Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Kippershy]

Intent or not, I don't like it personally. That's my issue, it doesn't matter what the intention or what explanation - I don't like it.

[Snipehamster]

@snipe, if it were my story to revise, the first thing I'd do is much more cleanly chop it up. The volumes, as described on the hub page, aren't overly clear within the actual story. If work could be done to tighten up each volume (or possibly cut it down to something more akin to seperate books), I think it'd do the story more justice than attacking anything unneccessary or filler-ish within the scope of the entire story as a whole.

Absolutely. The volume thing wasn't intended from the start, and its present form was pretty much a haphazard attempt by me to cut down on the tl;dr factor.

[Caoimhe]

PH is essentially a western serial right down to common themes, sheer length and compressed time.

I don't really know what to add but I agree with some of your points there, Snipe.However I don't think lessening the influence of Goldenblood is a good thing. The core of PH is that there's tons of unseen stuff going on behind vanilla FoE including the secret manipulation of everything that went on before the bombs fell. Lessening that would lose some of the uniqueness of PH. Can you give some specific examples of the Goldenblood stuff you'd like to see reduced?

Also I'm annoyed at the 'stop trying to rewrite FoE' folks. FoE is incredibly flawed and I feel some fans don't want to admit it and only want to see it as a successful, long and 'famous' work of fanfic.

[RoboRed]

Code:

while (x = 0; x < 1000; x++) {
      System.out.printline(caoimhe.lastPost);
}

//AKA this x 1000
//I realize this could be better used as a method that takes someone's last post as an argument, but meh.


Remember when we used to hide spoilers with that one code? And it agitated the hell out of everyone? Good times.

@OAC
You forgot to declare x as an int.

Indeed. Also, that should be a "for" loop. And "System.out.println". (/pedantics)

[Guest]

@Java (swicked, Robored)
nuuuu

well, Java class is over today, anyway, so it's probably good that it's draining out of my mind.

[Mr. Snrub]

Spoiler:

You know, Mech-Stations Pictures were what made me read PH in the first place. I thought it was more silly fun. Nothing like it happened at first and i was quite confused why Mechstation drew such pics. Then BJ got drunk the first time. I really really liked that, and would have wished PH would be more of that, and less trying to "rewrite" the Original.

Also I'm annoyed at the 'stop trying to rewrite FoE' folks. FoE is incredibly flawed and I feel some fans don't want to admit it and only want to see it as a successful, long and 'famous' work of fanfic.

Well but then that would be Kkats thing to do, not Sombers. he has a own story to write.

[O. Hinds]

Following that, once the story's done, I'd invite harsh criticism, suggestions and discussion with an eye to carrying out Past Sins-esque edits to address any major issues left over.

Wasn't Past Sins pretty heavily revised in those edits, though?

Also I'm annoyed at the 'stop trying to rewrite FoE' folks. FoE is incredibly flawed and I feel some fans don't want to admit it and only want to see it as a successful, long and 'famous' work of fanfic.

Well but then that would be Kkats thing to do, not Sombers. he has a own story to write.

Ah, yes, just like it was up Hasbro and Bethesda to make Fallout: Equestria. Kkat obviously ought to have left that to them.

[Quotidian]

So, I'm guessing Somber's not doing to well right now, what with Unicon being a flaming pile of shit and him (or a pretty damn good troll) dropping in on /mlp/. I'm, well, a little worried. Anyone heard from him?

Oh, and two pieces of advice. Listen to your editors! Snipe's made some good suggestions. And STOP GOING TO 4CHAN. Maybe they've got some good points to make, but it's not worth it sifting through hip deep oceans of shit to get to them, and said shit sifting sure as hell isn't going to improve your mood.

[RoboRed]

Seriously, what's the point in going over and trying to appease a group of people that markedly hate you and what you do no matter what? It's only going to end in hurt.

(If Somber did indeed do this)

[Kippershy]

So, I'm guessing Somber's not doing to well right now, what with Unicon being a flaming pile of shit and him (or a pretty damn good troll) dropping in on /mlp/. I'm, well, a little worried. Anyone heard from him?

Oh, and two pieces of advice. Listen to your editors! Snipe's made some good suggestions. And STOP GOING TO 4CHAN. Maybe they've got some good points to make, but it's not worth it sifting through hip deep oceans of shit to get to them, and said shit sifting sure as hell isn't going to improve your mood.

For Somber, going to 4chan's /mlp/ and seeking out the FOE threads is practically the same as him trying to find encouragement to commit suicide.
I won't say what's been said in the past, but sometimes at certain times of day, he'd have a breakdown from a mere glance.
That among other things.

[Snipehamster]

Wasn't Past Sins pretty heavily revised in those edits, though?

Indeed. I meant more in spirit than anything; rolling changes to iron out any major problems, with assistance and suggestions drawn from reader feedback. But if heavy revisions made PH better, then why not?

Ah, yes, just like it was up Hasbro and Bethesda to make Fallout: Equestria. Kkat obviously ought to have left that to them.

Kkat speculatively combined Hasbro and Bethesda's ideas for fun. She didn't attempt to insert her own ideas or characters into their pre-existing narratives (ie. LittlePip wasn't secretly responsible for the sonic rainboom that got the main six their cutie marks or the formation of the Brotherhood of Steel).

However I don't think lessening the influence of Goldenblood is a good thing. The core of PH is that there's tons of unseen stuff going on behind vanilla FoE including the secret manipulation of everything that went on before the bombs fell. Lesseningthat would lose some of the uniqueness of PH. Can you give some specific examples of the Goldenblood stuff you'd like to see reduced?

I'm going to voice an opinion that may be unpopular: in principle, I really like Goldenblood and, in a broad sense, his role in the story. I see him as what Twilight Sparkle might have become if she'd never been sent to Ponyville to make friends; a brilliant individual woefully out of touch with other people. Her 'evil counterpart', so to speak. I'd love to see more interaction between the two of them. I'd also like to see colt Goldenblood during the FiM era; he's around the same age as the CMC, after all.

I like how Goldie built an organisation of misfits around himself and orchestrated things that the ministries wouldn't consider. I like the projects (with the possible exception of Eternity; I'd pare that down to an OIA study based on Rarity's work with the Black Book, ultimately leading to the creation of the phoenix talisman), which work well as a framework for the primary plot - BJ's mystery-solving adventure. I love the concept behind Project Horizons, which I can't spoil because stuff.

What I don't like is him talking down to Celestia, slapping Twilight without repercussions, more or less ruining Fluttershy's life (as if it needed to be ruined further) and generally doing Pinkie's job for her. I'm fine with him blackmailing Rarity and Scootaloo - the former explains the OIA's secrecy and the latter explains where he got the materials for stuff like Project Chimera from. Beyond that... nah. Over the top.

Rich, intelligent manipulative bastard? Hell yes. One-pony shadow goverment? No.

[O. Hinds]

So, I'm guessing Somber's not doing to well right now, what with Unicon being a flaming pile of shit and him (or a pretty damn good troll) dropping in on /mlp/. I'm, well, a little worried. Anyone heard from him?

Oh, and two pieces of advice. Listen to your editors! Snipe's made some good suggestions. And STOP GOING TO 4CHAN. Maybe they've got some good points to make, but it's not worth it sifting through hip deep oceans of shit to get to them, and said shit sifting sure as hell isn't going to improve your mood.

I've sent him an email, but I've not heard back yet.

[Kippershy]

He's probably been attacked for money and had to sell his only means of communication.
Not even joking (well, mostly.)

People have been having to auction everything to try pay the hotel for everything.

[Guest]

Wasn't Past Sins pretty heavily revised in those edits, though?

Indeed. I meant more in spirit than anything; rolling changes to iron out any major problems, with assistance and suggestions drawn from reader feedback. But if heavy revisions made PH better, then why not?

Ah, yes, just like it was up Hasbro and Bethesda to make Fallout: Equestria. Kkat obviously ought to have left that to them.

Kkat speculatively combined Hasbro and Bethesda's ideas for fun. She didn't attempt to insert her own ideas or characters into their pre-existing narratives (ie. LittlePip wasn't secretly responsible for the sonic rainboom that got the main six their cutie marks or the formation of the Brotherhood of Steel).

Any story written in the same universe as another one is inevitably going to expand upon that universe's canon. No story is an island, you might say. Now, I'm not going to say that this means the secondary work should just add things in willy-nilly (the old adage of, "Just because a truly clean environment is impossible doesn't mean we should do neurosurgery in the sewers."). However, Somber has largely avoided poking into the actual FOE story - LittlePip's story - apart from occasional encounters with the characters that ultimately don't amount to much and change very little, if anything. The backstory, which was never even close to complete, is where Somber's work pokes around the most. I'm definitely not one to say that backstories always need filling out (I like horror, so I tend towards the opposite view, normally - I am looking at you, Prometheus), but there's nothing wrong with a story that aims to plug up holes and expand interesting concepts in a different work, at least not when the author has been given the blessing to do so from the original's. It's not too common to find examples of this happening in this day and age, because intellectual property and stuff, but expansions/modernizations of old fairy tales, sequels and side stories to books like Dracula and the Bible, and works in HP Lovecraft's universe are somewhat analogous.

[Snipehamster]

However, Somber has largely avoided poking into the actual FOE story - LittlePip's story - apart from occasional encounters with the characters that ultimately don't amount to much and change very little, if anything. The backstory, which was never even close to complete, is where Somber's work pokes around the most. I'm definitely not one to say that backstories always need filling out (I like horror, so I tend towards the opposite view, normally - I am looking at you, Prometheus), but there's nothing wrong with a story that aims to plug up holes and expand interesting concepts in a different work, at least not when the author has been given the blessing to do so from the original's. It's not too common to find examples of this happening in this day and age, because intellectual property and stuff, but expansions/modernizations of old fairy tales, sequels and side stories to books like Dracula and the Bible, and works in HP Lovecraft's universe are somewhat analogous.

Expansion is fine, so long as there's a point to it. I loved what Somber did with Discord's role in Project Chimera, for instance. On the other hand, a "but this is what really happened" approach to major events (Pinkie, Mac, Spike leaving the last hope of Equestria unguarded to save someone he's never met from suicide) is kinda pushing it, I think.

[Caoimhe]

Even though I didn't see the 4chan thread. Googling for PH and 4chan produced a snippet of a deleted thread of someone telling someone to "go back to your Somber hugbox" which I assume is this forum. I personally find 4chan to be immature garbage (my old paper had a cover story on them for some stupid reason, complete with stories of 4channers telling people to commit suicide) so I can't think of anything good from it.

Check in with us, Somber. We wanna see how you're doing!

E: whoops looks like I was a buncha posts behind when I submitted this.

[Kippershy]

However, Somber has largely avoided poking into the actual FOE story - LittlePip's story - apart from occasional encounters with the characters that ultimately don't amount to much and change very little, if anything. The backstory, which was never even close to complete, is where Somber's work pokes around the most. I'm definitely not one to say that backstories always need filling out (I like horror, so I tend towards the opposite view, normally - I am looking at you, Prometheus), but there's nothing wrong with a story that aims to plug up holes and expand interesting concepts in a different work, at least not when the author has been given the blessing to do so from the original's. It's not too common to find examples of this happening in this day and age, because intellectual property and stuff, but expansions/modernizations of old fairy tales, sequels and side stories to books like Dracula and the Bible, and works in HP Lovecraft's universe are somewhat analogous.

Expansion is fine, so long as there's a point to it. I loved what Somber did with Discord's role in Project Chimera, for instance. On the other hand, a "but this is what really happened" approach to major events (Pinkie, Mac, Spike leaving the last hope of Equestria unguarded to save someone he's never met from suicide) is kinda pushing it, I think.

The following message is an official statement by Kippershy:

I am drunk and support this message fully, 100%

[AGurdel]

On the other hand, a "but this is what really happened" approach to major events (hello Pinkie, Mac) is kinda pushing it, I think.

I would give your post a positive vote, but I think there is a post limit, I haven't reached yet. So a manual brohoof must be enough /).

[Kippershy]

Even though I didn't see the 4chan thread. Googling for PH and 4chan produced a snippet of a deleted thread of someone telling someone to "go back to your Somber hugbox" which I assume is this forum. I personally find 4chan to be immature garbage (my old paper had a cover story on them for some stupid reason, complete with stories of 4channers telling people to commit suicide) so I can't think of anything good from it.

Check in with us, Somber. We wanna see how you're doing!

E: whoops looks like I was a buncha posts behind when I submitted this.

you won't find it being lazy like that.
<a href="http://boards.4chan.org/mlp/res/8600356#p8615536">here. just ask in future</a>

[Kippershy]

Also, telling people to commit suicide is what /b/ does.
saying they wish Somber did it is what one faggot and one faggot only does on /mlp/

You;ve gotta know the ins and outs of boards to understand.

[Caoimhe]

Oh. I was searching the index for somber or foe references and then went to google and didnt find anything. I hate the way those boards are designed.

[Valikdu]

Let's not talk about the imageboard. It's a silly place. Stop.

On the other hand, a "but this is what really happened" approach to major events (Pinkie, Mac, Spike leaving the last hope of Equestria unguarded to save someone he's never met from suicide) is kinda pushing it, I think.

Yeah, if it were done by a less skilled writer, then it would have really been a "that's what really happened" thing. On the other hand, the expanded backstory in PH does not diminish the FoE universe, but adds to it.

[Kippershy]

Excuse me, but if it wasn't for that "silly place" you wouldn't even know of MLP FIM.

Have some respect, please.

[Retl]

Do Zebras ever lie? Seriously. Have we ever encountered a Zebra in Project Horizons who wasn't speaking truth?

[Kippershy]

Yeah, it is something that really made me wonder if that could've been Somber or what... though I do know his original plan was to kill Glory and have her sister take her place, so perhaps he'd go down some different router with her instead.

Anyway, I'm too drunk at this point so I can't reply to shit.

[O. Hinds]

I'd also like to see colt Goldenblood during the FiM era; he's around the same age as the CMC, after all.

…Okay, yes, that sounds awesome. I'd thought that he was older, but, now that I think about it, that was probably just due to his ill health.

Spike leaving the last hope of Equestria unguarded to save someone he's never met from suicide

That's been explained by, if I remember correctly, Sindri, among others.

On the other hand, a "but this is what really happened" approach to major events (Pinkie, Mac, Spike leaving the last hope of Equestria unguarded to save someone he's never met from suicide) is kinda pushing it, I think.

Yeah, if it were done by a less skilled writer, then it would have really been a "that's what really happened" thing. On the other hand, the expanded backstory in PH does not diminish the FoE universe, but adds to it.

Agreed.

[Snipehamster]

Glory is better than... I think it was Viper... though.

Dusk.

Can any of the editor's attest to if somber regrets Glory's existance?

Not to my knowledge. Though in my opinion the fact that she originally didn't have a role planned out is becoming steadily more obvious.

[tylertoon2]

I know that was his original plan, too.
Glory is better than... I think it was Viper... though.
He kept her because he thought she was a better fit, and I'd agree. Glory makes a better match for BJ and the team, assuming her sister wouldn't have turned out just as small, timid, intelligent and quirky.
I think she balances the team, and I've never heard somber bemoan her before.
Can any of the editor's attest to if somber regrets Glory's existance?

I think it's safe to say it's just a case of "grass is greener" mentality, if he had stuck with Dusk or whoever he would probably regret that for whatever reason.

@Somber crisis

This whole situation just makes me mad
Reminds me why I fucking hate 4chan and their mentality especially the MLP board board there, it's the only part of this fandom I truly hate. I wish Somber could be happy, because all of this criticism is just going to lead to stupid decisions, yes PH ain't perfect, and yes he deserves criticism for some of his decisions, but ajefgegwegweg

I don't know, I like this place better when it's Crazy and fun and sometimes heartwarming. That or random speculation.

Somber, just know that you and this story are still awesome despite it's flaws.

@Hugbox
Because you know, extreme negativity and uncontrollable bashing of anything less than perfect is far better than actually encouraging people to continue working and improve.

@Unicon chaos

I heard from one guy that they had a whole two hours of warning before they got thrown out, and the after parties were awesome. Hopefully Somber had a good time regardless.



Stay positive people.

[Snipehamster]

P-21 hasn't really had a point in forever. Is worry about him being killed off if it wasn't for Scotch... who also doesn't have much point, Glory being better than her at nearly anything.
Together, though, I feel P-21 and Scotch form half a point, though I still think they could leave the group. They have a reason not to follow BJ... each other's safety.

One does have to question the sanity of a father leading his tween daughter into a hellhound den...

[tylertoon2]

P-21 hasn't really had a point in forever. Is worry about him being killed off if it wasn't for Scotch... who also doesn't have much point, Glory being better than her at nearly anything.
Together, though, I feel P-21 and Scotch form half a point, though I still think they could leave the group. They have a reason not to follow BJ... each other's safety.

One does have to question the sanity of a father leading his tween daughter into a hellhound den...

They at least had the good sense to keep her in Deus and besides apart from Tenpony or another heavily fortified settlement, there is no safer place for her than between some of the biggest bad-asses of the wasteland that would put her protection above almost anything. Not to mention after the last attack, the last thing they want to do is leave her where she could be kidnapped or killed.

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