[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

Ugh, you guys work fast. 20+ pages since the chapter was released. Just caught up. Thanks for the recap as well CptAdder. Laughed at mini-skits by Swicked. Headache not helping with conversation.

Re Dealer in 50: I'm thinking that he either was letting Blackjack solve a problem herself (thus letting her mature a little) and appeared briefly out of shock at the situation that was happening (plus Blackjack jumping in headfirst).

Or it could be the Goddess' control that's blocking him and when the big crash/flood/whatever it was happened she sort of lost control. IIRC the Dealer appeared next to Lacunae in that scene, maybe that explains this theory a little? Maybe there was so much "noise" of shock or focus that her powers became overwhelmed in weakened?

On the subject of ponified musics...



Edit: Also this:

Can't she really mess Trixie up by using an enervation ring on herself? Also, Littlepip needs to really hurry up.

I smile at how many of these derailings I'm responsible for.

On a semi-related topic, I'd like to see more Personal Defense Weapons in the Fallout Equestria universe. I'm all for handguns and squeezing every last bit of usefulness out of them, but they are more for concealed carry. PDWs and cut-down rifles perform the role of compact defense weapon even though they aren't as invisible. Just my thoughts.

Spoiler:

Ironmonger wrote:I smile at how many of these derailings I'm responsible for.

On a semi-related topic, I'd like to see more Personal Defense Weapons in the Fallout Equestria universe. I'm all for handguns and squeezing every last bit of usefulness out of them, but they are more for concealed carry. PDWs and cut-down rifles perform the role of compact defense weapon even though they aren't as invisible. Just my thoughts.

You give PDW to people who are behind the lines running supply in a modern army. In the old days everyone gets a Garand and indications are that the Pony/Zebra forces end up in early Vietnam as far as technology goes with some caveats that they have been running air model forces from day 1 of the war because of the Pegasuses. Technology wise they are all over the place but the day the bombs fell Pony armed forces were still at the stage where radio-pony's were carrying nothing but a pistol and their comms gear. Tanks were there but not anywhere near as widely used even during WW2, but they are working of a manual to do Patton or Rommel proud at least in design and individual usage. I'm guessing we don't see wide scale usage due to simple distance between countries and the lack of the ability of either side to get a large quantity of armor to the other countries soil. Yet despite an iron wall of treads and cannon they have powered armor, rocket launchers and bloody death rays... It's an odd technology because Fallout is based an an alt history 50s which means and army that's in the Korean mindset.

And Korea everyone gets a Garand unless your a support gunner in which case here's your Browning. Officer? Greasegun and pistol for you. Support personnel get 1911 and the odd M1 carbine which qualifies as a PDW except the thing is a WW2 vintage PDW so it's built to bash skulls not fold up small enough to stick in a glove box.

So that's what I say Ironmonger, despite the fact some tactics seem modern, think Korea. The Pony forces should start in the Boer War under Luna and end up in the Korean war when the bombs fell. The Celestia decade started with spears and hoof to hoof fighting and.... we don't know much about how we got from spear and magic armed royal guard to turn of the century bolt action rifles. I wonder if Celestia watched her ponies go from Spears to Springfield Musteks to end up at Sharps Carbines with Mausers just around the corner.

Cptadder wrote:

Ironmonger wrote:I smile at how many of these derailings I'm responsible for.

On a semi-related topic, I'd like to see more Personal Defense Weapons in the Fallout Equestria universe. I'm all for handguns and squeezing every last bit of usefulness out of them, but they are more for concealed carry. PDWs and cut-down rifles perform the role of compact defense weapon even though they aren't as invisible. Just my thoughts.

You give PDW to people who are behind the lines running supply in a modern army. In the old days everyone gets a Garand and indications are that the Pony/Zebra forces end up in early Vietnam as far as technology goes with some caveats that they have been running air model forces from day 1 of the war because of the Pegasuses. Technology wise they are all over the place but the day the bombs fell Pony armed forces were still at the stage where radio-pony's were carrying nothing but a pistol and their comms gear. Tanks were there but not anywhere near as widely used even during WW2, but they are working of a manual to do Patton or Rommel proud at least in design and individual usage. I'm guessing we don't see wide scale usage due to simple distance between countries and the lack of the ability of either side to get a large quantity of armor to the other countries soil. Yet despite an iron wall of treads and cannon they have powered armor, rocket launchers and bloody death rays... It's an odd technology because Fallout is based an an alt history 50s which means and army that's in the Korean mindset.

And Korea everyone gets a Garand unless your a support gunner in which case here's your Browning. Officer? Greasegun and pistol for you. Support personnel get 1911 and the odd M1 carbine which qualifies as a PDW except the thing is a WW2 vintage PDW so it's built to bash skulls not fold up small enough to stick in a glove box.

So that's what I say Ironmonger, despite the fact some tactics seem modern, think Korea. The Pony forces should start in the Boer War under Luna and end up in the Korean war when the bombs fell. The Celestia decade started with spears and hoof to hoof fighting and.... we don't know much about how we got from spear and magic armed royal guard to turn of the century bolt action rifles. I wonder if Celestia watched her ponies go from Spears to Springfield Musteks to end up at Sharps Carbines with Mausers just around the corner.

I'll keep this in mind Captain. In my fic things are expanded upon by checking out other countries to an extent. For example Germane and Prancinnati had modern technology for a long time, but Germane couldn't care less about other countries and Prancinnati just didn't want to share. I'm the kind of writer who likes to use the slightest excuse to get something done. I'm an evil bastard like that. With the whole Korea/Vietnam mindset, I expect recoilless rifles to show up somewhere.

Cptadder wrote:*snip*

I'm pretty sure ponies had modern firearms before the war broke out, IIRC
anyway Celestia must've gotten so depressed when she saw the advance in weapons technology

swicked wrote:If they didn't they could have easily bought them from the griffins. Their entire race is presented as mercenaries and I can't imagine they wouldn't been weapons merchants as well.

Well said. That's how Europe acquired gunpowder from the Chinese so it's entirely possible here too.

Cptadder wrote:Them's fightin' techs!

I think that, beyond simple technological advancement, we should also look at the culture these weapons are coming out of. War to the ponies (and even to some extent the zebras, since they don't appear to have had a true war for a long time based on what Goldenblood said right before the start of the war) is new, and while they obviously learned fast (learned a lot of the wrong lessons, too), certain military concepts that came up on earth would probably never have come up in Equestria. Also, the battle-saddle technology would probably make PDWs at least somewhat obsolete, since size would probably become less of an issue. Small machine pistols and the like would also probably be best suited to unicorns, and IIRC most of the arms technology was designed for earth ponies. Mouth-held automatic weaponry seems to me like it'd be harder to train somepony to use than a battle saddle that could deliver at least twice the firepower simply by virtue of having two guns rather than one - that's not even factoring in the ease of reloading, lessened recoil, larger size and caliber, and more natural weight distribution (not sure about that last one, but it seems like ponies have stronger backs than necks).

Swicked, you're totally right about griffins, though - they probably had plenty of handheld (or, well, talonheld) automatic weaponry.

We interrupt this thread for an important message:

GO PACK GO.

That is all.

Firearm size would be tricky when you factor in battle saddles. Depending on the length of the pony you would have to mount full-size rifles to avoid powder burns to the head or possibly even their sides. PDWs could work for unicorns in that they don't have a large weapon to swing around and it wouldn't get caught on anything easily.

Just thinking about the villains in various Fallout games...

The big problem I always had with the Enclave is that they're basically overpowered. The Brotherhood of Steel are an order of elite troops with the most advanced pre-war technology there is. Each unit is an absolute force of destruction that can only start to be rivaled by supermutants.

And then the Enclave shows up and it's like, "Oh, well, see they're just like the BoS, only MORE SO! And they're EVIL too!"

It's irritating. Where did they get the materiel to make all this stuff when they have virtually no resource bases?

What I would've liked to see is what somebody said upthread -- make Enclave armor weaker than BoS gear, but they move in numbers. For each BoS knight, the enclave can field ten guys, and if they aren't as strong individually, their massed firepower can still burn down the Brotherhood.

The Legion is... just... argh. The whole "women are property" thing makes them essentially "always lawful evil". Like somebody else mentioned, there's only one or two NPCs who think they don't suck. Of course they're death on bandits. The're death on EVERYONE.

@swicked
Where would the griffins get the gunpowder for rockets? Are there Griffin Miners then?

@FeatherDust
I believe they got lucky and stumbled across a high-tech stable Vault. Lots of things don't make sense in Post-Apocolyptia. Pretty sure we've gone through discussion of how the economics don't make sense.

FeatherDust wrote:
It's irritating. Where did they get the materiel to make all this stuff when they have virtually no resource bases?

I thought the deal with the Enclave was that they had resources. Unlike anyone else. That they were the only ones not scavenging in the dirt.

And I surely agree on the Legion thing. It just confused me that New Vegas tried to play the factions as grey when they really weren't. Legion crucifies people, but the NCR are... a government? Not willing to compromise the freedoms of its citizens for complete control? Is that really the drawback? Whenever you found an 'asshole' NCR character, it was hard to consider them a part of the NCR at all. They were basically some random dickhead nowhere near as terrible as every single member of the Legion.

The factions/villains in Fallout present interesting concepts. Even if we can't understand them completely we can at least...ahem...'scavenge' ideas from them. A union of the NCR and Legion would be incredibly effective if it were ever possible (which it likely isn't). The NCR seems to do better at running things, while the Legion is better at enforcing things.

Yeah, Fallout needs more grey villains and heroes. Homeworld's Kadeshi were a grey villain; they fought you only because if your fleet were to leave alive, others would learn their true nature and kill them... and so they fight to the death for what they believe is their survival, and you must slaughter them to the last man, even after figuring out that their origins and that of the player (the Kushan) are the same. But they had motivation to defend themselves, as the other two villains in the game are less grey and more black, from a moral standpoint, so their fear of the outside was justified.

Ironmonger wrote:The factions/villains in Fallout present interesting concepts. Even if we can't understand them completely we can at least...ahem...'scavenge' ideas from them. A union of the NCR and Legion would be incredibly effective if it were ever possible (which it likely isn't). The NCR seems to do better at running things, while the Legion is better at enforcing things.

Doubtful. One of the reasons the Legion is so effective is because it denies the personal freedoms that make NCR an acceptable choice. Well... that's the impression I get anyways. Technically we don't see much beyond 'no drugs' and indoctrinating the young ones.

I thought te griffons were bought by the zebras to try and match pony air power?

Admiral Stoic Rum wrote:I thought te griffons were bought by the zebras to try and match pony air power?

I'm sure some were at first. But I thought the zebra's used dragons and fetishes to grow wings to match pony air power. I could be wrong though.

No I think the zebra were suing both griffons and dragons, if the ponies bought out the griffons they would not owrry about their airpower or superiority during winter wrap up. besides both sides would have used the mercs anyway.

I just realized that Kkat never touched upon where the hell Poniet Russia and Germane were during the war. I think I'll take some liberties with that.

Ironmonger wrote:I just realized that Kkat never touched upon where the hell Poniet Russia and Germane were during the war. I think I'll take some liberties with that.

IIRC, she never even mentioned either of the two, so go crazy.

I thought, that closest to Poniet Russia was Stalliongrad.

Pretty sure the rule was that they (Griffins) worked for whoever payed them, and they weren't supposed to attack each other (Griffins). According to Carrion, Gilda was trying to put a Griffins first clause into whatever rules that they had, but failed.

Meleagridis wrote:I thought the deal with the Enclave was that they had resources. Unlike anyone else. That they were the only ones not scavenging in the dirt.

Where? On their oil rig? Having resources means having LAND, or you're right back to scavenging, just not in the dirt. If you don't have external material coming in, any construction you do is robbing Peter to pay Paul -- disassembling one tech to build another. And I don't recall the vast Enclave-controlled lands with all its resources bent to the purpose of building an army with which to invade the wasteland. If they had that why would they need to go invade in the first place?

The official story from FO2, if I recall it correctly, was that they had improved on the old war-tech in the last 200 years, unlike the brotherhood that just sat on it and kept using the same stuff they had at the end of the war.

Note that FOE neatly explained this issue, by clarifying that yes, the Enclave's tech IS effectively scavenged from themselves, and that's why the invasion is becoming more and more important, they're almost out of materials at this point.

Anyway materials are only part of my point; I find it hard to believe that the Enclave troops, no matter what training and tech they have, are the equals of BoS knights who've been actively fighting in the wastes every day of their lives.

And I surely agree on the Legion thing. It just confused me that New Vegas tried to play the factions as grey when they really weren't. Legion crucifies people, but the NCR are... a government? Not willing to compromise the freedoms of its citizens for complete control? Is that really the drawback? Whenever you found an 'asshole' NCR character, it was hard to consider them a part of the NCR at all. They were basically some random dickhead nowhere near as terrible as every single member of the Legion.

Exactly; they tried to play the NCR as corrupt and overreaching, but any large government will have a certain amount of corruption -- it's inescapable -- and the biggest complaint seemed to be that the NCR would walk in and basically declare a place as now subject to NCR rule. Which, well... they're trying to rebuild. Yes, they're going to basically annex large swathes of the wasteland. Yes, there are taxes. Cry me a river. They'll get better.

Let me see, should I go with the self-interested politician who taxes people too heavily, or the slaver who crucifies people for any crime and murders entire towns for being greedy? Hmmmm.

And the "independent New Vegas" option just frustrated me because I wasn't really able to do the thing I wanted to. Which is, well... Y'know what the wasteland needs? Large, safe communities where people can raise families and farm. Y'know what the wasteland doesn't need? GAMBLING, PROSTITUTES, AND DRUGS. Mr. House is stuck in the past, trying to maintain a Vegas that belongs to the old world and has no place in the wasteland. I want to take over and make Vegas into Rivet City or Shady Sands; a bright beacon of peace in the dangerous waste. I want to use my securitron army to outlaw the casinos and all the related trades, but not by murdering the Families entirely. That's as bad as what the Legion does. Argh.

@Featherdust
That's the limits of trying to make a sandbox game in such a short period of time.They aren't able to tell every story, and they didn't want to give players a completely good ending, apparently since some people didn't like Fallout 3's ending. Still kinda stupid though.

Meleagridis wrote:

Ironmonger wrote:The factions/villains in Fallout present interesting concepts. Even if we can't understand them completely we can at least...ahem...'scavenge' ideas from them. A union of the NCR and Legion would be incredibly effective if it were ever possible (which it likely isn't). The NCR seems to do better at running things, while the Legion is better at enforcing things.

Doubtful. One of the reasons the Legion is so effective is because it denies the personal freedoms that make NCR an acceptable choice. Well... that's the impression I get anyways. Technically we don't see much beyond 'no drugs' and indoctrinating the young ones.

And the widespread use of slavery, and the dehumanization of women.
The Legion is only "good at enforcing" because they murder anyone who disagrees with them in the most painful ways possible.

It's normally my MO in fallout games that slavery is the one unforgivable crime. If you're involved in slaving operations, I will END you. Drugs, gun-running, banditry, stuff like that, I'll try to correct it if I can, and I'm willing to come to a compromise if it means making the world a better place. But slavers all just die. No exceptions.

OneMoreDaySK wrote:@Featherdust
That's the limits of trying to make a sandbox game in such a short period of time.They aren't able to tell every story, and they didn't want to give players a completely good ending, apparently since some people didn't like Fallout 3's ending. Still kinda stupid though.

The problem with Fo3's ending wasn't that there was an unrelentingly "good" end -- it was that they refused to let you use the obvious resources at hand the solve the problem without suicide. It wouldn't have been so terrible if Fawkes's total immunity to radiation hadn't been a MAJOR PLOT POINT just a few hours earlier, when retrieving the GECK. (Sgt. Gutsy is also a valid choice -- if he gets destroyed by radiation, well, that's sad -- but he's a ROBOT, not a person, and I'm not being a bad-karma dickhead for sending him in.) When it comes down to it, the problem with the ending of Fo3 was that it made "sacrifice" the only acceptable solution for a problem that just didn't require it. It felt contrived.

By contrast, Pip made a similar sort of sacrifice, but it was NOT contrived; the whole story was leading up to that point. We knew a long time back that they needed somebody to give up their normal life to go into the control pod. It didn't come up at the very last second, and it was in a situation where none of the companions were there to help (not that Pip would have allowed them to do it in her place).

@FeatherDust
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I've tried to side with Legion...once, for storyline sake. Couldn't do it. So I just finished Honest Hearts, took Joshua's armor and TLSitD, walk straight to Ceasar, imaged that I've said something like 'Old friend sends his best regards.' And totally emptied one clip in him.