In My Opinion: Fallout Equestria

Hey guys, here’s the first of what I hope to be a long series of review and opinion pieces. This format and title and so on will be work in progress as I gain some experience. So for now, IMO is the title of the series and the format is a bit of an unorganized ramble. Still, it might be best to start off with how I started off: by taking a look at Fallout: Equestria (Fo:E). Please note it's been two years since I last read the story which may influence my thoughts, but perhaps that a sign of a good story if it has stuck with you that long.

Well, as I stated in my introductory blog that Fallout: Equestria was essentially my main hook into the MLP fandom and I’m pretty sure it was the entry point for quite few other fans as well. Fallout: Equestria stands as one of most well known fan-fics of all time and for good reason. Fallout: Equestria has become its own sub-genre and probably one of the biggest alternate universes of any sort in fiction. While the original story was good on its own feet, it has spawned many spinoff stories, music, animations and games, which some surpass the original story in some ways. Heck, I my own gaming group I’m running a Fo:E game that takes place about 20 years before Fo:E.

So why is Fo:E so popular? Sure, it attracts the edgy crowd by corrupting the cute and innocent into a war-torn post apocalypse, but it is more than that. The degree of world building is astounding, seeing the build up throughout the war and seeing how magic and war has changed the world and characters we love. It’s also one of the few crossovers that doesn’t simply take characters from one world and shove them into another. Instead, this type of crossover could be more described as an overlay: it's Fallout with MLP skins and setting. Or is it MLP as seen through a Fallout lens? *shrug* It does combine the two quite well. It is a bit amusing that stuff like stimpacks and mutations make more sense when it’s explained as magic, though it also makes things scarier when monsters wield magic.

For me, while it certainly drew me into the fandom, it hasn’t quite stood up compared to some other fics that I’ve read since then. And thinking now, it’s hard to go back to it now with how much I’ve learned about the show and how much the show has developed since then. Heck, at the point I started reading, I didn’t know who the CMC were so I didn’t know their relevance at the time. I literally let out an ‘Oh My God’ when I saw the source of the ‘Fluttershy is a tree’ reference.  

Another thing is that while I knew Fallout lore from a bunch of reading online I’ve done, I haven’t played the games myself. I’ve played Fallout 4 and 76 since then, but I only have about 50 hours on Fallout 4 and have only ever got about halfway through the story, while Fallout 76 is Fallout 76. I’ve always been a lore guy so that interested me, but the games didn’t really hook me. Doesn’t help that I’m not particularly good at shooters or survival games.

For me now, Fallout: Equestria feels to me as the Fallout games do: great lore, interesting world building, the companion characters are interesting, when you lose said companions it get a bit dull, it’s easy to lose focus of the plot and wander off without focus. There are funny moments (trains and toasters are recurring references in our game group), awesome moments (great fights and sacrifice) and sad moments (for me it was Pinkie Pie's last message and Steelhooves’ end). But there is a lot of chaff and the size is rather intimidating. It’s first person perspective is also somewhat limiting as it is hard to see from the perspective of other characters and lead to everything centered on the protagonist.

On the MLP side of comparisons, well, this isn’t the MLP we’re familiar with. It is hard to see the peaceful and bountiful land of Equestria turned into a blasted wasteland, but the amount of detail in the backstory developing why this happened excuses that. Likewise with familiar characters like the Mane 6 being warped by the war effort, they’ve changed, but it is justified. The themes of Friendship and Harmony do underlay the story, but because they weren’t that developed in the show yet, they aren’t quite that developed here. Sometimes it reaches the point that it becomes hard to recognize the core elements from the show.

I know I haven't said much about the characters and story of Fo:E, but that's because for me Fo:E is more about the world than the characters and story. The story is just an excuse to explore this world, Littlepip's adventures just another change to the face of the wasteland. Sure, there are a bunch of good character moments, but they haven't stuck with me as well. Which is a shame really, but what can you do? There is a whole bigger world beyond the scope of Littlepip's journey, as many spin-off fics can attest to.

Speaking of spin-off fics, a lot of these thoughts extend to the larger Fallout: Equestria community at large. While I’m here, I might as share some quick thoughts on some of the more notable Fo:E spin-off fics:

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons

This fic essentially takes standard Fo:E and turns it up to 12. It is a higher power level, darker and edgier, 3 times longer version of Fo:E. However, it’s a tad uncomfortable and controversial in that it takes the lore established in Fo:E and makes very major liberties with it, as well as straight up inserting itself into Littlepip’s story. It does help flesh out some plot holes in the main story and lore, as well has pretty good world building. There is good character work as well, Rampage is quite intriguing and drunk Blackjack is hilariously awesome. However, the bloat is huge, it is currently the longest completed fic on Fimfiction. I only managed to get halfway through Project Horizons before dropping out, which is an accomplishment in itself. The point I reached was right after the mental hospital segment after the group took down Sanguine. At that point, Blackjack abandoned her closest companions to wander on her own without a major plot point in sight and still half the fic to go. I just got tired of Project Horizons. I may come back to it at some point, but I’m not sure.

Fallout Equestria: Murky Number Seven

This story is rather similar to Project Horizons in terms of tone, the big difference however is the power level. The main character, Murky, is rather wimpy, even freaking out when encounter a couple of radroaches early on. It takes until a third of the way through for him to make his first kill. Unfortunately, I dropped this fic after said third. Like with Project Horizons, after Protege gets injured Murky abandons his friends to wander without a solid plot point to pursue. Still, if there is one of these fics that I’ll be coming back to, it will probably be this one. I think this fic has my favourite stable exploration scenes, the events of Stable 93 were chilling.

Fallout Equestria: Heroes

I’ve read the first few chapters, it sort of failed to hook me. This one doesn’t particularly stand out to me among the biggest Fo:E spin-off fics so I think it’s at the bottom of my list to continue.

Fallout Equestria: Pinkeyes

I’ve read the first chapter, got too annoyed with the main character Puppysmiles and dropped it. I’ve heard good things about it so I might come back to it at some point, but I’m not a fan of completely clueless children.

There are also a couple of lesser known fics that caught my eye that I added to my read it later shelf, but I haven’t gotten to them, and at this point I’m not sure if I will. Some of this is that I might be oversaturated with Fo:E stuff between have read about 2 million words as well as looking at other projects, as well as my own stuff for the Fo:E tabletop game I myself am running. But another thing is that the Fo:E setting is only working with less than a quarter of MLP canon by now, so at this point derivative works rely more on OCs and content that has next to no basis in MLP canon. Which also helps prevent people from stepping on each other’s shoes, but at this point the only thing that connects Fo:E stories to MLP proper is said magical ponies. This works for some people, but at this point it just isn’t for me.

So to sum it all up, in my opinion Fallout: Equestria is a good introduction to this darker side of MLP, but both the show and I have grown beyond it. The story is an epic and the world interesting and deep, one of my biggest wishes is for someone to take all the setting details from Fo:E and some of the major spin-offs and condense it down into some sort of setting guide so others can write stories and adventures in this universe without having to dredge through million word long stories. At this point, Fallout: Equestria as become enough of its own thing that it’s pretty much divorced itself from MLP proper. And that’s probably why I’m not as into Fo:E as I once was, through watching the show and reading other fan fics I became more invested into the bright setting and friendly characters that MLP is known for, not the dark and twisted world of Fallout: Equestria.

So I think that’s about it for now, though I’m sure there is more to say about Fallout: Equestria. Perhaps at some point I can give a rundown of my Fo:E tabletop game. Another thing I’d like to do at some point later on is to take a look at the later seasons of MLP and see what might be canon to the Fo:E world. And stay tuned for other reviews and stories.

So until then, see ya.