[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

Cptadder wrote:When forty one rolled around I had to rush to the end because I had to know if Littlepip had set the bomb off in story yet.

At this time, we're still slightly more than a week away from Maripony exploding. When night falls, it'll be T-8 days. Just so you know. ^^
Though the way things are building up, we may be in endgame by that time. It's only been three days since they left Tenpony!

Considering that Twilight appears to be acting at Lac's intermediary to the Unity, I suspect there's a strong possibility that she's the one who saves Littlepip from the wreckage.

Welcome to the Cloudsville forums, Adder. You sir, have some very interesting posts yourself.

I just did some mental math, and I found that if a chapter is released every 2 weeks and ending at 70...
PH will be over in approximately 50 weeks. Which is almost a year.

I see we are also doing a little bit of discussion on memory extraction. Any theories on how Psalm's memories were removed? Or if they were at all? Maybe they are simply dreams, as unlikely as it sounds.

swicked wrote:

Cptadder wrote:and last a special moment of hate for swicked

...



Well! Same to you, buddy!

Well rest assured I only hated you from January 2012 to April 2012
.....
Lets play a fun game

Click on the spoiler tag, you may only look at it for .5 seconds, one of those is Somber avatar which is a unicorn, one is swicked which is a zebra

Pick 1 or 2
Ready?
GO!

Spoiler:

Time's already up!
If you selected 1 congratulations you now hate swicked too (From January 2012 to April 2012), if you selected 2 congratulations your eyesight is excellent.

Cptadder wrote:Okay with all of that out of the way let me gather the "Great Project Horizon's speculation theories"

Awesome! It's always interesting to get a new perspective from someone who just mainlined the whole fic and has everything fresh in their head.

Theory 1 (Superweapon) and Theory 2 (Moon Stable) actually could combine. If PH is a giant, world-cleansing doomsday device, perhaps Redoubt is not in fact a huge, buried bunker, but a very small bunker containing a teleporter to the Project Redoubt moon base.
Cue "Send them to the moon" jokes.

swicked wrote:So... what? One of them physically locked the door?
'Cause that'd be hilarious XD

That's my theory. P-21 took part in a Significant Look just before they left:
Then I sighed. “Sorry I didn’t turn out to be Twilight Sparkle’s kid.” Homage’s smile faded as she looked over at P-21. I tried to ignore the pink pony going ‘oooooooh’ in the back of my brain as I focused on Life Bloom. And... was it just me, or were the purple alicorns now glancing at each other?

SilentCarto wrote:

Cptadder wrote:Okay with all of that out of the way let me gather the "Great Project Horizon's speculation theories"

Awesome! It's always interesting to get a new perspective from someone who just mainlined the whole fic and has everything fresh in their head.

Theory 1 (Superweapon) and Theory 2 (Moon Stable) actually could combine. If PH is a giant, world-cleansing doomsday device, perhaps Redoubt is not in fact a huge, buried bunker, but a very small bunker containing a teleporter to the Project Redoubt moon base.
Cue "Send them to the moon" jokes.

*Forgets what Redoubt is*
Was it the big bunker made for the -Blood family?

swicked wrote:So... what? One of them physically locked the door?
'Cause that'd be hilarious XD

Yeah, my working theory is that Homage had P-21 just pick the lock closed. I mentioned that in my "shenanigans" post a few pages back:

FeatherDust wrote:
...or do we still suspect Twilight (with shenanigans* to keep the
door in Tenpony closed**)?

* Presumably P21 locking it the mundane way using a hairpin so it wouldn't open even if the spell did recognize BJ.

** Because the society wouldn't let a direct descendant of Twilight out of
their sight and/or couldn't be trusted with whatever was behind the
door.

ketchup504 wrote:*Forgets what Redoubt is*
Was it the big bunker made for the -Blood family?

Yes, made by the OIA, allegedly for all the nobles who were at the party.

SilentCarto wrote:

ketchup504 wrote:*Forgets what Redoubt is*
Was it the big bunker made for the -Blood family?

Yes, made by the OIA, allegedly for all the nobles who were at the party.

Thought so, thanks.

Chapter Art comin' at ya.

Mech, you are hilarious!

@Mech:
Heeheeheeheehee...

Hehe I'm already ready loving this thread <3

Anyone else think this song is rather fitting for Blackjack?

Ice Crystal wrote:Anyone else think this song is rather fitting for Blackjack?

The lyrics certainly do, but the song's 'vibe' seems too light to fit perfectly.

Cptadder wrote:Also like to give a shoutout to the fanriffic artists
Mech and WavemasterRyx plus the proof readers O. Hinds... and the other
one (Sorry but only O. Hinds had interesting little behinds the scenes
comments so which made me eager when I saw one of his comments)

Welcome, sir. You seem like you'll make a fine addition to the PH community debates, so I hope you enjoy your stay,
And thank you, I'm very glad that you've enjoyed my work, and all the artists' work that this story has inspired.

swicked wrote:

Cptadder wrote:A quick moment to mention in no real
order swicked, Fuzzy, Kim, silentcarto, Fuzzy Porcupine Paws,
JeremyRush, and last winner of the most interesting comments award
Sindri.

Hey! Thanks, I really like the story, and-

Cptadder wrote:and last a special moment of hate for swicked

...
Well! Same to you, buddy!

Oh swicked, your use of LMR's pictures for that made me giggle.

Mech wrote:Chapter Art Pure Awesome comin' at ya.

Oh Mech... You're really incredible, every single one of those drawings is fantastic.
*hugs Lacunae and Rampage*

There is a thread now just for art that has to do with PH so ya'll can post there

So, did my monorail post slip through the cracks, or was it just that no one had anything to say in reply?

FeatherDust wrote:it's very likely that Homage didn't want that door opened (or at least didn't want it opened in the presence of the rest of the Twilight Society). Either she fears what the TwiSci would do with whatever's back there (maybe she has an idea of what it is), or she knows that they'd never willingly let Twilight's only surviving heir leave the tower.

Or the Twilight Society knows that Blackjack, upon opening the door, will have legitimate claim to everything through it and plenty of power to enforce that, and they know that she doesn't work for them (and has a tendency to break things), so they don't want her to see what's on the other side.

swicked wrote:So... what? One of them physically locked the door?
'Cause that'd be hilarious XD

Yep! Or actually, P-21 did, based on the significant glances he was exchanging with them.

ketchup504 wrote:I see we are also doing a little bit of discussion on memory extraction. Any theories on how Psalm's memories were removed? Or if they were at all? Maybe they are simply dreams, as unlikely as it sounds.

I'm still leaning toward part of Psalm shifting from Lacunae to Blackjack when she pulled her out of that catatonic state. Because Psalm was clearly in Lacunae before that, and now Lac claims to not remember her and Blackjack is having ridiculously detailed memory/dreams from Psalm.

swicked wrote:
...at least I'm not a JERK.

I'm sorry, but that's adorable

Mech wrote:Chapter Art comin' at ya.

That's awesome. You're awesome.

Mech wrote:Chapter Art comin' at ya.

I can't stop giggling at "My vision is augmented". That expression!

SilentCarto wrote:

ketchup504 wrote:*Forgets what Redoubt is*
Was it the big bunker made for the -Blood family?

Yes, made by the OIA, allegedly for all the nobles who were at the party.

Correct but to go further Redoubt had enough funding for multiple stables and was far enough away from Hoofington that airship was the only way to reach it quick enough. Makes me wonder if there is a underground lair in a Volcano somewhere with room for ten stables worth of the socialite and scientific elites considering that it was funded in part by Blueblood, and the fact Blueblood had anything to do with it.

swicked wrote:
...


...at least I'm not a JERK.

Guilty as charged

O. Hinds wrote:So, did my monorail post slip through the cracks, or was it just that no one had anything to say in reply?

I did but only the comment that a city environment monorail is not likely to be rubber tired when the have hover technology and well established weight maniupulation technology, they can run monorails off of magic just like Pegasus guns are much lighter then normal and have recoil compensation build in. I envision standard maglev style trains just with spark batteries powering weight lightening units along the bottom of the track. Propulsion could be identical to whatever lets Raptors move around at the clip they do. Power budget will be vastly lower since they just need to move very lightweight cars at a decent pace. Likely the weight reduction magic will drain far more juice than the movement itself.

ketchup504 wrote:I see we are also doing a little bit of discussion on memory extraction. Any theories on how Psalm's memories were removed? Or if they were at all? Maybe they are simply dreams, as unlikely as it sounds.

I'm still leaning toward part of Psalm shifting from Lacunae to Blackjack when she pulled her out of that catatonic state. Because Psalm was clearly in Lacunae before that, and now Lac claims to not remember her and Blackjack is having ridiculously detailed memory/dreams from Psalm.

I'm leaning towards the idea that Psalm met back up with OIA agents after finishing off everyone on her list and got "forgiven" by being mind wiped of her little murder spree of innocents and dumped into the wasteland to go to Maripony and kill Twilight but running into and getting absorbed by the Goddess instead since Twilight had long since been consumed by the Goddess. She still has her memories of her sniper days however giving her still plenty to guilt over.

My question is who trained her and convinced her that only by killing could she earn forgiveness, the third person nature of her comments leads me to believe it's not Goldy or Luna herself.

O. Hinds wrote:So, did my monorail post slip through the cracks, or was it just that no one had anything to say in reply?

*shrug* Looks about right to me. A monorail's a monorail, yanno?

Cptadder wrote:Correct but to go further Redoubt had enough funding for multiple stables and was far enough away from Hoofington that airship was the only way to reach it quick enough. Makes me wonder if there is a underground lair in a Volcano somewhere with room for ten stables worth of the socialite and scientific elites considering that it was funded in part by Blueblood, and the fact Blueblood had anything to do with it.

I thought that the location an airship ride away was Elysium, some hideaway of Fancy Pants' and probably the origin of Awesome's little kingdom.


I had the impression that Redoubt was the defenses of Hoofington itself, making the whole city as megaspell-proof as a Stable. Weren't there references to Redoubt when some of the killers from the museum tried to get back into the city and were blocked by blast shields in the tunnels? It worked too; the city's untouched inside. If Enervation hadn't killed the inhabitants Hoofington would have been the biggest, safest, and swankiest Stable in the Wastes.

Cptadder wrote:Because Psalm was clearly in Lacunae before that, and now Lac claims to not remember her...

That doesn't necessarily mean anything. "I… we… I am always dreaming. We are dreaming each other’s dreams." It's difficult for alicorns to filter 'self' out of the mess of the Unity. As the alicorn in the Zebratown police station noted, "This Goddess-forsaken place makes us remember things. I hate remembering things. Last night, I remembered I used to be a buck." Clearly, if the alicorn in question could forget that little tidbit, Lacunae could easily forget her own name.

@swicked You changed your avatar back. Just noticed XD.
@OHinds Did you ever get FO3 working? Good luck.
@mech Bwahahahaha. Lacunae looks hilarious. Also, the look Dealer is giving Blackjack makes that statement even funnier.
@CptAdder Well, whoever Garnet is working for is responsible, as she sent Jetstream off as well to Roam.

So at this point Littlepip is somewhere in Canterlot, right? Hope that Trixie at least gets to see Glory bashing Blackjack before she explodes.

Sindri wrote:

FeatherDust wrote:Either [Homage] fears what the TwiSci would do with whatever's back there (maybe she has an idea of what it is), or she knows that they'd never willingly let Twilight's only surviving heir leave the tower.

Or the Twilight Society knows that Blackjack, upon opening the door, will have legitimate claim to everything through it and plenty of power to enforce that, and they know that she doesn't work for them (and has a tendency to break things), so they don't want her to see what's on the other side.

You think the society was in on this as a whole? They seemed legitimately disappointed, and anyway if the door doesn't open, it doesn't open -- I don't think her touch disarmed it so they could come along later and open it. It only opens at Twilight's touch.

No, this was Homage working against the society as a whole. Remember, the Society isn't interested in fighting the good fight. They're as bad as the Steel Rangers when it comes to hoarding.

swicked wrote:

FeatherDust wrote:

ScytoHarmony wrote:I mean, when she tried to activate
the door, she touched it with her cyber-hoof, not a organic part of her
body.

For that matter, considering Twilight, wouldn't it probably require some sort of magic to open?

That's one theory, but she used a hoof to open the door to the study later, which probably was also locked to Twilight. The suspicion is that the "go fetch the book from that room" thing was a ruse, Lifebloom and Homage checking privately after intentionally fouling the public test.

I don't think it's magic or anything about BJ herself -- as I said, it's very likely that Homage didn't want that door opened (or at least didn't want it opened in the presence of the rest of the Twilight Society). Either she fears what the TwiSci would do with whatever's back there (maybe she has an idea of what it is), or she knows that they'd never willingly let Twilight's only surviving heir leave the tower.

So... what? One of them physically locked the door?
'Cause that'd be hilarious XD

BJ suspected that P21 had a hoof in tampering with the test... and I think that implies locking the door

Sindri wrote:
I had the impression that Redoubt was the defenses of Hoofington itself, making the whole city as megaspell-proof as a Stable. Weren't there references to Redoubt when some of the killers from the museum tried to get back into the city and were blocked by blast shields in the tunnels? It worked too; the city's untouched inside. If Enervation hadn't killed the inhabitants Hoofington would have been the biggest, safest, and swankiest Stable in the Wastes.

Perhaps. Maybe its both, or maybe Horizons is Hoofington's defenses, or a way to deactivate them. Hoofington was important to Goldenblood, IIRC, and maybe Horizons activating automatically after EC-1101 failed to activate was to ensure that Hoofington could only be accessed after the Partypooper targets were dead? Of course, since Blackjack seems to be able to activate it, this wouldn't have worked, but who else knew about Goldie's secret lab? This sorta fits with EC being the key to Hoofington a bit, too.

Go get your hole-punchers...

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:BJ suspected that P21 had a hoof in tampering with the test... and I think that implies locking the door

I don't recall BJ having any suspicions about the test being invalid. Can you give me some more details on that?

Actually, now I'm doubting if P-21 was involved... from chapter 35:

Homage looked at me with a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t we just get it over with, Life Bloom? The door test?”
“Door test?” P-21 asked with a small frown.


Either P-21 is acting, or he didn't know anything about it -- and he doesn't have time to go lock it between this and the actual test. So it'd have to be Pip who did the locking, or else some other means of trickery.

SilentCarto wrote:

Cptadder wrote:Because Psalm was clearly in Lacunae before that, and now Lac claims to not remember her...

That doesn't necessarily mean anything. "I… we… I am always dreaming. We are dreaming each other’s dreams." It's difficult for alicorns to filter 'self' out of the mess of the Unity. As the alicorn in the Zebratown police station noted, "This Goddess-forsaken place makes us remember things. I hate remembering things. Last night, I remembered I used to be a buck." Clearly, if the alicorn in question could forget that little tidbit, Lacunae could easily forget her own name.

I'm sorry, I have Brohoofed irresponsibly. It's just that one line is still hilarious. <--except the rainbow is laughter.

Homage could have sabotaged the door somehow by herself. There could have been additional security, like a password or a spell. Or maybe the door didn't open because Blackjack asked the door not to.