Visiden Tries It: Project Horizons Chapter 5 · 10:52pm Jun 22nd, 2016
Right, two to go.
Step one… stay alive. Step two… I dunno. Step three… profit!”
Step one, overused gag in an overused crossover. Step two...???? Step three...literary genyuss!
I actually like the initial description of Hoofington. It's got some details going on and a grand sense of scale.
We have to pay to get in?” P-21 said skeptically.
This is where the adverb fails. Give us some body language here like a snort or a raised eyebrow. Don't just say skeptically.
How these ponies are able to confirm that she's the actual Security Mare isn't shown very well. Did they just buy into her outfit? Pretty gullible sentries here.
Overhead rested ‘Gun’, a huge cannon mounted in a ceiling turret.
That may be intimidating, but it's also stupid to place it inside the settlement with the purpose of shooting individual ponies that are already past the gate. You'll just blow up your own base and kill your own troops. A huge cannon should be by the perimeter where it can take out approaching vehicles or large masses of enemy troops.
Some were obviously raiders,
Why? Were they wearing the standard raider armor? Did they have slabs of meat hanging off them to remind you they were raiders?
I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” she said as she looked at me with a cool little smile. “Anypony would have given them a wide berth while they tried to extort my caravans. You were the one that shut them down. Perhaps not a big deal to you, but we’ve lost six caravans in as many months.
It's not like we're an organized group sitting on a massive stack of weapons and have enough caps to hire a large group of mercenaries armed to the teeth to clear out these raiders that were so incompetent that they were ultimately taken out by one slightly irradiated pony. Only you, Security Mare, were good enough for such a task.
I glanced at my PipBuck and saw the amount. Five hundred caps, not counting the miscellaneous junk we’d acquired.
I swear this omniscient pipbuck is so broken for the story. And, I'm sure that five hundred bottle caps don't weigh down our intrepid heroes.
Just a few days, imagine that,” she replied dryly, arching her brow in a way that suggested I hadn’t seen anything yet.
Should have stopped at dryly for this one.
He looked at me coolly. “Girl, I’ve been in the Wasteland a while now and outlived my children and grandchildren. If there’s one thing more precious than clean water and bullets, it’s the feeling that tomorrow you’re less likely to die than today. Those raiders might be replaced by some other band, but yesterday we nearly had a party when we’d heard we could send caravans safely to Manehattan again. That might be nonsense to you, but it means the world to us.”
Because what I did means the world to you. You'll treat me for free, right? After all, I got these injuries from fighting those raiders.
Pfft, I doubt she would have had the charisma to pull that off. Maybe if she put on some lingerie, drank some beer, and popped some grape mentats.
Again, clearly not a question she expected. “Um… it’s different. That’s all I can really say,” she said softly. “We’re not supposed to discuss Thunderhead. It’s all classified.” Huh, go figure. Secrets for her, suspicion from him. I could tell I had a long way to go on this whole ‘making friends’ thing. P-21 still wasn’t even willing to carry a gun; he still saw me as embodying all the fucked up shit he’d endured in Stable 99.
You've done nothing to earn P-21's trust or respect, bitch. You refuse to take his advice and you drag him along for your harebrained schemes.
Casserole,” P-21 answered with a small roll of his eyes. Glory mouthed the word in bafflement as P-21 went on. “Apparently they’re delicious and nutritious. She’s paying twenty-five caps each. Six hundred caps if we can bring her twenty. Apparently there’s a pit west of here that’s full of them.”
Ah yes, the Emperor Scorpion, well known for its tendency to gather together in huge nests.
My ears immediately perked. “Remove? As in kill and mutilate?” Glory looked at me with some concern. “What? You’ve heard these contracts. The mutilation’s always implied.”
That's it. Blackjack is a munchkin. She doesn't mesh with the world she's in, she's obssessed with gear, the author makes a big point of listing down all her acquired powers and perks, and her flippancy with this killing and mutilating shows that she sees others as pixels of XP and Loot. Or as friendly NPC's. As if she were in a game.
I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible, but P-21 still looked suspicious… okay, he usually looked suspicious. Honestly, what was the deal? You round up a guy for summary execution and they never trust you again? Well, if we found something to help his bum leg, maybe then he’d start thinking of me as a friend rather than ‘stable reminder’.
How do I get him to idolize me so I can get his companion perk? Maybe I can climb in and out of a power armor suit. Or just use drugs next to him. Or help a hundred settlements.
I just had to say it!” I shouted over the chittering, snapping horde that was advancing at me. The drum-fed combat shotgun I’d picked up for a hundred caps roared over and over again as I retreated around the gravel pit, a half dozen of the radscorpions clawing at me with their pincers and stabbing with their venom-tipped stingers. I couldn’t miss at this range… but I also wasn’t having the best of luck piercing their hides.
Obviously, when faced with the prospect of taking on multiple melee-focused monsters, I'd go for getting up close and personal with a shotgun as opposed to arming my flying companion with a high-powered rifle to pick them off until I got enough glands.
Why’d the ground just move? “Look out!” I screamed, seeing flashbacks of ghouls exploding from heaps of bone as I knocked Glory aside. From the middle of the pit heaved the largest radscorpion I’d ever seen! It was as large as three ponies combined, with pincers large enough to snip my limbs and head like a daisy… well… pictures of daisies. I always thought they were flimsy looking flowers… but why was I thinking about flowers now? Its tail struck with such force that I could imagine it going right through me.
And out comes the scorpion queen. Scorpions are bees, right? I mean they both have stingers. Ah fuck it.
Let me fly you out!” Morning Glory yelled as the giant radscorpion was tangled in some rusty cabling from a steam crane. There weren’t enough words to express my skepticism, but then there also weren’t enough words to stress how much I really didn’t want to be in that pit.
“If you think you can,” I said as it scurried towards us. I felt her bite the back of my barding behind my neck and felt her hooves hook into my straps. Her wings beat furiously and I was stunned as we slowly rose up into the air.
Of course, if you dumped your gear, she'd have an easier time pulling you out. But fuck that shit, a drum-fed combat shot gun is worth both your lives.
Join the club,” I remarked, then saw their looks. I was splashed almost head to hoof in radscorpion bits. P-21 gave Glory one of our healing potions, but even though the hole in her flank right above her sunrise cutie mark closed, she still didn’t look so good. “Are you okay?” I asked her.
You know, the massive dose of venom from a giant scorpion should kill her swiftly. Or, the fact that it's giant should mean that it has no venom at all.
I had no idea what constituted a ‘radscorpion poison gland’, but apparently P-21 did. He and Glory went from scorpion to scorpion collecting them.
And all of the glands were intact, despite your shooting spree.
I want that gun,” I shouted, my buckshot peppering the head of a sentry pony as I embarked on a grand unofficial tour of the premises. “I want a lab first, but after that I want an IF-88 ‘Ironpony’. Can I have one?”
“I’m sure you do,” P-21 said as he carried Morning Glory on his back, watching as my second shot destroyed the sentry. “Ask your mother.”
Ahahahahaha! Your friend is dying.
The fight with robots is, surprise surprise, dull. Recently, I've been playing Darkest Dungeon. Now, that game knows how to create tension. It only highlights how quickly Bethesda's rpgs turn into dull power fantasies.
I proceeded further into the lab, kicking brass and shotgun hulls with each step. I had to admit I was glad nopony had made it up here before us. There was a veritable cornucopia of ammunition up here. I passed by ammo crates with pistol, revolver, shotgun, and rifle ammunition. Several of them had markings I’d never seen before: red, orange, green, blue, and black bands. And here I had a number of sentry robots to try them out on!
This section descends into gear porn. Look at all the fabulous toys Blackjack's getting!
I reached out with my magic and carefully lifted the gun. I’d never seen its like before, but something about it made me squirm. I put it in my duffel bag. Most ominously, perhaps, my PipBuck identified it as simply ‘Trottenheimer’s Folly’. Then I looked at the wall the exit wound pointed at...
Horseshit. At this point, your pipbuck must be making shit up. How would it know this? And if it could know this, why didn't you just hold the ammo you found earlier to it so it can identify them?
I’m on attempt sixty-one,” he replied with a soft sigh, returning his gaze to the terminal. After a moment, he suddenly brightened a bit. “And… apparently sixty-two is the charm.” There was a click, and the safe in the corner opened up. “There are some journal entries here. Want to read them while I see what we have?”
Sixty one? Dude, you suck worse than DSP for lockpicking.
The mysterious journal they find is the only thing that keeps this chapter from being a stupid sidequest filler.
I’ve decided to rename it ‘Trottenheimer’s Folly’.
You see, this could have been the part where they discovered the name. Not just have the pipbuck just know it.
New Perk: Shotgun Surgeon - When using shotguns, regardless of the type of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target’s damage threshold.
That's a crap perk. Limits you too much to one type of weapon. Never took it myself in any Fallout game. I suppose it's more appropriate for what happened in the chapter.
As someone who has both read Project Horizons (twice) and enjoyed it (twice), and as someone who has been reading your 'Upheaval" stories since I first became involved in the fandom, I think it's interesting that you're doing this.
I can also tell, by how you're writing these reviews, that you should probably stop reading FoE: PH. It's clearly not the kind of story you enjoy, and while I won't hate on you for your opinions on writing styles (reading some of your previous blogs has given me good insight and lessons on writing in general), I do think you are being a little overly critical. This seems to be you complaining about a story that isn't as good as you'd have written it. That's because you haven't written it. So please, spare yourself the trouble. Chapter 6 won't impress you. Unless you managed to slough through all the way up to chapter 15 or 20, then maybe you'd find interest.
Saving you the trouble is all. You'll probably go to my user page, read one of my stories, and eviscerate me for shaming the art of writing, and you'd be right the entire time. Just saying that, just because a story isn't written how you like it, does not make it illegitimate.
-C.Storm
4042511
That's a weasel word if I've ever seen one. You don't like that I'm doing this as you read the story twice and enjoyed it twice. The fact that I dislike a story does not invalidate your like of it. We have different opinions, that's all it means.
At no point in time did I say that this story is illegitimate. I am not advocating that Somber should take the story down. I have not made a single insult towards Somber. I have never said anything that would suggest that anyone who likes this story is wrong or an idiot. Notice that I don't even use the term "overrated" which is more an insult towards the fans of something rather than a dig at the story. At no point have I suggested that I can do this better. That is not something for me to say.
It's true that the fact that a story isn't written as I like it does not mean it is illegitimate or objectively bad. It is also true that the fact that I dislike a story does not disqualify my opinion of it or that I have no more right to read it. It's my time to spend. I would venture to say that the story would benefit from a critical reading as it's clear that there are plenty of people to praise it. It's a very popular story, and I have no trouble accepting that a lot of people like it. I daresay it needs a counterbalance.
Somber can write Project Horizon however she wants. That is her right. It is my right, however, to read it however I want. So I will get to Chapter 6, then I will render judgment as to whether there is something here worthy of pushing through 1 million words of story.
I am not interested in going to your user page, reading one of your stories and eviscerating you for shaming the art of writing. That you would preemptively shoot down the notion is rather insulting, as it suggests that I am somehow so vindictive as to do such a thing.
Well, in Fallout, that is actually normal radscorpion behaviour. Wasteland animals don't really behave like their real world counterparts. For example, giant mantises in the Mojave circa 2281 are also pack hunters, probably because the camouflage is useless at their size and in that environment.
4043323
But that doesn't make sense either way, does it? A scorpion the size of a horse will require a lot of food. If many are gathered in a single area, they will burn through the supply of prey. They're more likely to eat each other than cooperate because there's nothing else to eat. Then again, a scorpion the size of a horse will more likely crush itself with its own weight. Consider this more of me making little jabs at the fic and the game rather than serious criticism.
4043363
Hey, I won't argue. Fallout has never been scientifically sound. I'm just saying, crossovers' gonna cross.
*she
There is actually an explanation in the story for both the magical naming and price approximation that the device can do. It's... well, hit and miss for me. An interesting idea, but it gets buried among all the other throwaway content that piles up later on in the fic.
I always and problems reading this fic, even as I managed to slog it all the way to chapter 60 something, I couldn't really enjoy Blackjack as a character, I'd always been in it as long as I was for everyone else in the story. Your blogs here have helped me understand what my problem with it was, so thanks I guess. I think you're being a bit overly confrontational(pretty sure that isn't the right word but I think you get what I mean) in these blogs but hey if that's how you want to handle it that's how you handle it.
And many of your statements in these blogs make it seem like you don't like Bethesda's games, but you also make numerous references to having played them extensively (By which I mean I'm pretty sure you've beaten them at least once), so honest question, what is your opinion on the games?
4043466
I don't know how I am being over confrontational. I think I'm actually being non confrontational. If I was confrontational, these blogs would be in Somber's comment section, or at least links to them.
I enjoyed Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, and Fallout 4, and I am quite excited about the next Elder Scrolls. I'm even considering getting the remastered Skyrim.
But I stand by my statement that Bethesda's RPGs are at their hardest at the beginning of the game and only get easier as you progress. Increasing the difficulty only delays this inevitable ascent to invincibility. I want to panic whenever a dragon or a deathclaw shows up, not yawn before mowing them down.
Their open-endedness also serves as both strength and weakness. You shouldn't be able to join then lead the Fighter's guild, the mage guild, and the dark brotherhood. You shouldn't be able to romance Piper, Cait, Danse, Preston, Hancock, and Curie all at once, at least not without a scene where you sit them down and explain to them the sort of relationship you're going for.
While I like Fallout 4, I think Bethesda should not have released it without a new engine. This was their debut into the next generation, and they went for "nice" when they should have gone for "mindblowing".
I love Bethesda's rpgs, but I hate how I can't love them more because of some glaring flaws.
4043490 Suppose you are right about the confrontational thing, I just kind of got the feeling you were trying to make fans of the story angry/upset with some of the language you used. But yeah I guess if you were trying to get a reaction you would have been making direct comments.
And I can see were you're coming from with the difficulty drop, personally that's been more of an appeal to me as I feel like I'm overcoming more and more challenges thrown my way rather than simply surviving them as in most games, but to each their own. Open ended wise, that did always kind of bug me how quickly and easily you rise up the ranks of long established organisations, but its never really bugged me too much, at least not as much as it seems to bug you. Really was just curious, just wasn't sure what your thoughts on the games actually were.
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I acknowledge that you are correct and that I misinterpreted your opinions. My apologies.
4043463 ...No, Somber is a dude. I don't know where you got that idea from.