went with it. And Fuzzy's points ring true.



This won't stop me from saying, though, that Red Eye was blinded by his personal experience to the possibilities of doing things a better way.

He and his companions may have done all the calculations, thought all the contingency plans ; their basic assumption were, in my opinion, flawed.

The same way Littlepip had been formatted by her life in Stable 2 to think that only a Princess could rule over the land, Red Eye had been convinced that to hold power could only lead someone to become a Monster.

This is Red Eye's tragedy : hurt and betrayed, unable to ever trust again, and convinced to be one at the bottom of his heart consciously condemning himself to be a Monster in his acts.

He had rationalized his choices. But they remain born of emotions.



He is, indeed, Corrupted Generosity.

[O. Hinds]

But I love how these stories can bring up such deep and varied conversations.

Indeed.

[Doctor Whooves]

Just added a song to that musical inspiration list. Eheh.

[Fuzzy]

Somehow, I just knew that'd happen. :p

[hawkeye92]

I actually really hate spoilers, the speculation was pretty much as you said, a tool for getting a better idea of what readers are thinking.

The discussion about Red Eye is interesting. I agree with most of the points and I like to imagine Fillydelphia as being huge, but I tend to imagine things on a grander scale anyway.
I imagine Equestria as being huge- continent spanning and there are hundreds, if not thousands of small towns and villages clinging on in the wasteland but they're never explored because there's no reason to. Also they are still extremely spread out so the population density is still extremely low. But Red Eye buys slaves from all over for a hefty sum of caps (because people don't realise what inflation is when he has a bottle press), so there are slavers carting ponies from every corner of the land to Filly. Most likely by rail.

But that's just my headcannon, your mileage may vary.

[O. Hinds]

But that's just my headcannon, your mileage may vary.

For comparison, my headcanon, as may be seen on my map, makes Equestria roughly the size of Germany.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

a third the size of Texas

[Moodyman90]

Anybody seen or heard from Fuzzy lately?


Though I guess between recovering from his wrist and the holidays he just hasn't had time to let us know anything.

Edit: Scratch that, he's been keeping everybody updated on Tumblr, I just didn't look to see if there was any newer post till now.

[RoboRed]

He also just made a blog post on fimfiction.

[Fuzzy]

Hey guys,

I'm sorry I've not really been posting across to here as much lately over the holidays, but it's all been a nightmare keeping things updated where I have!

But suffice to say, we're past it and while I'm still fighting some issues, MN7 is going to be kicking off all over again. Chapter 16 will be released this weekend. :)

Thanks for all your patience guys.

[Cptadder]

Fuzzy I'm still weeks and weeks and weeks behind. You got a chapter this week? Then I look forward to it, in fact I'm going to catch up just so I can read it in the proper order. It has been six months but I can change!

[Fuzzy]

Hahaha, it's alright man! Really, when I say "issues" I mean more medical than anything. So I'm just picking up speed again more than anything!

[Cptadder]

Hahaha, it's alright man! Really, when I say "issues" I mean more medical than anything. So I'm just picking up speed again more than anything!

I'm over there, page 1, PAGE 1 of this thread and I'm five chapters behind there's no excuse since you did not annoy me enough to quit or anything I just stopped reading as business picked up and I moved from a place where I was the relevant person to report unauthorized usage of the internet during business hours to the guy who reports to the person who determines what constitutes unauthorized internet usage. And my time for reading fell way off.

Still I will read, I swear it, one of the days... when I'm in the home my lotto wining will have purchased for me I'll read it...
Or this Monday I've got a short day Monday and six hours to babysit a server and I can bring a netbook with me a sneak in an offline copy.

[tylertoon2]

I thought this would be a great song for the fic.



The Whole album as whole is very fitting.

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