Well, Seraphem posted the LOTR quotes again. We've finally come full circle in this argument.

I don't hold anything against the people who like FO:E. Hell, I've read and enjoyed stories just as dark, if not more so. It's just that I draw the line at tossing My Little Pony into that mess, and no amount of hope at the end of the story is going to change that for me. Everyone draws that line somewhere different, nothing wrong with that.

I'd argue the one that suffered the most from OOC would be Celestia. Threat to your subjects arise? Abandon them and dump the situation into Luna's lap!

yeah the actions of the all the ponies are pretty much exactly what you'd see them doing, they never go that OOC, and what little they do alter is small enough that it explained by years of warfare that the story makes clear ponies are just not psycologicly equiped to deal with that type of long term constant conflict.

not even Celestia is OOC, Ginger just has a person fannon that it goes against, not cannon. Scoots, yeah she goes the most but Stable 1 is the ONLY act lie that she does, and in show she's a kid, this is after hse's grown up, watched the Equestria she grew up in destroyed by war, saw the Ministries degrade from great idea, to Well-Intentioned Extremist's, and seen the horrors war can inflict. that can change anypony

also we all know the tagline for fallout is " War, War never changes"

FO:E version of the "Friendship, Friendship never changes"

That is what makes the fic so good, it turns thing into Fallout level dark, without breaking any of the ponies, it shows how there normal actions could result in this.

I'm still skeptical, and don't have any real interest in the story, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

And to be fair, the occupants of Stable 1 did end up condeming countless innocent civilians to death, including Twilight's mother.

I read it because I'd finished A Dance with Dragons and had nothing else to read :/

All I have left to say about Fo E is that it is much much Better Than It Sounds. Like PH no synopsis can appropriately convey it.

@Story Twilights mom you say?

edited 6th May '12 8:08:02 PM by stevebat

pretty much what Steve said, you have to read it to really understnd just how good it is. I normally avoid "dark" tagged fics like the plague, but FO:E, it just WORKS! it's the 10% of the 10%.

edited 6th May '12 8:09:50 PM by Seraphem

@JT Let's see

• AJ: Creates the steel ranger armour. A highly advanced series of power armour that she wanted to make PURELY to keep people safe after hearing of Big Macintosh's death. She herself admits that she isn't cut out for business work, so she lets a bunch of businessponies make most of the decisions for her. It's them who do most of the evil stuff attributed to her.
• Fluttershy: Her megaspell research leads to the creation of the WM Ds that destroy the world. She never intended them to be used that way, and originally invented them to serve as wide range HEALING spells.
• RD: Barely had anything to do with her ministry. She was a soldier first and foremost.
• Pinkie: Created the camera network to keep an eye on everyone and to make sure they were happy. She started losing it after she started taking mind altering drugs to make her Pinkie sense stronger (so she could sense terrorist attacks before they happened)
• Twilight: Pretty much just started getting more and more stressed due to the demands of her ministry. You've seen what she's like stressed.

CURSE MY SLOW TYPING

edited 6th May '12 8:11:07 PM by gingerninja666

Meh. Read the first five chapters and found myself phenomenally bored. Not endeared to the cast of characters, the narration, or the setting. Couldn't bring myself to care. Scanned tropes page, found "What the Hell, Hero?" example, looked it up, aaaaaand was rather disappointed.

Rarity: Was the only one to see that the Mane 6 were drifting apart and see how it made them weaker then if they were together. She sacrifices the majority of her soul to create a set of items intended for the sole porpuse of bringing them back together, and reminding them of the fact they are stronger together then they were seperate, and the sacrifices her life to save Fluttershy when the bombs fall.

yeah the start is the worst, it's basicly all about shcoking lil'pip and the reader with how bad the Wasteland is, but it gets exponitially better once she reaches New Applossa and starts to form a group. by chapter 10 things start moving.

edited 6th May '12 8:14:42 PM by Seraphem

@Ginger: See, the mere fact that AJ is working powered armor just feels bizarre, I have no idea how Fluttershy can do spell research, and even for Pinkie, creating a Big Brother style camera network just strikes me a gross exaggeration of her character. The other two I can buy.

See, part of it is that it just feels weird that the mane six are all doing such over-the-top world changing stuff. Stuff like Rarity creating a bunch of enchanted objects just sounds weird to me given that her canon talent is fashion.

For the record, I'm not trying to say that it's a bad fic or anything, just that I really don't have much incentive to read it other than because people keep bringing it up. The basic premise just doesn't interest me.

edited 6th May '12 8:15:52 PM by JapaneseTeeth

Though quarrels arise their numbers are few

Laughter and singing will see us through

Fluttershy and AJ didn't really do the work, they just pointed at their underlings and told them to work on those things.

But y'see, these are long chapters. How many words is it until chapter 10?

And what I read of chapter 39, while better, still had things that annoyed me. Seriously, between the melodramatic narration and "the worst thing I ever did was that time I did something bad to the protagonist" (I've decided I will never have a character say that in a story, ever), the scene with Velvet's rant had some serious groaners.

edited 6th May '12 8:16:50 PM by Pannic

well flutterhsy was in charge of a ministry, she dindt do any of the research she just order her ministry to create them. And she developed the idea for the Steel rangers after Big Mac dies taking a bullet for Celestia and knowing that if he had proper armor he would have lived.

I can barely imagine Fluttershy ever having underlings. I can't imagine her heading a ministry either.

edited 6th May '12 8:17:15 PM by JapaneseTeeth

@Ginger And that's all fine and dandy with me. I'm sure it's all well characterized and well written. The problem comes that my mind simply cannot accept the jump in tone required for any pony aside from the criminally insane to ever even think of inventing a WMD, much less actually using one. The basic premise of the whole thing is what loses me, and it's topped off by the domino effect that leads to unnecessarily (IMO) awful things happening to the characters.

edited 6th May '12 8:23:57 PM by PerpetualLurker

Well, from what I gathered, Fluttershy doesn't actually make WMD's - the megaspells she develops are for purposes of shielding and healing, aaaand then they get turned into nukes somehow.

Or something.

edited 6th May '12 8:18:23 PM by Pannic

Well, we're clearly not going to change any minds. So I concede my defeat.

Seriously though, you guys should stay away from Project Horizons. That shit is even worse than FOE

But it has Badass Future!Twist

That's what I said. Why does no one read my posts?

edited 6th May '12 8:20:23 PM by gingerninja666

the Zebra's created them first, ponies were just acting to catch up, and the ponies megaspell was a lot more precise and less damaging then the Zebra's. Zebra's created Nukes that spread wide distruction and left the are irradiated, ponies developed what amount to precision kill sats that could take out a single target with little to no collateral damage.

And Flutteshy didn't so much "lead" her ministry as just did what she could to help ponies and her ministry just followed her lead because they all loved her. It's clear she wasn't comfortable being in charge, but she never had to act like it, every pony in her ministry just tried to follow her example.

edited 6th May '12 8:21:24 PM by Seraphem

Read your what?

@Perpetual: THIS! THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

I can't comprehend any series of circumstances that could possibly take place in the canon universe where creating a WMD is the best course of action. This is a universe where the power of friendship and love is literally the strongest thing in the universe. It just doesn't make sense to me that you could take a setting with that kind of cosmology, and develop it into a setting with nukes and genocide. The Equestria of this story cannot be the same one of the show. I might be able to take it as an AU, but I honestly can't see how it's reconcilable with canon.

Dangit, now I'm being tempted to read it just so I can get some context.

edited 6th May '12 8:21:55 PM by JapaneseTeeth

I guess the better question would be how the hell the Zebras thought of making WM Ds, then.

@Ginger I know, but somepony thought of them. And not just one mad scientist, but a whole team of them would have had to be working on it. And then ponies in positions of power would have had to push the button. That's a lot of ponies perfectly fine with slaughtering millions. It just doesn't gel in my head at all.

edited 6th May '12 8:23:13 PM by PerpetualLurker