Fallout Equestria: The Ditzy Doo Chronicles

by Ten Mihara

Interlude 2: Shadows of Society

Interlude 2: Shadows of Society

Extinction.

Ponies had been driven to the brink of extinction by the war, megaspells and the aftereffects thereof. However, if there's one thing I've learned in my travels it would be this: ponies are stubborn. The population of the Equestrian Wasteland was a small fraction of what the land had known before being wiped clean in the holocaust. However, we ponies refused to fade out. Despite how little there was, we struggled and fought, scavenged and searched, and clung to the hope that things might get better. It took ponies a while to realize that things could never go back to the way they had been before.

It is interesting to note that, even when separated by time and distance, ponies tend to develop in similar fashions. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is the faith in the Goddesses Celestia and Luna. Both the ponies on the surface and underground, cut off from the former Princesses, saw their histories and legends become myth. Celestia and Luna transcended their status as the rulers of our land, to become benevolent deities that looked down on us all from afar (As I'm sure you've all heard by now, this is at least half true).

On the more down to Equestria side of things, the ponies that now inhabited the surface tried to reestablish more concrete aspects of the old society. Small new villages began cropping up in places like Manehattan, Prance, Fillydelphia, and even the necropolis of Trottingham began to grow as word spread that it was a safe place for ghouls. However, their populations were not able to thrive, as many things were still scarce, and only those with skills, courage or luck were willing and able to venture into the dangerous and tainted places in the wasteland that were yet untapped. Such things were often a draw for the Ex-Talon Canterlot ghoul, who never stayed in Trottingham for any long period of time.

As the demand for both goods and services grew with the population (swelled by both determined breeding and the resurgence of a number of Stable ponies), another aspect of prewar society reared its head: economy. A medium of exchange was needed to make such ventures worthwhile for both parties. At first, ponies from the Stables brought pre-war gold coins into the picture, but there were problems. The pre-war gold coins, aside from no longer having a government backing them, were more useful elsewhere. The gold could be melted down, used to repair electronics, and I even met one strange mercenary who used them to make ammunition for shotguns.

So, with the old currency no longer desirable as currency, a new intermediary was needed. Something readily available, easy to obtain, difficult to duplicate and present in sufficient quantities to provide reasonable comparisons of value. The solution once again seemed to develop in a number of different places at the same time: bottle caps (both Sparkle~Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla were deemed valid). When the news reached Trottingham, I had a good laugh, simply because May's old collection, along with the stores of Sparkle~Cola at the Watering Hole, gave Trottingham a decent initial treasury.

Trottingham didn't do that much trading with the rest of the wasteland, mainly because most ponies were wary of a town full of ghouls. Some thought they could take advantage of a town full of 'mindless shambling zomibes', but they quickly learned otherwise thanks to Rottingtail and his local militia. However, some of the braver investors saw the potential of trading with our little necropolis, particularly because we had a functioning water talisman from Stable Twelve. Pure water was still the most sought after commodity in the Equestrian Wasteland (and made for much better muffin batter), followed closely by food, then weapons and ammunition. The wasteland was a dangerous place after all.

Sadly, that danger didn't just stem from wild beasts, feral ghouls and other irradiated death traps of the wasteland. No, it is quite unfortunate that one of the greatest threats of the Equestrian Wasteland was other ponies. Despite the examples led by good ponies like the Iron Mare, the Lone Stallion, the Stalliongrad Seven and other notable heroes, so many ponies turned to banditry and barbarism as a means of life. Too many placed their own needs above those of all ponies, seeing the food, water and other supplies carried by others as being more valuable than the ponies that carried them. Seeing the lives of a select few ponies as more important than all of the others.

The worst of the worst were the raiders. DJ P0N-3 started calling them that, as the first major bands of these brutal, sick, and often psychotic ponies came from the progeny of Raider and his group out of Ponyville. I was heartbroken when I first heard that the town that had once been my home had become such a depraved place, filled with some of the worst the wasteland had to offer. It was made all the worse knowing that Stronghoof's attempt to save the town had failed so completely. I continued to use his rifle in my travels, hoping that the small piece of him continuing to serve worthy causes would let his soul rest a little easier. I even fitted it with a custom bolt to make it fire more smoothly for me.

May and I ended up staying in Trottingham with Rottingtail for most of the decades that followed our coming to the town. Despite the initial hardships, May was able to make excellent use of Doctor Fixit's in depth study of the ghoul condition and the ghoulification process. While she was not able to get any closer to a cure, she was able to, through a combination of radiation treatments, custom tailored healing spells and counciling, greatly improve both the physical and mental well being of many ghouls that came to our little necropolis. She was even able to patch up Rottingtail's bad leg, regrowing some of its flesh. While it remained as crippled as it had always been, he no long had to worry about it potentially falling off.

Rottingtail and I grew closer during my years in Torttingham. He was a fair gentlecolt, and had true affection towards me. I also had a good deal of respect for the concern he held for other ghouls, even if he was occasionally colder to regular ponies (I'd be lying if I said I'd never felt at least a little resentful myself). I'll say no more about that though, as I'm sure most of you reading this wouldn't have any particular interest in the... preferences of a ghoul pony such as myself.

I didn't spend the entirety of those forty years in Trottingham. Using some of the skill from my old line of work, I often went along with merchant caravans to help with the bartering. I also sometimes joined the guards of those caravans, or scavenging parties that went looking for other resources that the town could use or sell. I even took my meager tailoring skills to a new level when another ghoul merchant taught me how to craft and reinforce armour. It was almost like I had a normal life again, at least as far as one could be had in the wasteland.

It was never easy, as there were still plenty of groups who couldn't be bothered to distinguish between us and our feral kin, and others who wanted to see us all exterminated because they viewed us as monsters or abominations. Sadly, most Steel Rangers fall into this category, although Gizmo seemed to keep to his promise to keep them out of Trottingham for a good long while. When it came to anypony else, Rottingtail's militia was enough to keep us safe from outside threats.

Trottingham itself grew up quite nicely, setting itself up as both a trading town and a settlement where ghouls did not have to fear persecution. However, that's not to say that we didn't have our own share of problems.

Comments

[QuackmanBrony]

Cool interlude bro
And thank you for keeping the um...preferences...to yourself.
Now I wait for the next exciting chapter of... THE DITZY DOO CHRONICLES!!!

[iFiredone]

THE DITZY DOO CHRONICLES!!!
MOAR EPIC CHAPTERZ PLZZZZ

[ChaosDX1]

The gold could be melted down, used to repair electronics, and I even met one strange mercenary who used them to make ammunition for shotguns.

My favorite shotgun ammo!

[CultonoDk]

The pre-war gold coins, aside from no longer having a government backing them, were more useful elsewhere. The gold could be melted down, used to repair electronics, and I even met one strange mercenary who used them to make ammunition for shotguns.

[M4Tiger4014]

5212459 I don't get it.

[Rhymer]

Using Gold as ammo? weird... but, then again, I am old enough to have met the original Lone Ranger (yeah, I AM THAT old!).

Yes, he was well into his 80s at the time, and I was in grade school, but still, I met him. And he was just as kind, gentle, and every bit the hero I remember from the old black and white TV show.

He was wearing the whole kit. Including his six-guns and belt of silver bullets. And yes, they were silver. Not silver painted. He even mentioned that he had to polish them almost every day to keep them so shiny.

As for using 'noble' metals in ammunition. I can say, with some experience (having served in the USMC as an Enlisted Weapons Instructor), that silver can be used in ammunition. But, Silver is 'soft', although 'harder' than Lead. Silver would make a bullet conform to the 'lands and grooves' of a rifled barrel better than a pure lead round. Which is why modern bullets use lead alloys instead of pure lead. If I remember right, Antimony and Tin are used to 'harden' the lead to make it take the rifling better. But, if one had enough Silver laying around and not being used as 'money', then I could easily see Silver being used as an alloy component for making more Lead rounds, made after a catastrophe like the Bale-fire Bombings of the Pony-Zebra War.

Having said all that though, I would admit that post war, there would be a LOT of unused ammo laying around. Plus there should be some working examples of ammunition production in the Wasteland, so making new ammo could occur, if there were supplies of Antimony and Tin. If such were in short supply though, I would think the makers of such ammo might include Silver into the Lead to alloy it to take the rifling better and result in more accurate ammo.

Like the 'real' world, the ponies of Equestria need stuff to make stuff. One cannot just 'make' elements out of nothing, and I am not talking about THE Elements here, either! Even those needed a 'Crystal Seed', Left by the Pillars of Equestria to grow into the Crystal Tree that grew them.

I can only imagine that someone like Star Swirl the Bearded got the seed from the Crystal Empire in order to infuse it with the Pillar's magics. Nothing else makes real 'sense' in the light of how things turned out.

Planting the seed in the Forrest near the Castle of the Two Sisters would also have made sense to Star Swirl, if he took the time to ponder the time it would take the tree to grow, and the eventual adulthood of the pair of Alicorns students he had been teaching.

Although my expertise is weaponry, tactics, strategy, and other military related knowledge, I can speculate on how some magic talismans work... like the Water Talisman. This, I believe uses magic to extract water from the air and any other nearby source, within a specified radius (not living things, I'd imagine), and emits it as drinkable, pure water.

And though not described, I would imagine the talisman to be a combination of arcanotech and magic crystals, and probably look like an modern day industrial pump attached to a large tank for the water to be stored in.

The 'pump' would be gem studded, and the gems would glow, showing they were working. It would also have controls built into it to control the flow of water, purity, and other necessary controls over what it extracted water from. I would imagine those that keep it from extracting water from living things would be the most secure and hardest to access, alter, or damage without destroying the entire thing.

A combination of Water Talisman and Protein Extractor could be what was used to recycle ponies in Stable 99 (Blackjack's stable), with the leftover chemicals processed into bricks for other industrial uses (calcium, some proteins, and water, could be mixed to make an artificial milk for instance).

The various types of chips, fries, and other things ponies ate in Stable 99, were also probably made from the protiens extracted form those that had been recycled before them. Not many would have known, or really thought about WHAT their food was made of. Especially not the 'sewage' that was being processed as well as dead bodies. Only that it filled their bellies and was better than eating damp cardboard.

Having lived through several periods where money was a major problem in my life. I can testify that one can get used to pretty much anything in the way of food. And though a diet of primarily Ramen Noodles CAN get pretty stale after awhile... one still has to eat to survive. I survived. And later, things changed and got 'better'. But, having grown up when money was tight, I know the value of both money and food, and I try not to waste either resource.

As a kids, my father taught both my younger brother and I how to shoot a rifle (a .22 bolt action, single shot rifle) well enough that most of the time, he and I could hit a squirrel at 100 yards with a head shot (so as not to waste the meat). Let me tell you, squirrel stew is pretty damned tasty. Even more so, when it's all you have to eat, and care and attention was used to prepare it.

Yes, we shot other things, like rabbits, chipmunks, deer, etc. We didn't starve. We also fished in the local streams and lakes as well. I remember fishing with my dad, brother, and step brother on a low bridge over a slow moving river near the town I grew up in. I had the luck to latch onto a BIG one. The damn thing nearly dragged my 12 year old butt off the bridge and into the river! But, I grabbed one of the roof supports and held on until my dad grabbed my belt. When I tired, the two younger ones wrestled with the fish for awhile, then dad took over, and round about we went until we tired it out enough to get it to the river's edge. I ended up slipping into the muck at the river's edge up to my hips, trying to net the danged thing, but I did, and proudly flipped a 4 foot 'dog fish' onto the bank, where my dad quickly killed it with a knife to the brain.

That fish fed a family of seven for well over a week. Baked, fried, fish cakes, fish stew, fish patties, fish soup... the entrails, bones, and head were ground up and used in the garden for fertilizer. We had the BEST tomatoes and green beans that year.

And me? I was a proud 12 yr old kid. I walked on air for a month every time I thought about that fish. I am still proud to this day. I... me... that little, scrawny 12 year old kid. I, fed my family for a week... or more. How many can say that they provided for their family, that young?

I felt the same way when I shot my first deer. Which gave us venison for an entire year. And believe me, you've never lived until you have had venison chili, venison sausages, or venison hamburgers! Trust me.

Ponies survived the devastation of the War. They prospered and multiplied. And even though the Wasteland takes lives (sometimes in horrible ways), life goes on. Just like it does in the 'real' world. "Anything that does not kill you, you can survive." Wise words for any period of history, even today's world. Remember them. You, that are reading this... you are the descendant of survivors. Any children you are a part of making are proof that the Universe has yet to kill us off. Be proud. Be strong. Survive.

the Frank Pony