Burrconium Encounters Pony Fallout, Part 4 · 12:23am Jun 4th, 2013
Chapter Six: Falling Towards Paradise
Sure, I may have already said whoever cooked up the Stable experiments was a screwloose who couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag, but knowing they're Scootaloo's idea feels wrong in every sense of the word. It's like watching that one neighbor kid down the street -you know the one, bright-eyed and full of sunshine - grow up and start doing horse krokodil just because she feels bad. Unlike the Vault-Tec guys the Enclave strong-armed into running alpha tests for their space travel program, Scootaloo doesn't even have a good excuse.
The only nice thing I have to say about the Stable-Tec experiments is that none of them threw two games' worth of continuity into a woodchipper, like what Vault 87 did. Unless there's a Stable out there built to experiment with the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) Impelled Metamorphosis Potion (IMP) four years before that stuff was first developed -nevermind how FEV first happened on the other side of the country and in facilities better equipped to experiment with it, or even how the Enclave secretly monitored all the Vaults and never knew about that stuff until around 2236- that's the only faint praise I can give. Believe it or not, even Vault 87 makes better sense than seeing Littlepip shrug off a punctured lung like it was nothing.
That's certainly something to think about while wondering why Littlepip doesn't want to ask about Ishmael Ashur mixed with Father Morpheus mixed with President John Henry Eden Red Eye or why New Appleoosa doesn't like him. Ain't that some way to treat the guy who gave this town clean water. At least Three Dog DJ Pon3 is on the other station with broadcasts wonderfully convenient for moving the plot along towards Paradise Falls Old Appleoosa.
Is it just me, or does Red Eye sound like David Warner at his slickest. May as well, given how he's Morpheus.
Visiting bar at New Appleoosa. Never even thought about Old Appleoosa. Wasteland Savior
If Littlepip and Calamity are going to shoot up an entire town, they can at least stop to get her some better armor, first. No matter how cool fan art makes armored Stable barding look, she may as well run around naked as a jaybird where she's going. I'd like to see one of those suits stand up to a sledgehammer on the back. Maybe Whistling Dixie can let her borrow the power armor he left laying around in Ponyville because reasons.
Sure, I may have already said this story tells too much without showing, but who'd just take Littlepip's word on Party Time Mentats Party-Time Mintals giving her smooth moves without letting us see her pull it off? At least Mintals gets its point across more easily than Mentats, and nobody'd understand the latter unless they heard of those Dune novels I'd rather be reading right now.
Claim Tic-Tacs Party-Time Mintals make her more charismatic. Cannot convince that miserable crank Burrconium to sing her autobiography's praises. Wasteland Savior
Have Sneak as tagged skill and can lift up train cars by end of chapter. Prefer using loud revolver during stealth mission. Wasteland Savior
Do you remember how Fallout 3 had magic bobbleheads that raise stats on pickup, nevermind how the Barter bobblehead shows Vault Boy holding a bottle cap because reasons? Between them and goodies like the Baseball Cap of +1 Perception or the Leather Jacket of Enhanced Face-Clubbing, the real reason civilization in the Capital Wasteland never got back on its feet was because of rampaging wizards. At least here in Equestria, SPECIAL-boosting figurines of Twilight Sparkle and her friends makes sense, and even I'm surprised I have something genuinely nice to say about Fallout: Equestria at this point.
"The flamer slaver stepped around the corner and got a faceful. He went down hard."
Chapter Seven: In Which Plot Hax Bails Out Littlepip
I can't remember if I said this earlier, but a lot of the notes and terminal entries Littlepip finds tend to bring this story to a screeching halt when they pop up, and can sometimes be skipped without consequence. Surely there must be some good idea behind reading off the nearby computer while guards are setting up an ambush outside the door, when the armory's ol' Compy 386 is telling what the background itself shows or at the very least infers not even five minutes later. Just wait 'til you see Midnight Shower's journal or that demonstration Stable out near Fillydelphia. Hell, let's go even earlier than those and bring up the Diamond Tiara recordings that nobody'd care about.
P.S.: There's still no way Littlepip should have survived getting her lung punctured in Thunderdome The Hole The Pit long enough for us to have even get stuck reading from Midnight Shower's journal. How do I biology, KKat? Given all the torture porn that lady's drawn, you'd think she'd know stuff like this.
“I read in a book once, back when I was about your age, that when Fluttershy -- the Mare of the Ministry of Peace herself -- stepped onto a battlefield, she insisted that her healer ponies tend to everyone wounded on the battlefield. Everyone! Pony, zebra, to her it didn’t matter…”
What's the Ministry of Peace? Sure, the Burrconium Encounters Pony Fallout blog is disapproving for the most part, but at least it's honest about things that stop making sense later on. See what I meant when I said that there's no way Littlepip shouldn't have already known about pre-apocalypse Equestria?
Speaking of things that stop making sense later on, check out Harry the super mutant the mutant alicorn overseeing this place on Red Eye's orders. If your mind was part of some psychic collective with a genius prodigy in the back of your head, and you had cool powers like mind-reading or hypnosis or the power to stop a dude's heart with telekinesis, would you just stand around talking and let the lady you're fighting do anything? If you can read minds and are trying to kill somebody, how do you not know she's trying to drop a train car on your head? It's like the boss' mutant alicorn powers all just turned off, because KKat wrote herself into a corner and didn't know how to get out with dignity or anything but writing by the seat of her pants. How does I edit own work for quality-control?
On second thought, comparing the Old Appleoosa alicorn to Harry is just unfair, since Harry could at least still put up a proper fight.
Come to think of it, let's stop and talk about these alicorns for a second. Any one of them knows every spell all their pre-converted selves knew, but only the purple ones can teleport because bogus reasons and only nightkin the blue ones can turn invisible because bogus reasons. There's no way I can buy something stupid like "Only purples can teleport because Twilight Sparkle. Only blues can teleport because Richard Grey Trixie. Only greens can read minds because Gestalt and Mosaic". And another thing - I remember reading that Gestalt and Mosaic could read each others' minds, but can't for the life of me remember where they could do the same thing on anyone else.
But I digress. This story's told in first person, and that train car came from out of nowhere without even so much as a "don't think about the train or she'll catch on". Forget Mighty Telekinesis (2) - did Littlepip really just use the Force to pick up something she can't see from behind the building she's currently in? At least it was worth getting the Pack Rat Organizer perk.
“Well, maybe you are not worthless after all. Give yourself to Us. Join Us in Unity. Become something greater than this wretched thing you are now.”
And now I'm all too painfully reminded of that anti-human Conversion Bureau filth, and how the only people who'd call such converting a good thing are all emotionally-stunted cowards. At least KKat never pulled a Chatoyance and proclaimed that asking "why" is like cyberbullying.
Chapter Eight: At the Gates of Filler Hell
That's right, folks: when this chapter's over, Fallout Equestria's spinning its wheels in the mud for the next ten chapters or so, bogging itself down on what amount to sidequests that don't move the story forward when they happen. Keep that "when they happen" in mind - this story's 45 chapters long, and what happens in filler hell doesn't come back into focus until the last 17 chapters, which by themselves take up more than half the entire length.
Who could those slavers out on the middle of the tracks sell everybody to, if they can afford hiring griffins? No way those guys could be Old Appleoosans, since they wouldn't know about their town getting shot up and wouldn't shoot a supply train from New Appleoosa. They're not Fillydelphians, since they'd know enough about trade between both Appleoosas to not make a mess of where they eat. If these guys are middlemen out for quick cash, I'd like to see the looks on their faces when Metzger Krenshaw Stern finds out they shot her partners' partners.
Who am I kidding? These guys are only attacking the train so Littlepip and crew can get conveniently dumped into the middle of nowhere after our heroes waste several minutes arguing on a runaway train instead of just escaping right then. I don't even know what they were arguing about. At least Ymir that one slaver with a sledgehammer could break some ribs, even if the pain couldn't change narrative style.
Can escape runaway train with self-levitation. Fail to instead stop train outright with strained and weakened magic. Wasteland Savior
Plummet to certain death off a runaway train. Remain unnaturally calm. Wasteland Savior
Come to think of it, just why did Littlepip gain another level so soon? All she managed to do was, what, kill two guys? Three? Do random encounters even give that much experience?
It would appear that somebody can't get... beyond Thunderdome.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHH
I wanted to do this for ages. It probably failed, but nah.
1243836
I thought it worked.
1243836 I need your mailing address. I'll send you a pair of shades.