[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

HillBilly-Drew wrote:does anybody know were i can find the new chapter? i havnt read it yet and cant seem to find it. ..... please help.

Ask, and ye shall receive! Here's the chapter, and here's the main chapter index, which has links to all of 'em. :)

SilentCarto wrote:Somber, I have a question for you. Is the theme of identity something you deliberately built Project Horizons around, or is it just something that crept in because it interests you? Because practically every main character has issues that orbit that theme.

• Rampage, Lacunae, and Boo all introduce questions of identity and personhood by the sheer nature of their existence.
  
• Blackjack struggles with the disconnect between what BJ, the mare, wants to do and what Security, the persona, should do. For that matter, in the past, she has tried hard to disconnect the security mare called Blackjack from the daughter called Go Fish. And going forward, she had to deal with her changing self-image as she mutated, lost parts of her body, and had them replaced with synthetics, with Deus looming as the worst-case outcome.
  
• Glory's physical transformation into Rainbow Dash, obviously.
  
• P-21 was never given an identity in 99 -- not even a name. He's been called "blue colt" and "P-1" through "P-20", and it was only after the story began that he took P-21 as his permanent name.
  
• Twilight took on an alternate persona so she could be herself when her real identity became a facade she couldn't keep up 24/7.
  

And those are just the big ones. The theme shows up over and over -- Caprice concealing her identity from BJ, Echo taking on the appearance of Smiling Jack because he didn't like who he was, Deus shedding his given name after his Steelpony transformation. I know that "Who am I?" is, by some lights, the core question of any story, but that's more often faced in the sense of "What sort of person am I?", while Project Horizons seems to go out of its way to explore the question in a very literal sense.

...Wow.  I'd never noticed that before, but you've got a point!

HillBilly-Drew wrote:does anybody know were i can find the new chapter? i havnt read it yet and cant seem to find it. ..... please help.

I see that you've already had an answer to this, but, for your future reference, the hub page is linked in my signature.  Enjoy the chapter!

@ SilentCarto:
Wow... that blew my mind. Obviously it's always been there but I never made that connection.

to- overlong and hinds.... thankssooo much yall are lifesavers!!!

@silent Carto:  Maaaaybe. :3

It was late and I made a stupid joke. Nothing interesting, just not really funny. And there's no delete post button, so... yeah.

HillBilly-Drew wrote:does anybody know were i can find the new chapter? i havnt read it yet and cant seem to find it. ..... please help.

Additionally, various links, including to the chapter index, should be available near the top of the first and 34th page of each iteration of this thread.

just finished da new chapter..... gotta say i loved somber. u do amaing thngs!!! and along with the rest of yall yall rock. keep up the amazin work guys!!!

SilentCarto wrote:Somber, I have a question for you. Is the theme of identity something you deliberately built Project Horizons around, or is it just something that crept in because it interests you? Because practically every main character has issues that orbit that theme.

• Rampage, Lacunae, and Boo all introduce questions of identity and personhood by the sheer nature of their existence.
  
• Blackjack struggles with the disconnect between what BJ, the mare, wants to do and what Security, the persona, should do. For that matter, in the past, she has tried hard to disconnect the security mare called Blackjack from the daughter called Go Fish. And going forward, she had to deal with her changing self-image as she mutated, lost parts of her body, and had them replaced with synthetics, with Deus looming as the worst-case outcome.
  
• Glory's physical transformation into Rainbow Dash, obviously.
  
• P-21 was never given an identity in 99 -- not even a name. He's been called "blue colt" and "P-1" through "P-20", and it was only after the story began that he took P-21 as his permanent name.
  
• Twilight took on an alternate persona so she could be herself when her real identity became a facade she couldn't keep up 24/7.
  

And those are just the big ones. The theme shows up over and over -- Caprice concealing her identity from BJ, Echo taking on the appearance of Smiling Jack because he didn't like who he was, Deus shedding his given name after his Steelpony transformation. I know that "Who am I?" is, by some lights, the core question of any story, but that's more often faced in the sense of "What sort of person am I?", while Project Horizons seems to go out of its way to explore the question in a very literal sense.

Project Horizons.
The fanfic which you could write doctorate thesises on.

swicked wrote:Scotch is the only one that seems left out in the whole theory... but, then, I think she was supposed to die, originally, right? She's otherwise just a means for P-21's great question of who he is, especially now as a "real" father, given his entire purpose was to father (in strictly the most basic sense) in the stable.

Hm... Well, it seems a bit weak next to everything else, but Scotch, as a foal, has establishing herself as she grows up. There's also the fact that she was fully expecting and expecting to do exactly what her mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. did and her direct matrilineal descendants would do, and then suddenly that entire social system was destroyed. She doesn't have to do that anymore (and can't do exactly that), but there are likely some lingering internal expectations; she also needs to decide if she wants to do it, since, unlike Blackjack as Stable security, she likes and is good at being a maintenance pony.
So... the combined identity development of growing up and dealing with ingrained society expectations that are no longer externally enforced but are also attractive enough to not be thrown away without question? Not sure if I put that very well; I think that I may need to get to bed soon.

Assuming that she is indeed Eclipse (which I don't recall being explicitly confirmed, but it's been so heavily implied that I think it's safe to assume), we might also bring in Luna; "“Espionage on her own subjects.  What would Her Majesty think?” Goldenblood said in an almost teasing voice.
        “Princess Luna knows nothing about it whatsoever.  Princess Luna sits on her throne and makes impressive speeches while the Ministries do all their acts behind her back.  Poor Princess Luna,” Eclipse giggled" sounds like possibly a bit more than just "Isn't my disguise good?" to me.

Oh, Psalm saw her identity as a pony consumed by a worshipful loyalty that eventually dominated her to such an extent that she followed a mission she knew to be pointless and baseless…

…Interestingly, thinking about it, I'm skeptical that Goldenblood fits. I might just be missing something, though.

Goldenblood wears masks, too. Given all the intrigues he's in, and what we've seen of him in different memories, I'm pretty sure what we see of him is mostly a façade, a persona he built. There's hint of it, I think, with his relationship with Fluttershy, and his various discussions with Trottenheimer.

Goldenblood has been more and more interesting lately. He's a bit too private to tell, but it really seems like he's been desperately messing up in the recent appearances.

swicked wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:

identity:

identity:

Thus is the source of the 'Blackjack Defeat Effect,' I'd imagine. Many of the villains will readily turn when Blackjack shows them they can because they are not certain and steadfast in the belief that they are so horrible. Hell, the inner turmoil of, "Am I a good guy pretending to be a bad guy? Am I a bad guy pretending to be a good guy? If I'm a bad guy, can I be good?" is getting into a wholly different theme of Horizons. Or maybe it's not, and this simply reflects the breadth of the original question.

---

Oh, speaking of Deus...

It occurred to me he might still be under some form of control. That the reason for his aphasia is a remote source restricting him to prevent him from explaining his situation properly. Much less likely, now that he's gone, but I still wanted to say. It'd continue Doof's habit of paralleling Blackjack's misfortune in advance, what with her struggling with the Goddess. Of course, his mirror misfortune was more of a cautionary tale, but you never know...

swicked wrote:Scotch is the only one that seems left out in the whole theory... but, then, I think she was supposed to die, originally, right? She's otherwise just a means for P-21's great question of who he is, especially now as a "real" father, given his entire purpose was to father (in strictly the most basic sense) in the stable.

Well, even Scotch had a little bit with the memory removal. True, it's not as pronounced as for the other characters, and tread the same ground as Lacunae and later Blackjack (and Twilight and Jetstream!), but it's probably to be expected that as the one with probably the most malleability she would have less going on on the identity front.

O. Hinds wrote:Assuming that she is indeed Eclipse (which I don't recall being explicitly confirmed, but it's been so heavily implied that I think it's safe to assume), we might also bring in Luna; "“Espionage on her own subjects.  What would Her Majesty think?” Goldenblood said in an almost teasing voice.
        “Princess Luna knows nothing about it whatsoever.  Princess Luna sits on her throne and makes impressive speeches while the Ministries do all their acts behind her back.  Poor Princess Luna,” Eclipse giggled" sounds like possibly a bit more than just "Isn't my disguise good?" to me.

It occurs to me that this could be taken as a form of Nightmare Moon replaying with a twist. This time rather than taking/accepting/whatever a new identity in response to neglect, she's created one to accomplish what she couldn't within her role as princess.

Mostly unrelated to the above, but now that the Goddess is no longer a factor I wonder if Blackjack will ever talk about the execution on the bridge; it was something that really cast a shadow for a bit, even if they did have an off screen discussion about many of her other concerns. (Also, going back to that was a great reminder of a powerful scene, and the great integration of Rampage's humor in the aftermath.)

Just a reminder to everyone who is new/newer and is unaware we have a number of other threads and groups for those who want to hang out and chat about stuff other than and including the fic that all are welcome to join.


The official chat thread: https://cloudsville.rpg-board.net/t1046-official-project-horizons-comment-crew-chat-thread


Our minecraft server thread: https://cloudsville.rpg-board.net/t749-phccminecraft-server

And our steam group:  https://cloudsville.rpg-board.net/t1010-project-horizon-comment-crew-steam-group

O. Hinds wrote:

HillBilly-Drew wrote:does anybody know were i can find the new chapter? i havnt read it yet and cant seem to find it. ..... please help.

I see that you've already had an answer to this, but, for your future reference, the hub page is linked in my signature.  Enjoy the chapter!

Also, there's a link in the welcome post in the thread. The thread fissions every time it reaches 34 pages, but I or someone else generally tosses the welcome post up as the first or second one in the new thread.

O. Hinds wrote:...Wow.  I'd never noticed that before, but you've got a point!

Moodyman90 wrote:@ SilentCarto:
Wow... that blew my mind. Obviously it's always been there but I never made that connection.

Ohthankgod! I was worried that I was just now finally noticing something that everyone else had twigged to long ago.  

Somber wrote:@silent Carto:  Maaaaybe. :3

Oh, fine, you just go be all mysterious and awesome, then.  

swicked wrote:@Silent
Hah! While we're at it (until recently), who's the Stable Dweller? :P

Well, that's a running gag, not a theme.

Valikdu wrote:Project Horizons.
The fanfic which you could write doctorate thesises on.

Theses.

O. Hinds wrote:Hm... Well, it seems a bit weak next to everything else, but Scotch, as a foal, has establishing herself as she grows up.  There's also the fact that she was fully expecting and expecting to do exactly what her mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. did and her direct matrilineal descendants would do, and then suddenly that entire social system was destroyed.  She doesn't have to do that anymore (and can't do exactly that), but there are likely some lingering internal expectations; she also needs to decide if she wants to do it, since, unlike Blackjack as Stable security, she likes and is good at being a maintenance pony.
So... the combined identity development of growing up and dealing with ingrained society expectations that are no longer externally enforced but are also attractive enough to not be thrown away without question?  Not sure if I put that very well; I think that I may need to get to bed soon.

Yeah, that's not quite so much 'identity' in the philosophical sense as the 'What sort of person am I?' question that I mentioned before. A child finding their answer to that question is pretty much the definition of a coming-of-age story.

If this is indeed something Somber's been deliberately toying with, her memory-less angst over machines might be her defining contribution. A sort of object lesson in what memories are and are not, when it comes to shaping a personality. PH definitely has a thread about memories and how they shape a person running parallel to and entwined with the identity stuff I mentioned.

O. Hinds wrote:Assuming that she is indeed Eclipse (which I don't recall being explicitly confirmed, but it's been so heavily implied that I think it's safe to assume), we might also bring in Luna; "“Espionage on her own subjects.  What would Her Majesty think?” Goldenblood said in an almost teasing voice.
       “Princess Luna knows nothing about it whatsoever.  Princess Luna sits on her throne and makes impressive speeches while the Ministries do all their acts behind her back.  Poor Princess Luna,” Eclipse giggled" sounds like possibly a bit more than just "Isn't my disguise good?" to me.

Good point -- it's kind of the same situation Twilight found herself in, but flipped in that that her usual persona can't be seen getting her hooves dirty, while her façade can get on with the work she sees as necessary.

O. Hinds wrote:Oh, Psalm saw her identity as a pony consumed by a worshipful loyalty that eventually dominated her to such an extent that she followed a mission she knew to be pointless and baseless…

…Interestingly, thinking about it, I'm skeptical that Goldenblood fits.  I might just be missing something, though.

Psalm and Goldie stray more into "what kind of person" territory, too. Psalm is tortured by willingly accepting orders that go against her morals, and her constant need to rationalize her own actions leads her to a place where she relinquishes all responsibility for her own actions.

Goldie doesn't fit neatly into any one category. I think he's slid all over the place -- starting out as an order-taking type like Psalm who has the vision to see exactly where his actions will lead, but beholden to those in power. But then he gradually morphed into a Utopia Justifies the Means monster like Red Eye who knows that the world he's creating isn't for the likes of him. At some point he seems to have realized that he wasn't creating utopia at all, though, which ultimately wound up with him  trying to either trigger or prevent Project Horizons, and I can't tell which yet.

I'll just wait here while you finish your wikiwalk.  

Meleagridis wrote:Hell, the inner turmoil of, "Am I a good guy pretending to be a bad guy? Am I a bad guy pretending to be a good guy? If I'm a bad guy, can I be good?" is getting into a wholly different theme of Horizons.

"I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There is no one I'd rather be than me."

"Goldie doesn't fit neatly into any one category. I think he's slid all over the place -- starting out as an order-taking type like Psalm who has the vision to see exactly where his actions will lead, but beholden to those in power. But then he gradually morphed into a Utopia Justifies the Means monster like Red Eye who knows that the world he's creating isn't for the likes of him. At some point he seems to have realized that he wasn't creating utopia at all, though, which ultimately wound up with him  trying to either trigger or prevent Project Horizons, and I can't tell which yet."

In my creative writing class, we called that character development. :D

Vergil wrote:

RoboRed wrote:

I nominate this song for the Eater of Souls battle soundtrack:

On that note I'd like to nominate this for anything close to a climactic battle with Dawn:

I fully endorse this.

Finally got around to reading 58. Absolutely amazing work integrating it with Kkat's. I'm almost scared of my computer now, though; I had my music playing on random, and it somehow managed to choose close to perfect tracks through (at least most of) the entire chapter:

Just in case anyone hasn't read it yet:

Now to catch up with reading the thread. And I know that's not much about what I thought of the chapter, but I'm sure there's been quite a number of commentaries and discussions already. I'll see what you guys have covered, and what's going on when I'm no longer reading several-day-old posts.

I just read 58. I'm in tears. I've been crying for like half an hour. Has anyone done a podfic of Project Horizons, and if not, would you like me to?

I wish I had the money to donate. I donated last month, a meagre total of perhaps 80 cents.

Fantastic writing. I think it was wonderfully done, and stuck to cannon nicely. I absolutely adore what you've done with the Goddess and with Psalm. Psalm has actually been one of my favourite characters since we first met her, and

Spoiler:

Signed up for cloudsville forums just for Project Horizons...

It's very nice to have you join Vixie and I hope you stick around and remain active here.

Welcome to the forums, Vixie.

Vixie wrote:I just read 58. I'm in tears. I've been crying for like half an hour. Has anyone done a podfic of Project Horizons, and if not, would you like me to?

I wish I had the money to donate. I donated last month, a meagre total of perhaps 80 cents.

Fantastic writing. I think it was wonderfully done, and stuck to cannon nicely. I absolutely adore what you've done with the Goddess and with Psalm. Psalm has actually been one of my favourite characters since we first met her, and

Spoiler:

Signed up for cloudsville forums just for Project Horizons...

 Always love to see new folks.

Somber wrote:In my creative writing class, we called that character development. :D

True enough! It's just hard to see whether he has any identity issues of his own when it's so tough to get a grip why he does what he does at any given moment at all. Our view of his personality, made up of little slices and slivers of contradictory actions occurring years apart, is so broad that it's almost impossible to divine whether any given act is based his real moral compass, a façade he wants to show someone else, or desperation. It would be easier with someone like Deus or Sanguine, whose life is largely defined by a single issue.

And I'm not saying that's bad. It makes him fascinating when we can feel sympathy for him one minute and revulsion the next.

Vixie wrote:I just read 58. I'm in tears. I've been crying for like half an hour. Has anyone done a podfic of Project Horizons, and if not, would you like me to?

I wish I had the money to donate. I donated last month, a meagre total of perhaps 80 cents.

Fantastic writing. I think it was wonderfully done, and stuck to cannon nicely. I absolutely adore what you've done with the Goddess and with Psalm. Psalm has actually been one of my favourite characters since we first met her, and

Spoiler:

Signed up for cloudsville forums just for Project Horizons...

Welcome! What's a podfic?

O. Hinds wrote:

Vixie wrote:I just read 58. I'm in tears. I've been crying for like half an hour. Has anyone done a podfic of Project Horizons, and if not, would you like me to?

I wish I had the money to donate. I donated last month, a meagre total of perhaps 80 cents.

Fantastic writing. I think it was wonderfully done, and stuck to cannon nicely. I absolutely adore what you've done with the Goddess and with Psalm. Psalm has actually been one of my favourite characters since we first met her, and

Spoiler:

Signed up for cloudsville forums just for Project Horizons...

Welcome!  What's a podfic?

 It seems to be an audiobook/reading of a fanfiction, except that it is up for download.

I feel like we have a reading of PH, but I don't remember for certain

TalixZero wrote:
 It seems to be an audiobook/reading of a fanfiction, except that it is up for download.

I feel like we have a reading of PH, but I don't remember for certain

There are two I know of: 2d The Reader's and Crazed Rambling's. 2d got through chapter seventeen before stopping, and, in all honesty, was really only worth it if you were desperate for an audiobook of PH. Crazed Rambling moves pretty quickly when he's updating, and is up to chapter sixteen (and already did a full audiobook for Fo:E) and does a pretty good job, if not to the level of, say, Scorch238. I find his accent for Glory to be distracting, though.

Somber, I just sent you an email with a music suggestion for a particular future thing.  I was going to post it here, but then I realized that that might be slightly spoilery.
edit: Oh, but if you don't mind, it might be useful to toss it to the forum and see if anyone here can translate it, or at least tell us what language it is.

swicked wrote:

FeatherDust wrote:What may be less obvious is that this is one of the "Wild Wasteland" encounters in New Vegas.

I was wondering, for a moment, if some of Blackjack's traits had been changed by her contact with the goddess... but with characters like Strong Hooves walking around, I figured no, she's had it the entire time.

Eh, I think all of Fallout Equestria has the Wild Wasteland trait turned on inherently. Puns, references, and so on are an innate part of ponydom.

That makes a decent amount of sense. So Equestria as a whole has the Wild Wasteland perk, with individuals having various levels of it. Some , like main characters and their companions have the full effect of it.