My second place entry for the Fallout: Equestria 500 members writing competition, choosing the theme "Before the bombs".
This isn't a tale of great heroism, of any great battle fought hard and won well. Deadbolt Tumbler never really had any driving force in his life, he didn't have a special somepony, he didn't even have any friends. He was content to do his job to the best of his abilities everyday and live out his life in peace as he always had, but the great war was now in full swing, and as it often does, fate decides to intervene. On the afternoon of his 18th birthday, he was drafted to fight for his country, throwing him into a world of new experiences that threaten to shatter his fragile perception of friends, love, and loss. Although he had written them off as nothing more than fables as a colt, he soon comes to see that the monsters from the tales of old, still roam the battlefields before him.
The wonderful youtuber Plagen Shiki has done a marvelous reading of this story! You can find it here if you'd like to listen as you read!
Well, I thought this was a grand premise. The horrors of war and showing one possible inception/evolution of raider culture.
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Well I'm glad you liked it!
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I's so glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for reading!
I know that it seemed to move a bit fast, and it's something that I've been trying to fix and apply to my main Fallout Equestria works. Also, I'm sure that if I had another 1,000 words to use, it would seem to flow a bit better!
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Well, after the contest is over, I'll see if I can't find some time to flesh it out!
I'll put out a blog post about it when I finally get it going again!
Twilight would you please show what I mean about this story?
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And that that is said. I think that this is the first mute main character I have seen, (Ditzy not counting) and I must say that it add something to this, it is just a little bit sad that we didn´t had the time to see him communicate trough body language, telling someone off with just looking blankly at them while they picked their own arguments from each other.
Nitpicks.
" It detailed that one Deadbolt Tumbler was to immediately report to the nearest recruitment center for basic combat training." You have triple space in the start of this sentence.
"Camp 223 had the highest casualty rate for demolitions teams due to the fact it was purposely erected inside the the middle of a minefield" You have a double the here.
"A unicorn mare ran by as one detonated in the camp" Should be an unicorn.
"A few minutes after Digger was finally drug off into camp," Are you sure that you meant drug? Because it means something else than what you want to use it as in my head.
""B..but they t..told me..." Your two first ellipsis here are missing a period each
""Let's see, yesterday that sniper killed the other mare in your group...what was her call sign?" You are missing a space after your ellipsis here.
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Nice catches!
I'll make sure to fix those after the contest is over! But I'm really glad you liked it!
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Dude I have been a pre-reader for over a year by now, you should just know how many nitpicks that I catch, but glad to be helpful
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Thanks! I really appreciate you're support!
Congratulations with the feature won by earning the second place in the Fo:E 500member writing contest
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Thank you very much! And thanks for running the group! It's truly an amazing community!
Getting past the grammatical stuff, the whole monsters of war thing was pretty inexpressive. Now, I don't know if racist ponies would go as far as eating the zebras but I get the point of the intense yet casual hate. All in all I enjoyed the chapter.
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Yeah, I do need a lot of work on my grammar, but I'm glad you liked it! On the whole eating thing, I imagined it like the whole "Hunter's ritual" where you eat part of your kill to prove your hunters prowess or whatever.
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Well, it already was! I just wanted to re-expand on some points I had to remove.
At first, I didn't realize the difference between the first chapter and the second. :B Oops. But I read the full version of the story. It's interesting.In the way it explores a character's experiences with social relationships and friendships, as it reminds me of the main reason Season 1 of FiM appealed to me: My own relating to Twilight's social inexperience (and to Pinkie's fun-loving silliness).
It's a solid short story, one way or another.
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Yeah, now that you mention it, it is quite like what Twilight went through...
totally didn't make that connection until now!
I tried to challenge myself to write a story that relied mostly on descriptors, because at the time I had thought I was relying on too much dialogue in Merchants of Hope. So, at it's logical extreme, why not center it around a character who doesn't speak? It was also a small test to see how to handle and transition from a normal setting, into a darker and more serious one, and I think I got it! Regardless, I'm glad you enjoyed it, even if it wasn't as fun as some of the other stories out there.
Very interesting, sad but interesting.
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Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
This is a truly great story, and I love the perspective you took with Hush and his disability. I certainly think this story deserves a lot more credit than it gets.
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Thank you so much for your kind words!
I am really glad you liked it.
This was a good story.
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Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
A MASTER PIECE
This story is captivating, exciting and a great tear jerker! I would gladly read more fics of the same quality that has been presented here.
Well done Gamma, you're truly a prodigy in writing!
A+++
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I'm glad you liked it! I'm nowhere near as good at writing as you are at doing art, but I try!
I don't know how to feel now
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Well, I hope that you enjoyed it in the very least! Hush's story isn't one that is very 'epic' per se, but I felt it was an important one all the same. Thanks for reading it!
Hush, the first raider slayer, that's how I see the end of this story. Imagine if camp 223 lived on after the war, it would have been a hole raider clan from wasteland year 1, fully trained, armed, and insane. Now it seemed that the insanity happened overnight, but I'd say that it was just that the demolition crew did not see how the troops at camp 223 were already going insane, and because of their job, were not exposed to the same kind of violence. So when they did see what was realy going on, it was far to late, and they paid the price for being good ponies.
I'll check out your other storys.
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I'm glad you enjoyed it!
And yeah, the four of them had focused more on actually doing their job, than why they were doing their job. None of them wanted the war, and none of them were in it for the glory. The story was mostly about how corrupt the cause had become due to propaganda and patriotism. Instead of a fight over resources, it had become a war that ponies just wanted to win for the sake of being 'better' than zebras. In the eyes of someone who hasn't been brainwashed into believing it, who's the real monsters?
Oh my Celestia
! That was one of the best stories I have ever read! Can't wait to read Merchants of Hope.
Question: I listened to the audiobook, so what version of this did I hear?
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You should have heard the full version of the story if you listened to the audio book version. The contest entry chapter was the original submission of Monsters, where I had to make some cuts to fit in into the 5000 word limit. Both chapters are the same story, but the full version just includes the stuff that I'd cut before, which if I remember correctly, is the on that Plagen read.
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Okay, thank you, I just wanted to make sure I'd heard the "right" one.
This story is not about ponies. You can replace them by humans, or space marines, or stormtroopers, or what ever, and nothing changes.
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That's true, because it's the message that's important. Arguably, the whole point of any story is to convey a message. The races, names, and locations can all be interchanged to make them more relatable or interesting to the reader, but the underlying idea is always the same. I was just trying to convey the point that war makes monsters out of everyone, no matter who think's they're on the right side. That it's far too easy to get caught up in 'patriotism' and paranoia, so much that you begin to use it as an excuse to set aside things like any sense of morality. I'm sorry that the story didn't resonate with you, but I thank you for giving it a read all the same!
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Your position is reasonable. I wanted to understand why did the kind and friendly FiM's ponies start to kill zebras. May be the answer is simple - war changes everything.
Excellent little story.
I might have mentioned it before, but great story. A bit morbid but I really liked the characters in the short time we got to see them, and what an ending. It rivals Gardener I might say.
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I'm glad you enjoyed it!