The chronicles of Project Horizons : Chapter 1

So, I decided to read Project Horizons after beginning to get frustrated to discuss with people about the supposed value of a work that I didn't know anything about and needed to rely on hearsay to try to make a discussion happen. I know it might be something stupid and it is possible that I won't even go up to the end with this fiction but since I decided to do it, I figured I could share my thoughts as I read it in those blogposts nobody will read, except you Apex since you seem to enjoy my writing style.

So let us start.

Chapter 1 of Project Horizons has a lot of good in and... a lot of bad. However, since I don't want to be known for only ripping stuff apart, let's give credit where credits is due : Project Horizons does the Stable's life of the protagonist far better than FO: E. Why ? Because it actually takes time to try to make the Stable a living and breathing society with its roles and characters. Stable 99 is a Stable who values order above all else with something akin to a dystopia's feeling to it : ponies wake up to hear the same announcement every morning about how the Overmare must be obeyed, people are locked into specific roles based off of their lineage and men are nothing more than breeding tools for the mares of the Stable.

There is also a notion of quota : there is room for 500 ponies, not one more, with the heavy implications that life is... easily dealt with in this condition. People who aren't useful anymore are chemically retired and people are essentially born to follow orders. It's quite impressive that Somber, the author, managed to understand that introducing one's character and environment in order for us to actually understand her personality, goals and relationship is actually important if we want to relate to the character.

The character of Blackjack however... suffers from a lot of the same I blamed Pip in my critique and... it's mainly because Blackjack couldn't be more of a Pip clone if she tried, at least at present. A unicorn that can only use telekinesis ? Check. Suffers from having a part of her body quite small to fuel her inferiority complex ? Check. Is a letcherous lesbian to the point of borderline assaulting someone in a corridor ? Triple check. Is a friendless, non-confrontational pony who finds her life dull ? Check².

With those similarities come a lot of the same issues, as I said, there's a lot of humor that is based around sex, lesbian sex to be exact and... let's say it's an acquired taste. I don't care for it and sex seems to be quite the focus in this chapter. From the humor in the first part, to the fact that stallions are essentially glorified sex toys, to having Blackjack listened to the Overmare getting fucked in an audio recording to the Overmare being raped to death or Blackjack herself being inches away from being raped herself... One could say that the author wants us to understand that it'll be a focus and I'm not sure if that's going to give fruit to something meaningful or something deplorable. I'll wait and see.

However, it would be unfair to not mention the few differences that do exist like Blackjack having a sweet relationship with her mother and that she actually tries to form friendship with other mares despite them fearing her since she is a security mare or a member of the Thought police essentially.

What I don't get however is why Blackjack suffers from the "special snowflake" syndrome. Let me elaborate : the special snowflake syndrome defines the habit of a protagonist to go contrary to what she had been taught all her life without so much as an identity crisis. For example, Blackjack lives in a Stable where order and 'Stableity' (it did make me giggle) are paramount, she has been taught the law of the Overmare and she is to obey the Overmare. It is such a reality that Blackjack doesn't even question certain things but my issue is there : only certain things.

For example, the idea that the Overmare, who is supposed to be hellbent on protecting the Stable, is going to sell them off to the raiders to get control of her Stable doesn't make her revise her entire life up to this point, it's almost trivial for her. Someone who is so hellbent on respecting the rules like her mother that she would sell her friends if they were to say certain things she can't ignore, doesn't seem shaken that the ruler of the Stable is a paranoid maniac. Even worse, she'll trust a runaway male over her Overmare to the point of actively going against her for no specific reason that the Overmare is being weird.

As one of my friend said : What's her motivation to do this ? The non-confrontational pony is risking her life by illegaly putting secret files onto her Pipbuck IN FRONT OF THE OVERMARE that is an inch away from killing her. Whatever kickstarts the plot I suppose.

Speaking of plot, it's really thin so far and it relies on a whole convoluted thing to work. Essentially, the Vault is attacked by raiders who were let in by the Overmare who, literally, gets fucked over by them since she went mad with paranoia. The raiders want a certain file and listen to the following sequence of events because it's by far the most convoluted thing I've seen so far :

-> The Overmare wants help to retake control of the Stable and for that she promises a file to the raiders (who masquerades as Stable-Tec)
-> A mare responsible for retrieving the file in question, who is absolutely obedient to the Overmare, decides on the suggestion of her fuckboi P-21 to put a secret, unbreakable cypher on it to make it impossible to read. The explanation is essentially that since she likes P-21, she listens to him even to the point of betraying her Overmare when literally a sentence prior she was blindly following her.
-> Some technical mumbo-jumbo makes that, if the file gets downloaded onto a Pipbuck it essentially remains on it forever and can't be transferred.
-> Blackjack taunts the army of raiders that attacked her base and run outside, hoping they all follow her when A: they have no way of knowing if she really has the file in question since she didn't show them anything. B: she essentially has no where to run to, assuming they didn't let some guards at the entrance to kill any rats that wants to flee.

During this plan, that I have to admit is shaky at best, two things of note happen that will either make or break Blackjack for me and those two things can be adverse to each other. First, Blackjack kills her first pony (she actually kills around six) both in self defense and in cold blood. This is extremely important for me and that's what broke Pip's character for me in FO: E.

Let me share with you a little thing that will seem bloody obvious but which needs to be said : killing someone for the first time is crucial for a character. It can't be handwaved as a normal thing or dealt with a throwaway line. You HAVE to take care of it, to show us how that affects your character who just took a life for the first time. It is something that deeply changes you because if you allow yourself to kill your core set of values evolve with it. In FO:E, Pip killing for the first time never was treated, not even a throwaway line or a moment to think about it. I actually had to reread the chapter to make sure I hadn't missed it.

For PH, I am willing to wait for Chapter 2 because Blackjack does mention that she is putting those things in the back of her head, meaning I suppose that it'll get adressed later since she was focused on surviving an attack on her Stable. The sense of urgency makes it believable that, until the adrenalin comes down, thoughts are put on the backburner.

The second thing is that the last line of the first chapter is that Blackjack is SMILING as she is getting chased and running for her life out in the open which can mean a few things :

1: She's happy to escape the boring, dull life of the Stable on a visceral level.
2 : She's happy to go out of the Stable and discover the world that she thought dead.
3: She's happy to escape the strict rules of the Stable that forced her to remain friendless and to never question her values.

While I do like this piece of characterization, I am hesitant to call it well-placed. I know the fiction is hammering that "Blackjack is a bit dumb" (which is another box you can tick in regards to it making her look like Pip since it was also something FO:E put forward) but you can't handwave the first kill of someone. You have to address it.

Now for some little stuff that I liked/disliked in no particular order : I like P-21 resourcefulness but him getting beaten up by both Blackjack and the duo of dunces while having a screwdriver up his ass must have seriously damaged his anus. I didn't like the childish sex humor (again) of Blackjack arriving on the middle of her friend being rutted. I disliked Deus' """"""quirk"""""" of saying "Cunt" in every sentence he utters. Quirk are not character development.

Closing thoughts : This fiction starts far better than FO:E did but the characters are interchangeable for now and the emphasis on sex both in the humor and the dramatic aspects makes me fear for the rest of the fiction. Overused sex jokes were very much a FO: E thing that I hated, let's try to not bring that into the picture again.

Plénitude signing out.

Comments

[The Amateur]

This write-up is an absolute riot as someone who hasn't read the story being critiqued. And the points it raises about characterization are on point.