Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Mr. Snrub]

Meh, im not really glad about those explanations. But then maybe im biased as a fellow soldier from my unit got killed by a artillery shell while i was a conscript. The explosive charge didn´t even explode (otherwise 4 more soldiers would have been dead) only the propelling charge. So maybe its just me who thinks its a bit stupid to take a tank-shell as something you can just shrug of.

But thats my personal experiences with such devices and such personal experiences are probably off-topic. Sorry for my rant and the shitpost.

[FeatherDust]

I finished the new chapter last night. Still haven't caught up to the boards, but...

Blackjack's comments about lacking her maiden qualification got me thinking. Now, maybe the word maiden just means "young lady" in this context, but I tend to take prophecy as literal but convoluted - it comes true but not in the way you expect.

In any case, I suspect the maiden bit is literal, and there is only one literal maiden in the party. We have already speculated about the possibility of Blackjack winding up in Boo's body...

And this is where I start in to wild Epileptic Trees speculation.

It seems to me that there are two paths ahead of Blackjack.

In the first path, she gives up what's left of her humanity and goes full-on cyborg. She's nearly there already; all it would take us a little more metal for her to give up on being a pony and become Deus mkII. Bolt in some internal weapons, armor plates everywhere, who cares.

In fact, hey, star metal is virtually indestructible, let's make some armor out of that! And BJ is immune to enervation, hook some power cables to the armor plates and let her liquify anyone who gets too close.

And now she really is Nightmare Moon reborn.

But I don't think that's the path of the true Maiden Of The Stars. Maybe NMM was supposed to be the maiden, but she failed. She got drawn in by the Eater and joined the wrong side.

Because it's called Maiden if the Star*s*, plural. Not of one fallen star, but the champion of all the stars, which we know are entities of light and life and creation. And death too, because that is part of the cycle, but not permanent death; the stars are all about rebirth as much as destruction.

I think the path of the true maiden us to shed all the cyborg tech; to return to a purely biological body and fight without the unnatural augmentation. She'll have to embrace her destiny as the representative of the stars in the sky, accept all their blessings and power as her own, and then she can face the Legate on even terms and finally act as their agent to destroy the Eater.

[O. Hinds]

Okay so much to read, going to limit myself to only one response, that for O.Hinds for the moment and only on one point. (Got tied up doing unimportant things like preventing my room mate from burning down the apartment)

But to respond to one point before I regain consciousness in seven hours, about Shattered Hoof, specifically something O.Hinds said.

How did Big Macintosh know exactly when and where to stand to catch a sniper bullet heading for Celestia? It's never explained.

What was Shattered Hoof? At it's core it was a peace conference at the area called Shattered Hoof agreed on between both sides. I don't if you ever been to a peace conference before, even the low down dirty two petty lords meet in an open field between armies kind of a peace conference. The point is that the conditions of such conferences are worked out before hand. Lots of diplomat ponies talk to lots of their counterpart Diplomacy Zebras to determine who, what, where and how. Unless one side is criminally negligent both sides send advance security forces to scout the ground and figure out where to place everything. Even in the days when we humans are still shitting in our own drinking water and bashing each other with lengths of iron we knew enough to do this. By all indications Shattered Hoof was not the first attempt at peace between both sides.

Which makes a pitched battle and a attempted kidnapping so psychotic, you just broke oath to attack a peace conference... why on Celestia's green earth (Who you have in your plan just kidnapped) would Luna agree to meet anywhere with any Zebra when they just prove utterly untrustworthy? And if the Zebras at the meeting were not in agreement with the Caesar why would the diplomat ponies not notice their normal counterparts are MIA.

Luna would agree to meet because Celestia is not replaceable. She is the thousand-year sun-goddess-queen and Luna's sister. If the Zebras take Celestia and get Celestia to come to an agreement with them, which is quite possible, Luna can either agree, try to get Celestia rescued (which only works if Celestia is still being held against her will), or give up Celestia. The first ends the war and Luna's government peacefully. The third ends it because Luna saying "Yeah, actually, buck my sister" would be political and maybe even literal suicide. The second, if it works, would indeed result in the war escalating further, but that there's a good chance that it wouldn't work.

Have I mentioned lately it is nice to be on a forum where this is the closest thing we get to an all out flame war?

Yeah, we're awesome like that. I blame the ponies. In the wake of this cartoon, love and tolerance have spread like the plague.

Did someone sound the Kattlarv signal?

Hey, she has valid points. Speaking of, does anybody know where she is? I haven't seen her since I got back... :(

She PMed me a few days ago and I haven't gotten around to responding yet.
She's got some RL issues, but she'll be around.

Ah, I'm glad that she's more or less okay.

As far as assassination attempts go, do search in your PDF or web copy of Fallout Equestria, search for Big Macintosh and Shattered Hoof Ridge. You'll find both the mention of the Battle of Shattered Hoof Ridge (When the first megapsell was used) and the attempted peace conference at Shattered Hoof Ridge.


Final note before I head off to work...
You'll also find a third, rather interesting note. About the first time a Zebra steath-buck is found is at... Shattered Hoof Ridge. And this note is attached.

“I’m sending you one of the devices recovered from Shattered Hoof
Ridge. Intelligence suggested that the zebras had developed
invisibility spell fetishes, but this looks like something designed by
the Ministry of Magic. It’s even PipBuck compatible. I hate to say it,
but it looks like we’ve got traitors in our midst. If somepony in M.A.S.
is leaking arcane technology to the zebras, the Princess will need to
take action.”

Nah, that was a note from somepony who wasn't aware of a classified Equestrian program. StealthBucks were an Equestrian invention, and attempt to duplicate Zebra cloaking devices.

A spoiler then.

Spoiler:

Happy?

Spoiler:

Also, I must say, whatever one thinks about this chapter, it's certainly inspired some spirited and interesting discussion.

[Valikdu]

Okay, stand back. I'm going to try... math.

Also, we don't know what guns Deus actually has.

Let's assume that his own tank's armor isn't very thick, otherwise it wouldn't have been penetrated by AMR rounds that one time way back, and Blackjack wouldn't have been able to tear pieces of it off.

And his tank is heavy, so its armor has to be among the thickest that was available at its time.

What I'm getting at is that, if the tanks of its time didn't have the level of armor we associate with heavy/MB tanks of the post-WW2 period, there wouldn't be a need to have an extremely long, high-velocity gun to get through other tanks' armor.

So Deus probably has something much shorter than the gun you described.

[Guest]

ooooh...

So,

Spoiler:

Also, Kipper, think on this: a concept/character that is introduced in one chapter should not be explained in its entirety in that chapter. That would (likely) be atrocious writing - for instance, take this hopefully-comedic example:

Harry Potter! A Parody:

Point is, you need to have some faith in the author that things will be resolved and make sense, at least until it seems unlikely that this will be the case. Your 4Channers lack this, because they despise the story - this makes criticism (bad faith criticism) very easy for them, among other things (technically, criticism is just plain easy, period - I could explain to you why literally any story ever is garbage, apart from "The Birth-Mark" because I just love its main theme too much: ONLY DEATH IS REAL. Hawthorne :3). This effect is only amplified for a serial novel, since a big part of the suspense involves not knowing what will come next, and trying and failing to anticipate the twists. I may be getting a bit off-topic at this point, and straying into material for an essay for class... Anyway, I'm not sure that it's valid criticism.

[FeatherDust]

All the reactions to Psalm and Big Mac...

I have to say I liked it.

Is it a revision? Sort of. It's immediately established that the publicized version of events is nowhere near the realty, so it can fit in.

Frankly I always had a problem with kkat's version of events because it seemed like an overreaction. Yes, a sniper took a shot at Celestia. But a lone sniper is just that -- alone. His actions do not necessarily reflect the feelings of any group, so using that one shot as a rallying point for "see how awful zebras are" smacks of utter racism.

Having a whole assault makes it much more clear that this was an intentional trap from the start, that the zebra high command had no intention of peace, and that it was indeed the zebras' plan, as a whole, to betray the peace talks. Maybe they didn't shoot the fatal bullet, but they are as culpable as Psalm, perhaps more so, in the death of Big Macintosh.

[Guest]

Also, apparently my college is experiencing an emergency situation and I'm supposed to take cover, according to my cell phone. :| This had best not be a test, cell phone. I mean... hopefully it IS, of course, but you know.

edit: I am getting my hammerknife and railroad spike.

[Mister Nikel]

So looks like folks here guessed legate's origin pretty well. I
personally don't hate the Legate or Big Mac's sacrifice rewrite but I do
have to admit that the legate is really pushing my suspension of
disbelief. Falout is not exactly a realistic setting much less so with
ponies but this guy just blows away every other threat and villain that
the FO, MLP and FO:E had.

Also this is the first time I see
Somber getting constructive criticism. Well the one that does not come
from /mlp/ anyway.(Though they do raise a lot of good points about
Horizons.)

Still not gonna drop this fic though. The plot may be
more convoluted than that of Metal Gear and Kingdom Hearts combined but it's still deep. I agree
that BJ needs to stop being such a sourpuss though. Kind of disappointed
that lacunae/psalm pulled the trigger. I was hoping that BJ is finally
starting to grow out of her childish ideals. It's good to see that the protagonist has depth but her character stopped growing completely around chapter 40. All she does nowadays is hate herself and wallow in her own misery. I thought she'd become better after the recent events at Chapel but she just keeps degrading straight back into depression.

Ideals are good and
all, but only in a civilized world. You do not become a monster for
paying evil unto evil. You only do that when you start to enjoy it.

What I trying to say is: BJ, Cheer the fuck up and embrace your role as a hero and all that comes with it, including the good things. Tell destiny to fuck off or turn it over in your favor like a pro gambler. You have a maxed out LUCK stat now. Use it to screw over all prophesies and Zebra mumbo jumbo. I want badass funny Blackjack back. The one that gets drunk and gelds people while singing and spits in the face of fate while cheating death over and over.

[Kippershy]

ooooh...

So,

Spoiler:

Also, Kipper, think on this: a concept/character that is introduced in one chapter should not be explained in its entirety in that chapter. That would (likely) be atrocious writing - for instance, take this hopefully-comedic example:

Harry Potter! A Parody:

Point is, you need to have some faith in the author that things will be resolved and make sense, at least until it seems unlikely that this will be the case. Your 4Channers lack this, because they despise the story - this makes criticism (bad faith criticism) very easy for them, among other things (technically, criticism is just plain easy, period - I could explain to you why literally any story ever is garbage, apart from "The Birth-Mark" because I just love its main theme too much: ONLY DEATH IS REAL. Hawthorne :3). This effect is only amplified for a serial novel, since a big part of the suspense involves not knowing what will come next, and trying and failing to anticipate the twists. I may be getting a bit off-topic at this point, and straying into material for an essay for class... Anyway, I'm not sure that it's valid criticism.

I was going to take your word and accept that you're right, but then I read this:

Anyway, I'm not sure that it's valid
criticism.

So, you telling me that my criticism isn't valid either simply because I have criticism at all?
This isn't 4chan's doing that I don't like the Legate.
This is my own thoughts and feelings, as genuine as the moment they formed upon reading the fight.

No, you cannot tell me that my criticism isn't acceptable simply because it's negative or simply because I should wait for another month or two before learning more about the character.
My criticism shouldn't have to wait for "the next chapter" because otherwise, you could use the same argument to extend it to the whole damn story and say only once it's ended can I be criticising it.

I'm making an opinion on what there is available to me right now and right now, I don't like it.
Does that mean my opinion is set in stone and cannot be changed with later chapters? Of course not, but right now, that's the way it is.

And for the record, the spoilered post only makes me cringe more. It explains what he's capable of plenty fine, but that doesn't mean I like it. It just explains that particular piece of it.


You should know I'm not trolling, so I hope you only meant the people who only look at Project Horizons with a vision of hate already, but the way I read it doesn't make it seem that way.

Can't please everyone all the time.

[Snipehamster]

I suppose I'll weigh in with my thoughts on this latest chapter. This may turn into a bit of a ramble, so apologies in advance.

For the most part, I kept quiet during 54's editing sessions. I called attention to a handful of things that I felt uneasy about, but was assured by Somber, Bro and Hinds that everything was planned from the start, made sense and generally fit together. Upon re-reading the chapter after a few days away from it, I wish I'd been louder.

Some elements of this chapter are very good - the interactions on the bridge, the reveal of Lighthooves' scheme, Boo getting plenty more page time for example. Other things... don't work for me at all. Number one being the Legate.

This is Fallout: Equestria, not Dragonball Z. PH is almost 1.1 million words long, and we're still getting new villains, new subplots, new... everything piled on top of an already complex and convoluted story. And now we have a zebra that laughs off being blown up, gutted and shot, wields a magic spear, and can impale a tank from meters away. This is getting silly, and it's just going to get more and more extreme (no spoilers) until the end, which is at least another volume (~200-300k words?) away.

Why are we bringing in characters that would be at home in a shonen anime? How many more times does BJ have to spend paragraphs agonizing over killing people? How many more canon events are going to get the "but this is what really happened" treatment? How many more times is Glory going to shrug off life-changing trauma as if it were a mild cold?

Just... ugh. I'm a little frustrated. Maybe it's just that, but if PH were my story I'd be taking a chainsaw to it right now.

[Guest]

Sorry, Kipper, by "valid" I meant more like "what you might put in an official, published review" - of course your thoughts and feelings are valid. It was a shite word choice on my part, and I apologize.

Also, can't reach knives, they are in front of a window. Bad planning on my part.

EDIT: This seems pretty self-centered, even to me, but I'd like my last words to have been "today is just not my day" should that eventuality come up. When in doubt, go for '80s action movie cliches. Again, hoping this is just a drill; it's sort of not seeming like it.

[Retl]

How many more times is Glory going to shrug off life-changing trauma as if it were a mild cold?

I wonder how often we miss interesting or major events happening internally in Blackjack's crew simply because of the story's PoV.

Often or seldom, some loose ends could set up some room for side stories.

[Kippershy]

Here's to hoping it's just a drill for ya, and sorry I didn't mention that earlier. Was too focused on other things (including but not only meaning my response.)

I suppose I'll weigh in with my thoughts on this
latest chapter. This may turn into a bit of a ramble, so apologies in
advance.

For the most part, I kept quiet during 54's editing
sessions. I called attention to a handful of things that I felt uneasy
about, but was assured by Somber, Bro and Hinds that everything was
planned from the start, made sense and generally fit together. Upon
re-reading the chapter after a few days away from it, I wish I'd been
louder.

Some elements of this chapter are very good - the
interactions on the bridge, the reveal of Lighthooves' scheme, Boo
getting plenty more page time for example. Other things... don't work
for me at all. Number one being the Legate.

This is Fallout:
Equestria, not Dragonball Z. PH is almost 1.1 million words long, and
we're still getting new villains, new subplots, new... everything piled
on top of an already complex and convoluted story. And now we have a
zebra that laughs off being blown up, gutted and shot, wields a magic
spear, and can impale a tank from meters away. This is getting silly, and it's just going to get more and more extreme (no spoilers) until the end, which is at least another volume (~200-300k words?) away.

Why
are we bringing in characters that would be at home in a shonen anime?
How many more times does BJ have to spend paragraphs agonizing over
killing people? How many more canon events are going to get the "but
this is what really happened" treatment? How many more times is Glory going to shrug off life-changing trauma as if it were a mild cold?

Just...
ugh. I'm a little frustrated. Maybe it's just that, but if PH were my
story I'd be taking a chainsaw to it right now.

I've always respected the editorial team, you do a damn fine job combing through 20-25,000 words for issues both grammar, spelling and general word-flow. However, what you just posted made me VERY happy and my respect for you has tenfolded.

I know I'm being a bit of a dickbag right now, but fuck, that's how much this story means to me and what's happening is pissing me off.

This is Fallout Equestria, not DBZ.

The exact same thought has been going through my mind.
If this was a DBZ fic, sure, throw it all in and it'd be right at home! A brilliant challenger, no less!
This isn't though, this is a world setting which although yes it messes with some rules of physics and sense, it generally keeps to some kind of limit that can be ignored - especially seeing as it's spawned from a video game.

I'll stop now, but yeah. I'm so, so very glad that you think the same on this particular topic.

[Guest]

Apparently, there's potentially some dude with a gun running around in the vicinity of the campus, so lock-down is a go-go. He or she will probably not come here, but yeah, looks like I'm stuck in m'room until they tell me I can go. *huff* And my lunch is ALSO in front of the stupid window. Anyway, I doubt anything's gonna happen. Hopefully, it'll all be over soon enough that I won't have to rush to my next class. Anyway, seriously, sorry for jumping down your throat, Kipper, that wasn't cool or okay.

[Quotidian]

Um, hey Cobalt? That sounds like KIND OF A BIG FUCKING DEAL. Seriously, stay safe, okay?

[Kippershy]

That's fine, dude. I know I've done stuff like that in the past, no-one is perfect or immune from these kinda things.
I mean, I don't doubt that maybe I'm causing more chaos than I really should be and being louder than I have to be.

I hope you stay safe dude, and don't worry at all about missing classes. If someone is even potentially going around with a gun, the last thing you wanna be is another statistic of a campus shooting - right?
So yeah, stay safe dude.

[Guest]

No worries, guys, this is just how I deal with stress. I'm staying in my room, away from the windows, with everything locked, getting updates by phone and e-mail. I will probably not be sleeping for a while after this ends. =P Thanks for concern.

[Sindri]

Apparently, there's potentially some dude with a gun running around in the vicinity of the campus

Well shit. Keep your head down, and good luck. I mean, the chances of you getting hurt are tiny, but tiny chances of you getting hurt still give me an uncomfortableness.

[O. Hinds]

Good luck, OAC. At least you still have internet access during this; you shan't grow bored or lack for company or news.

[Guest]

@Internet
I know! :D Although, what I should be doing is writing my Carver parody/homage. Anyway, I am officially missing class now. We were going to be discussing 19th century periodicals. /sigh They're actually pretty cool.

Thanks Sindri, Hinds. I am pretty sure it's precautionary measures until the police can sort things out (I think the suspect was entering an apartment building near campus - all we know so far), so I should be fine. (lol, looking at a map, said building is like one block away from me) I fully intend to follow all precautionary measures until told otherwise by authorities.

Fun fact: we've also got a winter storm warning coming up tomorrow. =P That, at least, I am prepared for.

EDIT: They have given us the all-clear to move about inside buildings, but still no going outside. Gonna eat me some lunch.

[Guest]

Everything is done, now; they'll be telling us all that went down eventually, but we are free to go about our business. :) Thanks for sticking around to chat and such!

[Kippershy]

Here's to hoping it went down peacefully, or even better, was a misunderstanding of some sort.

[Sindri]

Meh, im not really glad about those explanations. But then maybe im biased as a fellow soldier from my unit got killed by a artillery shell while i was a conscript. The explosive charge didn´t even explode (otherwise 4 more soldiers would have been dead) only the propelling charge. So maybe its just me who thinks its a bit stupid to take a tank-shell as something you can just shrug of.

But thats my personal experiences with such devices and such personal experiences are probably off-topic. Sorry for my rant and the shitpost.

Ouch. I don't have the personal experience, but I know on an intellectual level what those forces do to a body and... it's not pleasant to think about.

But at the risk of sounding like I'm trivializing things, a 9x19 parabellum kills a man just as dead. And nobody objects when power armor deflects a hail of 9mm rounds because we have armor that'll stop them, we all know that they're very survivable for a properly equipped soldier and not even an annoyance for a tank. With our current technology there's no way to protect an individual against the kinds of forces in a tank blast, but the mere existence of HEAT and APDS rounds demonstrates that those forces can be stopped, that a normal shell is completely ineffective against modern tank armor.

Putting the level of protection tank armor grants on a person? Long way off. Might never actually happen, though I hold out hope for the powered armor and defense screens of a few hundred years from now. But relatively easy when you apply magic. Deus could walk into an enemy battalion and be the only thing to walk out, and he was a failed experiment by a people who had a grand total of twenty years of combat experience. The Legate's armor is the result of millennia of talisman development by people fighting a constant war for survival, made by the best mystics out of the finest materials without any monetary or time limitations. The Legate of wartime zebra lands would be one of, if not the most combat capable individual on the face of the planet, and this one is a step up from that.

I think the path of the true maiden us to shed all the cyborg tech; to return to a purely biological body and fight without the unnatural augmentation. She'll have to embrace her destiny as the representative of the stars in the sky, accept all their blessings and power as her own, and then she can face the Legate on even terms and finally act as their agent to destroy the Eater.

Well, Boo isn't exactly natural. Biological sure, but she's fundamentally made up of Discord (and I think we've started to see the effects of that). But still an interesting and very plausible theory, which I will need to think on at length later...

Ideals are good and all, but only in a civilized world... BJ, Cheer the fuck up and embrace your role as a hero and all that comes with it... I want badass funny Blackjack back. The one that gets drunk and gelds people while singing and spits in the face of fate while cheating death over and over.

Yeah! Embrace it, revel in the slaughter you are capable of! Be the instrument of chaos and destruction! All who hate you die, all who love you suffer, misery pursues you like hunting hounds... wait. shit.

This is Fallout: Equestria, not Dragonball Z...

I'm not good at arguing thematic things. When the question is whether an event is realistic in the context, or if an opponent is a decent match in combat capability, logic and math can be applied and come up with an answer. It can then be accepted or disputed, more evidence can be applied, and that answer might change but it'll always be there. With themes everything is matters of opinions and interpretations, and to the question of 'should the author have done this?' I cannot supply an answer. So I won't be so presumptuous as to call people wrong; I'll ramble for a bit about my opinions and interpretations and because this might take a while and most people don't want to see it I'll go ahead and box them.

warning: contains disorganized thoughts, somewhat incoherent arguments, and opinions guaranteed to piss off at least four of you:

[Snipehamster]

In response to your ramble, Sindri, I'll just say this: yes, escalation is important to a story. Especially a story as long and broadly-scoped as PH. But there comes a point where it simply becomes ridiculous.

Formerly relevant characters and details become impossibly overshadowed, consequences become less and less apparent or even relevant, and in the end, readers simply stop caring. Especially when it gets to the point where all the characters involved must act like idiots in order to justify the monster of the week not killing everyone.

In this case, BJ and her friends have escaped certain death (for the n'th time) at the hands of an impossibly powerful opponent who has appeared from nowhere without much foreshadowing, context or even apparent purpose. How? "Because zebra religion says so".

That's not dramatic. That's... kinda silly, really.

[Kippershy]

Fuck yes based snipe.

[Sindri]

"Because zebra religion says so".

Yes, because the

Spoiler:

could never possibly have a motivation other than the zebra anti-Star paranoia-based religion, and is absolutely incapable of lying about his goals or reasons, especially when standing in front of the people who gave him the title

Spoiler:

.

Stupid characters are usually a sign of a bad writer. Actions which appear stupid on their face but make perfect sense under sufficient analysis are usually a sign of a great one.

[Snipehamster]

Oh, sure. He could very well be lying about his motivations.

But at this point, with so many plot threads left unfulfilled, why are saiyan zebras and their armies-of-cyborgs-from-nowhere even being brought into the narrative? Why should anybody care? We all know that 10 chapters or so down the line he's either going to repent and die in tears like a bitch or get violently killed by whatever form BJ takes next (bonus points if Lancer or the EoS kill him instead).

Internal consistency and willing suspension of disbelief can stretch only so far. Magical ponies with guns? Sure, why not? Ancient conspiracies? Perfectly fine. Monsters from space? Okay, if that's what works. Equines with spears catching tank shells with their hooves and laughing off point-blank explosions that would otherwise level buildings? A line has been crossed somewhere.

[O. Hinds]

The Legate of wartime zebra lands would be

This is unrelated to the current discussion, but why do people keep speaking as if there was only one Legate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legatus_legionis

In this case, BJ and her friends have escaped certain death (for the n'th time) at the hands of an impossibly powerful opponent who has appeared from nowhere without much foreshadowing, context or even apparent purpose. How? "Because zebra religion says so".

That's not dramatic. That's... kinda silly, really.

Some bandits are just plying their trade on a lonely bridge when the Security Mare, her entourage, three GPE soldiers, and a tank roll up without warning; none of the bandits thought that she'd have any reason to be in the area. The bandits (well, except one of them) escape certain death only because Blackjack's moral code says that she shouldn't kill them under the circumstances. How does Vitiosus sparing Blackjack and company make less sense than Blackjack and company sparing the bridge bandits?

[O. Hinds]

But at this point, with so many plot threads left unfulfilled, why are saiyan zebras and their armies-of-cyborgs-from-nowhere even being brought into the narrative? Why should anybody care? We all know that 10 chapters or so down the line he's either going to repent and die in tears like a bitch or get violently killed by whatever form BJ takes next (bonus points if Lancer or the EoS kill him instead).

The Brood of Coyotl don't come out of nowhere; we saw them back in the memory of the Phoenix talisman passing to Twist.

Internal consistency and willing suspension of disbelief can stretch only so far. Magical ponies with guns? Sure, why not? Ancient conspiracies? Perfectly fine. Monsters from space? Okay, if that's what works. Equines with spears catching tank shells with their hooves and laughing off point-blank explosions that would otherwise level buildings? A line has been crossed somewhere.

I find this interesting. You are saying that suspension of disbelief may be stretched too far by something other than internal consistency failures?

[Snipehamster]

Some bandits are just plying their trade on a lonely bridge when the Security Mare, her entourage, three GPE soldiers, and a tank
roll up without warning; none of the bandits thought that she'd have
any reason to be in the area. The bandits (well, except one of them)
escape certain death only because Blackjack's moral code says that she
shouldn't kill them under the circumstances. How does Vitiosus sparing
Blackjack and company make less sense than Blackjack and company sparing
the bridge bandits?

Because BJ and her friends are the 'good guys' -- they've been well established as trying to do better and avoid violence where they can. They strive for idealism even against common sense. The Legate and his cronies have been established as utter bastards by contrast, to the point where the Legate will casually maim his own son for the lulz.

He has BJ on the ropes, appears more than willing to kill her friends, has every possible advantage, then decides to wander off and fap because for some arbitrary reason BJ can't die yet.

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