[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

Overthepacific wrote:
Im sure if Rainbow dash can exert that kind of force, than the [REDACTED by Meleagridis] legate can pull off something similar..

Some people are avoiding that particular spoiler. Try and throw it into

Legate Spoiler:

Overthepacific wrote:Alright I still stand by my opinion, but I also thought of something while I was at work in favor of.
Sindri said before that the math behind the sheer speed needing to dodge the bullet was an absurd concept, and that it was near impossible in this universe. That the 96 G force acting in his acceleration wasnt a correct concept.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/physics-behind-sonic-rainboom.html
Rainbow dash pulled out of 1670 g turn, and lived, with what, four ponies on her?
In this universe it seems that moving with the force all most ten times less than that seems to be entirely possible, and I wasnt even talking about moving right when the shell was fired.

Alright, this guy's math has always bugged me, so first I got out my season one dvds and did some measuring. And the distance in which Dash would need to have turned in that scene, listed as 5m in the math cited, appears to be roughly three times the distance she moved between frames over the course of her descent in that same shot. At a frame rate of 60Hz, that means the radius of her turn was equivalent to the distance she would have covered in 1/20th of a second in a straight line. Given the same velocity of mach one, ~340m/s, that means the turning radius was 17 meters, not the five assumed here. Redoing all their math with these numbers gives us an acceleration of 491 Gs, not 1600.

Still very impressive though. Because Dash could flip tanks, demolish buildings, and gel organics in the area just by Booming at them. She, and any other pegasus capable of the feat, were strategic assets and since the war the Enclave has been tracking and controlling them like weapons of mass destruction. This is the high end of the acceleration magic that every pegasus with a contrail demonstrates. Rainbow Dash, and likely others of the Shadowbolts, would almost certainly have been dodging tank shells and hails of bullets like they were playing Touhou during major battles. Suddenly Dash looks even scarier in combat... you fire your gun at her from less than fifty meters away and if she sees you, she's already out of the way by the time the bullet gets there. Regardless of gun, regardless of your aim, you simply cannot hit her outside of point-blank and by then she's powdered your skeleton. Does anybody know if magical beam weapons are speed-of-light or if they have a significant travel time in this universe?


Alright, the concept is plausible within the setting. So how would the Legate imitate something like this? Even if he had the raw strength to push that hard, the only thing he has to push off is the ground, and there just isn't a way to get enough friction to accelerate that much parallel to the surface...
Maybe zebra martial arts have some aspect of acceleration magic? They've alread demonstrated wuxia-type things like punching through powered armor, it's... not impossible that they can redirect in midair, and that same concept would let him push sideways on the ground faster than normal dirt allows for.
Or maybe the same concept of barriers extending into the ground as an anchor? We know he has some kind of inertial trick or anchoring magic or he would have been pushed by Glory's impact. Using the anchor as a kind of magical "cleats" to get more push out of the ground should be possible. And it shouldn't be much harder than using that anchor to stop after absorbing the energy of a canon shell... I'd run the numbers to compare the two but I honestly don't know where to start on that one. It'd probably be easier to compare the leg/armor strength needed to catch it versus to accelerate that fast...

Okay, I'm now putting dodging the shell and catching it down as roughly equally likely, until we learn more about his capabilities, I get around to doing the math on forces required, or something else comes up.

Sindri wrote:

Overthepacific wrote:Alright I still stand by my opinion, but I also thought of something while I was at work in favor of.
Sindri said before that the math behind the sheer speed needing to dodge the bullet was an absurd concept, and that it was near impossible in this universe. That the 96 G force acting in his acceleration wasnt a correct concept.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/physics-behind-sonic-rainboom.html
Rainbow dash pulled out of 1670 g turn, and lived, with what, four ponies on her?
In this universe it seems that moving with the force all most ten times less than that seems to be entirely possible, and I wasnt even talking about moving right when the shell was fired.

Alright, this guy's math has always bugged me, so first I got out my season one dvds and did some measuring. And the distance in which Dash would need to have turned in that scene, listed as 5m in the math cited, appears to be roughly three times the distance she moved between frames over the course of her descent in that same shot. At a frame rate of 60Hz, that means the radius of her turn was equivalent to the distance she would have covered in 1/20th of a second in a straight line. Given the same velocity of mach one, ~340m/s, that means the turning radius was 17 meters, not the five assumed here. Redoing all their math with these numbers gives us an acceleration of 491 Gs, not 1600.

Still very impressive though. Because Dash could flip tanks, demolish buildings, and gel organics in the area just by Booming at them. She, and any other pegasus capable of the feat, were strategic assets and since the war the Enclave has been tracking and controlling them like weapons of mass destruction. This is the high end of the acceleration magic that every pegasus with a contrail demonstrates. Rainbow Dash, and likely others of the Shadowbolts, would almost certainly have been dodging tank shells and hails of bullets like they were playing Touhou during major battles. Suddenly Dash looks even scarier in combat... you fire your gun at her from less than fifty meters away and if she sees you, she's already out of the way by the time the bullet gets there. Regardless of gun, regardless of your aim, you simply cannot hit her outside of point-blank and by then she's powdered your skeleton. Does anybody know if magical beam weapons are speed-of-light or if they have a significant travel time in this universe?


Alright, the concept is plausible within the setting. So how would the Legate imitate something like this? Even if he had the raw strength to push that hard, the only thing he has to push off is the ground, and there just isn't a way to get enough friction to accelerate that much parallel to the surface...
Maybe zebra martial arts have some aspect of acceleration magic? They've alread demonstrated wuxia-type things like punching through powered armor, it's... not impossible that they can redirect in midair, and that same concept would let him push sideways on the ground faster than normal dirt allows for.
Or maybe the same concept of barriers extending into the ground as an anchor? We know he has some kind of inertial trick or anchoring magic or he would have been pushed by Glory's impact. Using the anchor as a kind of magical "cleats" to get more push out of the ground should be possible. And it shouldn't be much harder than using that anchor to stop after absorbing the energy of a canon shell... I'd run the numbers to compare the two but I honestly don't know where to start on that one. It'd probably be easier to compare the leg/armor strength needed to catch it versus to accelerate that fast...

Okay, I'm now putting dodging the shell and catching it down as roughly equally likely, until we learn more about his capabilities, I get around to doing the math on forces required, or something else comes up.

Yeah; this is why the appearance of the Saggitarius Spectralem (which, unlike a pegasus, could stay in the rainboom state until the fuel ran out) in a battle pretty much guaranteed that Equestria would lose it without the Shadowbolts and a big numerical advantage, and maybe not even then. Pity that it didn't come earlier and en masse rather than as a single plane near the end...

Anyway, regarding Vitiosus in combat, I'd say that it still makes more sense for him to catch the shell even if he can dodge it. It reveals less of his abilities, is even more intimidating, and does more to shield his troops (and even though he probably treats them as expendable tools, they're still not free to replace).

O. Hinds wrote:Anyway, regarding Vitiosus in combat, I'd say that it still makes more sense for him to catch the shell even if he can dodge it. It reveals less of his abilities, is even more intimidating, and does more to shield his troops (and even though he probably treats them as expendable tools, they're still not free to replace).

Well, that's debatable. No matter what it requires to actually pull off, dodging a shot is intuitively easier than blocking it. So he'd likely be revealing less of his powers to observers who don't have a serious background in physics. I'd actually guess at only Glory catching on, and she's both drugged up and knocked silly.

However, catching it send a message of power. It makes the claim that he's invulnerable, that not even your biggest gun is enough to make him deign to dodge.

Am I the only one that thinks an in-depth analysis of the physics involved when the Legate catches the shell is missing the point entirely?

Snipehamster wrote:Am I the only one that thinks an in-depth analysis of the physics involved when the Legate catches the shell is missing the point entirely?

Nope. It's still fun though.

Snipehamster wrote:Am I the only one that thinks an in-depth analysis of the physics involved when the Legate catches the shell is missing the point entirely?

Like I said, dude, the physics of magic ain't never gonna work anyway, not unless you wanna create the universe from the ground up to include it. So, no, you're not alone. =P

"If you're wondering how he caught that shell, or other zebra facts.
Repeat to yourself, it's just a fic, I should really just relax."

Quotidian wrote:"If you're wondering how he caught that shell, or other zebra facts.
Repeat to yourself, it's just a fic, I should really just relax."

But we've got ponies who obsessively like maths!

Quotidian wrote:"If you're wondering how he caught that shell, or other zebra facts.
Repeat to yourself, it's just a fic, I should really just relax."

The mantra is all about suspension of disbelief. But now we have two valid explanations for how it happened that don't need any suspending of anything. I an think all I want and you can't stop me!

What was with Applebot?

Came out of nowhere, deliberately avoided the topic of her own source of intelligence, advanced technology that was not only rare and self-aware, but started a business. A business!

Then ZAP! Gone. Or... maybe gone? We don't even know. For all we know, Applebot is Cognitum.

...

Applebot is Cognitum.

Sindri wrote:Okay, I'm now putting dodging the shell and catching it down as roughly equally likely, until we learn more about his capabilities, I get around to doing the math on forces required, or something else comes up.

Well, that clears the air a bit, Im glad we were finally able to clear it up.

O. Hinds wrote:Anyway, regarding Vitiosus in combat, I'd say that it
still makes more sense for him to catch the shell even if he can dodge
it. It reveals less of his abilities, is even more intimidating, and
does more to shield his troops (and even though he probably treats them
as expendable tools, they're still not free to replace).

O.Hinds, you and me are about to fight.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Snipehamster wrote:Am I the only one that thinks an in-depth analysis
of the physics involved when the Legate catches the shell is missing the point entirely?

This all started with swicked asking us if there HAD to be a Legate and he HAD to have powers what you would want him to be.n

When I started describing the way I envisioned him, I said something about him dodging the shell instead of catching it, cause I thought that was out of line for a perfect scene with him. Then I think Sindri said something about it and thats when we got into it.

I still think the Legate as he is now is a poor addition choice right now, and only adds to the overall confusion and tangled storylines.

@meleagridis
Now why would it be so helpful at that point?

Re: Legate
Haven't read any spoilers, but at this point the only way I can see Blackjack beating him is to have some superior strategy, or just drop a boat on both of them.

OneMoreDaySK wrote:Re: Legate
Haven't read any spoilers, but at this point the only way I can see Blackjack beating him is to have some superior strategy, or just drop a boat on both of them.

Haha, if it aint broke dont fix it.

On a side not, did somber do a "ask Blackjack and the gang" sort of thing in the comments at one time? I feel like he did but it could be my imagintation making things up.

Overthepacific wrote:

OneMoreDaySK wrote:Re: Legate
Haven't read any spoilers, but at this point the only way I can see Blackjack beating him is to have some superior strategy, or just drop a boat on both of them.

Haha, if it aint broke dont fix it.

On a side not, did somber do a "ask Blackjack and the gang" sort of thing in the comments at one time? I feel like he did but it could be my imagintation making things up.

He did.

Snipehamster wrote:An additional thought re: Chapter 54.

Several events in the late 20s gave Scotch Tape a pathological fear of machines, and her stint in the Fluttershy Medical Center's stasis tanks through the late 30s (followed by messy machine-assisted surgery) couldn't have helped.

...so why was she comfortable with riding on and in Deus?

Her phobia seems to have slipped everyone's minds.

... if Scotch has a phobia that perfectly innocent machines are going to eat/hurt her, perhaps a machine that really does want to kill everybody just seems normal and unremarkable to her???

BrentOGara wrote:

Snipehamster wrote:An additional thought re: Chapter 54.

Several events in the late 20s gave Scotch Tape a pathological fear of machines, and her stint in the Fluttershy Medical Center's stasis tanks through the late 30s (followed by messy machine-assisted surgery) couldn't have helped.

...so why was she comfortable with riding on and in Deus?

Her phobia seems to have slipped everyone's minds.

... if Scotch has a phobia that perfectly innocent machines are going to eat/hurt her, perhaps a machine that really does want to kill everybody just seems normal and unremarkable to her???

...yes. Everybody else is freaked out by Deus because he's not just a machine, he used to be a rapist, he's bloodthirsty and unpredictable and dangerous. But to her, he's no worse than every other machine.

Actually, if he continues to be relatively non-murderous and trying to be a better pony, it might be really good for her mental health.

[quote="BrentOGara"]

Snipehamster wrote:An additional thought re: Chapter 54.

Several events in the late 20s gave Scotch Tape a pathological fear of machines, and her stint in the Fluttershy Medical Center's stasis tanks through the late 30s (followed by messy machine-assisted surgery) couldn't have helped.

...so why was she comfortable with riding on and in Deus?

Her phobia seems to have slipped everyone's minds.

It feels like that happens with a lot of things that used to be major points in the story.

I mean, to name one, what even happened to the whole enervation deal? Did it all just magically disappear after the core got activated or something? Or was it just forgotten altogether? I know it doesnt affect Blackjack anymore but im sure her friends would be feeling it.

O. Hinds wrote:He did.

Why did he stop? that seemed to be pretty interesting.

swicked wrote:
Now this is the story all about how
Our world got flipped, turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there
I’ll tell you about the evil star that they call ‘Tokomare’

Didn't know whether to laugh or slap my forehead, did both.

OneMoreDaySK wrote:@meleagridis
Now why would it be so helpful at that point?

Okay, probably not Cognitum.

But seriously, Applebot should have raised a few more questions. It's bugging me. Not in an 'unresolved plot point' kind of way, more like an 'am I the only one who finds this random pre-war Shadow Broker a little curious?' kind of way.

swicked wrote:

Overthepacific wrote:

The more you talk about it, the more that, yes, it does feel like the story got messy after Blackjack died.
I think, in part, it was the silver bullets and her getting worse from taint. It gave a definitive feeling of progression... namely, that of her getting worse.
It was an interesting backdrop to her general struggles in the hoof, it taking more and more out of her as she went along.

I'm not sure what we have now is necessarily all that different from what we had then, though. Lots of groups about, lots of mysteries, characters coming and going... it just feels like there's not much framing it all, anymore.

Well, I think back then, all of these factions and side plots felt like just that, background information. You knew what Blackjack was really going to be doing in the end, either dealing with dues, or sanguine. All of the others where either ends to that mean or you could really tell they didnt take a whole lot of precedent in the story. Now though... I dont even want to go into it again.

Her as a character, you could really see the progression leading up to her death. She felt like she was fighting through it to really be the hero she needed to be, despite the fact that she knew the road she was going down was most definitely going to kill her. Now, shes a ball of depression and angst, and its just old. We saw a bit of that before she died, but it didnt really seem to be a major attitude that really lasted for her outside of serious events.

With the characters, after rampage joined, I think that shouldve really limited the group to just them. Lacunae wasnt really necessary. She only led to the goddess subplot we have now. Scotch, I dont know why they felt the need to bring a filly into combat into first place, but she shouldve been left somewhere else. Maybe her and P-21 stay in chapel, I dont know. It wouldve made room in the group to build up the characters better, but it never happened, so now we just have a crowd that we hardly even know anymore. I guess all of this started before she died, but it was never quite as bad as it is now.

swicked wrote:...your apostrophe key isn't working.

Well, Im not writing a story, so I just do not have the motivation to go and put it into every contraction.

swicked wrote:I don't like Lacunae, I wouldn't mind her not existing, she all but hasn't already this entire time.
Scotch... while I disagreed with her being around at first, has kinda grown on me. She's still pretty useless, P-21 and Glory being able do better than her at any given task, but... I dunno. I guess I just like her as a character.
P-21, though... I dunno, again. Do you really think he should leave the group entirely? Or is that just because he should be taking care of Scotch somewhere safer than right next to Blackjack? Because, honestly, I agree with the later, but I'm not so sure about the former.

P-21 needed to be Blackjacks main friend. He is (or was) the most necessary to her from the very beginning. Hell I think somber wanted to ship them together instead of glory, I mean Blackjack, and P-21, A perfect 21, as in blackjack. It feels like it was set up from the beginning to be an adventure with the two of them. Glory threw a wrench into that.

I would only take P-21 out because of scotch, and only for that reason. Scotch threw in a lot of internal conflict, which was interesting, but the concept of the filly, mid battle between all of them just seems like a fault on their part.

All Lacunae is, really, is a ball of angst and depression and insecurities, which doesnt even seem to affect her. Her only reason for still existing is to swoop in and save the day when it feels like its going to be impossible otherwise. Shes always just made things too easy and has been creating shortcuts around otherwise good scenes from the beginning.

Finally, Glory. I dont think I mentioned her, but her throwing a wrench into the gears of the story is really upsetting now that I think about it. She was interesting, and provided the doctor role, as well as keeping a leash on blackjack a bit (literally now). I think it wouldve been better off with her dying at the flash fillies base cave in. Now that shes Rainbow dash, I just have trouble really taking her scenes seriously anymore. I dont necessarily want her gone like Lacunae, but I can see her causing undue problems.

Meleagridis wrote:
But seriously, Applebot should have raised a few more questions. It's bugging me. Not in an 'unresolved plot point' kind of way, more like an 'am I the only one who finds this random pre-war Shadow Broker a little curious?' kind of way.

No idea if Applebot will come back in any meaningful way, but assuming that damaged/dead sprite-bot Blackjack picked up hasn't been used to construct one of her upgrades or lost with supplies somewhere along the adventure, attempts to peek at or reconstruct that bot could somehow lend a node for the bot to project to.

Though in that case, it'd be kind of a wonder as to why it hasn't just been making use of whatever spritebot it wills whenever it wants just because.

I just can't swallow that the bot's completely gone. Fanboyish denial or no.

Overthepacific wrote:Now that shes Rainbow dash, I just have trouble really taking her scenes seriously anymore.

Sometimes I feel the same way. Other times I think about the fact that between FoE, PH, and Starlight, if RainbowGlory survives all of this, we have Fluttershy, Rainbow Glory, and Twilight Sparklelight forming roughly half a revived mane six (not necessarily new main six, since we have new bearers for the elements of harmony) in some kind of Neo Wasteland.

Which is kinda pooling together separate side-stories into a 'canon' which might not sit well with either it's pulling from, but is an interesting possibility. Isn't some of the point of Fallout about how hanging on too firmly to the past isn't exactly a good thing? Would having a revived six be a contrast worth exploring?

swicked wrote:...I wasn't being sarcastic, I thought it might really be broken. You're not using apostrophes at all. If you're doing that on purpose, though, then whatever.

I dislike Glory as a character, but I see Blackjack, P-21 and Glory as the atomic form of the group. I really wouldn't want any of them to leave.
Rampage, while entertaining and useful, is a hanger-on. I wouldn't mind her leaving from time to time to do Reaper work, like she once did.
Scotch can go, Lacunae can go, Boo can go.

Back in the beginning Glory and P-21 were like two sides of Blackjack's conscience. P-21 would argue for dark and pragmatic, Glory would argue for good and ideal. I kinda liked that balance. Heck, I just liked the chemistry between the three of them in general. I wouldn't mind going back to that more.

Hmmm, I liked rampage because she was the crazy violence that blackjack wouldn't(happy now?) be, but her going off every now and again would be welcome.

A smaller group would always be welcome, I would like Glory to be an essential part of the base group, but I just don't feel like she really belongs there, mostly because she just isn't all that interesting right now.

Retl wrote:

Overthepacific wrote:Now that shes Rainbow dash, I just have trouble really taking her scenes seriously anymore.

Sometimes I feel the same way. Other times I think about the fact that between FoE, PH, and Starlight, if RainbowGlory survives all of this, we have Fluttershy, Rainbow Glory, and Twilight Sparklelight forming roughly half a revived mane six (not necessarily new main six, since we have new bearers for the elements of harmony) in some kind of Neo Wasteland.

Which is kinda pooling together separate side-stories into a 'canon' which might not sit well with either it's pulling from, but is an interesting possibility. Isn't some of the point of Fallout about how hanging on too firmly to the past isn't exactly a good thing? Would having a revived six be a contrast worth exploring?

If this actually all tied into canon, that would be pretty cool. But otherwise, what's the point of it? The Gardens of Equestria have already been activated by Littlepip and her friends, so their only converging necessary plot line has already been tied up.

Maybe all of them getting together after the gardens had been activated and attempting to spread peace throughout the still violent wasteland as ancient relics of hope from the peace before the war, like the group big daddy got together with crunchy carrots and keeper and all of them(did they ever have a specific name?) but with peace instead of keeping them down with power.
Constantly trying to peacefully convince raiders and slavers and maybe getting shot at, with them having a constant conflict of giving in to the evils of the wasteland.

Yeah, I'd definitely read that.

swicked wrote:...sure, again, they've all developed beyond those early roots, but it's still part of who they are.

Some things aren't supposed to change. A part of a characters personality should always be there. I always loved the chapters up to 33, because no matter what the characters went through, they still had those funny moments that really made you care about them.

It almost sounds counter-intuitive to the complaints I've had about post-death PH, but I don't think they shouldve developed out of that, but it seems like they did. Its just something that needs to be there, and its moments like that that seem so far and few between now that I just don't care about the characters anymore.

I guess in general, they developed the wrong part of themselves as characters really, and now it isn't even changing anymore.

@Scotch's phobia, or lack there of.

Granted while I think she should still have more of a problem around Dues and other machines in general, I think that plot point was... "resolved" after Blackjack came clean to Scotch that she had memories removed, which if I remember correctly Scotch was pissed at finding out because before knowing that it was an irrational fear she never had before and upset her because she loves machines, and during that fight when she was rebooting EMP-ed Steel Ranger armor.

Once again, if memory serves, it was pointed out during that chapter Scotch was afraid of the Rangers because at the time they looked more machine then ponies, but during the battle she managed to get over her fear to reboot their armor because if she didn't they would all die.
And then there's the fact Blackjack has been half machine for a long while now.

Like I said, I'd prefer if she still had some lingering effects from her phobia, would be more realistic, but I think she's simply gotten over her fear of machines.

I'd totally read at least the first few chapters of such a story.

Completely unrelated: I still keep thinking about that what-if scenario presented for Go Fish in chapter 43...

Come to think, the way that ended for Scotch may be foreshadowing.

Moodyman90 wrote:Like I said, I'd prefer if she still had some lingering effects from her phobia, would be more realistic, but I think she's simply gotten over her fear of machines.

Last I heard, one of the things that Somber's planning to include in the revisions is a bit of nervousness on her part about riding in Deus.