Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[FeatherDust]

It's also possible that Cognitum's interest in EC-1101 isn't for the sake of Horizons, but either to prevent others from activating the Project or just to give her full access to the Core systems.

Spoiler:

That possibility hadn't quite clicked for me, but you're right, that would greatly amuse me as well.

[Derpmind]

For whatever it counts, I never knew Stronghoof specifically referenced anyone until I read it in the thread... but when I first read him I loved how he was unashamedly over-the-top. I've still never seen FMA, but Stronghoof, when he's shown up, is consistently super-entertaining.

Oh, and something something references in general, something something as long as it's not shoved in my face that it's a reference *wink wink nudge nudge* I'm generally ok with it personally.

[tylertoon2]

Oh by the way people this happened.

[SilentCarto]

Pslam named her gun after a religious term. Five
dollars says BJ finds it and places significant value in it, both for the name
and for the person sharing her head.

Well, if you think about it, without the Unity, Lacunae can't be Heavy Weapons Mare anymore. She borrows that skill, along with the bulk of her spells, from other ponies on the network. When she reverts to "just Psalm", she's going to need a gun she knows: a sniper rifle.

The fact that BJ’s friends are just fine and dandy
with the “I’m talking to a ghost” explanation for her shouting is both humorous
and sad.

Well, Scotch did already confirm his existence, you know.

BJ is wising up by talking to Glory, but why would
she leave out the part of the Goddess’ influence? Shouldn’t they have a plan to
subdue her incase the Goddess has more control over her than BJ thinks? Unless
the Goddess is suppressing that impulse.

She is. That was the Goddess's first order when BJ realized she was hooked up to the Unity.

The Enclave pegasi raise good points. Why bother
with controlling Hellhounds? While they have interesting utility that is a high
material investment, both in R&D and application, when you have trouble
obtaining new material in the first place. Then the Enclave has to store them
in a special facility. The logistics of it make the project make it seem really
impractical.

Because Earth Ponies can't tunnel into the Citadel. This whole project was part of Autumn's plan to kill Red Eye, remember?

Interesting dream sequence. I liked the combat in it, gave a real tense feeling. Also, the "from over the hills" scene with the Shadowbolts was fuckin' amazing. Though, who DOESN'T love a 'from over the hills' sequence?
(Forgive me if that's not the proper name for the trope, but that's my personal connotation for it.)

It's called The Cavalry, and I loved it too. The whole time I was gripping the arm of my chair and thinking, "There's no way they can get out of this... no, wait, Celestia DOES get out of this, WTF?" I almost cheered when the Shadowbolts came screaming in, though it was pretty tough to feel elation right then. I was slightly surprised that Rainbow Dash wasn't at full-bore Rainboom speed, but I guess that would have left behind the rest of the squadron.

Seems a little dues ex with how Boo was saved from that strike, but I'll accept that on account of it being Boo. Just hope that it doesn't happen with every single time she ever has any harm possibly directed at her.

You say that like you think it was chance...

And so, Blackjack finally completes the set. I like that she found it somewhere only Rainbow herself would be able to reach, especially at the fact that it's where she does her planning for missions and would want to think smart and not rush through simply assuming her first plan would work without fail.

THAT'S why it was there! Thank you, I was trying to work that one out, and I just wasn't coming up with a logical reason for it to be in this particular place.

Nope, sorry. Not a fan of the LOTR reference in the slightest.
If this had been more contextually similar, sure. Go for it.
Trying to fly off a roof in open space though? Doesn't fit with me.

Well, I liked it.

[RoboRed]

Oh by the way people this happened.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

[Retl]

For whatever it counts, I never knew Stronghoof specifically referenced anyone until I read it in the thread... but when I first read him I loved how he was unashamedly over-the-top. I've still never seen FMA, but Stronghoof, when he's shown up, is consistently super-entertaining.

Similar case here; I read of Stronghoof as an expy in TVTropes. I saw some of FMA, but didn't stick through to see the corresponding character in-show. Way more familiar with the PH Stronghooves than any counterparts.

@Tylertoon: Pretty spiffy performance.

[Quotidian]

Oh by the way people this happened.

Things I don't like: Country music.

Things I do like: That song.
\
>ERROR
>ERROR
>DOES NOT COMPUTE

[Moodyman90]

T'ain't nuthin' wrong with some country music.

Just like any other genera, there'll be songs ya like, and songs ya don't like. Nothing to blow a brain fuse over.

[Sindri]

Oh by the way people this happened.

Things I don't like: Country music.

Things I do like: That song.
\
>ERROR
>ERROR
>DOES NOT COMPUTE

Not all country is shit, just the songs played most frequently. Since that's all you hear, you assume that all country songs are as shitty as those and never find the decent ones. Likewise not all electronic music is loud screechy noise, not all gothic music is whiny emo crap, not all metal is screaming and growling and violence, etc.

I've found songs I've liked in pretty much every genre except hip hop (where I haven't actually looked, to be honest), but I despise the most popular artists in several of them.

[OneMoreDaySK]

@tylertoon2
*eyetwitch*
It's not the fact that it's country. It's the fact that the music is... much lighter than I imagined that scene would play out. <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LyricalDissonance">Lyrical Dissonance</a> perhaps?

[tylertoon2]

Just to clarify I just found that, it's not really me who did that. You guys know this right?

@Sindri

Gorrilaz are a fantastic hiphop group, or at least I would consider them hiphop, or at least some of their stuff.

[RoboRed]

Just to clarify I just found that, it's not really me who did that. You guys know this right?

Yeah, I knew that.

[Guest]

@Sindri
Plenty of GOOD metal is screaming and growling and violence, though. =P It's just also a lot of other stuff, too. Oh and happy birthday Tyler!

[SilentCarto]

It’s at this point that the various clues start coming together.
When Sekashi bargained with the stars to secure her own survival, they revealed to her that Legate Vitiosus was in fact the ancient Proditor of legend.
Naturally more than a little disturbed by her revelation, Sekashi started pouring over the forbidden texts to confirm the truth. When Vitiosus discovered what she was up to he was understandably pissed. If the Remnant were to discover that their “brave leader” was in fact the legendary Proditor, and that all those amazing powers of his were the result of a pact with the stars rather than his status as Legate, it would pretty much destroy his image amongst his followers.
So Vitiosus branded Sekashi a traitor and sent his own son to kill her in order to prevent the truth from getting out.

Hmmm. Interesting theory. It might fit, but it's a little hard to believe Vitiosus could live among the Remnant for centuries and never show his red stripes, though. My sense was that Sekashi's "price" was more along the lines of thoughtcrime, a loss of faith that what they were doing was right.

I think the Legate's powers are more related to Zecora's trick with the tea than to any extraterrestrial influence. They seem very nature-based -- earth, wind, and water -- as opposed to the "celestial" feel of unicorn magic. (Recall that the unicorns combined their powers to raise the sun and moon in the Hearth's Warming Eve story.) I could theorize that the power he's weilding is what the Caesar himself would have held, or his most trusted Praetorian. I doubt that all legates were created equal -- if this power is truly something the Caesar could invest into particular people, I would assume some could have less and others more. Possibly this represents the sum total of all Zebra elemental authority, which in the past would have been doled out among many individuals rather than concentrated in one superhero. In fact, if that's the case, one might be able to draw parallels between it and EC-1101.

[Kippershy]

Anyone know if Somber has done his part at Unicon yet?
Or more importantly, if he was on camera at any point?

Still interested to see what he looks like.

[Sindri]

Hmmm. Interesting theory. It might fit, but it's a little hard to believe Vitiosus could live among the Remnant for centuries and never show his red stripes, though. My sense was that Sekashi's "price" was more along the lines of thoughtcrime, a loss of faith that what they were doing was right.

I think the Legate's powers are more related to Zecora's trick with the tea than to any extraterrestrial influence. They seem very nature-based -- earth, wind, and water -- as opposed to the "celestial" feel of unicorn magic. (Recall that the unicorns combined their powers to raise the sun and moon in the Hearth's Warming Eve story.) I could theorize that the power he's weilding is what the Caesar himself would have held, or his most trusted Praetorian. I doubt that all legates were created equal -- if this power is truly something the Caesar could invest into particular people, I would assume some could have less and others more. Possibly this represents the sum total of all Zebra elemental authority, which in the past would have been doled out among many individuals rather than concentrated in one superhero. In fact, if that's the case, one might be able to draw parallels between it and EC-1101.

My interpretation is that he has three distinct power sources. On his own he has all the powers of the Eternal Warrior, the regeneration without limit and probably some degree of enhanced strength, basically the original flavor to Rampage's new coke. That, along with his many centuries of martial arts and combat experience, are probably impossible to take away from him. Then he has his armor, made from dragon bone and enchanted into the best talismans possible. That gives him very good raw protection (probably in the form of magical barriers layered on top of the strength of the bone itself), probably some kind of anchoring effect (no matter how tough he is he should have been pushed by Glory and knocked to the horizon by Deus unless he's acting like he has more mass than he does), and possibly further enhancements to his strength. It's basically the talisman-based equivalent of really good power armor, and can be bypassed or stripped away by dragonslayer rounds, hellhound claws, the starmetal sword, or just overwhelming force. Then his elemental powers don't fit anywhere else, and he stated them to come from Caesar and his position as the Legate.

Spoiler:

Oh, and he's probably got a load of chems that might count as a fourth power source, and/or the long term alchemic enhancements zebras do.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Unrelated to any current discussion :

We know that Equestria had Zebra fighting on its side (Shuuja), and we know that the Zebra had pony sympathizers in Equestria (Four Stars) ; but would the Zebra have had ponies fighting at their side on the battlefield ?

[Sindri]

Unrelated to any current discussion :

We know that Equestria had Zebra fighting on its side (Shuuja), and we know that the Zebra had pony sympathizers in Equestria (Four Stars) ; but would the Zebra have had ponies fighting at their side on the battlefield ?

Maybe. We know there were griffons on both sides, and dragons fighting for the zebras, so it seems unlikely that they would be too racist/speciesist to refuse defectors who offered. And we've never heard anything about concentration camps for ponies in zebra lands or anything of that nature.


Also unrelated, I appear to have lost some of my notes. Any recommendations for good timelines and maps, at least of Kkat's story and preferably of Project Horizons so far, such as would be used to prevent accidental canon-breaking when writing a side story?

[Plasticube]

I always thought prevention of canon-breaking is one of the reason writers have prereaders.

Write a rough draft, show it to your prereaders and ask if it breaks canon?

[Retl]

I always thought prevention of canon-breaking is one of the reason writers have prereaders.

Write a rough draft, show it to your prereaders and ask if it breaks canon?

That only works for the section that's being shown off. Events that are planned but not shown in a particular chapter, stuff that's implied to happen off-screen, and stuff that's going to later be revealed to be part of a chain of events could be irrevocably built into the story if only relying on pre-readers. I mean it wouldn't be impossible to write all of the chapters in advance in rough form, but I don't see it being a common approach.

Also, that only works if those pre-readers are very familiar with the timeline and all that. It's better to have a shared resource like a wiki article timeline to have it cleared up in planning than to wait until it's showable-offable.

Knowledgable prereaders certainly are a useful resource, though.

[SilentCarto]

Still need to read 17 and 18 so I'll return to another issue. Our new big bad the Legate and I'll use Professional Wrestling to explain the misstep here.
[...]
Somber the Legate offers no build up. No hints at his power, no mention of his presence, no previous amazing feats or running across what he's done. He just shows up and bam Legate Smash.

I think your reference to wrestling is your first mistake. Wrestling is supposed to be, at least theoretically, a fair fight. This is not a fair fight. It's Luke vs. Darth Vader at Bespin. Vader could have killed Luke in a second if he'd wanted to, but he had a different goal in mind. Same with Vitiosus. True, we haven't seen him walking around Force Choking people, but we have been hearing his name from time to time as the architect of everything bad the Remnant has done.

And okay, so he's practically immune to direct physical damage. So? Some of the most tense scenes in FOE and PH had nothing to do with someone getting shot at. Radiation. Pink Cloud. Killing Joke. Enervation. It's the environmental dangers that put the heroes in such bad spots, the pervasive threats you can't defeat with your own hail of bullets.

And, of course, that's assuming he's totally immune to all forms of physical damage. All we've really seen him recover from/block is bullets, explosions, and blades. What about fire? Plasma? Lasers? Can he be incinerated? Disintegrated? Stunned by electric shock? (Okay, probably not that last one. Fire and Electricity probably fall under his elemental control abilities, but pure magical-energy attacks shouldn't.) If he resists disintegration, how many times can he do that? Velvet Remedy's anti-distintegration spell was a one-shot. Notice that Glory's awesome gatling laser was removed from the equation before he ever showed up. And remember, BJ's dragonbone knife was destroyed by an incineration spell. We're far from out of options -- we just didn't have the tools to perform a full range of experiments at the time.

And then there's attacks that don't target the body at all. Memory spells, for example, if BJ retains that knowledge after the Unity goes bye-bye. Or attacking his beliefs, removing his will or his reason to fight.

All that this means is that BJ is going to have to get clever, and that's not a bad thing at all in a story. It would be pretty boring if BJ could win through sheer force of arms!

“I can’t take the risk that someone might damage or destroy this,” Spike said anyway. “I have to stay here. Keep guard. Until I can find the right ponies.”

Thats why i found it quite stupid that he broke his own rules for Blackjack, even Little Pip had to fly up there herself.

Ah, but notice what Blackjack did right before that. She wished on a star. She begged the stars to send her a reason to keep going... and a reason appeared, mere moments before she pulled the trigger. And then Spike decided to break his own rule just this once. You're right, it doesn't seem to fit. But that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Maybe Spike would say his face-to-face with Littlepip made him feel guilty for not doing more all these years. Maybe her example galvanized him to act, to 'do better', just this once, when somepony was desperately in need of hope and he was the only one who could offer it. The risk must have seemed small, after all. It probably wouldn't take much of a nudge. Just one little inspiration to shift the entire course of Hoofington's future. That was the stars' gift to Blackjack. That was the moment when she started down the road to becoming their Maiden.

[SilentCarto]

Okay, I didn't read Somber's spoiler, and I'm begging everypony to please please for the love of Celestia please don't say anything about it at all! I really want to find out about whatever it was when I'm supposed to. If it made you feel better, just keep it to yourself and don't ruin my speculating. Thanks!

Edit: In fact, I know I'm asking a lot here, but please do use the spoiler tag's title function. Like so:
[spoiler=Title Goes Here][/spoiler]
A lot of folks use the spoiler tag just to compress long rants or large images, so it would be nice if you'd tag it up as "Legate spoiler" or something similar.

[SilentCarto]

Okay, one more combo-post and I'm caught up. Whew. On the subject of spoilers, I also want to request that everyone pretend that whatever the spoiler was is not a given when discussing what might or might not happen in the future. Thanks.

So it's not a case of fitting in with the established rules. It's a case of tossing those rules out the window and saying "haha! the zebras have special rules!"

Zebras DO have special rules. Canonically. Unless you have an alternate explanation of how she did the tea trick and why Zecora is qualified to train Twilight in magic use.

In Project Horizons, it feels less like a story and more like a world. An unnamed mare strung out on moon dust feels like a person, and characters that look like one-offs end up being among the most important characters in the story.

Hear hear. We had only ever met Lightning Dancer once at the time, but I was absolutely terrified that BJ killed her at Yellow River because of what it would do to Glory's sister.

My interpretation is that he has three distinct power sources.

Oh, certainly. The "powers" I was referring to was his elemental control.

Spoiler:

Not reading this.

[Caoimhe]

Ugh, I've been on the other side of the world for 2 weeks AND there's a new chapter out. Everything's probably already been said that I'd comment on and I have something like 15 pages here to catch up with here but the thing that stuck with me for the most was that "LNR PLC" thing... Lunar Palace?

E: So many new faces! So many red minus votes and general random weird comments! Wtf happened here? D:

[Stringtheory]

Ugh, I've been on the other side of the world for 2 weeks AND there's a new chapter out. Everything's probably already been said that I'd comment on and I have something like 15 pages here to catch up with here but the thing that stuck with me for the most was that "LNR PLC" thing... Lunar Palace?

E: So many new faces! So many red minus votes and general random weird comments! Wtf happened here? D:

a very controversial chapter happened, most think the Legate is OP and from an anime, as well as some hate the shattered hoof memory for 'changing the original message of the scene', I thought it was a very good chapter personally, though the Legate is OP, I haven't watched enough anime to have an opinion on the second statement

[Caoimhe]

I haven't ever watched anime but I felt having a nearly instoppable baddie was right around the corner. I actually found his overly noble and foreshadowy tone was a good mix with Blackjack's aloofness. Although that section didn't really stick with me like other parts have, I can see it being worked out.

Also, am I mistaken in reading that somewhere in here Somber spoiled the ultimate ending of PH to appease some particular low content critics I've never seen here before? I've been careful about clicking on these spoiler blocks but some folks are rather matter of factly talking about BJ's fate like it was revealed.

[Stringtheory]

I haven't ever watched anime but I felt having a nearly instoppable baddie was right around the corner. I actually found his overly noble and foreshadowy tone was a good mix with Blackjack's aloofness. Although that section didn't really stick with me like other parts have, I can see it being worked out.

Also, am I mistaken in reading that somewhere in here Somber spoiled the ultimate ending of PH to appease some particular low content critics I've never seen here before?

no, he just spoiled some of the Legates background to appease your so called 'low content critics'
I don't know though I haven't read the spoilered text

[Caoimhe]

Please don't take offense to that, I'm speed-catching up here and am just gauging by a number of downvotes about shipping or 4chan or something.

(I'm also incredibly jet-lagged from being on an almost 40 hour flight from New Zealand. Spoiler: New Zealand does not actually contain hobbits.)

[Stringtheory]

Please don't take offense to that, I'm speed-catching up here and am just gauging by a number of downvotes about shipping or something.

no, I just saw what you originally wrote, and so I was going along with what you were doing, personally I don't have enough of an opinion to take part in this debate so I'm trying to keep an objective opinion on some of these new folks

[Kippershy]

Eeeeyup.
4chan. People were saying they wanna tell Somber what the hell is going through their heads but they didn't know where/how.
Now, I'm not saying that I was all "COME AND FLAME SOMBER!" or anything, because that's not the intention I have - but I did feel that telling them about this place was reasonable.

Besides, it has a link on the hub page anyway.

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