/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

Can Crapflap and her friends really claim killing Slavers is "Self-Defense" if they go to the Slaver place full of Slavers with the explicit goal of shooting Slavers and freeing their property, maybe even collecting bounties put on Slavers for being Slavers by anti-Slavers in another location where Slavery is illegal?

It all seems rather videogamey. That location on your map is full of bad guys who love doing bad things and if you shoot them all you're still a hero.

No consideration given to the economic forces behind slavery. No consideration given to the setting's resource scarcity. Are the Slavers people forced into working for slavers because the alternative is to raid civilized places for your daily food and water, or scavenge areas full of enemy scavengers? Have the anti-slavery poners tried to build a functional society where people can find honest work and learn valuable trades without needing to be wandering thieves, armed organized thieves, slavers, or slaves? Are the Slavers working for the greater good of the Wasteland by forcing the weak into back breaking labor to solve post apocalyptic problems and build a sustainable future long term? No, the slavers are ugly edgy bad guys who go mwahaha and Littlepoop- I mean Crapflap is totally justified in going on the warpath and invading their territory and gunning down every last one of them and sending caged poners on their way like videogame NPCs who vanish when out of view.

>>376750
>No consideration given to the economic forces behind slavery. No consideration given to the setting's resource scarcity
GG just came around to "the monetary system is retarded, just go with it", don't you start on. Besides, Somber at least has the presence of mind to separate the slavers from the Pecos, giving insight into the idea that "hey, not all the antagonists and non-heroes are mustache-twirling comic book villains".
You might consider having nuance like that, ya know. If you were a writer that is, just saying.

>>376663
>Without knowing your method of drafting these posts, would you consider it disruptive if someone were to occasionally step in and summarize sections? I can't imagine you're in a hurry to take any longer than necessary in scaling the entirety of this
I don't have any objections I suppose, though I will probably still continue to slog through the story at my own pace. I don't expect to finish this any time in the near future one way or the other.

>>376662

>A bit later, the game broke up as Big Red and Harbinger left. I needed a little bit of air, so I stepped outside… and into the faint drizzle. Not even really rain. I looked down at my hooves. Was there still power underneath me? Even after two centuries and the bombing? Hoofington was like a country within a country. Lots of secrets are buried here. Hoofington’s a fucking fortress. I looked to the north at the faint green glow in the distance. Secrets. Why did it feel like EC-1101 was burning a hole in my leg?
We're reaching levels of foreshadowing that shouldn't even be possible.

>A buck lay on the porch outside Twister’s, his muzzle pressed into a filthy plastic bag reeking of dung. He inhaled deeply over and over again, twitching.
Apparently, the Pecos have discovered the magic of jenkem.

Anyway, Dusty and Blackjack step out of the saloon, and their conversation continues:

>“So, guess you’re not one of Sidewinder’s more clueless spies.”
>“You thought I was a spy?”
>“Showing up in the middle of the night? Asking questions like you do? You’re something,” Dusty said with a grin as she looked up at the clouds.
Swing and a miss, Dusty. It seems that Somber is continuing yet another of kkat's established tropes: if you have an extremely dumb protagonist who needs to get away with doing something that is extremely dumb even by her already extremely dumb standards, just make sure that everyone else in the story is slightly dumber than she is.

On the other hand:

>“Dusty, how do you feel about slavery?”
>“Why do stable ponies ask the dumbest questions?” she asked in turn with a sigh and a frown. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. Slavery happens. It’s not even the worst thing that can happen to a pony. Ghouls losing their minds? Going crazy and turning into cannibals? Mutating into some creature? Being torn in half by waste critters? There’s a thousand and one ways to die. Wearing a slave collar is somewhere in the middle of that list.”
>“But is it okay?” I pressed.
>“It happens. Who cares if I think it’s okay?” she retorted with a frown as I pressed my luck. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
I'm actually going to go ahead and revise my previous statement. I'm sure the author didn't intend it to be read as such, but Dusty's speech here is honestly the closest thing to a common-sense worldview I've ever come across in the Fallout: Equestria universe. Ten points for Gryffindor.

Unfortunately, though:

>“What if you could?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
>She stared at me, now looking scared. “Who the fuck are you really?” I just looked at her, pulling off the glasses to look straight into her eyes. She shook her head slowly. “No… fuck… no… no you’re not… no fucking way…”
It seems the last horse has finally crossed the finish line, so to speak. The hat might have fooled her for a few seconds, but Dusty can no longer deny what is right in front of her: the mysterious stranger who showed up out of nowhere, looking exactly like the "security mare" everyone is talking about is, in fact, the security mare everyone is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

So anyway, despite the momentary glimmer of sanity, this conversation is back to being a "who is the biggest retard" contest. So: who is the biggest retard? Dusty, the rootin' tootin' outlaw, who is just now figuring out that the stranger who showed up out of the blue wearing an obvious disguise is actually the infamous Security Mare? Or Blackjack, the infamous Security Mare, who went to the trouble of disguising herself as a rootin' tootin' outlaw, only to end up immediately blowing her own cover just because she can't shut her fucking yap about the ethics of slavery for thirty goddamn seconds? Cast your vote now.

>“No… I can’t… fuck… no! How-- how the fuck can you do this?” she hissed as she paced back and forth. “You saved my fucking life. You saved Tumbleweed’s too. How the...” She clenched her eyes shut as she sat and thumped the sides of her head. “This is some fucked up booze dream and I’m going to wake up right the fuck now.”
>I put a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s not a dream. It’s a chance to do better. I can’t guarantee it’ll work. In fact, given how my plans usually go, I’d be fucking scared to death. But it’s still a chance for a free life. For you. For those slaves in the mine.”
>Dusty Trails closed her eyes, raising her face to the clouds as the rain drizzled along her muzzle. Finally she pulled off her hat and sighed as she glared at me. “Fuck…”
My apologies to anyone who actually voted. As it turns out, they're both completely retarded. Blackjack, having just blown her own cover for no good reason, now proposes to Dusty that she betray both her employer and her fellow rootin' tootin' outlaws, in order to join this insane pony she just met on her non-paying quest to liberate some slaves or whatever, because morals and stuff. Dusty, whose mind appears to have been temporarily short-circuited by the revelation that Blackjack's hat was a lie, decides to do exactly that. Though, to be fair, it's not exactly like she is giving up an especially glamourous life or a lucrative career; she's basically just abandoning one bad deal in favor of another.

There is a page break. When the new scene opens, we learn that the entire Pecos gang has heard about Security's infiltration of their camp, and have rushed off to collect the bounty. However, it seems that Blackjack somehow fooled them into thinking she had gone east to Flank, when she actually went north towards the mine. So, they are all off on a wild goose chase and will apparently pose no further threat. The author provides no explanation for how she managed to pull off this little ruse.

Anyway, she follows one of the trains into the mine, accompanied, apparently, by Lancer, Morning Glory and P-21. Not sure when they joined up with her or how, but whatever; I guess we'll just roll with it. Lancer snipes some guards, and they sneak inside.

>>376771

P-21 and Glory go off to loot stuff or whatever, and BJ sneaks upstairs to some room where some guard is typing something on some terminal. He has what appears to be a slave mare chained up next to his bed, presumably so she can read him bedtime stories and help him wake up in time for work in the morning.

>He turned to spot me in my security barding and his hoof reached for the band.
So she changed back into her security barding? When did this happen? In order for BJ to get from where she was at the end of the previous scene to where she is now, a lot of stuff would need to be happening off-camera.

First she had to trick the Pecos into running off to Flank, and while the author never clarifies it one way or the other, I would assume she employed Dusty for this. Next, she would have had to go traipsing across the radscorpion-infested desert, go back to the school, sneak her way past all the robot guards again, find her friends inside, and change back into her barding. Then, all four of them would have to sneak past the robot guards yet again, go traipsing back across the radscorpion-infested desert, and then sneak up to the railroad tracks, which is where they are when the scene opens.

Granted, most of this is fairly rote and it makes sense for the author to skip over it. However, it's also a lot of action; Somber really ought to have at least included a brief summary explaining how they made it from point A to point B.

Anyway, whatever. She beats up the guard but doesn't kill him. Through their conversation, we learn that the mines have actually been taken over by someone called Gorgon, who has apparently made slaves of the slavers. Everyone involved in their operation, including the guard and his bedmare, have to wear bomb-collars that kerplode if they stray too far from the compound. He also has the power to turn anyone he looks at to stone; hence the name "Gorgon." Oh, also: the slavers appear to have some connection to Sanguine, the boss behind Deus and his crew.

>“So. Strong. Bulletproof. Turns ponies into stone. Anything else?”
>“He can fly?” the mare offered. I facehoofed. I just had to ask, didn’t I?
Every time a fanfiction writer uses the word "facehoof" in a story, a cute little pony is savagely beaten, raped and murdered. Only you can prevent these senseless tragedies from occurring.

Anyway, BJ goes back downstairs to where P-21 is trying in vain to pick a lock. BJ uses a key she found on the guard she just beat up to make the job a little easier. Inside the closet is a huge cache of weapons, to which they naturally help themselves.

>There were energy cartridges for Glory and a strange pointy pistol-like object that smelled of ozone, so I guessed it was an energy weapon. I tossed it to her as well, and she gave a little squee as she immediately swapped out one beam pistol for the new weapon.
Every time a fanfiction writer uses the word "squee" in a story, an adorable little doe-eyed filly is brained over the head with a rock on her way to school, abducted, and passed around by Haitian migrants. Only you can prevent these senseless tragedies from occurring.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, the gun she just found is a disintegration pistol. So they have that now. BJ asks if any of them have ever heard of this Gorgon character, but none of them have. She then explains that he is a horrifying monster with big, nasty, pointy teeth, who can turn you to stone with a look. She suggests being prepared, because presumably they are about to fight this thing.

>I looked at P-21. He nodded. “Zappy zappy disintegration fun from above?” Glory, still embarrassed, gave a nod.
Every time a fanfiction writer, or anyone at all, uses the phrase "zappy zappy disintegration fun from above" in any context, your waifu is splashed in the face with acid, stabbed in the eyes with fondue forks, skinned alive, salted, slow-roasted over an open pit barbecue, splashed in the face with acid again, and then forced to watch all of the Haber episodes in one sitting, with no snack or bathroom breaks. Only you can prevent these senseless tragedies from occurring.

Anyway, they strap up, and head down into the mine proper. On the way, they pass a bunch of unsettlingly realistic-looking pony "statues." Eventually, they come to another guard station. They murder all of the guards and continue onward until they reach a gigantic pit mine, where a bunch of zebra and pony slaves are digging up gems and whatever. There is a big dragon skeleton in the center of the room.

From his description, Gorgon appears to be a giant cockatrice. He is sitting on a pile of bones and gems and stuff, watching his minions toil, when he suddenly notices the interlopers and attacks them. They all scatter and begin firing while trying not to look directly at him.

For some reason, Gorgon is also bulletproof and explosion-proof. They keep shooting him and throwing bombs at him, but nothing seems to kill him. Morning Glory gets turned to stone at one point. Then, Lancer and P-21 are turned to stone as well. Things are looking pretty grim for our intrepid heroes. Well, actually, we're down to just one hero now.

BJ spends several schizophrenic paragraphs pondering what she should do. Ultimately, she concludes that since being reckless and stupid got her into this mess, then continuing to be just as reckless and stupid should get her out of it. She shoots out all the lights in the room, there's another scuffle, and then yada yada yada, she pushes him into a rock crusher and that's the end of him. Fortunately, all the ponies he had turned to stone turn back to normal after he's dead, including BJ's friends.

>>376772

So now, all that's left to do is to rescue the slaves. Since the slavers were themselves turned into slaves by Gorgon, they appear to have had quite enough of slavery for the time being, and don't put up any resistance. BJ & Co. leads the entire group back out of the mine, where they are met by a bunch of the slaver guards, whose views on slavery don't appear to have changed. There's a big fight. Then, the Pecos show up out of absolutely fucking nowhere, and for some reason or other decide to attack the slaver guards. Yada yada yada, the slavers are now dead, and the day is won.

Believe it or not, things get even stranger from here. There were several zebras among the slaves, and for some reason they are all deaf. BJ is attempting to communicate with them, when suddenly Lancer appears and shoots her in the back. He then proceeds to gun down the other zebras, accusing them of "treason against the fallen Caesar." Apparently, loyalty to salad is a pretty big deal in the zebra kingdom.

Anywho, after this bizarre spectacle, Lancer looks BJ square in the eye, informs her that "the war is never over," and then he puts on his wacky invisibility cloak and disappears. The chapter ends here. Alrighty then.

>Footnote: Level Up.

>New Perk: Tough Hide (level 1) - The brutal experiences of the Equestrian Wasteland have toughened you. You gain +3 Damage Threshold for each level of this perk you take.

Nine chapters complete... That's 113,509 words total out of 1,780,334 words.

113,509 is 6.37571% of 1,780,334.

Let's start around the 113,509 mark.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 118 804
Thus Spake Zarathustra – A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 115 632
The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine 114 915
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 107 605
Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift 107 293
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery 106 294
Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm 104 228
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe 98 034
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 86 897
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 83 705
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 82 222
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 78 100
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 77 423
Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius 75 055
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain 74 772
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 72 036
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 66 835
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 63 194
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle 62 297
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana 62 155

20 books, and they're all less than 113,509 long except for the top three. Add it all together and you have 1,757,496. Still less than 1,780,334.

What if we double what we've read so far?

113,509x2=227018

The Republic by Plato 220 117
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes 216 349
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville 215 839
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 208 016
The Iliad by Homer 193 536

1,053,857 words. Let's add two more.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 354 098
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 430 269

1,838,224 total. A bit more than 1,780,334, but if you add the length of And Then There Were None, a mystery novel by Agatha Christie (54,324) to Project Horizons it's less again.

Alternatively...

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 568 751
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 567 246
The Lord of the Rings, the novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien 564 187
Metamorphosis by Franz "Man in the streets, cockroach in the sheets" Kafka 25 189

1,725,373 words. Still less than 1,780,334.

According to a google search "The average reader can read 238 words per minute (WPM) while reading silently. When reading aloud, the average reader can read 183 words per minute (WPM). Previously, it had been thought that the average adult reads at a rate of 300 words per minute."

Reading at 230 words per minute doesn't take into account the time spent writing commentary while also reading the fic, and most people write at 40 words per minute, but instead of calculating the amount of commentary vs fic read and how long it takes to write, let's just assume the process of reading and commenting on this story means it is read at 100 words per minute.

1,135.1 minutes out of 17,803.3 minutes complete.

Or 18 hours out of 296.72 hours.

>>376935
Do one hour of this a day and this will last 81% of a year. Almost a whole year. Miss a day here and there and it can last a year, maybe more.

The main story of Fallout New Vegas is 27 hours long assuming you aren't skipping dialogue or using speedrun tricks. Main story and side stories? 59 Hours. Completionist time? 132 Hours.

It's a competently written story, so after the prologue in Goodsprings that serves as a microcosm of the world and foreshadowing for the finale and tutorial for the gameplay, and tells you your greater goal (Recover the Platinum Chip Benny stole from you) and next objective (Learn why it was so important) you quickly experience NCR incompetence and imperialism at Primm(their chain gang escaped and caused a problem the NCR will only help with if they can take over the town) and Nipton's fall. You can get there in under an hour. You didn't need to play more than 6% of Fallout New Vegas to learn enough about the game to understand all the major factions and what their deal is, and from there getting to Vegas where you get vengeance and learn of the Chip's true importance is quick enough to keep the momentum up. Though you need to get 2000 caps or a favor from the Kings (forged passport) or do a high Science skill trick (hack the bots) to get past the guards at New Vegas's door, most already had more than enough by the time they got there.

Crapflap is on a mission to make sure the baddies don't get the Platinum Chip she started with, and figure out what it does and decide what to do with it, but to say why this is retarded and why what it does is retarded and how retarded every faction is being over this in the name of letting the author waste time "level grinding" in a novel would spoil 1.7 million words of suffering.

The author stole this and inverted it without understanding why it worked. The villain didn't steal a MacGuffin from the hero, the hero stole the MacGuffin from the villain. A rich powerful heavily armed faction, not in a semi-civilized powderkeg where all factions are gearing up for a major war, but in a child's toybox full of random crap. A rich powerful heavily armed faction with nothing better to do and nothing it wants more than what Assslap has. Flapjack can be a bounty hunter. The villains didn't think to make going there and level grinding impossible by offering a colossal bounty on her dead or alive. The radio can praise Rattrap and tell the whole continent exactly where she was and where she is. There is no titanic army of murderhobos and slavers surrounding her and swarming after her forcing her to stay on the run, making every second a tense life and death decision, maybe even forcing her into an uneasy partnership with The Enclave giving the author a chance to humanize them and what they would do with [REDACTED]. We can't start this story off with a bang, that would be unfamiliar with our goomer target audience who expect to go to a hub city and do menial chores for meager pay while numbers go up and villains patiently wait for the hero to be ready for the plot. We have to show off the "original" content: killing bandits to level up and Fluttershy's Foal Torture Dungeon. The goomer doesn't want a tense experience, the goomer doesn't want certain things to be impossible to complete because of story reasons, the goomer wants to grind easy content forever to feel the pleasure of easy victories. Edgy grim darkness is an aesthetic the goomer author cannot allow to get in the way of a story that amounts to public masturbation.

I hope everyone here has a wonderful time reading and reviewing all one point seven million words of this story.

It's a microcosm of the brony fandom, really.

>>376935
>The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Technically this is a collection of short stories, not a novel.

>Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
This is also a collection of short tales.

These two aren't really fit for comparison against a single work like PH in terms of word count. If you tallied up the entire word count of Hemingway's short stories it would probably look pretty hefty as well, but most of his stories individually are only a couple of pages long. Also, most of the books on your list are in the ~100,000 range, which is pretty standard length for a novel.

>Thus Spake Zarathustra
>Beyond Good and Evil
>Meditations
>Kama Sutra
>The Republic
>Leviathan
These are philosophical and/or religious texts, not novels, and are also not really fit for comparison technically Zarathustra is written as a story and could arguably be considered a novel, but it's usually classified as philosophy, not fiction.

Nice job using google, though. There are some good books on this list. You should try actually reading a few, if you ever decide to take a break from gargling autismo YouTube content and screaming your opinions about games into the void.

>The main story of Fallout New Vegas is 27 hours long assuming you aren't skipping dialogue or using speedrun tricks. Main story and side stories? 59 Hours. Completionist time? 132 Hours.
This is gameplay, not reading time. Not sure what you're trying to prove here.

>The author stole this and inverted it without understanding why it worked.
He stole what and inverted what without understanding why what worked? As usual, you make no effort to clarify what the fuck you're talking about.

>I hope everyone here has a wonderful time reading and reviewing all one point seven million words of this story.
I'm having fun so far, thank you for asking. I usually enjoy doing these, though I'll admit that this one is probably going to take awhile, and I may not actually end up finishing.

>It's a microcosm of the brony fandom, really.
Your point being?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to palm-mash out another big glob of your unfiltered thoughts, Nigel. I'm sure everyone was anxious to read them.

>>376773

Chapter 10: Ante Up

>Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
>By Somber
>Chapter 10: Ante Up

Today's Fortune Cookie(s):
>“Oh yeah. You think you can do better, cowgirl?”
>“I know I can... Oh for Pete’s sake!”
These seem to be making less and less sense the further we go.

Anyway, the chapter opens with the usual monologue from Blackjack. She is mostly just lamenting the senseless death of the zebras, her own powerlessness in the face of the horrors of the wasteland, and so forth and so on.

I'll once again note that Somber does a reasonably good job of building on kkat's basic formula. While this book doesn't really break any new ground, it does occasionally throw us a curveball and subvert reader expectations. For instance, I was more or less expecting Lancer would become the party's token zebra from here on out, filling a similar role as what's-her-name from the first story. However, his sudden execution of the zebra survivors was a twist I didn't actually see coming, even though if you look back it was mildly foreshadowed (the text mentioned zebras who fought on the Equestrian side of the war). As ever, the lore is a bit muddled and hard to follow at times, for instance I'm not really sure how Lancer connected these enslaved zebras to a group of perceived traitors from 200 years ago, but we can put a pin in that for now. Point is, while this book doesn't really stray too far from the territory already covered by its predecessor, it does do a reasonably good job of expanding and improving on the original formula.

Anywho, there's a page break, and when BJ awakens she is on some kind of operating table, having surgery apparently. There is an implication that she comes close to flatlining, however we only get BJ's heavily-drugged and near-death point of view, so it's hard to tell what is happening exactly.

After a second page break, we rejoin BJ post-surgery and in recovery. P-21 and Dusty Trails are arguing about what to do next. P-21 wants to chase down Lancer for what he did to Blackjack but not the zebras, apparently. Dusty argues that it's a waste of time, and they have more important things to worry about. Apparently Sidewinder, who is the leader of the Pecos, is upset about the mass defection that Dusty somehow engineered, and is on his way with a posse behind him, fixing to lie and/or lay down the law. If they are all still here when he arrives, he will likely take over the mine and collect the bounty on Blackjack.

>“Please keep your voices down. Blackjack needs to sleep. She’s lost a lot of blood,” Glory said in concern.
Well, it's always in the last place you look.

Anyway, the basic thrust of the situation is that they need to amscray, but BJ is in no condition to move yet. For the next several sections, BJ alternates between dream sequences and moments of lucidity. In one of the lucid periods, we learn that Sanguine was apparently supervising the mining operation, or something. Whoever was running it originally, the leader of the slaver band I guess, had some kind of arrangement where he was to deliver gems to whoever Sanguine is ultimately working for (it seems that Sanguine himself is just a go-between of some kind). However, the slaver-boss was ripping off Sanguine or skimming off the top or something, so Sanguine sent Gorgon to whip the operation into shape.

After this, P-21 and BJ argue back and forth for several tedious paragraphs over who deserves the most blame for getting all those zebras killed. Then, she goes unconscious again.

>I couldn’t help but smile as he walked away. Leg brace or not, P-21 sure had a cute ass.
>“What do you want?” P-21 asked, with that skeptical smile.
>“You.”
BJ seems to be developing an attraction to P-21. Not sure how significant this will end up being, but it's probably worth noting.

After another brief dream sequence, BJ wakes up again and has a short conversation with Glory. They discuss her old teacher, Dr. Morningstar, and how she developed her healing skills. It seems she used to be one of his star pupils, until they had a falling out over her decision to join the Volunteer Corps. Apparently there were many such cases. Every now and then a pegasus will develop a rebellious spirit and leave the Enclave, at which point they are barred from returning.

>Once you’re a Dashite, you are banned from the Enclave forever. Worse is the shame you bring to your family. Parents can lose positions. Siblings can become pariahs. It’s not something that should be done lightly.
This actually seems to contradict some of kkat's canon. As I remember it, Calamity was a Dashite, but both his brother and father were high-ranking fleet commanders or something. To my recollection, his being branded a Dashite didn't lead to them being disgraced or demoted; it just meant that Calamity himself was.

>“Sekashi and her filly Majina both survived. They’re injured, and it was touch-and-go a bit with Majina, but they’ll survive.” Glory smiled at me. “Lancer was a murdering monster, but even he couldn’t make thirteen fatal shots in ten seconds flat.”
As an aside, it looks like a couple of zebras managed to survive Lancer's massacre. One of them has a name that rhymes with vagina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FlRFBTeYKY

At this point, BJ asks if she can delve back into Big Macintosh's memory orb. Glory fetches it for her, and that's the end of the scene.

>>376935
>>376936
Real shit, have you ever been tested for Adhd?

>>376940

However, it would seem she grabbed the wrong orb by mistake. Instead of Big Mac courting his sweetie under a calm canopy of stars, BJ suddenly finds herself in the middle of an aerial dogfight between a couple of pegasi and some griffons. However, Big Macintosh is present as it turns out. After downing some beakies, they descend to the ground and join some earth ponies at a fortification, where they are holding off an advancing army of zebras. Amusingly enough, Twist makes a brief cameo:

>Twissssst! Reload!” he yelled.
>A red-maned mare with a buzz cut ducked down and ran to the gun’s spent ammo feed box with a fresh box in her mouth. She kicked the almost-empty container aside and dropped the new one in its place.

Anyway, it's a little hard to follow what's going on, but the basic thrust of it is that a small number of ponies are attempting to hold off a large zebra force, and are mostly succeeding. Big Macintosh does a pretty convincing Rambo impersonation.

>These were heroes I could not have imagined. This was valor and courage I could never hope to match. I was so in awe of what I glimpsed that I forgot my fear of heights and the sky. Even my host and Jetstream amazed me. Remembering it was not actually me flying, I marveled at their skill and grace and peril. Jetstream was faster, my host stronger. I had more of those griffins try and attack, only to have Jetstream pick them off while their attentions were on me.
My only real criticism here is that this seems like an out of character reaction for Blackjack. For most of the story she's done nothing but bitch and moan about the horrors of the Wasteland and all the death she's witnessed; however, here she's watching carnage on a much grander scale than anything she's yet seen, and all she can do is remark on how badass everyone is. Maybe seeing it play out secondhand through someone else's eyes lessens the tragedy somehow? I'm not sure. Either way, it's a bit strange that she was rending her clothing over the zebras that Lancer killed just moments ago, and then a short time later she's cheering on these orb-ponies as they gun down zebras by the hundreds.

Anyway, this goes on for quite awhile. Rainbow Dash and some other pegasi show up, there's a big fight involving some dragons, and then eventually the pegasus BJ is inhabiting gets struck on the head or shot or something, and the memory ends.

When she wakes up, Dusty Trails is there. She informs her that, even though she is not fully recovered yet, Sidewinder and his merry band of hooligans have almost reached the mine, and she'll need to be moving on unless she wants to be caught by bounty hunters. She recommends following a long, circuitous route to Manehattan that will take about a month. I'm not sure why BJ is going to Manehattan all of a sudden, but we'll put a pin in that for now. In any case, BJ isn't having it; she insists on taking the faster underground route, through the ghoul-infested tunnels that were (I think) mentioned earlier.

Page break. BJ is getting her plans finalized I guess, and is waiting for her friends to return so they can set out. She hears a pony coming up the stairs, and is relieved to see it is only Tumbleweed. However, Tumbleweed seems to be in rather a bad way:

>Tears ran down her cheeks as she slumped, and the most horrible laughing, sobbing noise rose in her throat. There was blood smeared across her lips… fresh and red. Bite marks covered her legs. Hooves shook as she stared at me with eyes that were already yellowing.
>“Help… me…” she begged, giggled, sobbed... all at once.
I assume the fight has started and Tumbleweed was injured somehow.

>“Turkey… I like turkeys... tastes good…” she whimpered, and I could only lay there in horror as I saw her raise her leg and suddenly spasm, biting down hard. As fresh blood spilled, I watched as she started to swallow. “Tastes… good… tastes so good…” she said a moment later. She gave one last sob, choking in the back of her throat. “Help me…” she whimpered before resuming giggling, long and slow, but building.
Nope, looks like she's just hungry. Seriously though, I have no idea wtf is going on at this point.

>Rolling onto my back hurt like mad, but it was the only thing that let me push her away as she tried to turn me into lunch. Unlike other raiders, she wasn’t half-starved and raw. She was quite a healthy pony, and she was trying her hardest to chomp on my belly. I pushed her snapping, giggling, biting maw aside with my telekinesis and forelegs, but it was so hard. Every motion made it feel like a drill was working in my spine. And if it was true that she had a disease… rabid raider Blackjack! No thank you!
I guess Tumbleweed caught that brain thing? The disease that turns ponies into raiders? That's my best guess.

Anyway, BJ looks around for something she can brain her with, but there's nothing useful at hand. Hoof. Whatever. So, she does what any sensible pony would do in that situation: concentrates her telekinesis into a single point until it becomes a physical force, and then drives it like a bolt into Tumbleweed's eyeball. This seems like the kind of thing that ought not to work, so naturally it does. She does it again, driving the telekinesis-bolt into her skull this time, and Tumbleweed goes down. Aaand...that's the end of that, I guess.

There's another page break. We rejoin BJ a short time later. It seems they have rigged up some kind of mining cart or something so they can wheel her through the zombie-infested tunnels without her needing to walk. However, she doesn't want all the liberated slaves and whatever to see her as a cripple for some reason. So, she dopes herself up with Buck, which I guess is some kind of cocaine-like substance, and Med-X, which I guess is some kind of morphine-like substance, and then walks outside, where a large crowd of ponies is gathered.

>>376945

The crowd cheers Blackjack for being stunning and brave, then she climbs on board the mining cart.

>“Thanks. And I’m glad you were able to get the collars off them safely.”
>“I’m glad I didn’t have any accidents while doing it,” he answered with a strangely smug smile. “And I’m glad they won’t be going to waste.”
This is from a conversation between BJ and P-21. The slaves were all wearing explosive collars as a way to keep them in line, but P-21 managed to get them off (somehow) while BJ was unconscious.

We soon learn what he has in mind for the collars:

>I looked back at him in worry. “What… you’re going to use them in the mine?” I rubbed my twitching mane. There was something being set up on the one of the flatbed train cars. The crowd began to back away.
>“Better,” he said as the movement of the crowd revealed the fat pony. His forelegs were swollen to the size of melons and he’d been beaten till he looked like he was part bloatsprite. But what really chilled my blood, despite the heat, was the sight of him wearing dozens and dozens of explosive slave collars. “For justice.”
I've forgotten who the fat pony is; I'm assuming he was the boss of the slavers. More to the point, though, is that this is just sadistic overkill.

Blackjack seems to agree:

>“This isn’t fucking justice!” I hissed as I stared at him, unable to touch that button, unable to look away. “It’s murder.”

P-21, meanwhile, is shocked at her reaction:

>P-21 would have killed me right then if he could. Cold rage burned in his eyes as he leaned towards me. “Do you know what fucking justice is? It’s giving to others as is given to you.” Be kind. “It’s killing the fucker to make sure that she never does it again.” Be kind. “It’s making sure every bastard who even thinks of copying her crime hesitates because they know they might face the same punishment.” Be kind. “It’s what’s fair!”

One of the most irritating aspects of kkat's book was its bizarre take on morality, and unfortunately Somber seems to have taken up the same theme. While I will at least give Blackjack some credit for being far more introspective about her own actions than Littlepip ever was, the way she (and by extension the author) thinks about problems like this still aggravates me. Characters in this world are either recoiling in horror at the very idea of killing, or are sadistically reveling in acts of righteous slaughter. Usually they are flipping schizophrenically back and forth between the two, sometimes within the space of a single scene.

In my view P-21 and Blackjack both miss the point here. P-21's take is that justice means punishing wrongdoers in the most brutal way possible. This has more to do with sadism than justice. However:

>These ponies needed justice. Was this it? Killing him wouldn’t bring anypony he had killed back. Would it even bring peace? Or would somepony else decide that it wasn’t enough and drag one of the former guards up there next?
BJ's take is equally unrealistic and silly. She's basically chosen to go with the corny old "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, let's all just try to get along" schtick.

Justice really isn't that complex of an idea. In any given society, regardless of how it's organized or what its values are, there are going to be certain behaviors that are considered harmful and unacceptable. People who violate the social compact and engage in these behaviors are punished. The punishment puts a stop to the bad behavior, recompenses the victim's suffering, and also serves as a deterrent to anyone who might be considering engaging in similar behavior. That's pretty much all there is to it.

One interesting thing to note here is that, according to the albeit nonsensical and poorly thought out rules of this setting, it's actually debatable whether or not this guy even did anything wrong to begin with. He had a license to practice slavery after all, which means that his operation was basically legitimate according to the Wasteland's wacky rules. However, BJ has taken the stance that his actions are wrong, so whatever; if he did a bad thing, then killing him would be justice. If that's what she honestly believes, then it's hypocritical for her to be having a crisis of conscience here. By the same logic, if the idea of killing this guy bothers her this much, then she ought to have just left him alone and not interfered.

Meanwhile, P-21's attitude is just edgelord-tier silliness. The slaver boss is a bad guy who was doing bad things, moreover he's a vanquished enemy that could potentially cause more harm if permitted to go free. Killing him makes sense, both from a practical and a moral standpoint, and as the victors of the battle BJ & Co. have every right to do it. However, strapping eighty bomb collars to this fat faggot's neck and then detonating them all at once is, again, just sadistic overkill.

If they've determined he needs to die, then they should just take him out back, put a bullet in his head and be done with it. If they need to make a public spectacle out of it so that the slaves can feel like proper justice was done, then fine: slap together a gallows and hang him, or put him in front of a firing squad or something. Subjecting him to this elaborate, violent method of execution is just pointlessly cruel. It's even more pointless when you consider that there is supposed to be an army of Pecos and bounty hunters charging towards the mine, and these guys are wasting time torturing this poor idiot instead of preparing defenses.

However, nothing is as pointless and silly as what BJ ultimately ends up doing. She makes a huge speech about how murder is icky and they should all strive to "do better." Then, she refuses to blow the guy up, opting instead to just walk away and let someone else do it. The end result is exactly the same as if she'd pushed the button herself, only this way she gets to claim some imaginary moral high ground.

*sigh*

Whatever.

>>376972

Anyway, this is basically the end of the chapter. There's a page break, followed by some more tedious monologuing from Blackjack about how she's depressed and hates the Wasteland, because yada yada death and yada yada suffering and so forth and et cetera. To cheer her up, one of the zebra survivors tells her a parable about a zebra who fucked up a lot but also managed to inadvertently do some good.

This segues into a discussion of Lancer and why he did what he did. We don't really learn anything new; the basic gist of it is that there is a small faction of zebras still dedicated to the long-dead zebra king who started the war 200 years ago. They go around fighting against...actually, I'm not sure who they're fighting against, or if they even fight anyone at all. It sounds like they mostly just go around murdering zebras who refuse to join their pointless non-existent cause. More goofy FoE logic I guess.

Anywho, this zebra explains that the reason Lancer killed off the rest of her tribe was not because they refused to join the non-existent war effort, but because they laughed at how silly he was for having joined up with the non-existent war effort. Now I will grant that, if an FoE character's behavior is so silly that even the other FoE characters are calling it silly, that's some pretty damn silly behavior. So Lancer probably deserved to be laughed at. Still, though, this zebra seems awfully sanguine about all of this, considering that eleven of her fellow zebras are dead simply because they laughed at Lancer's retarded faction, when they could have just as easily not laughed and been spared. There was literally nothing else on the line:

>“So you were zebras who refused to fight? He killed you for that?”
>“Oh no no no. There are many tribes that refuse to fight. So long as they bow and quiver, they are spared. My tribe’s crime was infinitely worse,” she said with a solemn expression as she glanced back at us. “Our crime was that we laughed at their foolishness. I suppose it was too much to hope that they would laugh as well. A fearsome fool is a fool still, and it is hard to fear something so funny.”
Well, I suppose it makes about as much sense as anything else that's happened lately.

Anywho, the zebra advises that Blackjack should laugh at Lancer the next time she sees him, because apparently in this setting, being able to stand on imaginary moral high ground matters a lot more than whether or not you get yourself pointlessly killed. Righty-o.

There's a bit more back-and-forth, and then the chapter comes to a close.

>Footnote: Level Up.

>Perk added: Intense Training - Your experiences travelling in the Wasteland have allowed you to add one to your intelligence.

>Quest perk added: Telekinetic Bullet spell- you may now attack enemies at close range with a bolt of telekinetic energy equivalent to a pistol.

Also:

>Author's Note:
>(Tons of thanks to Kkat for inspiring me and letting me play in her sandbox, and Hinds for making this as awesome as possible.)
The problem with playing in sandboxes is that they have a tendency to be full of cat turds.

>>376973

Chapter 11: Peace

>Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
>By Somber
>Chapter 11: Peace

Today's fortune cookie:
>“Sweet Celestia, she’s drunk!”

As the chapter opens, Blackjack suddenly awakens and finds herself on a strange mattress next to a strange unicorn. She panics and almost shoots the guy, but then realizes that he isn't hostile. The unicorn's name is Priest, and he informs her that she is in a place called Chapel.

>I still had my PipBuck, so I entered S.A.T.S. and queued three telekinetic bullets at the black unicorn.
Apparently this "telekinetic bullet" thing is a new power she will be using regularly. It was also listed as a "quest perk" at the end of the last chapter, so I guess those things are meant to be taken literally. I'll say again that it seems like the kind of thing that ought not to be plausible, but at the same time, it's a far less egregious abuse of physics than all of the bullshit that Littlepip got away with in the original story, so I'm inclined to let it slide for now. Small improvements that make a difference.

Anyway, while it's perfectly acceptable to time-skip a little between chapters to gloss over mundane events like travel, it feels like the author might have once again skipped a little too much. I'm almost as confused as Blackjack as to where the fuck she is and how the fuck she got there. Last time we saw her, she was on a mine cart being wheeled into a network of underground tunnels populated by feral ghouls. I guess we'll put a pin in that for now.

In any event, Chapel is a small village that appears to be populated almost entirely by foals. That a guy named "Priest" is the only apparent adult in the area does not augur well, but we'll put a pin in that for now too. Blackjack notes a Crusader flag flying nearby, so presumably this is their base of operations. It seems that BJ was found unconscious somewhere by a group of Crusaders, and was brought back here to rest. Apparently the Crusader patch she sewed onto her barding marked her as being worthy of rescue. Her friends were not there when she was found. Also, the Crusaders weren't able to carry all of her equipment, so she will need to go back and retrieve it at some point. Presumably this includes most of her weapons.

Anyway, BJ now laments the possible loss of her friends, though we still don't know for sure if anything actually happened to them or not. Priest goes on to explain that when she was found unconscious, there was also a "trapped" memory orb found nearby. What appears to have happened is that BJ tried to access the orb, was repelled by the protections that were placed on it, and was knocked unconscious. The idea behind the trapped orbs is explained thusly:

>When the war was at its peak, memories could no longer be left accessible to any unicorn that happened across them. Zebras had unicorn sympathizers. The Ministry of Morale, together with the Ministry of Peace, eventually devised methods of extracting and sealing dangerous or sensitive memories away. The process was so difficult that it was used only for the most critical memories, but with constant zebra infiltration and sabotage, the technique of locking memories became vital here. Too many secrets in this city.” He nudged the orb with a hoof as he looked down at it. “It has a password: some thought, or idea, or name you need to be thinking of.”
>“And if you don’t have the password?” I asked, looking at the orb like it was a bomb.
>He shook his head and sighed. “Most of the time, nothing. But if you try to force contact, it can render you unconscious. Place you in an endless nightmare. Even kill you.”
Kind of an interesting addition to the lore, actually.

Anywho, the basic thrust of it is that BJ found this orb at some point and tried to view it, and was then either knocked out or trapped in some kind of suspended animation. The Crusaders brought her back here, and Priest separated her from the cursed orb. He also healed all of the injuries that had her incapacitated at the end of the previous chapter, so conveniently she is no longer hampered by any of that.

We also learn about a new concept that appears specific to the Hoofington area as far as I can tell, this entire story is set in or near the vicinity of Hoofington. A special magic called Enervation permeates the area; it's some kind of residue left over from all the weird shit being done in this city during the war. Enervation will slowly drain the life force from ponies, and can also render healing potions unusable. I don't think I put it in my summary, but in the previous chapter BJ mentioned that she had drank a few healing potions and noticed that they weren't having any effect. This seems to clear up that mystery: apparently, if a potion has been affected by Enervation it will change color, at which point it either no longer works or becomes harmful. This is also a rather interesting addition to the lore, and I will once again applaud Somber for attempting to place some reasonable limits and counterweights on this setting's ridiculously OP healing magic.

Anyway, the scene ends in a page break.

>“Why didn’t I have this a week ago?” I muttered as I lay on a mattress on the floor of the post office; in front of me was an open copy of ‘The Wasteland Survival Guide: Hoofington Edition’. Dangers of scavenging! What’s that beeping noise? Robots and you. The who’s who of the Hoof.
Presumably, this also solves the mystery of why the hallway keeps chirping.

>While I did want to track down P-21, Glory, and Sekashi, Priest had pointed out that my friends knew I was coming in this direction. Chapel being the only community near the rail line, it was a good bet that they’d come here if they could.
This is actually pretty reasonable. Though I'm still not clear on how they made it through the ghoul-infested tunnels, it seems that this place is at least located near the rail line they were traveling on at the end of the last chapter.

>>376981

>“Why didn’t I have this a week ago?” I muttered as I lay on a mattress on the floor of the post office; in front of me was an open copy of ‘The Wasteland Survival Guide: Hoofington Edition’.
>"Would you have taken the time to read it?” he asked with a chuckle.
This simple dialog exchange between Blackjack and Priest reads like a perfectly normal conversation, and there is nothing at all wrong with it....except that in the actual text, these two spoken lines have three massive paragraphs of meandering inner monologue from Blackjack between them. Protip: prose should be readable and dialogue should fit into the natural flow of the narrative. Don't have one character ask a question, then veer off the subject for multiple paragraphs, and then have the second character answer the question halfway down the page, after the reader has completely forgotten what was even asked. It's extremely bad form.

Anyway, Priest and Blackjack yak for a bit. It turns out that Priest is familiar with Deus, whose full name is actually Deus Ex Machina. We also learn that his name is "zebra-speak" for "God of the Machine", because apparently zebras speak Latin in this world to be fair, this makes about as much sense as ponies in the show speaking French, so I don't have a huge problem with it; however, my inner dweeb compels me to point out that Somber mistranslates the phrase slightly. Anyway, this segues into a short infodump about Reapers.

Apparently, Reapers take their name from a pre-war hoofball team that existed in Hoofington. They don't have any real connection to the original team from what I can tell, but they took the name because it sounded bad-ass, and they base themselves around the stadium that the team used to play in. The Reapers are probably closer to a semi-organized gang than a faction; something akin to maybe the Hell's Angels. In order to gain membership, you have to either defeat a Reaper in combat, or defeat enough hopefuls in a tryout tournament that you make an impression on the other Reapers. At this point you will be presented with your ceremonial Reaper sweatshirt and coffee mug, as well as a membership card that gets you 10% off at participating Plot Topic locations.

Anyway, at this point a foal shows up and informs Priest that some "pilgrims" have arrived, so he goes off to greet them, or murder them, or whatever the appropriate response to approaching pilgrims is the text seems to leave this deliberately vague, so I assume it will come up later. BJ, meanwhile, continues to read the Hoofington Survival Guide.

She learns the following:

>the guide was written by Ditzy Doo, who was also a mail carrier at the time of the war
Presumably this is due to her being a ghoul, but BJ does not have this information and puzzles over it for a bit.

>Canterlot is an icky place where death awaits you with big sharp pointy teeth
Mostly a recap of stuff we know from the first book, but again, for BJ this is new information. The main takeaway seems to be an implication that Celestia and Luna might still be alive, perhaps some Egyptians believe.

>The Core, the place that's been foreshadowed to hell and back, is an even ickier place, where death awaits you with even bigger, sharper and pointier teeth
Presumably, Blackjack will need to go in here at some point.

After she's done reading, she goes to a small store that the Crusaders apparently operate, and an admittedly cute scene ensues, in which she haggles with a filly for cereal and gets massively overcharged. The filly also tells her where she can find the stuff the Crusaders hid on her behalf, in exchange for fifty additional caps.

BJ sets off to retrieve her lost items. She climbs to the top of a nearby hill to get her bearings, and notes the location of the literal chapel from which the town of Chapel takes its name. She also has a look at the Core, the eventual importance of which is again hinted at. As an aside, I'd like to take a moment to once more toot Somber's horn: assuming The Core will in fact be an important area of the story at some point, this is the correct way to foreshadow it.

People who were here for my review of the original FoE story may remember me complaining about those gigantic radio towers that Homage used to spy on the Wasteland, which were also part of the Pegasus weather-control system as I recall. These things were supposed to be a huge, obtrusive, unmissable part of the skyline, yet the author completely neglected to mention them even existing for two thirds of the book. Then, we are suddenly informed that these enormous, impossible-to-miss, plot-critical radio towers have been in the background the entire time, the narrator just neglected to mention them because she was too busy juggling boxcars.

The way Somber handles The Core is much better. We don't know much about this area at the moment, but we have a general idea that it's an important area of the city, and that it's a dangerous place that factors heavily into the setting's history. The author doesn't spend a lot of time talking about it, but he brings it up every now and then to remind us that it exists, and to reinforce that it will be an important location later on. Every time we hear about it we learn a little more, but the mystery is preserved: we're curious, but we're going to have to wait. This technique is called foreshadowing, and it's a legit literary thing; you can totally look it up.

Anyway, she has herself a look-see at the surroundings, and then starts walking toward where the Crusaders said her stuff is. Along the way, her PipBuck suddenly highlights a new location - the Hoofington Natural History Museum. Since she is unarmed, alone, and has literally no goddamn reason to go in there, she naturally decides to go in there. The front door is heavily barred, but rather than allowing this to deter her, she walks around the building until she finds a service door.

>>373099
No, no, no!!! I had failed to keep up with your reviews for a few years while I was moving and was so excited to see you continue your reviews or see what writing projects you've done but first thing I see is Fallout Equestria Project Horizons. I don't want to be stuck in this hell for years. I hate Fallout Equestria and this cranks it up to 11.

I hope your writing has been going well and I miss you and that one guy who posted here a lot but man I hate this OP unicorn lesbian stuff so much.

>>377728
lol sorry, it's being done by request. If it's any consolation I'm actually moving through these chapters rather quickly, the project is just taking awhile because I keep getting distracted by other things and end up not posting for weeks at a time.

If you've been out of the game for awhile you can always get caught up on some of the other reviews that you missed; they're all archived at the top of the page.

Also, if you're curious about my projects or are just looking for something to read, you're welcome to pick through my fimfic if you like:
https://www.fimfiction.net/user/520492/DavidFosterWalrus/stories

Anyway, to everyone else who has been anxiously biting their hooves waiting to find out what becomes of Blackjack and her merry band of deviants, I promise I will totally get back to this in a day or two, six months at the most.

>>377758
I've been gone for a long time. Is Nigel still here? Promised not to share his videos but he has a real talent for modding and designing stuff in games. I enjoyed his tangents here and your efforts to help him grow as a writer.

>>377774
Scroll up

>>377774
>Is Nigel still here?
He shows up once every few months or so. He usually ends up causing some type of drama, then gets extremely angry and swears he's leaving for good, then shows up a few months later and does the whole thing over again. To his credit these episodes seem fewer and further between these days. He also claims he has a gf now. I'm still not sure I believe him, but if it's true good for him I guess.

>your efforts to help him grow as a writer.
Unfortunately this proved to be something of a wasted effort.

Okay Im just gonna shoot from the hip.

What do I have to do to incentivize you (OP) to abandon this failed venture of delving into Blackjack's,... ahem,... story.

It has been said in good faith and trust "Wait until she gets the robot legs".
So, if I may offer an interlude of sorts, from the pony fandom "if"/when it gets tiresome.

Cupcakes oh yes

In contrast to "the previous" its the best example. Its why certain things work and dont work, depending on setup, structure, and story/presentation