[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

Posting again because if the signatures now permanently reside above the icon - thank you, that looks amazing.

Okay, what is happening here?

NoodleNugget wrote:

Some things, like the ministry/gem pony matchups, are just lore. Saying it here means that we don't need to dig through exposition for it in-story, and knowing about it doesn't affect our enjoyment of the story.


Some things, like 'Rampage was produced by Project Eternity' and 'P-21 likes boys' we had already figured out, and the announcement is just a clarification of things most already know, putting everyone on the same page for further developments.

But "does Boo have a soul?" is a big question. Like, a potential primary-character-arc question. And there are good arguments for both sides, with little evidence from the story so far. Knowing the answer before the proper time would diminish people's enjoyment of the story as it unfolds. And if you ask that question, and Somber responds, even saying "I don't want to answer that now" would be too much information. And when you ask a question that's better not answered, people are going to object.

A story isn't just a collection of disconnected facts; learning something now and learning the same thing in proper context with appropriate tension and pacing are the difference between a good story and a boring list. With all due respect, I have more confidence in Somber's judgement with regard to the timing of revelations than in yours. That's why I'm reading this story as it comes, and have been for months, rather skipping the chapters themselves and asking you to summarize for me.

Sindri wrote:
A story isn't just a collection of disconnected facts; learning something now and learning the same thing in proper context with appropriate tension and pacing are the difference between a good story and a boring list. With all due respect, I have more confidence in Somber's judgement with regard to the timing of revelations than in yours. That's why I'm reading this story as it comes, and have been for months, rather skipping the chapters themselves and asking you to summarize for me.

So damn true. If someone had given me a summarized list of what Fallout Equestria was about, I probably wouldn't have bothered.
(example:

-character lives in vault, another character runs out. character chases after her.
character goes through hell trying to find her, gets attacked out on the way by multiple groups - as well as someone who afterwards becomes a companion.
After some time she and the companion find the first character to leave the vault and joins with them, before liberating some slaves.
After this some things happen and her quest goes from simply trying to survive/find out who is doing what to trying to stop a slaver operation.


...Now, that misses out a lot of details I know, but even then, even with those details you're still missing out on why FoE earned the tag 'Legendary' on EQD and I personally wouldn't have bothered to read it - much like I haven't read Past Sins.)



Anyway. Your point is perfectly made - learning something that's non vital lore to the story, outside of the story, isn't a big loss.
There was one or two people upset that they didn't get to figure it out completely by themselves, or have it confirmed in story, but even then - they aren't a major piece.
Boo is a major piece.
Eternity is a major piece (though like mentioned, most had their theories anyway - and even without Somber saying, we would've been almost certain by now anyway I reckon)

but yeah. context context context - and suspense.

And now MORE speculation! Geez, what's going on here? My brain keeps cooking up crazy theories today.

Okay, so Glory got joked and now she looks like Rainbow Dash. How deep does that transformation go? We know that Killing Joke was capable of turning a hellhound into a pony, so clearly total transformation is on the table. Is Glory now effectively a clone of Rainbow Dash? Could she, for example, pass through a shield attuned to allow only Ministry Mares (in which case we now have THREE such ponies in the party)?

Have we ever had any information about where Dawn (Glory's mother) came from? She's supposedly a non-Enclave pegasus. I mean, those aren't supposed to exist. Who's her family? Where are they? How did they survive the past two hundred years?

And come to that, what ever happened to Dawn? I always found it rather hard to believe that a mother of three, one being fairly young at the time, would just run off to the surface like that. Only today I started wondering... what if she didn't? Given what they've done and tried to do to Glory, what if Enclave agents kidnapped Dawn and she's been imprisoned all this time? She was an embarrassment and a dangerous subversive, and her husband was virtually unassailable, directly. They tried to use Dawn's desertion against him and it didn't work, then they manufactured Glory's desertion to do the same -- what if that first time wasn't accidental?

If she IS still alive, I'd love to see Dawn and Glory's reunion with Glory looking like she does right now...

And that leads to my last thought, a little crazy-theory-time.
We know the Enclave is going down, eventually. And that's going to leave a huge power vacuum in pegasus society. The military broken, the sky unsealed, they're going to need a leader to help them into the new era -- a symbol to help break the conditioning they've been under for generations.

And that's when Rainbow Dash, herself, the once and future mare, comes flying out of history to show them the way...
It probably won't happen, but if that's Glory's fate I wouldn't be at all upset.

SilentCarto wrote:

WavemasterRyx wrote:That is terrible. And hilarious and kinda cute. Terlhiate.
Anyways, I added it as a submission to Boo's tumblr, because it really is quite funny.

I'm trying to glee and squeak and say thank you at the same time.
Gleakyou.

*giggles* Well really, I thought it was quite adorable, thank you, sir.


@"Does Boo have a soul?"
Don't be silly, of course she does.

not a spoiler in the least:

And in completely unrelated news, the picture is almost finished. Just a handful of detailing to do, but I'm far too tired to finish it right now.

Ok this is getting really frustrating.

@sindri Garnet and Co. That's what I was explaining and thank you for understanding that.
@sindri Rampage=eternity. Again, that's what I was explaining and thank you for understanding that (wasnt so hard now, was it?)
@sindri Boo. I understand that it is important, and a potential character arc would be nice. yes the speculation is fun. Yes having the story tell us is fun! but we don't need to start hitting the fucking panic button when someone offers an answer. especially when this isnt as big a thing as you are making it out to be. This is just frosting on the cake. If it were never brought up you would probably not notice its presence in the story. And how far would this information go? Shears would probably think that Boo is just some retarded pony unless he had specific knowledge about her condition OR if he had the some magic fucking vision to see into people souls. And then what of that? "She doesnt have a soul" "Yes she does" "Whatever"

I would like to restate what I said.
I wasnt asking somber about it. I was asking you guys if YOU wanted to ask somber about it.
and to further clarify lets look back at the post that started this all.
you know, we could always ask Somber whether or not Boo has a soul. And if someone doesnt want to get upset because of potential spoilers we could ask Somber not to tell us if it does pertain to the story.
I saw that you guys were putting a lot of focus on some information and I realized that all your questions could be solved. So being my naive and hopeful self thinking I could point you in the right direction and you would all be happy being able to get all your questions answered. Then I remembered, the last time you got your questions solved you threw a hissy fit, So I pointed out that you could tell Somber to stay away. I Pointed that out because If I didn't, Somber might come in here reading and go "Oh! I can answer that! maybe it will make them happy!" and explain it. Then you guys would give him flak for ruining something, Which I thought would be a god damn shame because all he wanted to do would be making you happy. And he doesnt need that shit from anyone let alone the people he seeks company with. So I pointed out to you guys, Which you took my advice with such desperation that you had to hit that down-hoof, so you guys wouldn't give him any flak. But obviously in your quick actions you over looked that this wasnt an invitation to him and assumed I was calling down god to perform some miracles. I was telling you where this situation could go, in hopes that no one would get hurt if proper actions were taken. Unfortunately for me, you guys obviously didn't see it from my perspective, freaked out, and I got the backlash.
So here I am, defending myself over something stupid, because I find that your opinions of me of some importance, in hopes that you would understand what was happening from my perspective.

@sindri story composition. I wasn't discussing that. I was discussing how these stupid little things don't need as drastic reactions as they are receiving.

@Kippershy reaction. I'm not over reacting. I didn't go into panic mode. I didn't go all caps desperately hoping somber sees my post and is dissuaded from any course of action. I didn't go picking at a topic that could have been left alone and never have to be worried about again.

@kippershy stuff in the story. I understand that there is more meaning in the story than in the comments. And If it does come up in the story, again, it isn't going to change the direction of the story, it's just icing. And like I JUST pointed out AGAIN. I was just suggesting a course of action.

@kippershy Final Fantasy. This isnt the same fucking situation. This is trivial little fucking things on the side. this is minor details. I wasn't asking for Somber to come down from his Gdocs and tell us what will happen. I Wasn't asking for something so I could finish reading this story. I was pointing out that you guys could finish this stupid discussion and move onto something else.

@kippershy Sherlock holmes and the magical macguffin. Again, This isnt the same fucking situation. this isn't going to cause some major flux in scenarios to come. This isnt figuring out who dun it. this is looking at a fucking character sheet and being able to check off the 'has a soul' statistic.

@kippershy Rampage. You should be able to put 2 and 2 together. Even if project eternity didn't start concerning us until these last couple chapters you could still figure out Rampages importance as soon as it was mention that she was going with blackjack to hightower. Razorwire was murdered there. The Angel of Death was situated there. What are the odds that something concerning rampage, who just so happens to contain both those entities, would be there? and Again, It was implied that Rampage was eternity and you made your speculations and then you agreed with Sindri with how Rampage being eternity was picked up. So in the end, Like I was trying to prove, somber's spoiler wasn't a spoiler, it was a confirmation. it was a "good job, you hit the nail on the head!"

I have one bad feeling, a suspicion. I think someone mentioned it already.

Rampage doesn't exist. She's a sum, a council of the souls contained within. She's not a separate pony.

@"Does Boo have a soul?"
Don't be silly, of course she does.

not a spoiler in the least:

I feel really, really tempted to make a flash out of it.

NoodleNugget wrote:

I don't know if you can tell or not, but you're being a huge dick right now. Less people will pay any real attention to your argument until you can put away the passive-aggressive (and just plain aggressive) insults, stop looking down on your opposition, and keep your posts less... rant-size.

@Everypony: (Boo) I know it is kinda wrong, but somehow it would highly amuse me of Boo turned out to be well endowed. Would probably be too goofy to mention in story, but would be highly amusing to me xP Especially if like, Glory would comment on it to BJ

(Soul) It is not impossible one of the "floating souls/memories" managed to manifest or something into Boo.

(Ramblings, discussion and theories) Welp, have to say this seems to have derailed and swamped every other topic like they usually do xP

@Swicked: (Rampage) Well, she did shoot her a look ;P

Wow... things seem to have... um... exploded?

Indeed. I've been laying low because any points I may have had has already been stated and I have nothing else to bring to the table right now.

swicked wrote:When did that become a rule? I remember us coming to a consensus that every team member has to shoot Blackjack, but I can't remember when we decided that. I mean, Rampage has never shot Blackjack, right?

It doesn't have to be specifically shooting, just attack her in some way. Which Rampage has done in spades.

...anyway, it's just a joke-slash-running gag.

FeatherDust wrote:1) Rampage basically has Twist's coloration, down to the eyes, with the exception of her stripes. So I think Twist must've been the final recipient of the Eternity Core.

2) Why were they killing all those ponies with the Core in them? I thought that it was to test it and the soul-capture effect was a mistake, but now I wonder. Maybe they were powering it up. If it needs souls to run on, Angel and Razorwire and so on might have been considered simply fuel. I'm almost sure the "possession" effect was unintended.

My thoughts exactly. It's Twist's body modified by Shujaa's stripes (somehow...) and possibly some sort of strength upgrade.
By the way, I just found more support for my theory that Shujaa removed the Eternity core from herself and put it in Twist -- Ch. 31:
“I don’t understand… I… am I Twist? Am I Shujaa? Am I both?” She sniffed and shook her head. “I don’t understand at all. I feel… I want to rip open my chest. I want… I want to save her… but I don’t understand why. None of it makes any sense!”

FeatherDust wrote:3) How did Doc Ock get in there? Was he implanted and murdered like Razor? Was he supposed to benefit from it and did not, like Softheart? Can the Core suck up souls of those who simply die around it? (It may not eat souls all the time, only when it's 'hungry' due to having expended energy on regeneration -- thus why it doesn't contain dozens of random wastelanders.)

My belief is that he was a lucky addition. I think after the "accident" he mentioned, he was left dying in a coma, which gave the MoP the opportunity to charge up the core a little more. Insert it, pull the plug, take it out. No muss, no fuss, no awkward questions.

FeatherDust wrote:On a different subject, do we know how or if Goldenblood died? To my knowledge the last we know of him is being imprisoned and sentenced to death by Luna, probably when she found out what Horizons was.

We don't know anything about his fate. The only evidence we have is that Dealer seemed quite certain he was dead. In Ch. 39, after retrieving EC-1101 from Psychoshy:
I thought about that a moment. “Dealer? Are you Goldenblood?”
He looked at me pityingly. “Did you miss what I said? ‘Never mattered.’ Not before the bombs dropped and not now. Trust me. Don’t worry about Goldenblood. He’s dead as a doornail.”

Sindri wrote:Unrelated note: I got the ME3 "extended cut" and played through it once, and while it was not as good as I'd hoped it was not as bad as I feared and certainly better than the old ending. I was left feeling that it was rather stupid, instead of feeling like setting EA execs on fire.

Yeah, I notice the Synthesis ending deliberately backed off on the "Unity" (in the FOE sense of the word) aspect and made it more about cooperation. Though I'm with you, to make it a truly good ending they would have to cut and replace the entire Creepy Little Kid section.

Sindri wrote:But "does Boo have a soul?" is a big question. Like, a potential primary-character-arc question.

And more to the point, it has an enormous influence on Boo's possible fates.

FeatherDust wrote:And come to that, what ever happened to Dawn? I always found it rather hard to believe that a mother of three, one being fairly young at the time, would just run off to the surface like that.

I don't believe that the history between her and King Awesome would just be interesting back-story. I believe she intended to return quickly after securing the aid of her old adventuring party for Thunderhead. After all, they are now the majority power structure of the Hoof. She flew off to Thunderhead before the situation got really bad between all of them -- she probably didn't even know the depth of the animosity between her old friends. I think she's held prisoner at Elysium, just like Pisces and Capri were.

WavemasterRyx wrote:@"Does Boo have a soul?"
Don't be silly, of course she does.

not a spoiler in the least:

RandomBlank wrote:I have one bad feeling, a suspicion. I think someone mentioned it already.
Rampage doesn't exist. She's a sum, a council of the souls contained within. She's not a separate pony.

Absolutely. The Rampage personality is an emergent behavior created by all the different personalities struggling for control. She's said as much herself, when she commented that sometimes she feels like a schoolteacher and her head is a kindergarten. (Ch. 31)

@Somber: This is the PH forum, when have we ever not derailed or done something whacked? :P
Granted, I had a hoof in quite a few of those, but I can't take all the credit

At least it exploded about something to do with PH.

SilentCarto wrote:

FeatherDust wrote:And come to that, what ever happened to Dawn? I always found it rather hard to believe that a mother of three, one being fairly young at the time, would just run off to the surface like that.

I don't believe that the history between her and King Awesome would just be interesting back-story. I believe she intended to return quickly after securing the aid of her old adventuring party for Thunderhead. After all, they are now the majority power structure of the Hoof. She flew off to Thunderhead before the situation got really bad between all of them -- she probably didn't even know the depth of the animosity between her old friends. I think she's held prisoner at Elysium, just like Pisces and Capri were.

Can you imagine the destructive wrath of Glory if she found out her mum was a prisoner of King Awesome? More so, if he had been raping her or something?

Oh yeah, she would be blind with rage.
She would attack them and they'd shoot her back. Upon seeing Glory fall to the floor, bleeding out, Blackjack would go full reaper mode and let Lacunae handle the healing while she uses ungodly strength and endurance boosts to rip them all apart.

Speaking of such

Glory would be up to 1:22
Blackjack would be 1:23 onwards

Has it been dropped as though it were of an unpleasantly heated temperature? 'Cos I'm pretty sure this was all a great misunderstanding on several points.

Overlong Analysis Cobalt wrote:Has it been dropped as though it were of an unpleasantly heated temperature? 'Cos I'm pretty sure this was all a great misunderstanding on several points.

I second that notion.

Overlong Analysis Cobalt wrote:Has it been dropped as though it were of an unpleasantly heated temperature? 'Cos I'm pretty sure this was all a great misunderstanding on several points.

wait.. what? what topic exactly are you referring to?

Kippershy wrote:

Overlong Analysis Cobalt wrote:Has it been dropped as though it were of an unpleasantly heated temperature? 'Cos I'm pretty sure this was all a great misunderstanding on several points.

wait.. what? what topic exactly are you referring to?

The argument over Boo's soul and spoilers regarding said.

FeatherDust wrote:And that leads to my last thought, a little crazy-theory-time.
We know the Enclave is going down, eventually. And that's going to leave a huge power vacuum in pegasus society. The military broken, the sky unsealed, they're going to need a leader to help them into the new era -- a symbol to help break the conditioning they've been under for generations.

And that's when Rainbow Dash, herself, the once and future mare, comes flying out of history to show them the way...
It probably won't happen, but if that's Glory's fate I wouldn't be at all upset.

…That is AWESOME.

RandomBlank wrote:I have one bad feeling, a suspicion. I think someone mentioned it already.

Rampage doesn't exist. She's a sum, a council of the souls contained within. She's not a separate pony.

IIRC, Rampage has exhibited that same bad feeling.

SilentCarto wrote:We don't know anything about his fate. The only evidence we have is that Dealer seemed quite certain he was dead. In Ch. 39, after retrieving EC-1101 from Psychoshy:
I thought about that a moment. “Dealer? Are you Goldenblood?”
He looked at me pityingly. “Did you miss what I said? ‘Never mattered.’ Not before the bombs dropped and not now. Trust me. Don’t worry about Goldenblood. He’s dead as a doornail.”

…Aaaaand it's just now occurred to me that, while he may be as dead as a doornail, we don't know how alive the doornail is.

[quote="O. Hinds"]

FeatherDust wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:We don't know anything about his fate. The only evidence we have is that Dealer seemed quite certain he was dead. In Ch. 39, after retrieving EC-1101 from Psychoshy:
I thought about that a moment. “Dealer? Are you Goldenblood?”
He looked at me pityingly. “Did you miss what I said? ‘Never mattered.’ Not before the bombs dropped and not now. Trust me. Don’t worry about Goldenblood. He’s dead as a doornail.”

…Aaaaand it's just now occurred to me that, while he may be as dead as a doornail, we don't know how alive the doornail is.

On general principle, unless we've seen the body and stayed with it for some time I don't believe anyone is dead. To many people come back from the dead or fake their deaths for me to accept the fact that anyone is dead unless we have a clear chain of custody for both the person who is supposedly dead and the reason they are dead. If Goldenblood really was in that cell in Canterlot he's either dead and fused to the wall or worse alive and fused to the wall or not in the cell to begin with.

I really hope he's dead however, old Goldy has to many issues with possible Sue characteristics. A death alone in a cell lost and forgotten days after he lost everything fits him quite well, him being alive and running around Hoofington or elsewhere is table flipping material. Horse could still be out there alive but if we ever run across Goldenblood again I hope it's as a corpse. A non-moving corpse.

@Rampage discussion
So does that mean the kid was first in line for talisman testing, whoever (s)he is?

So there are two computer systems battling eachother with commands/countermands, right? Any ideas who they are? Methinks Horse in a crusader mainframe is one.

Cptadder wrote:I really hope he's dead however, old Goldy has to many issues with possible Sue characteristics. A death alone in a cell lost and forgotten days after he lost everything fits him quite well.

Ugh, that gave me a vision of Goldie sitting in his second-story cell as the Pink slowly leaks into the cell block. The "lucky" prisoners with windows are the first to go; their cells become waterfalls of Pink Cloud as it rushes in and runs across the floor to pour into the lower level. The other prisoners are screaming and crying and shouting to Celestia for forgiveness while they try to climb on their furniture to stay above the gradually rising gas. But there's nowhere to go, and the first floor is eventually flooded. Goldenblood just looks up as the sea of thick pink starts to lap over the edge of the second floor and into his cell.

"So. You finally came back for me."

OneMoreDaySK wrote:@Rampage discussion
So does that mean the kid was first in line for talisman testing, whoever (s)he is?

Unknown. Could have been a similar situation to Doc Ock, a fatally injured kid whose soul they could snag without anyone noticing.

OneMoreDaySK wrote:So there are two computer systems battling eachother with commands/countermands, right? Any ideas who they are? Methinks Horse in a crusader mainframe is one.

I think the Cyberdaemon is the Hoofington defense network, and the other computer is in the Redoubt. Who's driving, I couldn't guess, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's Garnet. Or maybe all of the Inner Circle.

SilentCarto wrote:
I think the Cyberdaemon is the Hoofington defense network, and the other computer is in the Redoubt. Who's driving, I couldn't guess, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's Garnet. Or maybe all of the Inner Circle.

Wait, a DooM reference...in PH?

MUST. CATCH. UP.

FeatherDust wrote:And that's when Rainbow Dash, herself, the once and future mare, comes flying out of history to show them the way...

Hell yes. She will return, when she is truly needed...

Somber wrote:Wow... things seem to have... um... exploded?

Sorry about that.

O. Hinds wrote:…Aaaaand it's just now occurred to me that, while he may be as dead as a doornail, we don't know how alive the doornail is.

...


I love it. We need to start collecting doornails to see if any of them start talking in our heads.

swicked wrote:Though, if he was able to identify Sanguine as being a Canterlot ghoul and put two and two together, I'd have thought he might have adjusted that assumption, so I dunno.

Sanguine was also sure that Goldenblood was dead, and IIRC implied that he'd seen Goldy in his cell... it's not very solid to be going on, but I think that Goldenblood didn't escape before the Cloud detonated. Making him either a gooey corpse or a Canterlot ghoul.

...Um.... What happened to the forum?