Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Stringtheory]

I got tired of debating it with myself, so I just threw my arms up and said "Fuck.", then walked away from it.

Also I apparently need an editor. My story has a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors that neither I nor Frost caught.

I could probably help you to a point with the grammar, note this might come with free criticism to outright bashing, when I started the second chapter, I barely got anywhere just because it was written in the same...style (not sure how to put this) as Kipper's fic, one which I just can't stand for some unknown reason

[222222]

I volunteered before and I'll offer again Iron, I could give you help on the grammar and fluency if you want.

[Admiral Stoic Rum]

I have an idea... it makes no sense, but add in territorial disputes with a level of forward aggressive insincerity along with a largely unassumning individual... you gots something fin I think dit on it let it gesate and maybe you'll get a chickie

[Ironmonger]

I could probably help you to a point with the grammar, note this might come with free criticism to outright bashing, when I started the second chapter, I barely got anywhere just because it was written in the same...style (not sure how to put this) as Kipper's fic, one which I just can't stand for some unknown reason

Armed Redemption has a bit of a comical feel to it that I mainly got from The Expendables, but don't think that it will be a light story, it has some pretty serious stuff later on. If you could be my editor that would be great, I need some criticism because I tend to get tunnel-vision when I get rolling with an idea. Another perspective is a must.

EDIT: Looks like I've been ninjaed. Erumpet your help would be greatly appreciated. I don't need to be giving people reasons to throw away my work.

[222222]

Just shoot me an email whenever and I'll see what I can do.

[Stringtheory]

*snip*

no, you probably don't want me I'll be THAT guy, I don't know what I considered 'wrong' in it, but could've been the 'comical'-ness, I take my grimdark seriously, and a stickler for source material, I believe I quit at the point where you introduced the 'totally-not-dreadnoughts', just because...just no, you don't blatantly copy something from another universe (one which I'm also a huge fan of), in something which isn't a crossover, number one, and number two, how long after the end of FO:E is this story? because I can't believe that civilization had gotten back to that level that quickly, plus not to mention I have a rather narrow definition of what an FO:E fic 'is'...

please ignore me, this is just me ranting, your story's probably pretty good, it's just my biases keep getting in the way

[Ironmonger]

*snip*

no, you probably don't want me I'll be THAT guy, I don't know what I considered 'wrong' in it, but could've been the 'comical'-ness, I take my grimdark seriously, and a stickler for source material, I believe I quit at the point where you introduced the 'totally-not-dreadnoughts', just because...just no, you don't blatantly copy something from another universe (one which I'm also a huge fan of), in something which isn't a crossover, number one, and number two, how long after the end of FO:E is this story, because I can't believe that civilization had gotten back to that level that quickly, plus not to mention I have a rather narrow definition of what an FO:E fic 'is'...

please ignore me, this is just me ranting, your story's probably pretty good, it's just my biases keep getting in the way

Just to elaborate a few things, the dreadnoughts are there as a sort of highly-mobile firepower, tanks are apparently rare so I went my own direction and the warhammer dreadies are what came to mind so I used them as a pattern. Civilization is back to that level because the city itself is pretty much untouched, the original inhabitants starved to death. The current people are descended from stable ponies and immigrants.

As you can see, I have no shame and I have an overpowering need to explain myself to people at times.

[Stringtheory]

Just to elaborate a few things, the dreadnoughts are there as a sort of highly-mobile firepower, tanks are apparently rare so I went my own direction and the warhammer dreadies are what came to mind so I used them as a pattern. Civilization is back to that level because the city itself is pretty much untouched, the original inhabitants starved to death. The current people are descended from stable ponies and immigrants.

As you can see, I have no shame and I have an overpowering need to explain myself to people at times.

I understand where you're coming from and it kinda makes sense, but the irrational/inconvincible part of my brain is just saying no, your explanations are wasted on me because I'm stuck in my 'you don't put dreadnoughts in a FO:E story' mindset, and bringing up canon dreadnoughts-ish things won't work, because it's the irrational part of my brain

[Ironmonger]

I understand where you're coming from and it kinda makes sense, but the irrational/inconvincible part of my brain is just saying no, your explanations are wasted on me because I'm stuck in my 'you don't put dreadnoughts in a FO:E story' mindset, and bringing up canon dreadnoughts-ish things won't work, because it's the irrational part of my brain

I have huge respect for you since you admit you have a part of your brain nagging you about that stuff. You don't just jump in and say "NO THAT'S WRONG!". I have my own irrational issues, like my fear of statues.

EDIT: M-Effing forum tried to double post me.

[Stringtheory]

I understand where you're coming from and it kinda makes sense, but the irrational/inconvincible part of my brain is just saying no, your explanations are wasted on me because I'm stuck in my 'you don't put dreadnoughts in a FO:E story' mindset, and bringing up canon dreadnoughts-ish things won't work, because it's the irrational part of my brain

I have huge respect for you since you admit you have a part of your brain nagging you about that stuff. You don't just jump in and say "NO THAT'S WRONG!". I have my own irrational issues, like my fear of statues.

well okay then...

one of my irrational fears is of clowns, most likely a carry over from my young childhood, where I was stuck in the hospital, and there would be a constant influx of clowns (I was six months old at the time)

[222222]

I really have low standards when it comes to reading, I like anything that is grammatically correct with some sort of plot. Really I'm easy to please.

[Valikdu]

The Beamdog downloader actually works now, so I've preloaded Baldur's Gate EE.

Not sure if body is ready.

[Ironmonger]

I had to change the tone of my story because, knowing me, I would do something completely fucking absurd and mess up the grimdark feel of the story. Therefore I had to make it comical and grimdark, a throwback to the old fallout games and the humor of New Vegas. I'm easy to please as long as someone dies in the story, I know that's morbid.

My post was actually going to be Peter Griffin falling out of an airplane but the heathen gif eludes me.

EDIT: That awesome moment when you turn your story's comment section into an interview.

[Iluvatar]

Certainly did NOT expect that. :O

you mean you weren't prepared for that?


now to see if anyone gets my reference...

I caught that. Twilight... and the kingdom of the crystal skull!

Dice rolls? must roll as many for as big a number as possible.

[Game Master]

The member 'Iluvatar' has done the following action : Dices roll

#1 '100 Sides' : 77

--------------------------------

#2 '5 Sides' : 5

--------------------------------

#3 '10 Sides' : 4

[Iluvatar]

I got tired of debating it with myself, so I just threw my arms up and said "Fuck.", then walked away from it.

Also I apparently need an editor. My story has a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors that neither I nor Frost caught.

You also debate with yourself? Like I said... stop being "Southern" me! And Like I said on fimfiction your mistakes are probably not noticable to most people. I'm just perfectionistic with my spelling.

[Kippershy]

I got tired of debating it with myself, so I just threw my arms up and said "Fuck.", then walked away from it.

Also I apparently need an editor. My story has a bunch of grammatical and spelling errors that neither I nor Frost caught.

I could probably help you to a point with the grammar, note this might come with free criticism to outright bashing, when I started the second chapter, I barely got anywhere just because it was written in the same...style (not sure how to put this) as Kipper's fic, one which I just can't stand for some unknown reason

Wait, what?

Edit: Oh, you mean the fact Crimson got it so good at the start of the story, right?
Well, all my characters actually. but yeah.
Do you still read my fic? If that was the problem, it's been cut down on as of late and improved, right?

[Guest]

For the record: it's not "Hey, Mister Time Marine," it's "Hey, Mister Tambourine." Enunciation, Bob Dylan, please try it... anyway the song makes much more sense now.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Here come Tiiime Poliiiiiiiice !!!~~

[Kippershy]

For the record: it's not "Hey, Mister Time Marine," it's "Hey, Mister Tambourine." Enunciation, Bob Dylan, please try it... anyway the song makes much more sense now.

...I don't even know how you could mishear that one. It's not like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSNkopRnuNc">the infamous 'scuse me' Jimmy Hendrix issue [which IS while I kiss the sky, not guy.</a> Though saying that, there's one song where a woman's singing about this one man band and I thought she was saying 'one night stand' for the longest time...

[Guest]

I have a history of mishearing lyrics constantly, and since I was just listening to the album and hadn't really read any titles, well... it was one of those cases where I was like, "I'm 90% sure this isn't right, but can't hear anything else." So, tambourine became tahm marine.

[Kippershy]

[Ironmonger]

So apparently I have a twin now that Iluvatar is here. We are legion!

[Valikdu]

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER??

[O. Hinds]

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?

[CamoBadger]

*RED EYE SNIP*

Um...not to be a dick, but I'd just like to shoot a giant hole in this logic:
I would imagine making a 1 time payment for each slave and then letting them fend for themselves to get food and medicine (if they need it) is much MUCH cheaper in the wasteland than paying to feed 10K of them every day, give all of them any medicine they need, etc. Replacing a slave will be cheap, feeding them all is fucking expensive.
On top of this, slavers already have a hard enough time keeping dying slaves working. Imagine them trying to keep all of those perfectly healthy slaves in line: All of them perfectly capable of fending for themselves and thinking clearly. The next thing that happens: "Why are we the slaves? There are more of us!"

And then everything topples to the ground and all the work those slaves did is for nothing when they all band together to escape, probably destroying half of your facilities in their rage.

[O. Hinds]

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.

[Harmony Ltd.]

I'll make a more substantial post later to respond to the point brought (currently at work :v ), but for now I'll just say that if I were in Red Eye's place I too would concentrate on building a solid framework for the future.

The difference, though, would be on how to do it.

Where he went with "let's try to build back our technologies and military capabilities first, and we'll sort the human stuff later" ;

I would have gone with primarily asserting the Rule of Law in the territories I control (through the creation of a judiciary system, however rudimentary, served by my military forces), creating a military force that limited as much as possible the use of raiders (I acknowledge that it's going to be hard), and, this is the most important part, by distributing power to make sure that no one man is necessary for my efforts to continue going forward - not even myself.


Basically, I won't build my plans on hoping for a more or less literal deus ex machina, and will build things from the ground up so that they can go nowhere else but in the rigjt direction, even without my leadership.



Rum : I was taking things in logical order. But chronologically speaking, the Citizenship Contract would be the first thing I'd implement.

First batch of slaves I buy :

"You were probably thinking you were done being slaves until you die ? Well, work for me for one year, and you'll earn not only your freedom, but rights over what you built".

Basically, at this point, it's less slavery than conscription with benefits.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Ghetto edit : hmm, please do not mind my previous post, it was half-assed. Next one will supercede it.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The following may interest some people here :

www.military-today.com/apc/black_knight.htm

TL;DR : IRL, in final phases of the prototype stage, a partially autonomous Tank Drone.

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