Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Harmony Ltd.]

I think there's a clear recurring theme in Fallout Equestria, and particularly Project Horizon, of people trying to do the right thing, or at least what they think is the right thing, and fucking up.

LittlePip fucks up.
RedEye fucks up.
BlackJack fucks up.

Everyone fucks up.

the major differences, is how people hold up to their errors, and how they face them. Do they stop ? Do they persevere ? Do they reconsider their goals and the means they use to further them ?


I think that's one of the Major theme of FoE

[Ironmonger]

It's an interesting theme, but the morals seem a bit misplaced at times.

[Cptadder]

Chapter 52 Review

What I liked
The image of Blackjack sitting alone in a desolate church is a nice image. But then a desolate abandon building with someone listening to the rain is a standard but always great literary device. Rain is such a useful thing, not only is it part of the water cycle and thus enables all life but it increases the dramatic potential of any scene by almost 29%

Blackjack having a good day and wanting to give up on EC-1101 makes good logical sense for me. Since her world went to shit in 99 and she went out to retire P-21 her world has been one long action scene interrupted by a few sex scenes, a drunk escapade in a museum and a heist movie.

Aww P-21 likes Scotch Tape... the proud father is proud, considering a week ago he was refusing to even acknowledge she was really his this is a massive step forward.

Taking P-21 advise is good, P-21 advise is bad but at least... well at least your at Bluebloods manor house and no one cares if that burns sans Vanity's old room.

The nick of the time save is well played since it almost looks planned. More importantly the fact Blackjack gives up EC-1101 and hands it over rather than let innocents die is played well not in the staging but the aftermath. As in good job jackass, you win, I won't let you murder innocents to take it away. I'm more than happy to give up because your about to kill foals to get your way you bastard. Tell me how self righteous you are when your willing to murder innocents.



What I noticed
If Blackjack is not a party pony now does that mean she won't be using Drunk-Fu anymore? Furthermore if Blackjack was hanging back I assume P-21 was brooding on a rooftop somewhere?

So we are in the memory orb and the theories at the time are bearing out that P-21 locked the doors and oh look Twilight Study was locked as well so the goddess would not know... oh shit... good thing the goddess blows up less than forty eight hours.

....Yep Unity is on hold please try your call again later

....please tell me Blackjack is not checking out Steel Rain (...Not Bad) dammit she checking out dat flank.

And then, for an instant, she looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes open and blazing with a bright, violent green luminescence

.....wat....WAT.....WHAT? Okay two implications here either Dawn is either

A.
or

B.
or

C. That's no Dawn, that's a Cylon!

Further evidence that she's a Cylon when she gets a Rainbow Dash kick to the face and survives, she's not a pony all right.

And the Enclave shows up and yes.... Dawn is a Cylon

And Deus is a tank... Well at least it's not a tree right Dorf?

And it came to me when re-reading this that the end of chapter 52 is almost identical to the end of the Ghost in the Shell movie from trying to hack into the tank to the arms and legs almost breaking....

....and then Somber himself acknowledge it... I get to feel less smart for spotting this and remember I don't read anyone elses reactions until my own review.



What I noticed

Spoiler:

[Ironmonger]

Cover, concealment, and A BIG FUCKING WEAPON. Or at least something that works. Not wise to get close to a tank. Read something about magnetic charges where soldiers would have to get right next to the blasted thing (pun completely intended) and attach it. Or something...damnit I don't know what weapon it was...

[Kippershy]

Or you do as I do on BF3.

You run up to it in the most badass maniac fashion possible and attach as much C4 to the side as you can, running out into its view before blowing the detonator for maximum overtroll.


Personally I thought the tank fight was a little weird myself, but I don't question it because I know for a fact I'm probably going to have people questioning me on MY tank battle when that comes along... eventually.
(Yes, I have a tank battle planned. No, I don't plan to do it quite like Somber has. No, it's not because of this tank battle and it has been planned for a very long time now.)

All in all, like I say, I don't question it because I just read Horizons for fun / to relax.

[Harmony Ltd.]

It's an interesting theme, but the morals seem a bit misplaced at times.

In which way(s) ?

[Cptadder]

Cover, concealment, and A BIG FUCKING WEAPON. Or at least something that works. Not wise to get close to a tank. Read something about magnetic charges where soldiers would have to get right next to the blasted thing (pun completely intended) and attach it. Or something...damnit I don't know what weapon it was...

The Haft-Hohlladung 3 Kg. The Germans had a purpose built magnetic mine. The Americans, Brits and Japanese all had magnetic frames you could stick a standard mine and then make it a magnetic mine. The Americans never bothered issuing it, the Brits issued it for only Home guard use and the Japanese found them useless as any time you could get close enough to attach a magnetic mine it was just as easy to use a standard mine and wedge it into the tracks.

Yes killing tanks is nasty business best left to specifically designed explosive charges. Yes repair talismans complicate things a bit, but de-track the bastard and you can mission kill it by rolling a hand grenade down the barrel. That for your information is the standard meth of tank description without any anti-tank weaponry. A grenade down the tube after immobilizing it lets you use it's own ammo against it. If the grenade is in the tube and you fire then the shell goes off early and wreaks the barrel or simply wrecks the accuracy of the gun. Repair talismans getting you down? Fine, simply keep adding grenades to the barrel until you hit a shell.

[CannonFodder]

And then, for an instant, she looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes open and blazing with a bright, violent green luminescence

.....wat....WAT.....WHAT? Okay two implications here either Dawn is either

or

C. That's no Dawn, that's a Cylon!

Further evidence that she's a Cylon when she gets a Rainbow Dash kick to the face and survives, she's not a pony all right.

And the Enclave shows up and yes.... Dawn is a Cylon

That's what I'm thinking as well. In their universe you can take a soul and put in a soul jar even if it's a robot. I'm guessing dawn is now in a soul jar body with a copy of her mind inside it.

I'm also guessing that the Harbringer's "goddess" is also a soul jar as well and also the eater of souls. Makes sense really. If it knows how to take a pony's soul and put it in a machine and make it think it's still a pony then it probably thinks it's doing all the souls it captures a kindness by hoarding them. Not to mention Rampage had mentioned the the core is something about blood and metal or something to that effect. Who knows how many monsters like Dawn the thing has created. For all we know there could be a entire city of the things thinking they're still themselves.

That would be a million times even more terrifying, cause if the eater of souls is in fact the same the same being then killing foals and innocent wouldn't be that big of a deal to it. Just take all the ponies you kill and pop their souls into a machine to bring them back and clean conscious.

[Ironmonger]

BJ could have also taken off the engine grating if there was one and rolled a grenade in there. Then again it has a repair talisman so the grating might not be there...unless it's a cooling grate.

As for the misplaced morals, this will be a bit difficult for me to properly explain (mostly because of my own problems). It's like with the shelling the town issue, Dawn felt like she had no other options left. She supposedly believed she was working for a good cause and was willing to do anything to meet that goal. Sometimes you have to do some bad to do some good, even if it's a lot of bad. A lot of historical figures are hailed as heroes but have blood on their hands. In my eyes, trying to be a knight in shining armor causes more problems than it fixes.

There is being good then there is being impractical.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Doing good by acting like a monster doesn't make you any less of a monster.

The good done is still good.

The bad done is still bad.

I'm the kind of person who think that the end justify the means. But I don't sugar coat the evil done by pretending that the fact it was a "necessary evil" make it any less bad.


You have to live with the consequences of your acts.

If you can't, then change how you act. And if you can't... then you may start considering killing yourself as the least worst option.



Don't take it as a personal attack, I'm just exposing my own point of view on the subject.

[CannonFodder]

You know what's even more disturbing? That the harbringers obviously don't value life and death. Meaning that what has become of Dawn could be happening to other ponies as well and that makes them by far the most dangerous enemy Blackjack has had to fight yet. They obviously have the technology to bring back ponies from being dead. Put that together and it wouldn't matter how outnumbered they are they could just continuously treat the dead like victor frankenstein.

If Blackjack starts to see more of whatever Dawn is then that's going to be very very bad for her. She could blow them to pieces and the harbringers would just drag their corpses off to put them back together. She would not only have to kill pony, but smash the body to pieces to make sure they stay down.

[Ironmonger]

My point of view is the same way. I'm not bothered much by the acts themselves but more of the "splash damage" from them. I have no problem with a lot of things, but I draw the line at things like killing children and direct torture.

[Guest]

You know what's even more disturbing? That the harbringers obviously don't value life and death. Meaning that what has become of Dawn could be happening to other ponies as well and that makes them by far the most dangerous enemy Blackjack has had to fight yet. They obviously have the technology to bring back ponies from being dead. Put that together and it wouldn't matter how outnumbered they are they could just continuously treat the dead like victor frankenstein.

If Blackjack starts to see more of whatever Dawn is then that's going to be very very bad for her. She could blow them to pieces and the harbringers would just drag their corpses off to put them back together.

So, basically the harbingers are Necrons? Which given, Dawn's description and color scheme when she went Cyber would work quite well. Now it's just a question of how readily available this tech is to the harbingers...

[Harmony Ltd.]

Oh fuck no. If necron-like things start to get involved, even nuking the place from orbit might not be enough.

Oh, wait...


Project Horizon...



Well, shit. Seems like we're to be treated with the Light Show of the Ages in a relatively short timeframe.

[Ironmonger]

The more fucked-up stuff Somber creates, the more toys we writers have to work with. Sweetie Belle

[CannonFodder]

So, basically the harbingers are Necrons? Which given, Dawn's description and color scheme when she went Cyber would work quite well. Now it's just a question of how readily available this tech is to the harbingers...

Even if it's only a couple ponies it would still be very very bad. Steel Rain alone would be bad news. Even if it's only one pony every couple weeks it would get worse and worse. Imagine fighting another Deus and then a week later two Deus and then three Deus and then four and then five and then six.

Even if it's less than five ponies they would have to rekill them over and over and over that's bad.

Blackjack needs to kill Cognitum sooner rather than later before it's too late.

[Cptadder]

So, basically the harbingers are Necrons? Which given, Dawn's description and color scheme when she went Cyber would work quite well. Now it's just a question of how readily available this tech is to the harbingers...

Which is the question, Hoofington was a R&D city combined with manufactures to make it a tempting target. But it's clear from many descriptions it has more defenses than production facilities. And if the Cyberdemon (Who got a name) could do the transformation easily or quickly I'm guessing it would have done it before.

Now then the question remains we know from way back when that there were two AI's fighting for supremacy, one trying to kill Blackjack and one trying to stop the other AI with a potential third party hinted at.

[Guest]

Even if it's only a couple ponies it would still be very very bad. Steel Rain alone would be bad news. Even if it's only one pony every couple weeks it would get worse and worse. Imagine fighting another Deus and then a week later two Deus and then three Deus and then four and then five and then six.

Even if it's less than five ponies they would have to rekill them over and over and over that's bad.

Blackjack needs to kill Cognitum sooner rather than later before it's too late.

Oh, yes, she needs to deal with Cognitum rather quickly. It doesn't matter how many can be brought back, if they get same kind of weaponry that Dawn had. Blades with 'unhealing magic' are enough for just to have two seemingly indestructible ponies. We just need to hope that Cognitum can be either reasoned with, or BJ's next form is enough to bring her down.

[222222]

Finished the chapter, after many many interruptions today. It was a real top notch piece of work Somber, and you better believe that. It appears we have done away with spoilers at this point, so I'll just throw my thoughts out there. I really loved all the talking scenes here, and I thought Dawn was very well done. I really aporeciated that P-21 had turned on Blackjack's broadcaster and that was why Lacunae showed up, it would have felt too contrived otherwise I feel. I had a hard time with the pacing of the tank battle, it seemed like Blackjack was either nearly dead or casually standing around talking with the Pegasuses or watching Dawn transform. I guess the sense of urgency while fighting the tank was kind of ruined by all the standing around and talking. Especially after Blackjack jumped the wall, during that whole conversation I was thinking how come the tank has demolished that wall yet? The actual fighting, the backflips and what have you, I enjoyed. I have seen the anime CptAdder mentioned, but didn't make that connection until after he said that. In retrospect it does seen similar, but I still like the fight scene very much. All the reveals where believable to me, which is one of the most important things for me concerning reveals like Deus is the tank or Dawn is the prophet. I'll suspend disbelief for fight scenes, but important stuff like this I like to see well thought out. So overall very good job Somber five stars.

[Harmony Ltd.]

or BJ's next form is enough to bring her down.

Taking bet on BJ's next form being a Hoofington Necron ?

[CannonFodder]

Which is the question, Hoofington was a R&D city combined with manufactures to make it a tempting target. But it's clear from many descriptions it has more defenses than production facilities. And if the Cyberdemon (Who got a name) could do the transformation easily or quickly I'm guessing it would have done it before.

Now then the question remains we know from way back when that there were two AI's fighting for supremacy, one trying to kill Blackjack and one trying to stop the other AI with a potential third party hinted at.

Even if it's only a couple cyberdemons then it's bad news. Imagine Steel Rain cyberdemon with Steel ranger armor. What's even more terrifying is that it wouldn't even need to be a cyberdemon, but just a soul jar robot. If the cyberdemons are soul jars then that's even worse cause they'd be completely indestructible. The only viable option would be bury Dawn or other cyberdemons under a ton of rubble at the bottom of a hole for the rest of eternity.

Obviously Congitum is the one trying to kill Blackjack.

I don't know who the AI trying to save Blackjack is.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I don't know who the AI trying to save Blackjack is.

[tinfoil hat]AFAIK, we never learned the final fate of Golden Blood.[/tinfoil hat]

[Guest]

or BJ's next form is enough to bring her down.

Taking bet on BJ's next form being a Hoofington Necron ?

....That, actually sounds badass and really terrifying.

[Cptadder]

Page 31 Summary is go.
@#%$@#%
Or would be, screw guarddogjr

[CannonFodder]

I don't know who the AI trying to save Blackjack is.

[tinfoil hat]AFAIK, we never learned the final fate of Golden Blood.[/tinfoil hat]

It's possible.

[222222]

Didn't the star sword of magic sharpiness have the ability to destroy soul jars? I may be wrong, but that would definitely make things easier against soul jarred robots.

[Ironmonger]

Didn't the star sword of magic sharpiness have the ability to destroy soul jars? I may be wrong, but that would definitely make things easier against soul jarred robots.

That's what I was thinking.

As for Dawn's transformation, I had a lot of trouble imagining it. As far as I was concerned she sliced off a costume via green lights.

[CannonFodder]

Didn't the star sword of magic sharpiness have the ability to destroy soul jars? I may be wrong, but that would definitely make things easier against soul jarred robots.

That's what I was thinking.

Remember how in project eternity even though she sliced a soul jar it didn't die from one slash? The starmetal sword isn't a one hit k.o. She would not only have to slice the cyberdemon's legs off to stop them from moving, but slice them into many tiny pieces to make them stay down for good. Even still there's a possibility that Cognitum could just take all the soul jar pieces and stick the body back together.

[Ironmonger]

Starmetal gun maybe? That was done with Starlight.

[CannonFodder]

Starmetal gun maybe? That was done with Starlight.

Does Blackjack own a starmetal gun?

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