Re: Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

[tylertoon2]

Source

I almost fucking choked. Wow. That is hilarious.




andalittlehot

[O. Hinds]

Source

...My.

On a related note, I'm beginning to think that I may have a very specific weakness for FoE crack M/M pairings.

[O. Hinds]

Kay, reading review of Murky Number Seven, Chapter 8.

What this means is that I would read a bit and comment. Even if I didn't have anything particularly to say, I would just say something. Whatever was on my mind, the idea being to relay what it was like to read the chapter. Kind of like a play-by-play, I suppose. Sound fun? I hope so.

Take one. Action.

Spoiler:

Looks like there's some weird formatting going on. I don't know why, it looks fine in word and I'm just cutting and pasting. Oh well...

The status of Sunny was covered earlier in the comments: the chapter gives conflicting information because the characters have conflicting information. The last time the reader actually saw her, she was alive.

[Fuzzy]

I sense I have lost control of those two by this point.

swicked - Thanks so much for that, it's very insightful to garner thoughts and ideas on how people are viewing the story as it goes on. Also thanks for the typo notices, I find them so embarrassing.

I particularly enjoy hearing your thoughts on Brim and they make me very happy. Brimstone should be one of those characters that is possible to dislike for what he's done or feel like they cannot ever be forgiven. Or specifically, that he maybe doesn't want to properly. I did aim for him to be a bit more than "bad once, good now" afterall.

Interesting that you clocked Minstrel as like that almost instantly, every single prereader thought he'd actually gotten out. That's pretty cool though, I do like that it's possible to figure it out.

Thanks a whole bunch for that type of review.

[Fuzzy]

To be honest, seeing that only makes me smile more to an extent. It's rather nice to see that someone is willing to see that there is another level to his character and his "alignment" at the moment.

Brimstone is a long long way from any sort of redemption, regardless of his current deeds. Glad to see someone has spotted that.

[Cptadder]

He doesn't want redemption. Not really. He doesn't even know what it is.

Exactly, we've seen Brim take pride in the slaughter and murder of Ponyville, not in subduing a foe that would not bend to his will (Typical warlord) but taking joy and pride in destruction for destruction sake. Brim is a psychopath in the medical sense of the word. He just does not understand the feelings of other ponies around him. He does what he wants to get what he wants via any means necessary. He still has a code of honor of sorts but until Glimmer came along and provided him with an outside context problem he was content to fight and die, rule of the strong and take what is his. Did he care about any member of his raider band? Look on any of them as anything but possible rivals and tools to be used? Did he look at his pones and see nothing but tools to be used up to achieve his goals?

I'm guessing no, until Glimmer he happily murdered (And I suspected raped) his way through any pony who crossed his path and did not instantly bow to his will.

Though I personally see pretty much everything Protégé says as a load of bunk.

What Protege says is bunk because who he draws his inspiration from is bunk, Red Eye is a fool. He (Red Eye) may be a magnificent bastard but he's terrible at long term thinking and once a situation becomes normal he accepts it even if it works counter to his goals. A simple example... look at Murky and his fellows. The work is backbreaking, the ratios short and the lives are shorter. As a result Red Eye has to constantly go further and further afield to find fresh slaves to replace the ones he's literally using up in his factories. That machine we saw where Murky had to dive down to retrieve threads... I know what it's based on and it was a real machine and the method described was used by the bobby boys back in industrial revolution factories. The thing is it's stupid on an extreme level... you can't spare a few unicorns to do the job? We've seen you using them to haul heavy loads and every Unicorn can do at least telekinesis to do the same thing. And every time you lose a worker the machine stops, productivity is lost. Every time a worker dies it takes more time to train a replacement. This kind of pace can only be maintained in a work camp that's designed to kill it's workers spending the bare minimum of time and resources required to get them to do work for the most amount of time possible before they die.

If Red Eye took his work quotas down by 30% and had a few Earth Pony's (Like himself!) look at some of the more hazard tasks in a serious way I bet he could cut down on work stoppages, accidents and deaths by a massive amount. And without all those pones dieing the work over time will go up as pones who get breaks, decent (Not great but decent) food work a whole lot more efficiently than half starved slaves waiting to die.

Are there still tasks that's going to kill people?
Yes the Parasprite pits and the Crater scavenging are going to kill pones no matter what you do unless you get your hands on some decent quality robots to do both jobs. But baring that yes your still going to lose ponies but most of the way Red-Eye loses ponies are easily avoided ways.

Which brings us back to Protege, it's one thing to do something evil and well, it's quite another to do it evilly and poorly.

About the ONLY thing I approve of in their handling of slaves is Protege's job of taking a bunch of otherwise useless raider slaves and using them as cannon fodder in dangerous areas. You want to do that? Knock yourself out, just add a rule would vastly improve the process. The buddy system, pick two pones every trip. If you don't make it back out with your salvage AND you buddy we shoot you. If you buddy dies you die unless you bring us something really good. Oh and the biggest guard fuckup has to buddy with a slave during raids (Motivation on both sides!)

[Cptadder]

Technically, adder, I think he turned himself in to work as a slave prior to meeting glimmer. He came across her being raped at the pit, I think. If it had been the other way around I think he would have just raped her himself rather than stopping to be "changed" by her wanting her rapists to live.
I still love how one of his first reactions to Murky, at least after they were both part of Protégé's crew, was to remark how the little guy reminded him of a similarly small and defenseless colt that he threw on a fire after the guy objected to him raping a mare. Or something...

Honestly, that whole deciding-to-be-a-slave thing confused me. Maybe there's a story to that. Some initiating event other than him deciding he was too old to be raider-ing and thinking it was about time to work off his karma or something else similarly absurd.

There's gotta be a story to that. He was a Raider, a Raider at the top of his game. If age has anything to do with it he should have gone done fighting not just giving up.

You took the words right out of my mouth with the Red Eye and Protégé thing, though.

Protege is blind, Red Eye has a blind spot, he accepts what he could change because it's easier. Red Eye is focused on the long term goal to much to see the short term details that are going to screw him over, like telekinesis. Protege has a mind but he's not using it once Red Eye says it's so. If Red Eye came to Protege and asked him to set up something then maybe.. MAYBE we'd see if he had a real brain on his shoulders or he's just good at faking it.

[Cptadder]

That's more my thinking. The way he killed Minstrel like that... I dunno. It didn't show any sort of intelligence or civility. The guy was on Red Eye's payroll. He was supposed to catch the slaves and keep them occupied until capture. Why does it matter how, in the grand scheme of things? Would it have been better of he'd just tied murky up, or nailed his hooves to the floor?

Yes let's re-read that section here in spoilers

Spoiler:

Protege obvious cares enough about Murky, Glimmer and Brimstone (Or at least one of them) to come out in person to recover Murky and put himself in a situation to cut off one of Murky's possible escape routes and thus ensure a decent chance of speaking directly to Murky. In fact when he confronts him he tries to talk Murky down.

Something in that little talk sets him off, had he been recovered by Chainlink I'm thinking Minstrel would have walked out of it alive. However there's another thing we are ignoring here. Something I just noticed a possible explanation for his behavior if it's not a plot hole....

Protege knew Sunny, and knew about her by name. No one names her to him and unless he got filled in off screen it might indicate a possible as yet unknown relationship between the two. Let me throw up this hypothetical, Protege knows Sunny, Sunny trusts Minstrel and now here comes Protege being forced to stop and shoot Murky himself and now he hears that Sunny got shot because of him as well. That might explain the otherwise very weird character behavior. Who knows (WAG) maybe he and Sunny don't just know each other but have history of some kind.

There's something really off about him. Besides all the obvious stuff.
I really do suspect this may all turn out to be an act. This whole intellectual upstart business.

He strikes me more as a philosopher than an intellectual. You don't need much in the way of intelligence to be a passable philosopher because you are as far from the realm of absolutes as possible. You can make any assumption, create any special rule you like. But be warned the difference between a decent philosopher and one remembered by history is a vast gulf. However to the average slave a decent and a great philosopher are equally as smart sounding and as confusing because philosophy involves examining core assumptions about everything which is something people almost never do on there own.

Everything sounds profound if you never think about it.
Which is what I peg Protege as, a book philosopher who deals only in fantasy worlds not the real world. A trusted Lieutenant of Red Eye who can be counted on to do as he's told and has a hobby Red Eye does not mind indulging as he has a love of knowledge himself. And I'm sure Protege is an excellent conversationalist.

I really want to know what this guy is up to. What is the grand scheme all this lying and conniving is supposed to be headed towards?
What is this whole good cop, bad cop game being played by Protégé and Chainlink supposed to accomplish?

Unity, remember that is Red Eye's end goal, to make a new goddess to provide the long term stability that only Celestia could provide. Something Red Eye spoke about often and something at the heart of any Monarch based democracy. The unchanging King or Queen figure provides a bedrock of stability and a core for the population to rally around. Intrinsic to that is the fact that the monarchy is always seen to be on the side of the people. Red Eye was trying to construct himself a civilization but as with many personality cult figures he was far to short sighted to pull it off and far to mortal for it to succeed. Only by building himself a new Unity with himself and some of his chose at it's head with the absolute power that would come from a properly lead GoPG.

[Cptadder]

I just assumed Protege knew Sunny like he knew Minstrel. Maybe when
Minstrel went back to inform the slavers that he had Murky he told them
the slave was being watched by his assistant Sunny. I'd be more willing
to believe that. Protege just seems so sheltered and deluded I have a
hard time imagining he's had too many experiences with other ponies.

Well if Protege was his first (Remember Red Eye's school in FD that Pip runs into on accident?) student his home schooled student personally by Red Eye that would make a good deal of sense. And it would be like Red-Eye to pick out a likely colt to train in his beliefs both as a possible replacement, as an experiment to see how much he could do training foals from birth and... as a hobby of sorts. It would gell quite well with his name if Protege is not just Red Eye's best but first student.

Wait... unity? Is Murky Red Eye's backup plan?

If Red Eye couldn't have littlepip he had an entire cage full of
unicorns to try with. But what if he couldn't get that pegasus comander
down there? What if that is what Protege has been tasked with...
training a backup pegasus that will be strong enough to form an alicorn
god?

I think Murky was a lucky find but then Red Eye might not know how much in the way of damage goods Murky is (But will after the medical exam I'm going to guess he's about to be given) between the rad poisoning and the minor taint infection. But then as the cage full of unicorns indicates he has backup plans and backup plans. Protege is a unicorn right? (Doubles checks) yes he is. I'm sure Red Eye would love to make his own in house Alicorn God and mixing himself, Protege plus an unknown Pegasus seems perfect from his prospective. He'd like a female in there somewhere I'm guessing but I'd think he'd be happy to make an all male god if the choice was between himself, Protege and damaged goods Murky and no god period.

So that could be Murkys fate in Red-Eye's mind, Backup Plan F, if A, B, C, D, E, and F don't work we go with plan G as in "Good enough" His fallback plan to his fallback plan just in cause he loses his unicorns somehow, he has no Pegasus which survive to face him then he can turn to a trained up Murky and tell Protege okay son, jump into the ooze it's God making time lets hope for the best.

[Derpmind]

@Unity
Ok, not exactly adding anything to the conversation here, but I speculated on that in the OP. But to expand on it, that pegasus commander (whatever his name was) being around was kind of a huge stroke of luck. Even before all that, Redeye didn't exactly plan on drawing out the Enclave, did he? There aren't that many pegasi in the wasteland prior to the Enclave's invasion, and while Murky, when he was picked up by Protege, is completely unsuitable to being one of the 3 base ponies to form a new Unity, if Redeye absolutely couldn't capture any other Pegasi at all then maybe Redeye would consider Murky as a possibility, and that is enough reason to keep him around and alive and tell Protege to see what he can to with the guy.

Another thing: Is it really so implausible that Protege genuinely doesn't know about Chainlink Shackle's worst abuses? Sure, we've seen how he cranks abuse to 11 with Murky, but Shackle does keep that kind of behavior out of Protege's perception.

[Fuzzy]

As I said before, my official stance is I don't comment on speculation to avoid accidentally spoilering people, whether they are right or wrong.

All I'll say is I am loving seeing the theories, even the ones far from the mark, and learning about how people percieve the characters for good or ill. It makes writing a hell of a lot easier in the end to guage for reaction.

[Moodyman90]

Personally I imagine fried air smelling like burnt ozone. Granted I don't know what burnt ozone smells like but I've heard it used as a description enough by enough people to form is as a base.

[Cptadder]

Personally I imagine fried air smelling like burnt ozone. Granted I don't know what burnt ozone smells like but I've heard it used as a description enough by enough people to form is as a base.

Not to go into to it to long but be thankful there are plenty of smells that are very horrible once you get to know them. Burning ozone is typically an electrical fire smell, you can also smell it right after (Or very rarely before) a lightning strike. As for what it smells like you can find that out yourself by sticking a capacitor inside a microwave for thirty seconds and smelling the result. That should be long enough to generate the ozone but not burn the plastic which will overpower the ozone smell. Burnt Ozone is very distinctive in the same way that wet dog is distinctive, there is nothing to compare itself to but itself, if you have not smelled it you might as well be describing colors to a blind man.

Needless to say I do not recommend actually doing that, for that and other Microwave related safety tips there's always Is it a good idea to microwave this.. which is exactly what it says on the tin.

For those of you wanting to try it and not willing to wait for lightning, capacitors are a dime a dozen (literally) and a cheap microwave can be had for 20$ or a friends cheap microwave can be had for a single friendship.

[OneMoreDaySK]

So at this point Murky ain't going nowhere, since
1) he just got recaptured
2) he needs to get his friends out of there
3) he's not capable of surviving away from Filly

Just hope that Filly doesn't break Sunny.

[O. Hinds]

Murky was entertained by a trashcan. I didn’t really get it. Could you name some other things he’d be randomly fascinated by, or was this a throwaway gag? Because a trashcan is a far cry an engineering marvel like a battle saddle, so I guess I just don't get his sudden fixation.

Hm... I'd hazard a guess that perhaps the fascination was due to the trashcan being a piece of engineered utilitarian convenience. It's not a weapon, a necessity, or something only the top of society gets to use; it's just a simple yet clever machine with the sole purpose of making life slightly easier for the common pony.

[Fuzzy]

Just picking out what I think are non-spoiler questions from my last review:

Is Murky intentionally close to “Murphy”? Or is there some other reason for “Murky” (like... well, I guess his color scheme)?
Was Minstrel in love with a ghoul? Or he just had an old world photo of a pony that looked similar to the one he loved? Or what?
When did Murky tell him he couldn't read or write? Was that a clue that he knew who Murky was? Because I don't think Murky mentioned it prior to when Minstrel did.
What exactly is “fried air”? I couldn’t even imagine it. Is it the smell of fire or a deep frier or something?
Murky was entertained by a trashcan. I didn’t really get it. Could you name some other things he’d be randomly fascinated by, or was this a throwaway gag? Because a trashcan is a far cry an engineering marvel like a battle saddle, so I guess I just don't get his sudden fixation.

Murphy - Not intentional, of course the natural one was a twisting of "Lucky Number Seven." In practice, it could often be considered a very accurate statement.

Minstrel's love - It wasn't a ghoul, the idea was that the picture simply reminded him of his wife, even if it wasn't her. Just a little indication of how wastelanders find comfort where they can.

Fried Air - Yeah, it's burnt o-zone. Murky doesn't know what ozone is, so I had to get a little creative in his mind. Same thing happened when I was writing chapter 10 last night actually, he approaches a t-junction and I realised "Wait a minute, he doesn't know what 't' is!"

Trashcan - Running joke. Murky has a slight practicality angle on his mind, hence the mass annoyances about the lacking of safety rails and suchthings. He gets so very worked up about completely unimportant things that the wonder of a simply utilitarian tool will absolutely fascinate him. He's a quirky little fellow, is our Murky. :p

[Moodyman90]

Oh... typically an electrical fire smell, then yes I know what burnt o-zone smells like.

[Cptadder]

Since no one has posted yet, Chapter 9 got posted last night. In it Murky goes to the fair, eats some cotton candy and gets his first kiss from that special somepony.... Obviously none of those things happen, instead he gets to spend time having fun with para sprites and again we get another demonstration that Red-Eye is a short sighted as all get out.

I'd spoiler it but eh we've not been doing so up until now.

What I liked
Murky complains a lot but his crying is far down, burn those tears away my boy you've got surviving to do
Murky gets to meet Red-Eye and they have a nice chat and Red-Eye is portrayed well as both a believer in his own bullshit and a caring pony. Corrupt generosity indeed, he cares yet is happy to let the work in Filly be run by brutal task masters who enjoy the violence to much. If your going to have brutality at least do it efficiently.
The portrayal of the para sprite pits and the sprites themselves. They eat ponies because they are the only food they can get to easily. Also they are not innately hostile just hungry (One spends some time in the chapter riding on Murky's head)
Murky is terrible with an energy weapon that's great and shows Fuzzy not taking the easy way out with Murky getting half of them instead he gets like one in twenty shots.
I like Hive and her addiction, I've liked all of the taskmasters except Shackles who's Murky should get to killing.
Unique weapon got, I like Rarity's Grace in that it fits Rarity to a T in not only that it's the kind of thing Applejack would do in making guns for her friends but that as nice as Rarity's gun is, it's a gun so Rarity leaves it in her desk. I like the idea that it's magically enchanted not to be deadly but to be polite.

After all if your are going to shoot someone one must do it with class and style.

What I did not like
Unless Murky is sporting endurance ten he should be dead three times over by the end of this chapter. I expected him to get a full medical checkup at the end of the last chapter instead he gets another slipshod job and throw back out. He should be dead as a... a dead thing that's been shot irradiated, infected, poisoned and beaten daily.
Why is Murky listening to Shackles again? He knows Protege gives a damn try talking to him Murky about Shinny and his treatment.
The ending was abrupt I expected it to end when we Murky waved that would have been fine but instead we get a short conversation

Other comments
The pits are another demonstration of stupid management and inefficient methods. Okay lets take suits and not bother maintaining them because obviously taking the time out to make forty well crafted and well sealed suits is far more expensive than ten dead ponies a week because we are throwing everyone in terribly maintained second hand suits. They should have flooded the pits years again and burned the damn things rather sending ponies in there physically grab the nests cut them apart and burn them. Part of this should be in the what I did not like section because it was not explicitly explained WHY they are bothering to do all this rather than flood or burn the nests in place. If the parasprite nests were atop metal stores or something valuable it might make sense but as it is there are just a few hundred ponies dieing down there because... something. Maybe it was explained in FoE and I forget or here in Murky and I missed it.

Also it's confirmed that Protege is loving that Red-eye something fierce and his own believes are not his own, the intellectual thing is a facade instead he has Loyalty to Red Eye and thus Red Eye's believes, or maybe the reverse he loves the idea he loves the stallion who gifted them to him.

Also maybe Protege was not just his first student but a former slave?

OAN:Aww I wanted to see Murky OD on mintals or at least try one
I can see sound and taste colors
In fact I just want to see Murky on drugs period, lets get him drunk, high or stoned and soon.

[Fuzzy]

Thanks for the great amount of feedback, Adder. It's always utterly appreciated.

Just while it's the first thing in my mind I'll invert what I read and answer one of the last things first regarding the "purpose" of the Parasprite Pits. After looking over FO:E, there is no 'specific' reason given for their existence or purpose other than to clear out parasprites. A somewhat intelligent handwave is given in chapter 25 about how hard it is to completely eradicate them and if left unchecked would grow and grow without serious effort.

While writing, I came up with a few reasons in my head to try and justify it, such as that they were not just in those pits but rather than the nests were simply being brought from where-ever they were found (like wasp nests) to simply be destroyed in the pits. But part of me didn't like the idea of taking liberties with Kkat's layout of Filly's industry and another part of me kinda liked the idea that Murky never really knew why. They just 'do.' To (I hoped) instill a sense of pointlessness and absolute uncaring monotony to his experience. Whether that succeeded, well, only readers can decide.

Murky on drugs is something of a running gag for the story. I noticed that a huge portion of side fics seem to grasp for the "drug story" in their plotlines, as though in reaction to Pip's amazing struggle against addiction. That they wanted that. Some were good (P-21), others not so. In the end, I wanted to throw that on its head and instead just have Murky not go through that same plotline when I could have his small size give him heavy effects from any he does take. ie - How doped up and high he gets from Med-X.

Mint-Als likely would have made him uncontrollably flirty or very much able to actually speak his mind. A very early character plotline I toyed with was that mint-als were the only thing that let him break the chains around his mind. But that eventually ended up dying off as found it not too interesting to write and plan with. In this chapter, I was tempted to have him take them...but there was no-pony to actually have dialogue with! As such, it would have been pointless. So unfortunately, mint-al Murky may have to wait for a future chapter, should the occasion ever emerge again.

Murky's endurance is low, very low. He's also badly hurt. Chapter 9 mainly concentrated on minor injuries or physical knocks, things that harm or affect him but not enough to undo what Weathervane fixed for him at the end of 8. Most of what he endured in 9 any other protaganist would likely have shrugged off.

Of course, that's what I'm aiming with it. I like to think of his endurance as though he's just desperately keeping his head above water however he can, but never really learning to swim/be properly healed.

I'd just like to stress, I'm not casting away the criticism. I've very much taken it on board to watch and be wary of. Just that's my thoughts I had running while writing Chapter 9. ^^

[Moodyman90]

I enjoyed the chapter. I mean, it's painful to read about everything that happens to Murky but I've accepted that's just what the story is about.
Honestly, it didn't take me long to grasp that Murky can't take injuries like most other protagonist level characters could so even the small ones are major to him.

Course I did watch a lot of programs about prisoners of war who barely got fed and forced to work in horrible conditions where even the tiniest cut could mean the lost of a limb.

I'm also glad you haven't had Murky addicted to anything else. It's an all too common plot point in the FoE stories. I mean, we've had two Med-X addictions and alcoholism in the RP we have going in this very site.
But it's also probably due to that when playing the games I tend to sell every drug I have, with the exception of Med-X , which I rarely use anyways, and Mentats for a small boost.

[Fuzzy]

You say a small boost. That's what Pip said at first too!

Very glad you enjoyed it!

[Cptadder]

First off lost my first long reply due to a back button, must hit review post more often now onto comments

Just while it's the first thing in my mind I'll invert what I read and answer one of the last things first regarding the "purpose" of the Parasprite Pits. After looking over FO:E, there is no 'specific' reason given for their existence or purpose other than to clear out parasprites. A somewhat intelligent handwave is given in chapter 25 about how hard it is to completely eradicate them and if left unchecked would grow and grow without serious effort.

While writing, I came up with a few reasons in my head to try and justify it, such as that they were not just in those pits but rather than the nests were simply being brought from where-ever they were found (like wasp nests) to simply be destroyed in the pits. But part of me didn't like the idea of taking liberties with Kkat's layout of Filly's industry and another part of me kinda liked the idea that Murky never really knew why. They just 'do.' To (I hoped) instill a sense of pointlessness and absolute uncaring monotony to his experience. Whether that succeeded, well, only readers can decide.

As a world builder (I build worlds all imaginary because I lack the funds for the real deal) I love going into another writers world, taking his or her work apart down to the bare pieces and seeing if they all still fit together. Does the world make sense? If the heroes and villains vanished could the common folk soldier on for a year without everything falling apart and everyone dieing from starvation. To take a classic example of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin he mentions in the first book a castled called the Eyrie which is your standard fantasy castle built over a gorgeous view about two thirds of the way up a major mountain. Along the way to the castle just via conversations and character building we get a glimpse of how this Castle works, we see how there were trade offs made in order to build a castle at all two thirds of the way up a mountain, how it's supplied, how it's defended and why you very much understand how medieval level peasants could construct this amazing thing with their level of technology. All of this world building is hidden in conversations of character building as I mentioned.

To the average reader, as you follow murky along you do get a good sense of the work flow in the pit, the fact that the swarm that kills a pony is everyday, the whoosh of flamethrowers, the description of the sad state of his fellow workers. All that works well, my only question is if Red-Eye does have access to power armor (Which he does) why not send in half a dozen soldiers with enough juice pre-stocked so they can burn the whole damn pit to ash. I'm not saying we should take off and nuke the site from orbit (It's the only way to be sure) but it's that key cog that's missing in my mind, that "why have they not burned this mother down yet?"

And my only idea, from my position from the outside looking in would be to say "Because Red-Eye needs a punishment detail" a job that's worse than all other jobs and is the mostly likely to get you killed. But if that were true the scale should be much smaller, not two hundred ponies but twenty, losing ten ponies a day indicates a massive loss ratio. And if Red-Eye was having to send down ten ponies a week he would quickly burn through five hundred ponies a year in his punishment detail. And he has a detail already that has a 90% mortality rate in Protege's little stable raider project. When dealing with prisons you can expect one percent of your population to be repeat troublemakers that would earn pit detail. That works out to roughly 300 pones assuming a slave population of 30,000 (Random number picked from the air). And that's 300 who are trouble makers to be sent to the pits not simply shot and left to die. So assuming the 300 pony troublemaker ratio that means Red-Eye will have to invent troublemakers to get them to fill out the punishment detail ranks. Quite possible as one of the popular methods is singling out a random person occasionally to punish so unless you do extra good you might be beaten anyway for just being average.

Murky on drugs is something of a running gag for the story. I noticed that a huge portion of side fics seem to grasp for the "drug story" in their plotlines, as though in reaction to Pip's amazing struggle against addiction. That they wanted that. Some were good (P-21), others not so. In the end, I wanted to throw that on its head and instead just have Murky not go through that same plotline when I could have his small size give him heavy effects from any he does take. ie - How doped up and high he gets from Med-X.

Mint-Als likely would have made him uncontrollably flirty or very much able to actually speak his mind. A very early character plotline I toyed with was that mint-als were the only thing that let him break the chains around his mind. But that eventually ended up dying off as found it not too interesting to write and plan with. In this chapter, I was tempted to have him take them...but there was no-pony to actually have dialogue with! As such, it would have been pointless. So unfortunately, mint-al Murky may have to wait for a future chapter, should the occasion ever emerge again.

The addiction angle I can understand but I almost wish it was lampshaded like Murky goes on mintals and gets suave and suddenly he attracts the wrong kind of attention. Taking Party time mintals helps Littlepip greatly in the short term but hurts her greatly in the long term. Blackjack had something similar except the drug cocktails she was taking was causing long term damage that eventually killed her temporarily, to add in Hired Gun from Heroes that's another hero who's Med-X addiction came about from necessity but is much more downplayed but again the drug helped her right up until she ran out and started paying for it something fierce.

Besides it would be obvious Karma for Murky if every drug he took had an obvious in chapter negative reaction.
Example Murky takes drug x
Takes Med-X, starts tripping and laughing as already seen
Takes Mintals, walks up in bed with a very happy looking slaver pony
Takes Party Time Mintals, wakes up in bed with Shackles and/or Wicked Slit
Takes Dash, believes he can fly, wakes up a pool of his own sick in some horrifying place
Takes Buck, Thinks he's gained super strength, goes hoof to hoof and gets his ass kicked
Takes Rampage, Thinks he can take on Rampage... hilarity ensues as he tries to bite the legs off, alternative starts posing like a WWE wrestler... gets his ass kicked
Can't take Hydra due to taint sooo
Alcohol, gets instantly drunk a vomits all over himself never getting to enjoy the happy stages
When you showed the Med-X thing I thought you were building to an in series joke like Littlepip getting sexually harassed by all her friends or Blackjack getting shot by all of her friends. And now what I thought was Murky was going to find out that drugs... all drugs were bad after an increasingly worse set of experiences.

Besides I've got the mental image of Murky on Rampage trying to throw down and it's adorably hilarious.

Murky's endurance is low, very low. He's also badly hurt. Chapter 9 mainly concentrated on minor injuries or physical knocks, things that harm or affect him but not enough to undo what Weathervane fixed for him at the end of 8. Most of what he endured in 9 any other protaganist would likely have shrugged off.

Of course, that's what I'm aiming with it. I like to think of his endurance as though he's just desperately keeping his head above water however he can, but never really learning to swim/be properly healed.

See that's the thing, maybe I missed it in eight but an acknowledgement at some point that Murky felt as healed as he had ever been. That resetting to zero which the last time we got was with Weathervane and his clinic. Since then the injuries just seemed to pile on till Mruky was at negative a billion hitpoints. Maybe I missed it but I expected him to wake up in that cell in Chapter 9 feeling like shit but that most of his pains were gone to indicate that medical treatment but it did not seem like he had gotten the full medical again. Could be me.

I'd just like to stress, I'm not casting away the criticism. I've very much taken it on board to watch and be wary of. Just that's my thoughts I had running while writing Chapter 9. ^^

And thanks for popping in to share them, it's always fun to get a peak into the thoughts. I love developers commentaries in games and it's nice getting the internet version for fanfics here.

[Moodyman90]

Eeyup, a small boost. Like one every in game week if not more. I tend to favor Intelligence in game for some reason and the wearing of hats is usually enough for me to pass Perception checks.

Mostly use mentats to tie me over till I get can the implants.

[Fuzzy]

I am an abject world builder as well by a lifelong love. You echo so many of my thoughts, ones I attribute to things like Babylon 5 and Firefly that had great world design elements in them. (Yet to read GoT, intend to though)

I'd like to think people can see a process and industry within Fillydelphia from my writing, as I always keep it forefront even with the brutal methods of Red Eye's work. In general I've tried to portray that there are varied types of slavers. Mr Shiny, Protégé and even to an extent Whiplash are more pragmatic and aim to get things working. Others like Shackles are not as concerned with Red Eye's vision, but get by on their skills as slavers and enforcing the rules to prevent the rougher slaves from rioting.

But the pits were a problem. Unfortunately the most practical solutions are made impossible by, well, the canon. Chapter 25 stated that they involved ponies in old weathered suits judging by Pip's experience. (Although hers was unbreachable until shot, granted.) This sort of killed off things like power armour (although I don't think we've ever seen Red Eye's forces using it) that hinted to me that the parasprties were almost impossible to get rid of, no matter how many times you burned them or made long efforts with big equipment. Although I'd hate to sound like I'm "defending" (no author should ever do this, a reader's first perception is final, as they say) I'd say that the reason for such brutal measures is just that it is one of perhaps the most cost effective ways of maintaining a low enough population by throwing the troublemakers at it.

I believe, if there is a fault on my part, it's perhaps in stating too high a casualty rate. But for story tension and assuring the readers who may not have seen FO:E, it felt indictive to set a threat. I guess you could say it's just been a "bad week" for the Pits if they lost that many a day, maybe? xD

I love that you are willing to get that much thought into it, as I said, I'm a HUGE fan of world design and have other original worlds in my head kicking around too. Getting those little points of "Hey wait..." to something in a practical sense are always handy, thanks. I'd hate to have one of those worlds (often seen in JRPGs, unfortunately) where you see those things make so little damn sense and ignore their own rules.

--

On drugs, you are absolutely right on the idea of it's a running joke. Believe me, if Murky has a good scene to gain from taking mint-als to become Flirty Number Seven (Trademark!) then he will, just in this chapter it didn't so much hold a purpose when he was already alone in a building. I could have worked it in, but I'd rather save such a sight for a classic moment.

Funnily enough, one of my prereaders suggested the same Rampage effect, just thinking he could take on Brim. But the mental image of him squaring up to Rampage is hilarious. I'm not one to often say this but...someone please draw that. xD

[Cptadder]

Eeyup, a small boost. Like one every in game week if not more. I tend to favor Intelligence in game for some reason and the wearing of hats is usually enough for me to pass Perception checks.

Mostly use mentats to tie me over till I get can the implants.

See I was totally different but then I always played a sniper, I ate mentats like candy and when shit hit the fan and I got found I'd swap to the pistol or shotgun of choice, down a buffout and some whiskey and throw with either a psycho if it was a gun fight or a med-x if it was a melee fight. I never touched jet since I only used VATS to put me on target for the first shot after I downed an enemy. Unless I saw the enemy with a grenade then I'd switch to my rapid fire weapon and unload and hope for the lucky hit.

I am an abject world builder as well by a lifelong love. You echo so many of my thoughts, ones I attribute to things like Babylon 5 and Firefly that had great world design elements in them. (Yet to read GoT, intend to though)

Do so, Game of Thrones is a great ride but if you have a choice these days I recommend you watch the show first then go back for the books.

I'd like to think people can see a process and industry within Fillydelphia from my writing, as I always keep it forefront even with the brutal methods of Red Eye's work. In general I've tried to portray that there are varied types of slavers. Mr Shiny, Protégé and even to an extent Whiplash are more pragmatic and aim to get things working. Others like Shackles are not as concerned with Red Eye's vision, but get by on their skills as slavers and enforcing the rules to prevent the rougher slaves from rioting.

Which is why I despite Shackles, if he was anywhere else I'd imagine him getting dinged in his yearly Red-Eye performance review. And yes my head-cannon is that Red Eye brings his slavers in once a year to have a nice sit down chat with them about work quality, personal issues and some face time with the boss. I imagine Wicked Slit is probably employee of the month based on her mania with production numbers.

*snipped out of order
This sort of killed off things like power armour (although I don't think we've ever seen Red Eye's forces using it)

During the battle in his Church we hear descriptions of ponies in battle armor fighting Enclave forces. I imagine he has Power armor just very few suits. If he's been fighting Steel Rangers as long as he has after all some of those fights HAVE to go his way and with an intact earth pony stable he has an easy way to get them working again.

But the pits were a problem. Unfortunately the most practical solutions are made impossible by, well, the canon. Chapter 25 stated that they involved ponies in old weathered suits judging by Pip's experience. (Although hers was unbreachable until shot, granted.) that hinted to me that the parasprties were almost impossible to get rid of, no matter how many times you burned them or made long efforts with big equipment. Although I'd hate to sound like I'm "defending" (no author should ever do this, a reader's first perception is final, as they say) I'd say that the reason for such brutal measures is just that it is one of perhaps the most cost effective ways of maintaining a low enough population by throwing the troublemakers at it.

I believe, if there is a fault on my part, it's perhaps in stating too high a casualty rate. But for story tension and assuring the readers who may not have seen FO:E, it felt indictive to set a threat. I guess you could say it's just been a "bad week" for the Pits if they lost that many a day, maybe? xD

Well look at it from a reader prospective just being described, there are pits, they have basically flying piranha fish. But the pits have existed long enough for all this elaborate safe guards and a wire mesh over the entire place. That indicates a permanence as that's not the thing you can throw up over night. And I'm guessing in the mean time you have parasprites flying around eating pones. So that means either the parasprites can not be eliminated or they are not all destroyed to keep the pits around for some reason.

I love that you are willing to get that much thought into it, as I said, I'm a HUGE fan of world design and have other original worlds in my head kicking around too. Getting those little points of "Hey wait..." to something in a practical sense are always handy, thanks. I'd hate to have one of those worlds (often seen in JRPGs, unfortunately) where you see those things make so little damn sense and ignore their own rules.

The worst of those examples are the Elder Scrolls series. Only Morrowind had proper scale, hey look here's the high rent district, here's the merchants area and... yes those shitty looking buildings why it's a slum! Outside the city... is that a farm for feeding the city? Granted it's only two or three farms to feed a city of only about a hundred but by god it's a sense of scale. Compare that to Oblivion or Skyirm which have bandit filled dungeons every ten feet but the Nine forbid we have those damn poors stinking up our city, if we have a graveyard it shall be six graves tops as we are all immortal undying folks here. And never the tiny little land with green leafy trees less than half a mile from snow drifts. Only the throat of the world had the proper distant climb such a place should demand. Both those games suffered from a 1/3rd to scale problem as it was named, each game is about the third the size it needs to be to be somewhat realistic.
--

On drugs, you are absolutely right on the idea of it's a running joke. Believe me, if Murky has a good scene to gain from taking mint-als to become Flirty Number Seven (Trademark!)

*Damn and I had the paperwork half filled out with the trademark office, even had the T-shirts and bath scents lined up.

Funnily enough, one of my prereaders suggested the same Rampage effect, just thinking he could take on Brim. But the mental image of him squaring up to Rampage is hilarious. I'm not one to often say this but...someone please draw that. xD

If I had the talent I'd draw it. But I just like the inversion, fearless rage pony Murky trying to throw down (Which is why the posing is important) as he smack talks whoever before launching himself at the pony in question as he desperately tries to first pick them up, then throw them then goes for the ankles as the pony in question just kinda ignores Raging Number Seven.

[Moodyman90]

"Well there was one play through where I took ALL the drugs in one go and got into a fight. Think it was with the Van Graffs in the Silver Rush since they wanted to kill Cass.

Having not played the earlier games all Cass was to me was the lady with the shotgun and drank whiskey, so to my surprise when I turned to talk to her after the fight she started yelling at me for taking those drugs. Later found out she's the daughter of Cassidy from the second game who had a heart condition but that's beside the point right now.

Her yelling at me, or rather my character, was the most concern I've seen about my health and well being outside of family in a long while. And that's why I now sell all my drugs and actually cut Mentat use WAY back from before.

[Derpmind]

I don't agree with your headcanon, Swicked.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Read the chapter, didn't comment. At least he's back with Glimmer. Now they really need to find a way to fix Murky and...

Oh wait, is Red Eye's plan to try and make Murky strong willed enough for his Assimilation plot? Really hoping he won't die here.

@CptAdder The reason why he doesn't just blab it all to Protoge about Shackles is because the guy still has leverage over Murky, seeing as he holds Sunny's and NiceMare's lives in check. Plus Murky is still in that scared mindset that makes him easily manipulated. He's showing a bit of spine in the last chapters, and I hope he gets in to a reversal scenario where he's gonna kill Shackles.

@Derpmind Care to expand on your own ideas?

[O. Hinds]

He's showing a bit of spine in the last chapters, and I hope he gets in to a reversal scenario where he's gonna kill Shackles.

With a battle saddle, naturally. I can see it now: Shackles, enraged, charges through a door or around a corner with the intent of doing some horrible thing or other... and there's Murky with a spinning pair of miniguns. No clever words or anythings, just a glare at Shackles's look of realization followed by a hard bite on the trigger.
...And then Murky flies back across the room from the recoil, but still.

[Fuzzy]

Miniguns would likely be bigger than he is. I guess that might be an alternative method of flight. Think Wall-E with the fire extinguisher.

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