[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

swicked wrote:The weird thing about Flotsam is she acts like she's drawing from Softheart, yelling out their charges and crimes, yet there is absolutely nothing on her flank to indicate it since Blackjack is actively describing her mark when Rampage is doing this...

She doesn't necessarily lose herself when a particular CM takes over. For example, later in that chapter, after BJ tackles P-21, she walks off to go play counselor with her CM full teddy bear, but she's still cognizant of her surroundings. I think the opposite is also true -- she may be able to 'lose herself' but still have the fluctuating mark. It's hard to tell since she wears her armor so much of the time.

The only one that's really distinct, I think, is the AoD. The skull mark is a solid warning sign.

Also, for a short time after getting disintegrated, she has no mark, just a bruise-like blur. I think the bruise and the whirlpool both indicate the mixed/Rampage personality.

Rampage is another huge allegory for something I'm trying to piece together. Though I'll probably have to go back and read everything again before I get a real breakthrough. It seems like it should be very obvious but I'm thinking it continues with the central theme of family/maternity. I think the key is Rampage playing more of a voice of reason to Blackjack, but her having to "die" and reform when Rampage gets out of control.

Perhaps she represents an alcoholic parent? Very loyal and near invincible in her protection of Blackjack (BJ representing an avatar for a child) but unpredictable under certain situations. The Angel of Death being a child murderer supports this somewhat. BJ having to "kill" Rampage most of the time when the bad parts take over might represent a need for independence. Her reforming as a filly when she's totally destroyed could represent a child's maturity and an adolescent feeling of superiority over parents. Hmm...

Although sometimes she seems to more play a role as a BFF. I'll have to see because P-21 stands as a close childhood friend vs Rampage being more of a later adolescent friend.

Damnit, Somber. You're making me go back to all the philosophy, psychology and analysis classes I took on the side for my journalism degree. I knew those would come in handy at some point!

swicked wrote:Twist and Shujaa don't have anything to do with children or parenthood, though, I believe...

Actually, I was under the impression that they had a kid together, somehow. I can't look anything up right now so I'm playing by memory, but I remember in 34 Twist asks where 'Peppermint' was when she started freaking out after she realized where she was. Or at least, where she wasn't.

Aonee wrote:

swicked wrote:Twist and Shujaa don't have anything to do with children or parenthood, though, I believe...

Actually, I was under the impression that they had a kid together, somehow. I can't look anything up right now so I'm playing by memory, but I remember in 34 Twist asks where 'Peppermint' was when she started freaking out after she realized where she was. Or at least, where she wasn't.

Is it possible that Peppermint was the last soul added to the Phoenix talisman? It would explain why Rampage reforms at the specific age and why she appears to be a blend between Twist (mane) and Shujaa (stripes). The bruise cutie mark could be a result of Peppermint dying/getting the phoenix talisman before she could earn her cutie mark

SilentCarto wrote:First, the voice on the other end never actually identifies itself. So for all we know, it's adopted the identity of "The Director" solely for Sanguine's benefit. It could be literally anyone or anything.

Second, just because this person is the Director now doesn't mean they were when the bombs fell. Maybe Garnet shot Horse five minutes after the Redoubt closed. Maybe he died a natural death and the Director is his great-to-the-Nth grandchild. Maybe it's Sweetie Bot with Horse's mental engrams installed. Horse and Goldenblood are far from the only possibilities, even if we just assume that this entity really is the legitimate Director of the OIA.

True (though I would still it Horse if it was a brain-upload of him). But none of the other possibilities seem at all likely given what we know at this time. When further evidence arises I will gladly change my beliefs.

The tank is nowhere near big enough to look like "the dark outline of a large building" beyond the row of houses across the street. It might be said to be the size of a house, but not a large building towering over houses.

Anyway, there's no way a battle tank is the starspawn that "came and ate Reaper and Highlander alike." Neither Reapers nor Highlanders are ignorant savages. If it was a mere combat vehicle, they would understand that very quickly. Something more fearsome than a battle tank exists in the Hoof, and there's no reason to think that wasn't it.

It is that big. This is not a normal tank we're talking about, this is like a 40K scale rolling fortress. It filled most of a factory, loomed over houses, and ended a fight between the Steel Rangers and the Reapers just by showing up. Blackjack can kill a tank no problem; just ask the dozen scrapped ultra-sentinels in her wake. This is bigger. Meanwhile, the shape we saw in the rain was not taller than the surrounding buildings, merely on the same scale and visible between them.

And why do you think the Star Spawn and the "moving building" are the same? Have we actually seen any evidence or claims to that effect? I though they were in entirely different regions. Something bigger and scarrier than an old zebra supertank definitely exists, and I think it lives in Black Pony Mountain, but unless I'm missing something huge it's completely disconnected from what we saw in the rain.

SilentCarto wrote:

O. Hinds wrote:"Hangers on" is an expression meaning something like "followers/cronies/entourage".

It should be hyphenated, though. Hangers-on.

Ah, thank you.

(Twist scene) I recall that scene was the zebra asking for Peppermint, being a possible nickname for Twist? Then again, that'd be kinda random to say. So yeah, might be a foal. Going a bit on my own headcanon on how that happened, like mentioned before, since most of today's tech seems to be available :P

SilentCarto wrote: Maybe it's Sweetie Bot with Horse's mental engrams installed.

Guy killed me, BJ. Killed me with a sword. How weird is that?

But in honesty, there are unwritten rules to these things. And those rules say that we have not seen the last of Sweetie Bot. Hm... Hold on... Does Horse seem like the kind of guy to leave well enough alone? Do you think he might try to improve what he had wrought, make it better and stronger and more versatile? Say, a program? He could probably make a robot clever enough to resemble sentient thought, but why stop there? How crazy could he make his little pet project?

Or we'll find out Sweetie Bot was involved in a poignant or ironic scene of death, retribution, somesuch. It might not be so grand a part, but I'm sure it'll pop up again. I'm still maintaining that Horse himself is the security system, though.

Mikas wrote:
“Hello, good sir! And how are you on this most splendid of days, Director?”
The mechanical voice reminded me of Watcher. “Progress?”
“I’ve just sent an errand buck to get the program.”
“And the biological sample?”
“Safe and sound. We put it in her hooves, and we get everything we want. I get Project Chimera. You get everything else. She gets to play at being queen of the Wasteland. Everything according to plan.”
“No.”
“No?” Now Sanguine sounded perplexed. “No? Nix? Null and void?”
“We must stop him.”
“Him?” Then a pause. “Him?! Sir, with all due respect, he was stopped two centuries ago. I saw it. He died with the princesses, Project Horizons died with him, and we are all the better for it.”
“He lives. I know it. Find him, Sanguine. He’s here. I can feel it. I can feel him!”
“Of course. Of course,” Sanguine rasped in mollifying tones. “I’ll get right on top of that, Director.”
Oh this is juicy....

I'm getting the feeling that Somber's Manticores are like the equivalent of Yao Guai (compared to Kkat's being the Radscorpions).

Him. The odds of 'him' not being Goldenblood seem so astronomically small. And if that is indeed the case, then we have confirmation that A) Trueblood can confirm his death and B) He is still alive. Does that conflict? I don't think so...

But I'm more curious as to who She is. Who is she? The Queen of the Wasteland? Does she lead the Harbingers as a misguided puppet? Is it Blackjack, manipulated from the start? Did we already see her? And on that note, what biological sample does She need to acquire? Blackjack or Psycho, to access Ministry-only secrets? That would mean that She is not Blackjack. Has any of this been covered before?

Oh, and I don't find Manticores very equivalent at all. The scene after Twister returns BJ does have the feel of a bear encounter, but in both FoE and PH their flight played a prominent role in their danger, not to mention the lack of mutation that played a strong role in one of Pip's sidequests. They aren't radscorpions or yoa guai- they're manticores.


This took more space than I thought, so it goes into a spoiler tag.

Thanks for reading!:

swicked wrote:Carrion's such a reasonable and well-adjusted straight man for being a murderous griffin ghoul ^_^

Sorry- You were asking for a song, right?:

Sindri wrote:And why do you think the Star Spawn and the "moving building" are the same? Have we actually seen any evidence or claims to that effect? I though they were in entirely different regions. Something bigger and scarrier than an old zebra supertank definitely exists, and I think it lives in Black Pony Mountain, but unless I'm missing something huge it's completely disconnected from what we saw in the rain.

You can only really fit just so many building-sized monsters in one city. Right size, right area, probably the same thing.

Meleagridis wrote:Guy killed me, BJ. Killed me with a sword. How weird is that?

Hehe.

Meleagridis wrote:But in honesty, there are unwritten rules to these things. And those rules say that we have not seen the last of Sweetie Bot. Hm... Hold on... Does Horse seem like the kind of guy to leave well enough alone? Do you think he might try to improve what he had wrought, make it better and stronger and more versatile? Say, a program? He could probably make a robot clever enough to resemble sentient thought, but why stop there? How crazy could he make his little pet project?

Wow, I hadn't considered that... the Cyberdaemon as some horribly re-engineered GLADoS-like Sweetie Bot? Yikes.

Meleagridis wrote:Him. The odds of 'him' not being Goldenblood seem so astronomically small. And if that is indeed the case, then we have confirmation that A) Trueblood can confirm his death and B) He is still alive. Does that conflict? I don't think so...

I totally agree. There are so few "him"s that could be that important, and Goldie's erratic behavior in the last two days before the apocalypse suggests he set something in motion to stymie the plans of whoever was stealing star metal and trying to activate Horizons.

Meleagridis wrote:But I'm more curious as to who She is. Who is she? The Queen of the Wasteland? Does she lead the Harbingers as a misguided puppet? Is it Blackjack, manipulated from the start? Did we already see her? And on that note, what biological sample does She need to acquire? Blackjack or Psycho, to access Ministry-only secrets? That would mean that She is not Blackjack. Has any of this been covered before?

"She" should refer to Psychoshy. She's the "biological sample". "We put it (EC-1101) in her (Psychoshy's) hooves, we get everything we want." (And it's terminology like that that make me suspicious that this entity is not and never was a biological organism.)

I do have this sneaking suspicion that the Prophet is Dawn, but I really hope not. If Dawn isn't in a cage in Elysium, though...

Meleagridis wrote: Thanks to everyone who enjoyed that, but ultra-honorable mention to SilentCarto for the one liners. I'm saving that. Had to use some pretty low tricks to get out of telling my roommate why I was laughing so hard.

Meleagridis wrote:

Sorry- You were asking for a song, right?:

That. Was. Awesome.

SilentCarto wrote:You can only really fit just so many building-sized monsters in one city. Right size, right area, probably the same thing.

But it wasn't the same area. The shape in the rain was many miles away from the Highlands, but just a short hop from the battleground where the tank first appeared clearly. So either the Star Spawn ventured a long way from its traditional stomping grounds, while never being seen by anypony except as a hazy rectangular building-ish shape, while crossing the path of the supertank, and then went home after doing nothing... or that wasn't it.

swicked wrote:I'm just gonna go ahead and post this picture of my son here.
Because, holy crap, this kid is pretty.

I won't pretend you all have to be interested in him, but I HAVE to show off occasionally. It's, like, a rule or something XD

He's got hair now!

SilentCarto wrote:
With your left hoof you will bring down the fires of the sun, and with your right you will call down the moon!

It would be rather amusing if EC-1101 -- which now resides in her left leg -- gave her access to feed targets to Celestia One.

I didn't notice this until now but you got it backward. BJ is a lefty, so her Pipbuck is in her right leg. That's been retained in her cyborg version:

Ch 34:
P-21 reached over, took my right hoof, and pressed in a plate. It slid away, and there was the familiar screen. “It’s built in now. You don’t need to cover it up any more.”

FeatherDust wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:
With your left hoof you will bring down the fires of the sun, and with your right you will call down the moon!

It would be rather amusing if EC-1101 -- which now resides in her left leg -- gave her access to feed targets to Celestia One.

I didn't notice this until now but you got it backward. BJ is a lefty, so her Pipbuck is in her right leg. That's been retained in her cyborg version:

Ch 34:
P-21 reached over, took my right hoof, and pressed in a plate. It slid away, and there was the familiar screen. “It’s built in now. You don’t need to cover it up any more.”

I thought that the pipbuck generally went on the left leg, and Littlepip was the only names exception. And I'm fairly sure that Blackjack shoved her right foreleg down the throat of a flaming ghoul and detonated it, so her pipbuck would be scattered across the lower surface of the prison if not disintegrated if you're right...

FeatherDust wrote:

SilentCarto wrote:
With your left hoof you will bring down the fires of the sun, and with your right you will call down the moon!

It would be rather amusing if EC-1101 -- which now resides in her left leg -- gave her access to feed targets to Celestia One.

I didn't notice this until now but you got it backward. BJ is a lefty, so her Pipbuck is in her right leg. That's been retained in her cyborg version:

Ch 34:
P-21 reached over, took my right hoof, and pressed in a plate. It slid away, and there was the familiar screen. “It’s built in now. You don’t need to cover it up any more.”

I thought he used Blackjack's right hoof to press the panel on her left leg. You can't press your right hoof to your right leg.

Blackjack's PipBuck is in her left leg, and the hoof press is probably just something that slipped through a crack. I'll change it.

Attention people: Fallout: New Vegas is currently 75% off on Steam for the next 7 hours. This includes the Ultimate Edition. It's WELL WORTH it's current price.

CalamityWhen wrote:Attention people: Fallout: New Vegas is currently 75% off on Steam for the next 7 hours. This includes the Ultimate Edition. It's WELL WORTH it's current price.

If only I didn't already have all of the Fallout. Well, except for Courier's Stash and GRA, but I've already voiced my opinions on paying for item packs in a PC game with a huge modding community.


But yeah, anypony who doesn't have the game yet needs to get on that. Steam sales are awesome, and you can now get New Vegas for $5, or the ultimate edition with all the (usually awesome) DLC for 10.
That's like, the price of a really good sandwich. Except this sandwich is hundreds of hours of gameplay in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Yeah, that metaphor kinda broke down.

Meleagridis wrote:

Sorry- You were asking for a song, right?:

I'm dead from laughing. You've killed me. You murderer.
This needs to be actually recorded. Forever.

WavemasterRyx wrote:

Meleagridis wrote:

Sorry- You were asking for a song, right?:

I'm dead from laughing. You've killed me. You murderer.
This needs to be actually recorded. Forever.

Seconded. Now somebodies has no choice but to record and post this.

O. Hinds: reading your sig... "Won the War"? So who did win it?...

O. Hinds wrote:Blackjack's PipBuck is in her left leg, and the hoof press is probably just something that slipped through a crack. I'll change it.

Oh. Okay. hehe.
I went back to check, and sure enough the thing's been on her left leg all along. For some reason I got it in my head that BJ and LilPip were both lefties.

I was hoping that was so. Sinistromanualists saving the world makes me giddy, being one myself. :)

FeatherDust wrote:

O. Hinds wrote:Blackjack's PipBuck is in her left leg, and the hoof press is probably just something that slipped through a crack. I'll change it.

Oh. Okay. hehe.
I went back to check, and sure enough the thing's been on her left leg all along. For some reason I got it in my head that BJ and LilPip were both lefties.

No, they weren't.
They were mouthies or hornies.

Depends on what the dominant hoof is for hoofbumping. :P

Let's all just assume that they're ambidextrious.

CalamityWhen wrote:Attention people: Fallout: New Vegas is currently 75% off on Steam for the next 7 hours. This includes the Ultimate Edition. It's WELL WORTH it's current price.

...Y'know what, why the hell not? I still have yet to play a Fallout game, and 5 bucks is a damn good price.

Silly me, I bought it when it was on sale for 20 bucks a few days ago...
I'ma buy another.

Totally unrelated, but I was browsing through stuff on the web, and came across

Spoiler:

And stop being so creative people xD
On unrelated news, I'm going to be home alone for a week. Lets hope I don't wound up dead :P And think I'll try and snag NV, just for the sake of it. Haven't played 3, but eh. On another note: Heroes 6 save system sucks cervix.

Kattlarv wrote:Totally unrelated, but I was browsing through stuff on the web, and came across

Spoiler:

And stop being so creative people xD
On unrelated news, I'm going to be home alone for a week. Lets hope I don't wound up dead :P And think I'll try and snag NV, just for the sake of it. Haven't played 3, but eh. On another note: Heroes 6 save system sucks cervix.

You know.. I've gotta ask for you to PM me that link now.

And do it. So glad I didn't go pay 15 quid for the G4W version (physical CD) - Yes I wont get the achievement points to my XBL account, but I will be able to continue talking in steam nice and easy with it.
Got it on 360, but MODS!

Kippershy wrote:And do it. So glad I didn't go pay 15 quid for the G4W version (physical CD) - Yes I wont get the achievement points to my XBL account, but I will be able to continue talking in steam nice and easy with it.
Got it on 360, but MODS!

GLORY TO THE MASTER PC RACE!!!!