[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

Sekashi's virtue might well be Laughter, but Ditzy's the one who ends up bearing the Element of Laughter. There's no reason that Sekashi can't do the same, except that wielding the Elements at all is a rare occurrence.

swicked wrote:...
Lancer decided to attack that slave camp just to kill them. He's incredibly skilled and deadly. Every zebra other than the only two he was supposedly shooting for died.

I've never believed that.

If Lancer didn't intentionally spare him he subconsciously did. Either way he wants them to stay dead in the Caesar's eyes. It's just too much for me to believe Sekashi's explanation of him feeling such urgency to kill them that he... didn't kill them. Or something. He killed every zebra in a group EXCEPT the two he needed to.
He knows how to kill ponies. On some level, for some reason, their survival was intentional.

RIGHT?!?!?!


Seriously... if it wasn't for his shock when BJ inferred that the two were still alive during a battle with Lancer, I'd expect he intentionally avoided killing them. Even that might have been a bluff, or a misread on BJ's part (I should rerereread that bit). The coincidence is huge, otherwise - that his two actual targets survived where the rest did not. I suppose the stars might still be watching out for her and hers, giving her Blackjack's death-escape (in which you do not die, but get crippled badly).

OneMoreDaySK wrote:Wait, so is there any missions where you have to travel across the wasteland without fast travel? If so I could have saved 20+ hours.
*facepalm*
Also hurray for new chapters.
Blackjack getting pregnant? With her luck it will morph into cthulu jr.

you can fast travel to dad if you know where.
you can fast travel to rivet city if you want.
you HAVE to walk the scientists through the tunnel after PP is taken by the enclave
you can fast travel to LL & go through 86, do the whole RR thing then FT to the pentagon.
you have to walk to project purity with prime.

that's all. everything else can be FT'd if you need to go anywhere.

swicked wrote:...He knows how to kill ponies. On some level, for some reason, their survival was intentional.

It's not hard to believe that she would be a good enough mother to inspire such devotion. Sekashi surviving could be an accident. Sekashi and her Majina (who is very likely his sister) both surviving is foul play... pure play. The simplest answer is that Lancer spared them. I'm not discounting interference from somewhere else, though. But I am probably overthinking it. Why make such a convoluted web of intrigue for three side characters? Even if you count Lancer, they really can't compare to the other aspects of BJ's trials.
But if Lancer really did spare her, we should at least expect a little something from him in the future.

Overlong Analysis Cobalt wrote:Seriously... if it wasn't for his shock when BJ inferred that the two were still alive during a battle with Lancer, I'd expect he intentionally avoided killing them. Even that might have been a bluff, or a misread on BJ's part (I should rerereread that bit). The coincidence is huge, otherwise - that his two actual targets survived where the rest did not. I suppose the stars might still be watching out for her and hers, giving her Blackjack's death-escape (in which you do not die, but get crippled badly).

Crazy Zebra Logic, yes? If someone tells Lancer that Sekashi is alive, he is bound to hunt and kill her. If Sekashi takes a shot that was probably fatal (there were many zebras, the mine was crowded, I was surrounded by enemies, I was stoned just before I did it- he has a good list of excuses for not checking) and she lays low like the smart and talented zebra that Lancer knows she is, he will never have to hear about how she survived. Never have to continue the hunt.

Just a theory.

Sindri wrote:So if Conquest symbolizes war, what does War symbolize?

All of the horsemen are interconnected -- Conquest leads to war, War brings Death, Famine brings Death... they aren't really separate things.

It gets treated like a point-for-point prediction of the end times when for the most part it was directed specifically and blatantly at men and institutions that have been dead for over a thousand years. The four horsemen are a meaningful and useful symbol, but taking exact descriptions and treating them like the immutable Word of God (despite centuries of reinterpretation and repeated translation rendering them almost unrecognizable) doesn't make you any more correct...

Uh... wow. Hi. Pedantry. Didn't say word of god or anything. Just commenting that the popular Horsemen aren't actually the ones in the book. Take it easy.

Meleagridis wrote:
New chapter! Honestly, it's a little nerve wracking. What are the odds of a positive reaction to Stygius? Assuming he even survives Steel Rain...

Oh, Stygius has to survive if only so he can meet Glory and she can find out about him and BJ....

Poor Blackjack... Raised with entirely different attitudes towards sexuality, she has no idea how Glory is going to take this...
(For those of you who slept through Lit class, that's called dramatic irony.)

But yeah, Preggers!Blackjack now? No. If nothing else, in the last chapter there she explicitly mentioned that she'd have to go get her implant taken out for that to happen. For an epilogue? I really really hope for some adorable bat-winged baby ponies.

My god...congrats to some of you for destroying the forum post counts in the month since you arrived. You've beaten counts from members who have been around for nearly 5 months.

Main credit goes to Guard. He's topped the charts with either post in the RP or here, and he only played a single character. Aonee has two active characters and Scyto juggles so many it's amazing he can keep them straight.
I still only have one character, and Last picked up a second last week. Jacky only has one active character but he's also been DMing for us when Scyto hasn't. Personally I'm amazed to see Magma up there but I guess he post more then I thought.

Yea, guard posts a ton. Not even the admins have as many posts as him >.< Course, now they don't have as many posts as me or Scyto either, but still.

Ice Crystal wrote:My god...congrats to some of you for destroying the forum post counts in the month since you arrived. You've beaten counts from members who have been around for nearly 5 months.

Personally I'm amazed that I've managed to write 46 posts since we arrived... it certainly doesn't feel like I post that much...

But yeah Miss Ice, there's a good reason why PH went through three 5000 post discussion threads before coming here.

Ice Crystal wrote:My god...congrats to some of you for destroying the forum post counts in the month since you arrived. You've beaten counts from members who have been around for nearly 5 months.

well, what do you expect from the community that managed to get over 15,000 cmments on teh Project Horizons tdiscussion on EqD... you see, webecame bretty closely knit and well honestly I must confess the RP thread really does not do anyones post count justice on the Quality front.... anyway, thank you so much for the Compliment on our accomplishment, can we have a banner for a reward, just a temporary one regarding Prject Horizons or something... it would be soo cool!!!

on to contribution to the topic at hand

I am not sober, but that is not the topic!!

NoodleNugget wrote:

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:Famine... means a food shortage...

So it would be the false prophet war famine and then death

Although with scales...those are often used the depict judgement.

Scales are often also associated with bartering(trade)
no trade = no food
famine (ta da!)

For the whole conquest bit, even then it can be sort of interpreted as pestilence.
the bow could represent how swift and how silently the diseases would kill(at least during that time period)
the crown... (you got me. no clue)
out for conquest. could be how diseases could take hold of towns at a time and spread like wildfire. as people would die pestilence would 'conquer'

who knows(can't we just enjoy an awesome introduction?)

Noodle, the idea of the bow but no arrow and a crown being put on his brow implies diplomacy rule through empty words andsuch. In other words the horseman is given a bow and a crown, the purpose of rule but at the same time its like a person without the training going out dresssed in full comabt gear complete with survival gear you would thin git was a soldier or a great warrior, but in reality it is all hot air....


your thoughts on teh scales highly hilghy likely I find it to be easily identifyable... although it would be a thing to do with trade overcoming things in economics not just for americans but globally as more of our ability to report the values of things becomes more rapid eventually currency will have tobecome a common thing world wide a single world currency, you see it would be rediculous that a carrot cost less in Won and more in Dollars when it is the same carrot but the value of the currency says otherwise not putting into account locale, just the exact object minus tariffs and such....


see hat i mean?

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:

NoodleNugget wrote:

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:Famine... means a food shortage...

So it would be the false prophet war famine and then death

Although with scales...those are often used the depict judgement.

Scales are often also associated with bartering(trade)
no trade = no food
famine (ta da!)

For the whole conquest bit, even then it can be sort of interpreted as pestilence.
the bow could represent how swift and how silently the diseases would kill(at least during that time period)
the crown... (you got me. no clue)
out for conquest. could be how diseases could take hold of towns at a time and spread like wildfire. as people would die pestilence would 'conquer'

who knows(can't we just enjoy an awesome introduction?)

Noodle, the idea of the bow but no arrow and a crown being put on his brow implies diplomacy rule through empty words andsuch. In other words the horseman is given a bow and a crown, the purpose of rule but at the same time its like a person without the training going out dresssed in full comabt gear complete with survival gear you would thin git was a soldier or a great warrior, but in reality it is all hot air....


your thoughts on teh scales highly hilghy likely I find it to be easily identifyable... although it would be a thing to do with trade overcoming things in economics not just for americans but globally as more of our ability to report the values of things becomes more rapid eventually currency will have tobecome a common thing world wide a single world currency, you see it would be rediculous that a carrot cost less in Won and more in Dollars when it is the same carrot but the value of the currency says otherwise not putting into account locale, just the exact object minus tariffs and such....


see hat i mean?

i must point out I was overly assertive in that first paragraph let me imply that I I mean this is what I ifer from the passage

swicked wrote:@Cobalt
The idea that he would just so perfectly fail at his most important targets... it's too much for me to believe. He is anything but incompetent.

I think he didn't try to identify his target, and Sekashi was simply tougher than the rest of the zebras, so she survived a wound that killed others. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd foreseen the event, giving the child and taking herself some kind of potion or other wizardry that let them survive. It wasn't so much that he tried to kill her any less than the others, it was that she wasn't as easily killed.

RandomBlank wrote:

swicked wrote:@Cobalt
The idea that he would just so perfectly fail at his most important targets... it's too much for me to believe. He is anything but incompetent.

I think he didn't try to identify his target, and Sekashi was simply tougher than the rest of the zebras, so she survived a wound that killed others. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd foreseen the event, giving the child and taking herself some kind of potion or other wizardry that let them survive. It wasn't so much that he tried to kill her any less than the others, it was that she wasn't as easily killed.

If I recall correctly, he took twelve shots in eight seconds with a high-powered rifle. One shattered Blackjack's spine, nine killed nine zebras, and two seriously wounded the remaining two zebras. That success rate would be a remarkable and terrifying display of skill on its own. I'd believe aiming to cripple rather than kill when he shot Blackjack; she was hist first target so he had plenty of time, she wasn't somepony he wanted dead, and she'd unwittingly done him a big favor.


But the two survivors being his mother and sister? Even accounting for Sekashi's toughness, that'd be a huge coincidence. Alchemy is a possible explanation, but where would she have gotten the ingredients? Where would she have hid the potions? She'd been a slave. And then Blackjack lets slip more than enough information for him to realize that they were alive and find them, but Lancer never went anywhere near Chapel. Even when it would only have taken a few hours to confirm his kill.

Not making any conclusions here, but it all seems extremely suspicious.

Murky Number Seven new chapter is out.

@mod yeah if you want to see how crazy we are, just check out the three maxed out comment threads on EqD.

Do y'all think that Blackjack is gonna have to deal with the Caesar, or just the legate that Lancer works under?

Is there still even any caesar alive??

Huh... well I guess I keep having the misfortune of posting in the
middle of intense debates (oh see what I did there?... *coughs* okay as I
was saying...), I suppose I'll just leave this here and go get some sleep.
*waves*

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/24189209117

WavemasterRyx wrote:
http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/24189209117

Awwwwww, cute!

(Now if only I didn't find Puppy to be completely obnoxious...)

By the way, have any of you read Anywhere But Here? I haven't started in on it yet, but the MadMax cover and griffon main character really make me want to!

...and just the moment I asked Boo about Sekashi...

Re: Pregnancy: I can just state that the most deciding factor is whether or not they have equine "heat" or human ... "cycles"? But going with previous facts, whichever they have, they are as said (or were pre-wasteland) reckless as fuck with it, didn't care/know better or really, really wanted foals. On a side note, why can I see BJ having the luck of "your reproductive organs survived, but however, you got scrambled eggs, so not like it matters anyhow."

@Swicked: (Pegged) ... gee, thanks for choosing that word, now all I can see is Shy or Pinkie (or one of the "candidates") with a feeldoe/strap-on going something like "It's pegging time!". And I'm sure those two are technically not even related, but hey, it's me, so I'm not surprised.

(Lancer attack) Seeing how every other than the ones he aimed at died... he must have neglected to take, precise shot
As for him trying to kill them, when BJ told him she told her stuff, he seemed to freak out a bit, thinking they weren't dead before she lied and said it was their last words so... but as you said, it could possibly be a high bluff check roll on his side.

WavemasterRyx wrote:Huh... well I guess I keep having the misfortune of posting in the
middle of intense debates (oh see what I did there?... *coughs* okay as I
was saying...), I suppose I'll just leave this here and go get some sleep.
*waves*

http://wavemasterryx.tumblr.com/post/24189209117

Two! Two fan works for the best zebra of all time! Ah, ah, ah! Did you take cues from Mech's Sekashi? If so, you matched it perfectly (but with your own adorable style- and Puppy. I should finish reading that). ...That contest was fun. Let's do it again.

swicked wrote:Oh, and Lancer is her son or half-son. He's the son of her ex husband, the new Caesar, but he had multiple wives so... yeah.

Lancer is nothing to Sekashi. Step-son, you might say, I guess. He's Majina's half-brother, though.

swicked wrote:I don't know if she really wants to fight Lancer. I'd be willing to believe she doesn't want to fight at all anymore. She just wants to live without the endless war and raise her foal.

Honestly, I kind of expect her to be in charge of Chapel at this point. As far as I know, she and Harpica are the only adults in residence now, and Harpica strikes me as more of a follower than a leader.

UNRELATED TO EVERYTHING... but I have to share.

I just got some money back as a shipping refund from these two beautiful babies:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/251074547329?ssPageName=STRK:null:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1542.l2649

http://www.ebay.com/itm/251073553572?ssPageName=STRK:null:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1542.l2649


Can't wait to get them =3

SilentCarto wrote:

swicked wrote:Oh, and Lancer is her son or half-son. He's the son of her ex husband, the new Caesar, but he had multiple wives so... yeah.

Lancer is nothing to Sekashi. Step-son, you might say, I guess. He's Majina's half-brother, though.

Where'd you get that? We don't know how old Sekashi and Lancer are. Hell, if you bear in mind that Sekashi knows all of the best alchemical and dark star secrets of zebrakind, she could be pre-war for all we know. Not likely, but she could still be old enough to have birthed Lancer. Unless it specifically says otherwise, but I wasn't able to find anything like that.

Sindri wrote:But the two survivors being his mother and sister? Even accounting for Sekashi's toughness, that'd be a huge coincidence. Alchemy is a possible explanation, but where would she have gotten the ingredients? Where would she have hid the potions? She'd been a slave. And then Blackjack lets slip more than enough information for him to realize that they were alive and find them, but Lancer never went anywhere near Chapel. Even when it would only have taken a few hours to confirm his kill.

Well, being a master alchemist on the run, both Sekashi and her child would have a full suite of soldier boosts. That would help a lot. She's also a trained operative, so when the shooting started, she would be more capable of putting herself and Majina in a safe-ish spot than the civilian zebras. I mean, you wouldn't complain if Blackjack were able to twist her body to turn a lethal hit into a nonlethal one, and Sekashi is far better at unarmed and unarmored combat than BJ is. And when you get right down to it, she was hit bad anyway. They both would have bled out and died if Glory hadn't been there to perform emergency surgery. As it was, Majina came close anyway. So really, they were both lucky to survive and owe their lives to Glory's generosity.

RandomBlank wrote:Is there still even any caesar alive??

Um... succession? Some zebra stood up and declared, "Caesar is dead, I'm vaguely related, therefore I'm Caesar now." And somebody obeyed him.

WavemasterRyx wrote:Huh... well I guess I keep having the misfortune of posting in the middle of intense debates (oh see what I did there?... *coughs* okay as I
was saying...), I suppose I'll just leave this here and go get some sleep.
*waves*

Awww. Sekashi hugs are best hugs. I note that you used the 'three X' glyphmark, where it's actually described as resembling a smiley face. But I like this version better anyway.

Meleagridis wrote:Where'd you get that? We don't know how old Sekashi and Lancer are. Hell, if you bear in mind that Sekashi knows all of the best alchemical and dark star secrets of zebrakind, she could be pre-war for all we know. Not likely, but she could still be old enough to have birthed Lancer. Unless it specifically says otherwise, but I wasn't able to find anything like that.

Mostly because she said, "She took the knowledge she had learned and with her child she fled her home." Not "one of her children", or "her youngest child", just "her child". And she only refers to Lancer as the Caesar's son, not anything related to herself. She never states anything that directly proves they're not related, but there's no indication that they are, either, and as you say, their apparent ages make it unlikely.
Equally, there's zero reason to think she's pre-war. She said herself that being favored by the Caesar gave her access to all their forbidden lore, and she studied hard until she was caught. You might as well complain that Glory's not old enough to know all about conventional medicine.

SilentCarto wrote:Mostly because she said, "She took the knowledge she had learned and with her child she fled her home." Not "one of her children", or "her youngest child", just "her child". And she only refers to Lancer as the Caesar's son, not anything related to herself. She never states anything that directly proves they're not related, but there's no indication that they are, either, and as you say, their apparent ages make it unlikely.
Equally, there's zero reason to think she's pre-war. She said herself that being favored by the Caesar gave her access to all their forbidden lore, and she studied hard until she was caught. You might as well complain that Glory's not old enough to know all about conventional medicine.

I'm not saying she's pre-war. I'm saying that we have no idea how old she is, and the resources at her disposal make her lifespan considerably longer than most wasteland residents. She could be as old or older than, say, Big Daddy. Or she might not. She keeps everything open to interpretation. She hasn't even said that she fled with 'her child'- she said that a silly zebra did. Of course we can read between the lines... we have to. That's how she talks. But it leaves space for interpretation. Like how we can read 'her child' as 'her only child' or 'one of her children'.

The pre-war thing was hyperbole. I don't believe that.

swicked wrote:I AM entirely convinced Lancer spared them on purpose.

If so, he did a terrible job of it, as I noted before. Without a fully trained doctor on site, Majina would have died.

swicked wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:Honestly, I kind of expect her to be in charge of Chapel at this point. As far as I know, she and Harpica are the only adults in residence now, and Harpica strikes me as more of a follower than a leader.

I don't think so. Just because they are adults does not make them leaders. They could just as easily be taking direction from Charity at this point. She's got a good head on her shoulders.

...Her empire has begun.