Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

by FeatherDust Sat Sep 21, 2013 12:22 pm

Derpmind wrote:I included the whole scene because it's epic, but basically we see Luna shaping starmetal with her magic. Right afterward we see Luna being shaped by magic. I think that enervation might be starmetal forcing the magic of life right out of existence, but if someone resonates with the EoS' tune they not only can reshape starmetal, they themselves are reshaped by its power.

I dunno. That's what I'm trying to figure out; from what they said, starmetal is immune to magic, so... I don't know how that works.

Derpmind wrote:I'm a little surprised that the entire day noone said anything about my last post. I guess that means I'm completely right and all speculation of PH is over. Go me!

Fridays tend to be really busy for a lot of people.

by cb5 Sat Sep 21, 2013 5:33 pm

Derpmind wrote:Somber made an update on his blog.

Also, I'm a little surprised that the entire day noone said anything about my last post. I guess that means I'm completely right and all speculation of PH is over. Go me!

Edit: The Fallout: Equestria game moved to Unity, and a bunch of other stuff too.

Oh shit. That's awesome. I just hope people keep their mouths shut about it though, cause that's what happened to fighting is magic. People would not shut their fucking mouths about it and it got so popular to the point it was attracting main media news sources.

by cb5 Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:12 pm

swicked wrote:
cb5 wrote:
Derpmind wrote:Somber made an update on his blog.

Also, I'm a little surprised that the entire day noone said anything about my last post. I guess that means I'm completely right and all speculation of PH is over. Go me!

Edit: The Fallout: Equestria game moved to Unity, and a bunch of other stuff too.
Oh shit. That's awesome. I just hope people keep their mouths shut about it though, cause that's what happened to fighting is magic. People would not shut their fucking mouths about it and it got so popular to the point it was attracting main media news sources.
You make it sound like it was their fault for being interesting.
If anything, the game makers shouldn't have kept a bit more quiet about their work, not setting up places to play the game at conventions, until they could release the project when it was nearly or entirely complete.
Once it was out in the world, nothing could really of been done about it.
That or they could have been making the game in such a way that they could release it in stages as each character was completed. Sure, they probably would have gotten shut down much quicker that way, likely before they'd gotten out more than three or four of the main six, but it'd be more than exists now.

Nah the problem with fighting is magic is that if anything mane6 anti-advertised it and told people they didn't want the attention, but bronies went, "What mane6 is getting in trademark trouble due to it's popularity?! I know what will solve it! Make it even more popular!"

by Downloaded Skill Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:01 pm

They might have been fine until they decided to show it off at EVO. It's the biggest fighting game tournament in the world did they honestly think Hasbro's lawyers wouldn't find out about it then? It would have been fine in internet obscurity, but then they decided to show it off to the world before it was even ready.

by SilentCarto Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:10 pm

FeatherDust wrote:
Derpmind wrote:I included the whole scene because it's epic, but basically we see Luna shaping starmetal with her magic. Right afterward we see Luna being shaped by magic. I think that enervation might be starmetal forcing the magic of life right out of existence, but if someone resonates with the EoS' tune they not only can reshape starmetal, they themselves are reshaped by its power.
I dunno. That's what I'm trying to figure out; from what they said, starmetal is immune to magic, so... I don't know how that works.

Immune to magic except that which resonates at the correct frequency. If you don't mind making youself more like the EoS, you can affect it.

by Caoimhe Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:30 pm

Is ol' Somberino still having issues posting here or does he not wanna post for whatever reason (or none of the above)?

And would the "god mode" for a FoE fighting game just be "change character to Littlepip?"

by HillBilly-Drew Sat Sep 21, 2013 11:26 pm

question to yall.. random.. what are ur virtues?

by SilentCarto Sat Sep 21, 2013 11:33 pm

swicked wrote:Reminds me of a discussion we had on here a while back.
Starmetal resonates on a single magical frequency.
Discord blood resonates on all frequencies except starmetal's (I remember him saying he "knows better than to sing that tune" or some such).

Not 'except'. Discord's magic resonates across a wide band of frequencies, from what Goldie said in chapter 39. He would have to focus it down to a single, pure frequency to affect starmetal, and as you say, he won't do that.

swicked wrote:So... what does moonstone do? Is it a different frequency, doing the same thing the EoS does, but more selectively somehow? Is it the same frequency, but a destructive harmonic? Does forcing the EoS to be silent hurt it, since songs sustain stars? What?

That's an excellent question. My hypothesis is that the magic of luminaries like the EoS

Is terribly sciencey:

I think the energy that resides in the sun and moon is also luminary in nature, so it can attack the EoS on its own terms -- just as one unicorn can negate another's magic.

Oh, shit.

Wild speculation mode on!

"With [her] left hoof [she] will bring down the fires of the sun, and with [her] right [she] will call down the moon." We've been focused on moonstone as the power source to destroy the Eater, but the sun received a similar luminary spirit. What if Celly One, or something like it, can draw on the sun's magic to help out as well?

Stay with me here. First item: For some reason, moonstone beats starmetal. When they react, each unit of moonstone disintegrates a thousand units of starmetal. Furthermore, if they're not mixed in the "ideal" ratio, unreacted starmetal starts to melt away without any further energetic release. In other words, a unit of moonstone always takes some amount of starmetal with it, even if they don't directly react and annihilate, and I'm betting that amount would turn out to be a thousand times the moonstone's mass.

Second item: In the Star Dream, BJ saw the moon absorb two distinct types of soul. The Eater's initial crash killed off the dinosaurs; the moon absorbed a great deal of those souls. Later, when the Starkatteri city was destroyed, the moon received a luminary soul as well.

Conclusion: Perhaps the cooperation between mortal and luminary souls is the reason that moonstone can overwhelm a thousand times its own mass in starmetal. We know that such cooperation is possible, because mortal souls resonating with the Eater's hum nearly allowed it to rise in the ancient past, and their screams continue to resonate with it in the modern day. So while a mortal soul can't directly compete with a luminary, they can harmonize with it to reinforce its frequency and empower the luminary. (The EoS, by its nature, refuses to be harmonized with -- you can only sing unison with it.)

Hypothesis: The sun lacks those mortal souls. Buuuuut there's an awful lot of mortal souls just drifting around the EoS, aren't there? Maybe a megaspell like Celly One that calls down the power of the sun can give all those mortal souls trapped by the Eater a luminary champion to empower. The dinosaur souls absorbed by the moon were described as 'fragile' with 'infant songs'. How much starmetal can it destroy when empowered by mature intelligences with full command of their own magic? What's the reactant ratio when the sun, the moon, ancient animals and modern mortals all join together in harmony against the Eater of Souls?

Now get the hell out of our galaxy!

by O. Hinds Sun Sep 22, 2013 12:20 am

Caoimhe wrote:Is ol' Somberino still having issues posting here or does he not wanna post for whatever reason (or none of the above)?

I don't know, I'm afraid.

Well, brushing has been going well, but unfortunately Somber got tired and Bronode is feeling a bit ill; we're planning to finish tomorrow. Sorry about the delay.

by Harmony Ltd. Sun Sep 22, 2013 6:59 pm

Out of the current topic, a thought occured to me (and I'm sorry if it was already brought up or if it actually already happened in the story and I don't remember it) :

Why do we fall ?
To better pick ourselves up.

If it hadn't already been used in a really popular movie (and thus rendering its use quite cheesy to the audience if used in a serious context), that's the kind of quote I could see being thrown in the story, what with Blackjack's desperate stubbornness in the face of adversity and all that.

by O. Hinds Sun Sep 22, 2013 8:45 pm

[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion - Page 23 Somber11

Chapter 140_6!

Also, whatever you lot think we talk about during brushing, I wouldn't be too surprised if you were wrong. :)

by Somber Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:38 pm

And now it works... yay!

by Vergil Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:40 pm

Somber wrote:And now it works... yay!

yay!

by Moodyman90 Sun Sep 22, 2013 9:43 pm

Still reading through the chapter, around the half way point now.

Personal thoughts and opinons, but still spoilers.:

Edit: If I throw enough money at the screen will Wastelander! become a real show? I want it so badly now!

Double Edit: Just finished the chapter. Gotta say, hell of a way to end a chapter. Got my heart pounding there at the end cause I saw the chapter was almost over and I didn't know what to expect.

by Icy Shake Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:33 am

You rat bastards. This was posted at almost exactly the right time to let me read it and only be somewhat destroyed for work tomorrow, so I can't justify leaving it until tomorrow. I think you should know by now that your role is to release chapters in accordance with my schedule. Oh well, at least you got me as I'm coming down from some drink over the course of the day, so that helps.

Running Thoughts:

Chapter Thoughts:

Editing:

All in all a very enjoyable chapter. I look forward to the next one (and the old ones I'll read between now and then!), and thank Somber and the brushing team for the work they put into this. Best of luck getting a full time teaching gig, and I hope you won't be missing any days subbing until that happens.

Edit: Oh, and since I haven't posted since this was:

SilentCarto wrote:
Icy Shake wrote:That's actually a very good point. Probably Twilight and her ilk would be the only ones using "laser," given the different context. That said, plasma weaponry is definitely a feature of Fallout: Equestria, even if it's rarely mentioned in Project Horizons. Lasers, on the other hand, show up only once in the original and that may be a mistake.
Yeah, I derped my bubbly gray butt off on that one. I recalled Kkat using some terribly awkward phrases like "magical energy grenade" to avoid saying "laser" or "plasma", and I failed to actually check if I remembered right before I posted. Still, I'm positive that you're correct that her one use of the word "laser" was a mistake. She went so far out of her way to avoid using "laser", it had to be deliberate.

O. Hinds wrote:That's fine. I don't think that I shall change it back, though, as the more generic versions in now work fine for either case.
Sure thing. I just feel bad about making you change stuff that didn't need it, given how much work I give you on legit errors!

Edit: ...uh. That wasn't meant as a jab at Somber, or anything. I'm a stickler and I know it.

Yeah, I didn't want to say that KKat almost certainly made a mistake considering the context of her one use of "laser," but to paraphrase Dr. Farnsworth, I was thinking it loudly.

Also, echo on your entire response to Hinds and the edit; I feel the same way entirely. And there's nothing wrong with there being little mistakes here and there: that's why there are content editors and copy editors and line editors, and with a work of this size, put out on the schedule it's released, things are bound to slip through even a strong process (this also applies to KKat).

Oh, and that reminded me:

Spoiler:

I only recently got around to reading "What's Eating Rainbow Dash," and I thought it was very good, and seems to represent one side of the fandom's feelings on the episode very well (and mine, since I'm on that side). Considering when it came out, I'm a little surprised it received such a poor . . . reception . . . but I guess that's probably because it was divisive or controversial. Also, how did I miss the very existence of the rest of Somber's former work, besides that and "Simply Rarity"? Just want to confirm, by the way, Perils of the Past is complete, right?

by Somber Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:14 am

It's complete in the sense that I'm not going to finish it... probably. Originally my Big bad was Discord... and then they introduced Discord. So... yeah... It gets up to Nightmare Screamer's attack on Canterlot and then nothing. >.>

I tried to make lasers= incineration beams and plasma - disintegration spell. But Raptor plasma cannons kinda mehed that.

Loved your observations and I'm glad I gave you some laughs. Things are going to go down hill rather quickly the next two chapters... but now BJ is tough enough to handle it.

by O. Hinds Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:42 am

Icy Shake wrote:You rat bastards. This was posted at almost exactly the right time to let me read it and only be somewhat destroyed for work tomorrow, so I can't justify leaving it until tomorrow. I think you should know by now that your role is to release chapters in accordance with my schedule. Oh well, at least you got me as I'm coming down from some drink over the course of the day, so that helps.

Running Thoughts:
Chapter Thoughts:
Editing:
All in all a very enjoyable chapter. I look forward to the next one (and the old ones I'll read between now and then!), and thank Somber and the brushing team for the work they put into this. Best of luck getting a full time teaching gig, and I hope you won't be missing any days subbing until that happens.

Ah, thank you very much as always. Sorry about the timing being bad for you, though.

Spoiler:

by Icy Shake Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:13 am

O. Hinds wrote:
Ah, thank you very much as always. Sorry about the timing being bad for you, though.

No problem. It has to be for somebody, after all.

Spoiler:

by WavemasterRyx Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:25 am

*hugs Somber, Hinds, and Bronode each gently*
Thank you for all of your hard work in bringing us Project Horizons.

This chapter was really fantastic. There were just a lot of little pieces that made it great, and possibly one part I enjoyed a little too much, heh...

Initial thoughts:

I will, as always, strive to get my full comments finished soon. Thank you very much again. Somber, I hope things will be alright for you, and Bronode, I hope you get better soon from whatever ailment has you. And Hinds... keep being striped.

I don't know... it's 5:30 and my brain feels like it's slowly starting to implode... Very much time to crawl into bed.

by Third Wind Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:41 am

The "Jeeves" line was really nice! Didn't expect it there Dash clapping

by Harmony Ltd. Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:14 am

It's highly irrational, and it would probably take a full paragraph or two to explain why it made me react but...

Somber wrote:Spectrum Studios had been a movie production house before the war and had seen no reason to stop when the world ended.

a comment I made on the previous quote somewhere else wrote:Sentences like that are among the reasons why I read Post-Apocalyptic fiction.

It's just... it kind of establish by itself the surreal weirdness of a post-apocalyptic setting, I'd say.

Yeah, I think one of the core "theme" of the post-apocalyptic genre, in my interpretation at least, is that the normal become surreal, and the unnatural become normal. With the fall of Civilization things are turned upside down, and what takes its place is only either a pale shadow of what came before, a parody of it, or so different from it as to be almost alien.

by Moodyman90 Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:26 am

Well, when you really get down to it, everything we call "post-apocalyptic" isn't really post-apocalypses. If anything they're "good enough for government work" post-apocalypses.

Sorry, I went to a few panels where they talked at length about stories like this. Apparently before the Industrial Revolution most literature dealing with the Apocalypses usually ended with everything dead, and usually from some huge natural disaster that simply couldn't be stopped.
After the Industrial Revolution, Apocalyptic literature turned towards man made disasters and possibilities to survive.
The people talking about it knew their stuff too. PhDs and all that, who wrote stories on the side.

by Harmony Ltd. Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:32 am

Moodyman90 wrote:Well, when you really get down to it, everything we call "post-apocalyptic" isn't really post-apocalypses. If anything they're "good enough for government work" post-apocalypses.

Sorry, I went to a few panels where they talked at length about stories like this. Apparently before the Industrial Revolution most literature dealing with the Apocalypses usually ended with everything dead, and usually from some huge natural disaster that simply couldn't be stopped.
After the Industrial Revolution, Apocalyptic literature turned towards man made disasters and possibilities to survive.
The people talking about it knew their stuff too. PhDs and all that, who wrote stories on the side.

Well, yeah. But you don't often see a story focusing on, let's say, life after humanity on a ruined earth. Well, there's Adventure Time, but I'm not quite sure the post-apocalyptic angle is central to it (disclaimer : I only have seen a few episodes of it).

But anyway, yeah, this kind of literature is interesting in how it reflect the culture of the society that generated them. Once we started being able to, to some measure, bend nature to our will, the change of tone and focus isn't surprising. Only logical, in fact.

In that respect, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (the manga, not the movie) is an interesting example, I think. In line with the "civilization killed this world, now it's up to nature to give life again" theme you often see in a number of works. The age old nature vs. civilization rhetoric.

by Retl Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:39 am

Chapter 60 is probably the most fun I've had in any single PH chapter memory, and I know it's one I'll be rereading in future months.

Something actually specific enough to count as a spoiler:

by Moodyman90 Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:46 am

Adventure Time focuses on wacky adventures and uses the post-apocalyptic setting to justify all the crazy stuff going on and the weird creatures. Also for funny scenes in the background, like the city that was underwater and you could see two skeletons sitting on a couch.

But this raises an interesting point. We read post-apocalyptic stories for the survivors and to see if they'll make it. If a story set after the apocalypses is about life other than what we'd call the main species( humans for us, ponies, griffins, sand dogs etc. for FoE) is it post-apocalyptic, or just a story of the next civilization rise to the top?

by Harmony Ltd. Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:50 am

Well, I'd say in that case "post-apocalyptic" is the... premise (?) and not the theme / genre of the work. if that makes sense ?

What IS "post-apocalyptic" as a genre anyway ?

Heh. I guess that the kind of discussion that could warrant a thread of its own. if anyone is interested in sharing opinions and stuff.

by Evilgidgit Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:07 pm

Another enjoyable chapter. Boo continues to intrigue me.

by Harmony Ltd. Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:15 pm

Yes, comment on the chapter proper :

I didn't feel there was any pacing problem, the plot continued to advance, questions were answered and others have now appeared. And while this chapter and the previous one were mostly "rest chapter" (for what measure of "rest" there is in PH), the chapter's end make it clear (or at least give the expectation) that shit is about to go down.

No real commentary to make on any particular point at this time (other than the one made previously), so I'll just say good job, as usual.

by FeatherDust Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:08 pm

Okay, I'm about a third through the chapter but I'm squeeing at Mare Do Well.

Since the stories about MDW are widespread and attribute vastly different capabilities and fighting styles to her, clearly MDW is sticking with her original concept as a shared persona. I suspect a widespread organization devoted to guiding the Enclave away from the worst mistakes, among other goals, rather like the White Lotus brotherhood from Last Airbender.

I also want to suspect that Moonshadow was the one in the suit; who else would know exactly where to find Blackjack? But the MDW also didn't know who Blackjack was, which she should have if she were Moony*. Possibly Moony is a member of the organization but not the heroic type and called in a visit from another member. Hard to say.

Partly I want it to be Moonshadow because that is also the name of Tyler's Batman-like heroic alter ego in PS238.

* Possibly she only knew "Blackjack" and that meant nothing, and the reaction was to finding out that she's talking to (and her sister is dating) Security.

by Harmony Ltd. Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:49 pm

You know, IF the Mare-Do-Well shtick is actually, like you said, a common effort between a group of ponies to steer the Enclave in a certain direction ; this raises an interesting parallel with what originally happened between Rainbow Dash and Mare-Do-Well, instead that here it could be the ponies behind MDW's answer to the Dashites.

I don't know if I make sense ?

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