Odds and Ends. Helvetica's Questions and Answers: Victory.
I turned up the volume on the radio. The next segment was going to feature a short interview of my mother, Anne.
"Scoots, come here. Grandma Anne is going to be on the radio," I called my daughter.
"Cool! Grandma is awesome," the young pegasus responded, as she trotted into the room, sitting before the radio.
That was a nice sentiment. I hoped my eventual grandchildren would feel the same about me. That would be well into the future. Of course Anne really was an awesome pony, so she deserved admiration.
The song that was playing came to an end, and the familiar theme of Helvetica's segment began.
"And today we have a mare you all know and love with us on our town-wide broadcast! Please welcome our beloved Overmare, Anne."
"Thank you, Helvetica."
"Today I'd like to address a question I've heard asked a few times, and that is the subject of special weapons and why there seem to be so many of them. Specifically, I've heard it said that there are too many would-be heroes out there running about with weapons with unique names, and supposedly unique properties."
"Oh, you mean guns like Moon Trident, the triple barrel super-shotgun that was given to me by Princess Luna herself?"
"Um, yeah, that sort of thing. You don't really have a gun called Moon Trident, do you?" Helvetica asked, her tone expressing skepticism.
Anne laughed. "Of course not."
"But, Anne, you really do have a named weapon, don't you?"
"Indeed I do. It is my sniper rifle, Victory, although I'd say it would be better described as a weapon with a name than a named weapon."
"For our listeners who are not familiar with the term, named weapons are unique, featuring some sort of modification or upgrade that usually makes them more powerful than the standard version on which it was based, or in the case of prototypes, were based on it. So, Anne, what's so special about your weapon, Victory?"
"Victory is unique because she has been set up specifically for my use. The stock is shorter, and the sight is in a slightly different position to normal. You may have noticed that I'm a midget. Big guns can be hard for me to use!"
"But you are a unicorn! Why don't you just float it, and blast away?" Helvetica asked.
"Accuracy. If you want to snipe a target, you need to look down the scope. Do that wrong, and you end up with an eye full of scope when you squeeze the trigger."
"I could see that would be... a problem," Helvetica agreed.
"Dead right. It's the sort of mistake you can only make once! So in order to use the scope, you need to brace the weapon, and the most foolproof way to do that is to physically brace it against your chest. Even if you screw up the spell, and the gun kicks, the stock will stop it from flying back into your face. There are other aspects to physical contact with your gun too. Physical bracing can be steadier than trying to hold it still with a levitation spell. And last, but not least, it allows feedback."
"Feedback?" Helvetica questioned.
"That's right, Helvetica, I can feel what is going on through direct contact with it. I can feel the click of the safety catch, so I know if it is engaged or not. I can feel any little mechanical problems as they develop, allowing for me to compensate for them until such a time as I can repair or rebuild the gun," Anne explained.
"So contact allows you to compensate for inadequacies in the gun."
"To some extent, yes."
"So how much more powerful than the average sniper rifle is Victory?"
"She isn't. The mechanics of the weapon are all the same as those of a stock weapon. I could use parts from any similar weapon to repair her. If I need more power, I need to assemble a more powerful bullet."
"Ah, that would make sense. Do you do that often?"
"No. Regular ammunition is usually adequate. A well placed shot on an unsuspecting target can be very effective."
"Ouch!"
"That is the point of sniping after all!"
"Anne, earlier you said Victory is a weapon with a name, as distinct from a named weapon. What do you see to be the difference?"
"When my rifle was first presented to me, it was just an off-the-rack gun. It had no name. It was the same as any other like it; nothing made it special. I made the modifications I needed to her myself. After that, when I wanted to distinguish between my rifle, and any other, it was easier to give her a name than keep referring to her by the modifications. So she's a weapon with a name I gave her, not some famous weapon that came with a name, like Littlepip's Little Macintosh," Anne explained.
"Did you just refer to your rifle as her?" Helvetica asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Err, yeah, I do that," Anne admitted sheepishly.
"So, in closing, what would you say is most special about Victory?"
"She's mine!"
"Thank you, Anne. And that concludes this session of Helvetica's Questions and Answers. Coming up next, we have a new song by our very own Bubbles. Be sure to stay tuned."
As Bubbles' new ballad began to play, I reduced the volume of the radio a little.
Scoots turned to me. "Mum, what's your gun's name?"
"It doesn't have one," I said. "It's just an ordinary 10mm pistol."
"So what do you call it then?"
"My gun, or my 10mm," I answered.
"What do other ponies call it?"
"Demi's gun," I answered.
"Oh yeah, that makes sense!" Scoots enthused.
Hah. Plain and simple
Nice! It took me a while to place the characters again after all this time, and realize your first-person narrator was Demi. For a moment I confused 'em, shifted the whole thing a generation, and thought it was Lee being interviewed.
An immortal alien Terminator-like robot covered with pony flesh, as overmare. Now there's a scary thought
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We don't know if Anne is immortal. She still has a brain.
I don't think anypony would be crazy enough to give the job to Lee!
woof, this hit me right in the feels. Glad to see you writing, even if it's a short!
Was nice seeing this little bit after all this time. Been reading m#7 and this really helped counter the depression that story brings. Are you planning on making more of these?
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If inspiration hits, yes.
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No, I was talking about the hypothetical situation where Lee was the Overmare
I like it
[08:44] <@Retl2> Aaaaand boom. All done with FoE: We're No Heroes. And my overall opinion is only slightly different than my initial impression
[08:45] <@Retl2> Fans of future tech and cybernetics and robotics etc would love it for that.
[08:46] <@Retl2> The actual plot itself is fairly loose, and it feels like once they started namedropping, it was trying to play catchup with a pre-planned outline.
[08:47] <@Retl2> Overall, I had fun. Yay, unicorn magic bubbles! Bouncy bouncy bouncy bo-BOOM!
Was a neat and entertaining ride, and Lee was good fun. I don't think it's silly ha-ha or mindscrewy-wtf enough that I'll want to reread it lots and lots of times, though.
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That's an accurate enough description of the story. Unlike some of the other stories, I set out trying to directly tie mine to the original, to the point in the original short story, they were following a day or two behind Littlepip, literally in her tracks.
Even the stable of combat borgs was a rumor from the original story. I also tried to capture some of my in-game experiences, including my frustration with the tunnels in FO3 when I first played it. I was stuck in them forever.
Other than that, it's more a slice of life story than an epic adventure. I didn't want to upstage Kkat or Littlepip. I didn't want my characters to be essential to Littlepip's success. Even when I do refer to some ponies, The enclave soldier "Red" for example, they may or may not be the same pony to which Kkat referred. I deliberately left that sort of thing vague.
Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
This was amazing!!!
I can't believe it's literally taken me over 6 years to read this. It was one of the first thing I added to my Read It Later list and it just got swallowed.
I'll definitely re-read this at some point. All of your characters are wonder and I love that we stick with them. I think Anne and Francium would get along rather well, swapping metal cutting and projectile firing spells.
Again, awesome story! Thank you so much!!
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Six years? I guess it was a long time ago that I wrote it!