Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

You're online here too much to ignore us man haha. But it's all good man, no worries.

Aye, I think that swicked has a point. Actually, I'll add to it: there ought also to be some concern over what Red Eye would do to the slavers working with Shackles if he discovered Shackles's treacherous intentions. If Shackles was a good boss with a great vision, maybe they'd put those concerns asides, but given that Shackles is a horrible boss with a vision that boils down to "There are two kinds of people in the world: there's me and there're my slaves"...

The most recent example:

Hm, though perhaps that doesn't count as "openly"; it was just to Grindstone.  Still... someone could have overheard.

You're right, there comes a point where the group would turn on their Leader. He rules with fear and no respect, and difference between being feared and respected is this: A feared man would be left to die, while a respected man would be saved.

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:You're right, there comes a point where the group would turn on their Leader. He rules with fear and no respect, and difference between being feared and respected is this: A feared man would be left to die, while a respected man would be saved.

I have a very good feeling this is how his downfall will happen and it will be delicious.

Ohinds

"Flight after flight, around the rusting cage elevator, we travelled down into the damp and dark void below us.  I strained my ears, but all I heard were the drips or sounds of slavers passing by the maintenance room above us."
Hm.  Inspired at all by this, or is it just that the design makes sense?

Not directly, no. It's actually a kind of Eastern Europe type of area that I first saw in a piece of Half Life 2 concept art, believe it or not. Just this idea of a cage elevator with a stairwell all around it.

On train stuffs, it's based on Equestrian technology. So arcane and talismans and spark batteries and all that jazz. Not really applicable to reality, but I wanted it to thematically feel very basic and "puttering" to keep it from feeling too capable and technologically advanced. It may be fancy arcane magic, but it's still not very fancy to Equestrians.

"We didn't smell anything, so it wasn't near."
Sorry to point this out, but there's a fallacy here.  You're assuming that the rotten mint monster is the only hostile down here.  No reason there can't be both the RMM and a feral ghoul or two…

At this point, poor Murky doesn't really give much thought to anything else.

"They polished the murals and swept the floor of any dust."
…And that may be one of the most ominous things in the chapter yet.

I was very worried that after the vicseral horror of the 'things' that Ministry Station wouldn't have the same effect as I wanted. But it's had a really positive reaction, which I'm very glad to see!

Swicked

Gezz... I mean, I like Coral, but this sorta thing... I kinda wish she was dead. Is that weird?

Most people tended to react with worry over just who was going to bear the brunt of a mother scorned if she ever found out... :p

No one has your sense of hearing, Murky. No one ever has.

Given the reason why he can hear well, I think we can forgive him wanting to keep reminding himself of the advantages. Not that I was actually thinking that while writing, in a purely technical sense the line is a little waffly.

That, though... Murky can see better than Protégé? Protégé even has that digital eyepiece. When did Murky get good at seeing in the dark?

Chapter 4's perk.

I vaguely remember talking about this before. That the talons, though Stern, hold a mercenary contract with Red Eye. He is their employer and they are otherwise divorced from the hierarchy of Fillydelphia.
Thus, she didn't have to take order from them, didn't have to respect them, didn't have to do jack with them.
I thought, though, that Fuzzy said that wasn't right and that the mercenaries had actually been merged with the slavers or something so that Protégé's superiors, for example, would be likely Ragini's as well.
...so I'm confused.

In general how I view it is that they are an integrated contractor. Fairly commonplace in long term contracts within the business world and while it sounds complex and over specific (something I tend to avoid in world design) the general idea is that the Talons still hold their loyalty to one another and especially so to their "primary" contract with Red Eye to obey his side of everything, hence Stern being devout.  Red Eye's will comes before all to them as he is their primary contract holder. As you may have noticed, Shackles has no griffin allies for precisely this reason. However as part of their contract, they are to aid Red Eye in Fillydelphia and as such hold ranks within it for general operations. So long as what their "pony superiors" instruct them to do is by Red Eye's will, they will happily go along with the chain of command. End of the day though, they are loyal to Red Eye. It was Red Eye who instructed Ragini to be Protégé's bodyguard and assistant, thus Ragini will follow Red Eye's orders that she is to follow Protégé's orders, but her primary contract is still Red Eye.

No, not really. This is Chainlink's personal project, IIRC, put together due to the inefficiencies and lack of oversight by Red Eye allowing him to amass stupid amounts of slaves and slavers. I remember this being pretty much off the books. Chainlink's private slave camp.

Denial is a harsh thing.

On the entire slavers thing.

Shackles is, in his own way, a leader to whom certain mindsets of slavers will find themselves attracted. Go by his leadership and you will gain more slaves, better slaves to break in, greater promised power and chances to rise beside him...all that jazz. But the more practical element is Shackles has weight in Fillydelphia. Other masters like Protégé won't let them abuse and do whatever they want with slaves to get all they can out of them. Shackles lets them do what they want, attracting the hardcore "old style" slavers of brutul regimes to even just the deviants who want to go below Red Eye's rulings and who know Shackles would happily turn a blind eye to the stock he gets you working on. He is the essence of slavery, attracting those who see slavery as more than just a business but as a way of life.

When it comes to those he abuses as slavers and tosses around, many of them see that as him weeding out the weak and those who can't adhere to a strict system of slavery. When they see him locking some in with mint things and telling them they're dead until they bring Murky back the kind who follow him don't see "That could be us", they see "We get their stocks, we get their belongings, we get their ranks." However there are also those who quite simply have been shanghaied into his service or even worse, been alloted to him by Red Eye and who now lack the courage to run from him or try to get away from working for him out of fear. Shackles would not take a loss of reputation by slavers abandoning him nicely...

In short, it's half hardcore slavers who see in him a chance to go beyond Red Eye's rules and half those who are almost as much slave as the slaves are.

As for working hours, it's quite simple. They work long but they work easy. Slavers have rotational shifts, they'll end up tired maybe...freaked out by the place perhaps...but nothing that would affect them physically like it would the slaves.

Of course, I can't speak further on many elements of it that are more theories, be you right or wrong I'm afraid. "Mah policy" ;)

Sorry to say, Protégé, but if you don't already have the support by now, I don't see you getting it.
You need to stop trying to appeal to these slavers and start blackmailing and conniving because, believe it or not, you need to PLAY politics to WIN at politics.
...because you simply cannot win a game you aren't playing.

That's a pretty important part of Protégé's character. In many ways he's simply too naive and idealistic about successes of the future to really hold as much sway with the politics of Fillydelphia as his rank, intelligence and poetic words might imply.

Murky: Oh my goooooosh *begins nuzzling the cage*
Protégé: What are you doing?
Murky: A cage, Protégé! An entire cage around this deadly drop! I didn't think safety consciousness on this level even existed! *leans in to kiss it, the weight of his body immediately snapping the old, rusted metal and sending a large section of it falling down the shaft* *looking after it for a moment, Murky begins to cry*
Protégé: ...there there, Murky. I suppose it just wasn't meant to be...

Baaaaahahahahahaha! That's brilliant. XD

Oh, how wonderfully twisted... It just occurred to me how funny calling this an asylum is. Asylums traditionally (if not necessarily always in practice) exist to rehabilitate and reform the mentally disturbed.
But here? No, here they MADE ponies insane.
It's like calling a concentration camp a hospital...

Not an entirely inaccurate concept, given concentration camps were often called hospitals to those going to them...

Gezz, I DO hope that Murky eventually comes across a really powerful autodoc or some sort of mega-healing chamber at some point. Something that can 100% cure him of everything, maybe just before the end. Just so that we could see what he's like without all these negative status effects applied. Just so he could turn to Glimmer or something and go "Wow... no pain, no sickness, no limp. My lungs don't burn, my ears aren't ringing, and... gosh, Glimmer, is this what you feel like all the time? It's like heaven..."

His sickness has had a bit of a lack of attention as of late. Compared to before when it was coming close to killing him every chapter as he struggled for Radaway after Radaway. Although that's been more thanks to his general proximity to those who can help him. (After 14-16, he frankly needed the break if only for storytelling pacing a little) But the poor guys still bearing the heavy scars around his neck from that radcollar, his radsores and asthmatic breathing. In many ways, the sickness is meant to feel like an ongoing malaise that reflects the ticking clock of him in Fillydelphia. He cannot survive too much longer in Filly and although he has good access to Radaway now...that sickness is not going to grow smaller with constant ambient radiation. The wish to see him cured should be strong, as it drives along with the wish to see him, in the end, perhaps find an escape.

Weird, usually they'd be praising him for his magnificence...
Edit from the future:
Seriously, they NEVER complain about him. It's like his crap doesn't stink. Anything and everything he does is amazing and praise-worthy by every slaver other than Protégé and a few select others.

Fear, normally. The most they'd dare do is grumble about shift lengths but really, speaking out too much against such a slaver in command would be a baaaaad idea.

Fear, normally. The most they'd dare do is grumble about shift lengths but really, speaking out too much against such a slaver in command would be a baaaaad idea.

I guess it goes after particular mindsets?
It's affecting Protégé for obvious reasons... he never really stopped being a slave. Being a servant.
It's not affecting Murky for similarly obvious reasons. It's not natural for him to serve. It was a taught behavior that is quickly fading.
Like hypnosis, you have to give in to the will.
Edit from the future:
I love this, Fuzzy. I really do. I'm hoping Chainlink turns out to be a sort of slave to this machine. He's addicted to control and I think would gladly carry out another's will if it gave him power over so many lives. It just makes him so comfortable, being on top like this, that he would never even think to look up and see the strings attached to him, as well.
And yet Murky, awake and wary, can hardly even feel this will. His soul is that of a free spirit.
I would love a scene where Chainlink was in his chair of dominance or something, commanding the many to serve a will that aligns with his own, and sees Murky and tries to command him.
...and it doesn't work.

Chainlink tries again, and again, and again... and Murky keeps shrugging it off and saying no.
So Chainlink tries to step down and show him who's the master and who's the slave... but the will doesn't like that. It wants him to keep work going, not deal with a single slave it can't even use. One it could barely use if dominated, anyway, due to said slave being so small and weak.
So it says no, and Chainlink... he can't disagree with it. He tries to fight back, but has no leverage. There's just this feeling of ease and desire to do what the will wants, not caring about Murky, and Chainlink gets all of a second of horrifying realization of who is in command of his life before the will wipes his brain of the thoughts and Chainlink settles back down to continue "his" command.
My goddesses, how wonderful would that be?!

Can't comment, but sounds interesting! Also, this is in italics now and I can't turn it off. This posting system is...less than brilliant.

Thanks a bunch for a lot of feedback guys, I'll be into the rest of it soonish once I find a few spare minutes. Started work on 23 last night, so we'll see how that goes in time. It's gonna be a tough one to write...very tough. Looking forward to it though!

Fuzzy wrote:On train stuffs, it's based on Equestrian technology. So arcane and talismans and spark batteries and all that jazz. Not really applicable to reality, but I wanted it to thematically feel very basic and "puttering" to keep it from feeling too capable and technologically advanced. It may be fancy arcane magic, but it's still not very fancy to Equestrians.

Ah, I see. I'd still like to hear more about the design of the pneumatic tunnel cart, though.
Also, I note that you've not mentioned the train taking the party out of Fillydelphia. I look forward to seeing it in future chapters. :)

Fuzzy wrote:I was very worried that after the vicseral horror of the 'things' that Ministry Station wouldn't have the same effect as I wanted. But it's had a really positive reaction, which I'm very glad to see!

Yeah. The monsters are horrible (in the good way) and mysterious, but they're a normal kind of horrible and mysterious. Monsters in old tunnels under laboratories in an irradiated, polluted city in the FoE universe? Not too unexpected, and we heard about them before.
Then we see the slaves, though, and here's the thing: slaves hauling stuff, fine. Slaves mining, fine. Slaves repairing lights, fine. Slaves cleaning debris from a path, fine, etc. Slaves polishing and dusting, restoring the place to like new? That is a sign of something very, very off, and under these circumstances, something very, very off is almost certainly something very, very wrong.

Fuzzy wrote:Baaaaahahahahahaha! That's brilliant. XD

Yes, swicked does that. :D

Fuzzy wrote:Can't comment, but sounds interesting! Also, this is in italics now and I can't turn it off. This posting system is...less than brilliant.

There's a little notepaper icon in the controls, on the right end of the second row, that will let you turn that off.


Oh, and Fuzzy, what's Red Eye's line of succession? I seem to recall that command goes first to Stern and then to Protege?
Oh, and does your canon say anything about who's in command of the Alpha-Omega Hotel?

swicked wrote:

Fuzzy wrote:When they see him locking some in with mint things and telling them they're dead until they bring Murky back the kind who follow him don't see "That could be us", they see "We get their stocks, we get their belongings, we get their ranks."

So it's sorta an "always be the last in line" situation? The longer you last under him, the more you'll have?
These "hardcore" slavers are some of the most self-destructive sort of evil I think I've ever seen.
...or maybe just the most immature. It takes a sort of teenager level of thinking to consider so many others dying from such a clear, common cause and still think to oneself "Yeah, but that could NEVER happen to me!"

I suppose that sorta answers that issue, though. What slavers in question that aren't scared out of their wits are dumb as rocks :P

This does make me wonder about Grindstone, though; instead of being in one of those two categories, he seems to be the closest thing that Shackles has to a friend. There must be some history there.

Well it's been said that Shackles been there and a slaver since before Red Eye showed up and pulled everybody together, maybe Grindstone is the same way?

I'm betting Shackles learned the Art of Slavery from Grindstone

swicked wrote:I must say, I find it quite odd that Chainlink and Grindstone are so intent on opening this door, yet are perfectly fine with so very many ponies just going about cleaning this place, fixing its wiring, etc. Seems like it'd be a giant waste of time to time. Better to send those ponies back out to the tunnels, no?

…This raises an interesting question and idea.  We've not actually seen any of the slaves removed from the Ministry Station once it's gotten its hooks into them, have we?  Maybe that's because that's just what happened: it's the station controlling them now, not the slavers, and the slavers are just nudging the work in the directions they want.  Get the door working again instead of polishing that floor over there?  Sure!  It'll all be done eventually anyway.  Leave the station and go pull a cart of something unrelated?  But that won't restore the station…
Now I half expect us to find out that any slaves being removed from the Ministry Station while still under its effects lose all sense of pain and fear of death (or killing) in their desire to get back to it.  Oh, hey, and this ties in with your speculations about Shackles's end!  The heart of slavery in Fillydelphia, is it?  A mysterious force after your own heart?  Great!  Except for how you view everyone who isn't you…
Villains ending up on the wrong side of the evil force they released from imprisonment with the intent to control is a classic trope, after all.  :)

swicked wrote:Gosh, it would be hilarious if, among the cleaning ponies, there were teams of pony-cleaning-ponies... and maybe even a single group of pony-cleaning-pony-cleaning-ponies. After all, how can you clean when you're dirty?
Also, kinda wish there was an unwashed villagers encounter here, but I don't imagine anyone has the wild, wild wasteland trait...

:D

swicked wrote:...what am I saying, of course he means Murky. Chainlink never learns anything, ever.

Which might tie in with your remarks on his cutie mark, too.

swicked wrote:Lastly, nice bit of disrespect for Grindstone. I don't follow the sentence " No-pony escapes it, not even the ass for whatever that ageing mule thinks.", to be honest, other than it sounds quite disrespectful :P

Oops, forgot that bit.  So much for my earlier hypothesis.

swicked wrote:The wonderful thing about Sunny
Is Sunny's a wonderful lass!
Her top is made out of awesome
Her bottom's made out of badass
She's punchy, spunky, beat that funky
Stun! Gun? Run! Done? Won!
And the most wonderful thing about Sunny is she's the only one!

…
:D

you were early...

I mean we were in KF when this happened so we're reading now...

Thanks fuzzy

he's my fuzzy-wuzzy...

and he has no hair

not very fuzzy

Arg...not gonna be able to get to it till later this week...sadface... 

I'm currently reading the chapter.
I say this in my comments, but I'm afraid that the description you've given of the locomotive now has me so baffled that I am having trouble enjoying the story. Please, please explain the design to me.
I'm going to try to get back to reading now.

Wow, that was fast.

Spoiler:

Okay, no, sorry, I find that I'm just skimming through in annoyance. I'll note my place and come back after the locomotive matter has been cleared up.

I was finding the chapter good up until the point the locomotive design started being mentioned, though, so there's that!

To clarify the problem, the best mental model I have for that scene would maybe work in a dream (possibly a fever dream) or Lovecraft, neither of which the scene is meant to be. This shattered reality then makes it impossible for me to get absorbed in the following text, as those events are founded on what seems to be nonsense and are thus themselves rendered nonsensical. The universe must in some manner be repaired.

i've seen that episode, Im sure the water wasn't artificial persay, it was super compressed chemical reaction, allowing for gallons of water to be stored in a pint sized container. If I am recalling.

Now hinds, as far as the train being something that is your thing, i really did not get any sort of anything on actual train function in there. Honestly it wasn't important other than the car they occupied was cold and uncomfortable and the next one up was made entirely out of wood and more comfortable. the only bafflement for me there is the fact that they should have occupied the wooden one sooner. But then again they were looting the supply caches. anyway, try not to let unimportant details ruin a story for you.

I enjoyed it, important stuff happened, tense important stuff, then legendary stuff. and then Murk gets a perk allowing him +25% AP... yay

No, no, the car is fine; it's the locomotive that's the problem. Now that you mention it, it does seem odd that they'd use the cold metal car for passengers and the warmer wooden one for cargo, but that's easily explainable by, among other things, negligence or malice somewhere further up the chain of command for organizing the thing.

Gah! hahah, I must have been poor in my typing, we already know that murk and co could not have ridden in the passenger parts as those are occupied by slaves and the slavers, they did say they stowed away in the supplies car. I was just humored that they chose to occupy the metal one and did so for so long

Well, I'm afraid that I need to get to bed now; I've got homework to do Tuesday and one more class before Thanksgiving Vacation.

i have work at 10... preparing for thanksgiving.

Well, the last two chapters were really good. You have the nameless horror and dread followed by high adventure the next and it flows really well.

You can clearly see the end's in sight- if not because of the foreshadowing at the end of the chapter but also all of the different threads coming together. I wish I could write a longer review for each of the parts of the previous chapter and for this one, because they really deserve it. Unfortunately I both don't really have the time or am physically capable of it right now.

Also, the title 'winter rad up'. That's a terrible but glorious pun :D

Spoiler:

It's always been the joke that Glimmer teases him about it since Chapter 4. Don't worry, the story always intended to have her being a cheeky coniving sister like that. Pandering is something I am abjectly against ever doing. :)

(Replying briefly via my phone, will get to longer stuffs later)

Fuzzy wrote:It's always been the joke that Glimmer teases him about it since Chapter 4. Don't worry, the story always intended to have her being a cheeky coniving sister like that. Pandering is something I am abjectly against ever doing. :)

(Replying briefly via my phone, will get to longer stuffs later)

Ah that's good.

Spoiler:

Interesting. I may have to look at my wording there, as that's not meant to be the implication it's meaning at all about why he starts wondering.

Edit - Updated it a little. Just to stop any misinterpretation in a way I really don't want.

Ah got it. Much clearer thanks. The plot thickens even more as a result.

Well, looks like there's at least one upside to getting stuck before whatever mysterious bit this is; once the blockage is cleared up, I'll get to read the chapter with the new version already in place.

Really, it's the solid fuel that's the problem. I can see all sorts of solutions for liquid or gaseous fuel, and of course leaving the fuel undefined would provide an even greater variety of possible solutions.

Do you have any idea when you might be getting back to me, Fuzzy? I'd really like to finish reading the chapter...

I also keep putting things off while waiting...