Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

by RandomBlank Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:08 am

SilentCarto wrote:
swicked wrote:Yup. Twilight complained that it was a ridiculous thing to rely on for defense since all the zebra had to wait for was a cloudy day.
To which I always wondered why they couldn't just wait until nightfall, since those happen far more frequently...
She did mention that.
"I can’t tell the Princess that the only defense we have against those missiles can be defeated by a cloudy day. What if the zebras decide to attack us at night?"

...and I totally wondered, why didn't they hold a small task force of pegasi to make the hole in the clouds in need, and a hotline to Princess Celestia in case sunrise is needed urgently.

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:14 am

Somber wrote:Um... hope I don't sound snarky, but I can read one of my chapters in about 30-40 minutes....

That's because two reasons:

1. It's one of your own chapters - you know what's coming up and thus you don't need to put any extra time into taking it all in.
I can also do the same for my own chapters of my story (read it in a much shorter time.)
If you mean anything as long as your chapter, you might also see my second point which is...

2. You were an English teacher. You've been trained and conditioned to be able to read fast and take it all in and be able to assess others work as fast as possible because otherwise you'd be swamped all the time.

With a commentary, usually takes be between 3 - 4 hours depending on how unfocused I keep getting.
Without one, 2 - 3 hours again, with difference making how focused I can stay.
I have terrible focus sometimes.

by Quotidian Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:16 am

@ Blackjack Grylls: WHY CAN I ONLY HIT THE + BUTTON ONCE!?

@ Somber: Well, that's what we're here for. Glad you dropped in, btw. Had me worried for a bit, there.

@ Temperature: See that pinkish dab in Texas' Southeast? Between the 94s? That's me. This is considered pleasant for Texas this time of year. We are all Red States now.

@ Chapter 47: Yes. Just... Yes. I can't even describe all my yes. Work has been hellish this week, and I almost got mauled by a wild dog on the way home today (don't ask), so a new chapter is exactly what I needed.

There's so much to rave about here I don't know where to start, and lots of other people have raved about all the good bits, so I'll just throw in a few questions and things I noticed.

SPOILERS AHOY

So.

BJ is part Alicorn now. There have been hints that she was developing some sort of extrasensory perception for a while now. That radroach scrabbling around in her skull? Yeah. That plus her ~~Pinkie~~ Blackjack sense ought to be an interesting combination. And I wouldn't worry too much about the Goddess taking her over. Two or so chapters from now and that... won't be an issue any more.

Balefire breathing ghoul wrapped in soul armor? Y-17 Override Armor anyone? Is Hightower pretty much the Big MT now? Does that make the warden Dr. Mobius? He does shout menacingly over a bunch of monitors. (Oh, and fun fact? Big Mountain is a real place in Arizona. It's also known by another name. Black Mesa. The right mare in the wrong place...)

And on that note, BJ was already "brainless", and her cybernetics made her "heartless" as well. Is she going to lose her spine at some point in the future?

Blackjack blowing her own leg off to escape? Totally badass. Plus, an extra 10% damage! (Eye for Eye.)

So Snip's eyes are the same as Big Daddy's? Big Daddy's been to the other side and back? I guess that explains how he's still so spry despite being really, really old. And how he guessed so much about BJ's future. Now we just need to figure out what the damn things signify.

Ponies get a boost to combat ability when singing? Not surprised. It explains why they burst into song every other episode, at least.

The phoenix ~~implant~~ talisman as a multi-soul-jar makes sense, of course, and now we know where "Rampage" came from. But if she "dies" and they remove and re-implant the talisman, perhaps to save the soul of a certain playing-card-colored mare... Actually, I'm sensing a theme here. Lots of ponies in this story seem to have other ponies in their head. BJ, Lacunae, heck, even Glory has some Rainbow Dash's memories. Not to mention all the memory orbs they keep stumbling onto. I know loss of identity is a major theme in PH, but I still can't help thinking that all of this soul swapping is going to tie into the finale. Somber's said it'll be a "big, anime style ending", right? What's more animesque than a bunch of people, held together by the bonds of friendship, combining their powers into a super form to do battle with a monster from space?

"By your dysfunctions combined! I! Am! RamGlorJack-21nae!"

...

Actually, I really like that idea. :D

by Vergil Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:17 am

I can read that fast...but I choose not to. What I enjoy, I take my time with, reread as I read, and generally digest it well.

by O. Hinds Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:28 am

swicked wrote:Quick question: do healing potions, and Blackjack's repair talisman, push bullets out? I know Rampage's does but I figured that was mostly because her healing is so aggressive that it wouldn't allow one of her wounds to just close up with the bullet still inside.
Blackjack never goes a fight without at least one bullet sinking into her flank so is it assumed that, when Somber has been writing that her wounds close following a healing potion or etc., that a bullet is being spat out just prior to that, much like Rampage does... sometimes comically, her literally coughing up a couple mouthfuls of bullets from time to time?

Ah, but Rampage is wholly organic (well, sort of). Blackjack, on the other hand, is a cyberpony; why throw away free metal which might even already be conveniently placed near damage?

Quotidian wrote:Blackjack blowing her own leg off to escape? Totally badass. Plus, an extra 10% damage! (Eye for Eye.)

Ooh, right, I'd forgotten about that! I'd just when she got her cyber parts assumed that it would be a useless perk for the rest of the story.

by Quotidian Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:47 am

swicked wrote:I guess I'm more or less just wondering how she dealt with it prior to cyberization. She gets shot far more often than Littlepip ever did.

She does have an incredibly skilled trauma surgeon tagging along behind her. And even if healing potions don't force the bullets out, it's not a crippling problem for her unless they're stuck near joints or major organs. Even in modern hospitals, doctors will sometimes leave bullets or other shrapnel inside the wound if pulling it out would do even more harm than leaving it in and risking an infection would. Since wounds don't seem to get infected in the FoE verse...

by Jeremyrush Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:48 am

Alert. The following is a running 'Stream-Of-Consciousness' commentary. The comments inside are simply what is going through my head as I read. Due to going away for 24 hours there is a large shift in mood about halfway through. The comments inside are not to be taken seriously due to the fact I am an evil fucking bastard and usually make no sense. Also I started writing this when I was almost too tired to keep my eyes open. Toodles!

Also spoilers, silly head.

Spoiler:

by Sindri Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:20 am

Somber wrote:Um... hope I don't sound snarky, but I can read one of my chapters in about 30-40 minutes....

Doesn't count; you wrote it. I can easily do upwards of a page a minute of light enough or familiar enough writing; I can go through a 400 page book that I've read before 2-3 times in less than five hours, and about eight hundred pages of, say, Harry Potter only takes me about seven hours the first time. The limiting factor is time spent thinking, and you always make me think.

Icy Shake wrote:Sorry, Xanthe, but from what we’ve seen BJ goes bottom; I don’t think she’s into being the master.

Eh, Glory'll know what to do with both of them.

the most wonderful, ominous hum.

Yes.

swicked wrote:Quick question: do healing potions, and Blackjack's repair talisman, push bullets out?

I always figured that after she got chromed her repair talisman "digested" the metal to use for raw materials.

Before getting cyberware... I figure the layer of lead under her skin was a big part of her increasing damage-sponging abilities over the course of the first thirty chapters. New bullets hit old ones and slow down because there's nowhere she hasn't been shot. In a lot of cases IRL if the bullet isn't somewhere it's likely to do more damage, doctors will leave it in because cutting it out would put at least as big a hole in as the original shot.

Jeremyrush wrote:"Can Equestria beat such odds with soldiers like this?” Let me just use my future-o-vision. No.

Should... not... lol...

Lol.

swicked wrote:I suddenly have an image of Blackjack laying on a surgical table as Glory dutifully extracts bullet after bullet from Blackjack's flank, carefully cleaning each off before tossing them into Blackjack's mouth.

Fanart. Please.

by RandomBlank Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:51 am

swicked wrote:
I dunno about the Princess Celestia part, but both the site of
Celestia One and the site it's going to strike have to be clear... so
while they might have actually had a group standing by for clearing
Celestia One's sky, that didn't really solve the problem.

I'm fairly sure not. The battle to clear the sky for the strike for C1 was only above tenpony. Nopony cleared the skies above Fillydelphia or most of the rest of C1 targets.

by Moodyman90 Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:06 am

Not true. They had Derpy do another Sonic Radboom to clear the skies of Filly.

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:47 am

On the matter of ponies singing - completely understandable and believable.
There's a reason that just about every culture ever has had it's own standardised warcry / battle musicians. While some cultures used them to relay orders (Romans did this) others used them for pure boost.

They didn't really intimidate the enemy by themselves - hearing a large noise from the other end of the battlefield - by itself, means nothing.
Seeing all the thousands of warriors on that end of the battlefield suddenly pick themselves up and cheer? Pump their weapons to the sky and scream in unison with the heat of the moment?

That's the demoraliser. Knowing your enemy just got a massive moral boost and that they're pumped up and about to throw everything at you.
It's a lot easier to fight when you've got something audible to focus on with it.

by Jeremyrush Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:37 am

Kippershy wrote:On the matter of ponies singing - completely understandable and believable.
There's a reason that just about every culture ever has had it's own standardised warcry / battle musicians. While some cultures used them to relay orders (Romans did this) others used them for pure boost.

They didn't really intimidate the enemy by themselves - hearing a large noise from the other end of the battlefield - by itself, means nothing.
Seeing all the thousands of warriors on that end of the battlefield suddenly pick themselves up and cheer? Pump their weapons to the sky and scream in unison with the heat of the moment?

That's the demoraliser. Knowing your enemy just got a massive moral boost and that they're pumped up and about to throw everything at you.
It's a lot easier to fight when you've got something audible to focus on with it.

Why do you think the Scottish have bagpipes? The soldiers will get a morale boost from it and, best case scenario, the enemy will be annoyed by it.

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:40 am

As I say, just about every culture has had it's own instrument or warcry.
Singing counts too.

by Cptadder Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:47 am

swicked wrote:...currently reading the chapter...

What the bunk turns a balefire egg into a rainbow balefire egg?
'Cause Rampage has eating a balefire egg and survived, while that ghoul ate a rainbow one and its soul jar armor certainly did not...

Rampage is not one soul, her body is compost shell produced by the Phoenix talisman which is itself protected by eight different souls.

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 11:53 am

by Moodyman90 Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:11 pm

Ah the bagpipe, and instrument so annoying it's considered a weapon. How I love is so.

And can ya blame me? The south, particularly Georgia, has strong Scottish heritage to the point we have our own Highlander games.

by RandomBlank Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:16 pm

Okay, I concede with C1 needing clear sky over the target... still, doesn't seem like something very hard to attain quickly, especially considering SPP, something to reach further but only with cloud removal doesn't seem especially unavailable.

by Sindri Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:55 pm

swicked wrote:...currently reading the chapter...

What the bunk turns a balefire egg into a rainbow balefire egg?
'Cause Rampage has eating a balefire egg and survived, while that ghoul ate a rainbow one and its soul jar armor certainly did not...

Rampage has one tiny, hard core. The armor was a distributed structure that had a balefire egg shoved inside it. Completely different level of damage, even if the extra souls in Rampage didn't make it more difficult to destroy.

by Sindri Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:23 pm

swicked wrote:
Sindri wrote:
swicked wrote:...currently reading the chapter...

What the bunk turns a balefire egg into a rainbow balefire egg?
'Cause Rampage has eating a balefire egg and survived, while that ghoul ate a rainbow one and its soul jar armor certainly did not...
Rampage has one tiny, hard core. The armor was a distributed structure that had a balefire egg shoved inside it. Completely different level of damage, even if the extra souls in Rampage didn't make it more difficult to destroy.
Ahhhh.
See, I never considered soul armor as being just really tough armor. I figured it was indestructible (much like they always told us it was) barring something to disenchant it... until you did something to change what it fundamentally was, removing the soul or otherwise provide a means of allowing the soul to escape.
But I guess souls aren't so immortal after all?

Well, a soul jar is indestructible to anything short of soul-destroying attacks (the starmetal sword, possibly high power Enervation), or megaspell-level destruction. A balefire egg shoved inside you is at least equivalent to being in the area of a full megaspell strike; the only difference between the eggs and the bombs that destroyed Equestria is scaling up from several meters to several kilometers of blast radius. But that same egg a good distance away from something that'd survive most explosives on its own? Unless Balefire attacks the soul by itself there probably wouldn't be any effect.

My interpretation is that destroying the Jar is a matter of (ridiculous) destructive energy applied, so all the power of a balefire egg applied to tearing it apart has a good chance of working while a small fraction of that power pushing on one side doesn't.

Alternatively, it's possible that Blackjack's earlier attacks with the sword weakened the connection between the soul and the armor, allowing it to be damaged by other effects. But in general I don't see how a megaspell would damage a soul jar if it were truly invulnerable even to equivalent power from other sources. They don't have any sort of anti-soul effects or the like just from being made into megaspells.

by SilentCarto Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:38 pm

Commentary, Ch. 47:

Editing:

by Theta Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:59 pm

Starkatterri was also spelled that way by the head of Yellow River. It's possible that the original spelling from ch 35 was the one that was a typo.

by SilentCarto Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:05 pm

Hm. One solution to the rocket problem: shoot a hole in the floor for the rocket fuel to drain out through. If we're lucky, it'll drain right on top of the Smooze.

Mikas wrote:Lacunae for the save once more. Wonder what the white powder is?

Baking soda, to neutralize the acid.

Mikas wrote:Hmm. Are both Fancee and Prance canon? Blackjack mentioned the latter in the museum back in Chapter 11 Peace

Well, Prance is a large city in the region of Fancee, obviously. Applebloom

Erumpet wrote:Here's something that seemed vague to me: did BJ blow off her arm with the pipbuck or the other one? I couldn't tell.

She blew off her right leg, but she wears her Pipbuck on the left like everyone except Pip and Red Eye.

by Sindri Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:07 pm

SilentCarto wrote:Hm. One solution to the rocket problem: shoot a hole in the floor for the rocket fuel to drain out through. If we're lucky, it'll drain right on top of the Smooze.

You don't seem to get it. Nothing can stop the Smooze, so it wouldn't just burn... and do you want to see what happens when it assimilates a balefire missile?

by Valikdu Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:15 pm

Now I want to see a picture of Blackjack all glowing and--ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

by O. Hinds Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:22 pm

SilentCarto wrote:
Editing:

Thank you as always.

Theta wrote:Starkatterri was also spelled that way by the head of Yellow River. It's possible that the original spelling from ch 35 was the one that was a typo.

Ugh, where? Or were you saying that it was that way before it was fixed? It's supposed to be Starkatterri; Somber just sometimes forgets that in rather the same way that Kkat spelled LittlePip inconsistently.

by SilentCarto Sun Jul 08, 2012 3:49 pm

Icy Shake wrote:“Oh that would be bad. Very very bad. Please don’t shoot balefire warheads with beam weaponry!”

This is just the kind of thing that nobody should ever have to say out loud.

That made me laugh out loud. Spike

Icy Shake wrote:Those last two words make me think of just
one thing…

Hoofbump! I was a little bit disappointed when the amped-up plasma pistol didn't go "thoom", personally. Chicken

swicked wrote:Quick question: do healing potions, and Blackjack's repair talisman, push bullets out? I know Rampage's does but I figured that was mostly because her healing is so aggressive that it wouldn't allow one of her wounds to just close up with the bullet still inside.

It doesn't mention her ejecting the bullets. Maybe they get broken down and processed through her digestive system.

Quotidian wrote:I know loss of identity is a major theme in PH, but I still can't help thinking that all of this soul swapping is going to tie into the finale. Somber's said it'll be a "big, anime style ending", right? What's more animesque than a bunch of people, held together by the bonds of friendship, combining their powers into a super form to do battle with a monster from space?

"By your dysfunctions combined! I! Am! RamGlorJack-21nae!"
...
Actually, I really like that idea. :D

Like this? Big mac

Valikdu wrote:Now I want to see a picture of Blackjack all glowing and--ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL

Yeah, you weren't the only one to think that. Crazy

Sindri wrote:You don't seem to get it. Nothing can stop the Smooze, so it wouldn't just burn... and do you want to see what happens when it assimilates a balefire missile?

Electricity can stop the Smooze...

by Cptadder Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:01 pm

SilentCarto wrote:

Quotidian wrote:I know loss of identity is a major theme in PH, but I still can't help thinking that all of this soul swapping is going to tie into the finale. Somber's said it'll be a "big, anime style ending", right? What's more animesque than a bunch of people, held together by the bonds of friendship, combining their powers into a super form to do battle with a monster from space?

"By your dysfunctions combined! I! Am! RamGlorJack-21nae!"
...
Actually, I really like that idea. :D
Like this?

More like this Big Emperor which is what Hot blood borrowed from (That and Gurren Lagann where everything combines with everything else if you try hard enough)

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:02 pm

swicked wrote:
Sindri wrote:Well, a soul jar is indestructible to anything short of soul-destroying attacks (the starmetal sword, possibly high power Enervation), or megaspell-level destruction. A balefire egg shoved inside you is at least equivalent to being in the area of a full megaspell strike; the only difference between the eggs and the bombs that destroyed Equestria is scaling up from several meters to several kilometers of blast radius. But that same egg a good distance away from something that'd survive most explosives on its own? Unless Balefire attacks the soul by itself there probably wouldn't be any effect.

My interpretation is that destroying the Jar is a matter of (ridiculous) destructive energy applied, so all the power of a balefire egg applied to tearing it apart has a good chance of working while a small fraction of that power pushing on one side doesn't.

Alternatively, it's possible that Blackjack's earlier attacks with the sword weakened the connection between the soul and the armor, allowing it to be damaged by other effects. But in general I don't see how a megaspell would damage a soul jar if it were truly invulnerable even to equivalent power from other sources. They don't have any sort of anti-soul effects or the like just from being made into megaspells.
Chapter finished! Yay!
Do we know for sure that megaspell-level destruction really works on soul jars? Prior to this combat armor I don't remember that being tested.
As for this rainbow balefire egg, it disintegrated everything within a certain radius of itself. Not so much blew up like a bomb, more like... well, a localized disintegration spell, it seemed like.
I dunno... that seemed curious to me.

We don't entirely know the dynamics of a soul jar, anyway. If it can literally be considered a physical, impenetrable jar that's containing a soul, even the slightest damage from the sword would create a hole through which the soul could be forced out. Again, I dunno.

Were we ever told where balefire eggs came from, anyway, in the original FoE?

Weren't they told to be eggs from a dragon with some kind've talisman or spell on them? Could be massively, massively wrong here though.

by Kippershy Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:06 pm

Cptadder wrote:
SilentCarto wrote:

Quotidian wrote:I know loss of identity is a major theme in PH, but I still can't help thinking that all of this soul swapping is going to tie into the finale. Somber's said it'll be a "big, anime style ending", right? What's more animesque than a bunch of people, held together by the bonds of friendship, combining their powers into a super form to do battle with a monster from space?

"By your dysfunctions combined! I! Am! RamGlorJack-21nae!"
...
Actually, I really like that idea. :D
Like this?
More like this Big Emperor which is what Hot blood borrowed from (That and Gurren Lagann where everything combines with everything else if you try hard enough)

P-21 is definitely the girl who refuses.

by **RoboRed** Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:23 pm

Jeremyrush wrote:Alert. The following is a running 'Stream-Of-Consciousness' commentary. The comments inside are simply what is going through my head as I read. Due to going away for 24 hours there is a large shift in mood about halfway through. The comments inside are not to be taken seriously due to the fact I am an evil fucking bastard and usually make no sense. Also I started writing this when I was almost too tired to keep my eyes open. Toodles!

Also spoilers, silly head.

Spoiler:

Goddamn your commentaries crack me up...

Music tracklist for Ch47 is up here, for those interested.

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