A/N This is a multiple-part prelude to what I'm terming a fourth-order counterfactual but is probably best described as an alternate universe of an alternate universe. Starting from the bare bones described in the flashbacks laid out in KKat's epic novella, "Fallout Equestria", this is a description of the last month or so leading up to the massive megaspell attacks that create the world of KKat's novella... but with a few alterations. Borrowing from Pen Stroke's "Past Sins" and Anonymous Pegasus' "Transcend" to to the end of Chapter 15, I posit a few changes that lead to more and eventually, lead to a totally different Equestria 200 years in the future
Events, characters, and depictions of characters that are canon to the stories of other authors are copyright to them; it's their creative work, it's their good idea, I'm just borrowing their eggs and cup of sugar and making something new. If I manage to miss an author in my credits, bop me on the head and I'll add them because they deserve credit for what they've done. All that said, the 'something new' I've made from the pieces of other works is mine.
It began with a tragedy, a massacre unintended. From a terrible event, a war has expanded to fill the entire world and a decade, the cause shifting from a massacre and a war over resources to a crusade; one side wishes to end a war, the other side wishes to end one pony. For the longest time, it was a war of soldiers and of ordinary weapons, each side racing for the best advantage. But the combination of innovative brilliance and tragic desperation stemming from the best of intentions has turned the war from one of soldiers and machines to one over which the dread shadow of apocalypse looms. With a sudden positive turn in the military fortunes of Equestria, that shadow has advanced to inevitability.
It is five weeks to nightfall, and the time is slipping away.
a pretty ambitious crossover. i hope things go well and you can follow it through
The follow-through is already quite a bit on its way; with about 1800 typewritten pages of material to rework (I probably should have called "Fallout Equestria" a trilogy of novels, based on its soul-crushing length; yay Kkat), I've done about 1000 of them. And yes, this is a highly ambitious undertaking but "Past Sins", "Transcend" and "Kindness's Reward" by Avery Strange, plus proof of concepts from a book of scholarly articles positing how tiny changes in historical events could change everything convinced me that it's possible to succeed.
That, and writing this is truly fun as hell.
Pretty good progression. i just question the changes to chrysalis's appearance. i feel with the black coat and straightened horn she's more like a deviant from a pony rather than a deviant to a pony which i feel was a bit more something that added to chrysalis's uniqueness.
1088384 I was actually under the impression that all changelings had black coats; I stand corrected. But the changes in Chrysalis' appearance are my attempt to make as much use of fanon source material as I can; Anonymous Pegasus established that changelings are a form of alicorn and that the Elements of Harmony returned Chrysalis to being the same as an original changeling. My personal interpretation of this is that many of her insectoid traits--wings, pockmarked limbs, chitinous body, jagged horn--were altered to be more pony-like in keeping with changelings being corrupted alicorns. Combined with the fact that my version spent over 30 years with a steady source of deep, soul-nourishing love from her mate, I thought that certain physical and mystical alterations were appropriate.
That said, specific suggestions of how to improve are always very welcome.
1088865
the whole black carapace thing seems to be prevalent in 100% of all chrysalis fics and and i only see chrysalis as being alicorn powered being as old as celestia and luna.
1088987 Ah. Well, you're the first to tell me that it's a carapace so I suppose you learn something new every day. Thanks for the info and as before, specific suggestions for improvement are always welcome. :)
Will there be more of this story?
1281145 Most certainly, but I'm back-burner'ing it for the moment because my other story, "Game of Worlds" seems to be what the public wants to read so I'm concentrating on it. It's not on hiatus necessarily, but it'll be put together much more slowly than its bigger, more popular cousin.
1281270
no pans for balance?
1300899 No... what for balance?
1300930
any more even split between time?
1300958 I'll try to. And this will be as long as it takes to complete the countdown.
1300995
i was expecting a long fic after the countdown basing how the wasteland would work with these changes. who knows maybe something will happen in this time that will render that unnecessary.
1301050 Render what unnecessary?
1301067
speculation. i'll see in the future.
For lack of an 'applause' emoticon, and my laziness in not wanting to dig up that scene of clapping from Citizen Kane, I'll simply observe that what you have of this fic so far has been magnificent. Your mechanics were by-and-large impeccable, and I found the way you tied your source material together to be riveting. The social implications of Nyx outside Equestrian society have a vast potential, and you've tapped into an impressive amount of it in drawing your explanation for the 'the war'.
There are a few items of minor concern, however, that I felt I ought to bring to your attention. Foremost among them at least in a chronological sense is your use of dialogue amongst OC's, and the concerns of keeping the speakers separate. While I was always able to decipher who was speaking with just a little thought, there were points at which I had to back up and re-read a few lines to realize who the speaker was for a particular statement. It's a minor issue, but it does disrupt flow.
This can often be a difficult issue to address in literature in my experience, as any visual medium clearly expresses exactly who the speaker of any given dialogue is. However, in writing, it might help to pay a bit closer of attention to explicity stating who says a particular line, at least until the audience has gotten a good chance to recognize these characters. To provide an example, it's fairly obvious when you read the text "Ah told y'all I wasn't ready!" that Applejack is speaking. While the same might seem obvious of "Yeah! Go Wonderbolts!" for Rainbow Dash, the difference is that we have the former has an actual identifying trait, while the latter revolves around knowing the character's motivations well enough to ascertain their dialogue. Basically, what I'm saying here is that for at least the first chapter or two after introducing a new character, I would urge you to put a bit of extra effort into clarifying who they are when they're speaking. After those couple of chapters, when readers have a real grip of what motivates a character (or at least, what their dialogue looks like), such clarifications are no longer quite as necessary. About halfway through Chapter 3 in this case, I found that the issue of recognizing who was speaking had largely disappeared for me.
On the topic of OC's, I found that you did an excellent job of characterization. And, similarly, I stood up and yelled rather loudly when... a certain character made reference to herself by proxy during introductions. While the 'twist' there was masterfully played, I have to admit confusion that it seemed like none of the characters picked up on the statement. I note you make something of an explanation a few chapters later, after said character has... 'departed'. (I want spoiler tags so bad). Anyway, that's just sort of an odd thought that stuck out to me.
Finally, while I recognize the necessity of a lot of your 'technical talk' and 'pseudo-jargon', there are times where its use gets so dense as to bog down the pacing. This might very well be the result of needing to get information across to the reader, but at least on some level, it strikes me as the result of the fact that seeming every character you introduce has some degree of high-level technical knowledge. While (especially in 'Fallout') such information is necessary, I'd strongly advise putting a little bit of attention toward 'trimming the fat' in these discussions when you get back to writing this story.
And on that note, get back to writing this story! I know you're busy with the other one right now, and I certainly wouldn't encourage simply dropping it, but this is great stuff. Here's hoping for more.
-Loyal Liar
1971165
Thankee.
I don't deserve credit for the social implications part; that's all Kkat who stated that the reason for the war in Fallout Equestria was partly that the zebras remained convinced that Luna was Nightmare Moon and were dead certain that if they didn't kill her, she'd destroy the world. My change is that unlike in KKat's story, Nightmare Moon is a real pony and her name is Nyx and her nature and backstory are as outlined in Pen Stroke's famous work.
And since my imagination works like a movie theater in which I'm the only one who can see the film, I tend to see the characters talking and acting as I write them and find it very easy to keep track, and thus forget to make it more explicit.
It's actually quite simple: Chrysalis doesn't know her well enough to spot it and it doesn't occur to the other two that it could be her, so they don't see it either.
I'll try to but sometimes, technical things are highly important. Explaining why they're surprised to see what appears to be an ironclad monitor requires explanation. Explaining how the victory at Stalliongrad happened requires technical details as well because it's an important story point, the reason for what happens next. And since things are told from the perspective of an incredibly techno-minded character, she tends to notice these small details.
More will happen, promise.
Just as a random Easter egg, because you give me a nice wall o' text here, I'll reveal that what's told about the Battle of Stalliongrad here is a combination of the historical aspects of the Battle of Stalingrad during WW2, a bit of alternate history involving a plan generated by General Erich von Manstein ("General Manestein" in the story) to trick massive portions of the Red Army into thinking the Germans were fleeing, thus causing them to try and cut off the false retreat, and then trapping their armies against the Sea of Azoz and ripping them apart. While I don't think General Heinz Guderian and the forces he commanded would have been involved in this plan, I put a "General Derian" into the story for fun. The precise tactical aspects of the victory were based on the tactical practices of General Erwin Rommel during the campaigns n North Africa; it's no coincidence that someone named "Ruby Pommel" is touted as the hero of one of the battles. As you might be able to tell, I'm a bit of a history nut (which is how an ironclad ship called a "monitor" appears in the story) and I'm using this nuttery to compose some of the military aspects of this.
1301050 Having been drawn back to this by LoyalLiar, I'm thinking more clearly and I realize now what you meant by this. In answer, I'll say that the Wastelands still happen in the future of this story but several things change that make the wastelands quite different than they are in Kkat's work.
Heya Dual, this fic has been sitting in my "read later" tab for a bit now, so I'd like to offer my initial thoughts on it.
First, I will admit that I know nothing of the Fallout: Equestria universe (i've played the Fallout games, though I doubt that they'll be much help in this case,) so there may be some required reading for me to fully grasp what is occuring in your fiction.
The first thing that I notice upon coming to this story is a rather intimidating two-paragraph author's note, followed by the actual synopsis. I'm not saying that you should change it, but it may scare off potential readers. Perhaps rearranging it so that the synopsis is at the top will help pique interest. Giving credit where it's due is absolutely important, but the way you have it currently set up interferes with the reader finding out what they can expect from this story.
I've only read the first chapter thus far, but so far I am enjoying it. I like the interactions that you've written between Verde, Pale and Astra. It feels natural and smooth, for the most part. Their characters, as well as their relationships with one another, are still a bit fuzzy to me, but that's probably because it's just the first chapter. I enjoyed the chess metaphor that you used as well (for the record, I suck at chess.)
There were points during the conversation that felt like they were just there for exposition's sake, but as someone coming into this story with no knowledge of the FO:E world, they helped fill me in on some of the events that have transpired. Still, they do stand out from time to time amongst the rest of your writing.
All in all, I will say that I am quite interested to continue this story. I will also say that my critiques are very much a matter of opinion, and you may tell me to kindly fuck off if you wish.
Thumbs up, and onward to Chapter Two!
How do I give feedback on something like this? There’s so much to think about. This will be a long wall.
I’ll start by saying I enjoyed it. Very much so. The intricacy of all the details being combined is masterful. It’s not entirely flawless, but there is so much going on that works great. It’s one of the most exciting stories I have read in a long time. I have read all three of the things this story makes use of, so I was mostly able to keep track of everything. That said, the story still left me with a headache. I think I would have got lost if I hadn’t read the base stories. It might just be me. I refuse to forget any detail in a story unless I’m sure I don’t need it anymore.
I’d like to give you some credit for world building, even though you used a lot of stuff other people thought of. There’s still plenty in here that’s new and exciting. You seem a little quick in the comments to shrug it off, but I do think it deserves praise.
While this is a very enjoyable story, it is not without problems. I’m going to try to identify everything in the story that I thought was strange or out of place. Maybe some of it will be useless, but I’ll probably hit something important.
The first thing that bothered me was that you give us a lot of information, of varying levels of importance, but I found it very hard to distinguish how important it was that I remembered each thing. In general, when I read a story, I think of everything the characters say as a critical point. You do more explaining through conversation that through action. It made me feel that I had to remember everything they remembered, like weapon specifics, battle tactics and engineering specifics. There was already so much going on in the story, I had to slow down and re-read parts of it to process everything.
This is a strange thing to think about, because a lot of the charm of this story actually comes from the levels of depth you go to with everything. The only thought I have on making it easier is to try transfer less important information to action scenes, like maybe have the character read about something and summarise it in their mind, or if they test a weapon, just describe the weapon being used and leave it at that.
Thing the second: everyone in the story seems desperate to spill their guts at every opportunity. This was most notable during the introduction of Chrysalis, and the part where they take the zebra prisoner. You just pass things off as making small talk to fill us in on the plot, but I found it strange that the characters haven’t put more advance thought into what’s going on. I would expect them to do less talking and more thinking. You have Chrysalis show up for some diplomacy thing (not sure what it was anymore) and then she gives all this history of changelings and her repentance story and a whole lot of stuff. The content here was good, but the delivery was a tad clumsy.
I would expect Verde and Astra to take a more active role in this situation. If they have a goal in mind, I’d expect them to be constantly asking questions directed towards it, and not get side-tracked. They were trying to test the new megaspell, right? If the extra stuff wasn’t crucial information, I’d think it would have been left out, and if it was, I’d think they would have started already knowing more about it. A treaty between the changelings and ponies would be big news. I’d think a large portion of the story would have spread to the point of being common knowledge. The characters felt strangely ignorant to me at this point.
Number three: lack of group tension. Perhaps not a direct flaw, but I think this is a place where the story missed out on big opportunities. The main pack of the story seems to be Verde, Astra, and Chrysalis. Maybe Pale as well. They lack the little disagreements that could make them feel more real. Whenever anything comes up that they could disagree on, someone caves and there is a clear winner. It would have done the characters more depth to hold onto things, and stay together for the greater good, despite their differences.
The prime example is Astra’s strange zebra-racism. Pale seems surprised and confused by her explanation, but then he sort of just adjusts to it. It is unreasonable to claim all members of a race are irredeemably bad. More so when her distinguishment on what makes a zebra is so unsound. It’s perfectly acceptable for Astra to be racist, given her backstory, but I think it’s strange the other characters don’t harbour feelings of pity or contemptment for her.
It’s hard for me to specify exactly what I mean by all this. The best I can do is say that people are judgemental of each other, and they always remember little things their friends do wrong. It feels like your characters aren’t forming opinions strongly enough for me to relate to them.
If I compare to FO:E (which isn’t a perfect metaphor for this group, but it will do), At the start, we just have Littlepip, but very soon we know she wants Velvet, but will never get her. They have to be friends in spite of this, which creates a strong dynamic of tension. If you could work things like this in, I think your characters would be stronger.
White we’re on that, here’s number four. I had some problems with Verde’s character. She seems to just act mildly through the whole story. She smooths out conflict between the other characters, but she doesn’t do much else. I get that she has plot significance in the big picture; I just mean that she feels strange in the group mechanic to me. The other characters are at least trying to be opinionated quite often, but she doesn’t seem to feel strongly about anything. I guess you were going for a yin-yang sort of deal with Astra.
I thought the relationship with Astra was a bit weak too. You bring it up a little at the start with the teasing, but we don’t really know what’s going on. Then four and a half chapters later the randomly break out the fuzzy handcuffs and vibrators. They go too long in the story without affirming their relationship. Or if they did, and I didn’t notice, then everything else clouded it. I would expect there to be more tension between them. I don’t really know anything about love, but I’d think it normal for them to be just a little irrationally concerned for each other. Without signs like that, or a backstory to relate to, I forgot they were together.
Thing five: this is just a little one. It’s sometimes hard for me to follow what atmosphere you are trying to create. You sometimes just between cartoony and serious descriptions. Like in chapter one with the ‘eyes gone dinner-plate’ thing. It’s not really a big deal.
So anyway, that’s a like and favourite from me. I’ll probably read your other story when I have time. I can write a big thing for that if you like. I like to dissect things. I know I spent like 75% of this post poking holes in the story, but that’s disproportional to my enjoyment levels. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff, whatever you end up working on.
2126764 Thankee much. :) No real knowledge of the FOE universe is needed, which is why I'm doing my best to do lots of exposition. This fic is essentially an AU of FOE, changing the past (which is when this is set, 5 weeks prior to the apocalypse of FOE) to alter how FOE would shake out.
A very good thing to do, because most every big point that the characters raise foreshadows a future event or explains why things are currently happening. It's a major infodump, but I couldn't think of a way to get the information in without doing something like this. I'm working with a friend who's helping me with this but the revisions are slow in coming because I've got higher-priority matters going on.
The circumstances of why the changelings are no longer Equestria's enemies isn't widely-known and while the daughter of a high-level intelligence analyst (Verde) is aware of things, her cousin isn't as much so. Thus why Chrysalis tells her story to Astra, although as before, I'm trying to streamline this with help from a friend.
There's no point, though; they asked about it, Chrysalis did some thinking and identified the only safe place to do the test (the old hive) and they got on a train to personally inspect it; I'm not sure what else should be happening if they're on a train towards their goal and have already asked all the relevant questions.
For reasons discussed in the revised version of the chapter, everyone involved agreed to keep it quiet lest the news that changelings are still everywhere after everypony thought they were gone for good causes a panic. Since the treaty, moreover, the changelings have occupied a place similar to the place that Pacific Coast native Americans did for east-coast Americans in the early 1800s: a vague sense they exist without much solid knowledge of who they are or how it is that they're no longer enemies.
There has yet to be any opportunity to develop such things. Disagreements will develop, naturally, and I keep emphasizing that this is being slowly revised to fix many problems, but the points of disagreement are still a ways in the future because nothing controversial has happened quite yet.
It doesn't matter to Pale, Verde agrees enough not to fight her on it (this becomes clear much later), and everyone else she's mentioned it to is a bit stunned by her anger and bitterness and insistence that she's not a zebra despite looking like one.
It's still quite early and the fact is, Verde is extremely tightly-controlled; once again, it's early, you find out more later, and revisions are occurring to fix things. Suffice it to say, Verde Tin is a pivotal figure in the larger story but how and why is not yet revealed.
By which you obviously mean they cuddle a little and Verde teases Astra about bringing duct tape, oil, and a frying pan along with her.
It's still early and no opportunity has presented itself.
There's a LOT of chapters to come on this story, FakeScienceMonthly, anywhere from 20 to more than that. So... patience, this is a small side project in comparison to Game of Worlds.
Zero comments?
This story reflects a keen and dedicated mind, yet it receives little attention
Anyway, yes, I agree with your friend that the current version might come over as "wordy", and I admit that it requires full brain power to read, but that is a quality and should be encouraged.
So, storywise, you have interesting characters and a detailed setting of your own. Were the ponies aware of the zebras' true motives back then?
I can only applaud the usage of realistic warfare in a story. As a GM, I try to make my own settings so real that they could be parallel worlds, thus I enjoy rich storytelling. I look forward to reading the other chapters whenever I have free time.
4062514 I'm working on the "wordy" aspect with the help of an editor. Chapters 4 onwards are under the care of the editor right now.
"True motives"? You mean, a religious crusade against the evils of the stars, in the form of Nightmare Moon? *suddenly wonders if I missed the part of FoE that explains the zebras' motives...*
Thanks for the compliment, tho. ^_^
Damn, this is dead as a door nail. Pity
Though I do take issue with calling Fallout: Equestria a novella of all things. It’s longer than war and peace! Mice and Men’s a novella. There are individual chapters that are longer than a novella.