Burrconium Encounters Pony Fallout, Part 5 · 12:45am Jul 6th, 2013
Sorry this one took so long - I got so caught up in Cluesweeper and tower-defense Flash games like Bunny Flags, I'd completely forgotten. Seriously, go check out the Protector series. Right now, I bet half of you are surprised I can like anything.
Speaking of good news, I'm actually half-tempted to get the PC version of Fallout 3 and cook up a mod redoing the entire story from the ground up. This thing would actually make the game good, no joke.
Before we get this thing back on the road, how about one more Wasteland Savior quip I forgot earlier?
Take Good Natured trait. "Luna rape you with her horn!" Wasteland Savior
Chapter Nine: Lolpip and the Feral Ghouls (First Layer of Filler Hell)
Do you remember how in almost every actual Fallout game, finishing the big goal you first set out for quickly led to a second big goal that tied the rest of each game together? Below is a brief recap of those two goals for every game in the series, including Van Buren and that one spinoff I've heard everybody hated.
Fallout: 1.) Find a spare water chip for Vault 13. 2.) Figure out where the super mutants are coming from.
Fallout 2: 1.) Find Vault 13 and retrieve the GECK. 2.) Save Arroyo from the Enclave.
Fallout Tactics: 1.) Strengthen Brotherhood influence in the Midwest. 2.) Defeat remnants of the first game's super mutant army. 3.) Stop the horde of killer robots.
Fallout 3: 1.) Find your dad and discover why he left Vault 101. 2.) Reclaim Project Purity from the Enclave. Broken Steel: Crush the Enclave remnants.
Fallout: New Vegas - 1.) Find Benny and take back the Platinum Chip. 2.) Pick a side and finish the struggle for control over the Mojave.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel - 1.) Contact Brotherhood soldiers near Carbon. 2.) Defeat Attis and the super mutant remnants leftover from Fallout.
Van Buren: 1.) Discover the truth behind Tibbets Prison. 2.) Stop Dr. Presper from nuking everybody.
Let's contrast all that with Fallout: Equestria. Here and now, the story's lost real focus until Littlepip goes to stop Red Eye and the Unity from conquering the wasteland. Maybe the real bad guy until then is the Equestrian Wasteland itself, or some other fancy arthouse hooey.
1.) Find Velvet Remedy. 2.) ??? 3.) Stop Red Eye. 4.) "Best fanfic evar!!!1"
Grew up in a Vault. Doesn't know what a billboard is. Wasteland Savior
Unless I'm missing something, using vegetables to make Nuka-Cola Sparkle-Cola sounds disgusting. Carrot juice is okay on its own, but it's no surprise Equestria got blown up if everybody thought carbonating the stuff and adding flavorings to it was a good idea. I don't know what kind of name Sparkle-Cola even is, but having radish soda for the Nuka-Cola Quantum Sparkle-Cola RAD sounds like the bad kind of gnarly and a real bummer, man.
At least that nice group of feral ghoul-ponies wants, from the bottom of their zombie-pony hearts, to get this thing moving, in the way only zombie-ponies can. Did Littlepip forget to say that feral ghouls are ponies too, or did we really need to be reminded twelve times?
Have high Charisma by end of story. Talk down to audience in autobiography. Wasteland Savior
"We ran. Ran like we were being chased by a mindless hoard of monsters intent on eating us alive. Because we were!"
Yeah, I'd agree it takes three sentences to say Pippie's surprised those ferals were all stockpiled good and - oh, wait. They're a horde of zombies. If those three sentences were set up like that for a laugh, it's not working anymore. KKat must have really earned that art degree if homonyms keep tripping her up like that. By the way, did you know wings apparently have fealthers?
Magic's already too weak to hold a gun properly. Try throwing wrecked vehicle at something. Wasteland Savior
Ain't it convenient how Littlepip just happens to find automated turrets that not only still work after 200 years of exposure to the elements and no apparent connection to any power source, but also run on the same programming as her PipBuck? Boy, would I have liked to see those things tear feral ghouls apart if our hero didn't just immediately skip what's supposed to be this scene's climax and move on. Would somebody at least pull Velvet Remedy out from under a dogpile of ghouls she'd sooner wind up in after trying to charge one in melee?
Grew up in a Vault and knew of Princess Luna. Didn't know she ran the government during the war. Wasteland Savior
Having the -ahem - Mane Six in charge of government ministries sounds like a terrible idea, nevermind how Twilight's the only one qualified for that kind of work. Nice job having all the engineers and scientists answer to the apple farmer that struggles with fancy mathematics. Smooth moves, giving the hyperactive Looney Tune a rubber stamp to play with. I hate to say it, but it's no surprise Equestria got blown up if giving some vital desk job to a slacker like Rainbow Dash ever sounded like a good idea.
I know four of these ministries aren't named until later, but what could the Ministry of Image possibly do that the Ministry of Morale couldn't? That kind of freewheel budgeting feels out of place during a brutal war that, if I remember correctly, managed to last about twenty years. Maybe Sierra Petrovita Pinkie Bell can tell more about it in her Pinkie Pie museum. Of all the Fallout games this story had to copy-and-paste the most from so far, it just had to be Fallout 3, didn't it?
You tell me what's weirder: some lady in a shack out in the middle of nowhere knowing Nuka-Cola's entire pre-war history and owning a working vending machine, or some kid on an abandoned rock farm out in the middle of nowhere knowing everything about the Minister of Morale and was able to scavenge an entire museum's worth of memorabilia.
"Working day and night, Pinkie Pie concocted a mixture of Mint-als and some of her favorite things, creating... dun DUN DUN! Party Time Mint-als!!” Pinkie Bell lifted up a tin, showing them off."
Take Good Natured trait. Steal from children to feed drug addiction, even while supplies are still good. Wasteland Savior
Get confronted by robbed child over stealing. Back into an open safe because reasons. Wasteland Savior
Believe it or not, the entire story behind Pinkie Bell's museum is the first - and so far only - time I actually cared about what happens to anybody in this story. Don't any of you go thinking Velvet Remedy's little speech on laughter and happiness got ol' Burrconium to turn half-circle, no matter how beautiful it felt. If the 20% Cooler meme didn't rear its head in the footnotes not even a minute afterwards, I'd be saying KKat finally did something right.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear - I can't not take offense at being slapped in the face by that sudden shift in mood. SATS is 20% cooler?! If Fallout Equestria was an actual book, I would have thrown it out the window at this point. There is no way this story could get any worse; not even Littlepip shrugging off a punctured lung like it was nothing is this insulting.
Chapter 10: In Which Lolpip Starts Seeing Things From New Vegas (Second Layer of Filler Hell)
This story's already over a thousand pages long, but going from "everybody learning about The Girl Formerly Known as Pinkie Bell's parents", to "everybody comforting her while she's grieving", and starting this chapter with a rushed "By the way, Ditzy took her to New Appleoosa while you weren't looking" feels like a cop-out. If Littlepip wants us to believe she now feels bad about what happened to the girl and wants to help, she can take the time to slow down and show it. For all I care, devoting a few scenes to our heroes comforting Silver Bell would easily have been worth more than the Ironshod Firearms and Stable 24
sequences combined.
Just for that and Math Wrath's description, Littlepip's overworld theme got demoted even further. I have more confidence in the guy running a slaver joint, of all people, because he at least knows what the hell he's doing. Even Torr from Fallout 2 would have been a better hero than Littlepip, and he's too dumb to talk right. Maybe he'd know what to do about New Appleoosa's new bomb.
Is it just me, or has every random encounter so far after that big fight on the train been cheap padding for the sake of having fight scenes? Even if the Equestrian Wasteland's a brutal place where death's just a heartbeat away and random violence is a fact of life, how do that fight with the feral ghouls and the fight with raiders move this story along? If the idea's to show Velvet Remedy just how awful things are, there's nothing those two fights could show her that Old Appleoosa or that fight on the train already haven't, or the upcoming Battle of Shattered Hoof couldn't.
Interrogated by lady holding a laser shotgun. Ignore her and argue about rock farming. Wasteland Savior
Say you're on a mission from Gawd. Never tell the audience what she wants until later. Wasteland Savior
At least Gawd's nice enough to introduce herself off-screen and give the party something to do at the NCR Correctional Facility Shattered Hoof, even if I'm scratching my head at how Littlepip learned Shattered Hoof and Junction R-7 are home to the Powder Gangers escaped slaves with guns or how Eddie Deadeyes got some into raiding. Surely, somebody in town could spare a mattress cover for sneaking into the prison, so we don't have to try and argue whether those raiders from about ten minutes ago were actually important.
Say you also want to look at Deadeyes' ledger. First-person narrative won't say why until later. Wasteland Savior
Sorry for jumping ahead a bit, but I'm finding it hard to believe that Littlepip's first instinct is "Go find Deadeyes' ledger because I think he's involved with killing Silver Bell's parents". Why single him out, when it's just as likely some other bunch of raiders got to them? I swear, that kind of jumping to conclusions is going to end with Littlepip burning a whole town down, one of these days.
The slavers from Littlepip's first night out were surprised raiders attacked them? Blame Red Eye because reasons. Wasteland Savior
Nobody in Old Appleoosa saw a mutant alicorn until last week or so? Blame Red Eye because reasons. Wasteland Savior
If it's Red Eye's fault everything in the wasteland is going screwy, can I blame him for KKat renaming the Finesse perk something less straightforward like "Stable Shot"? Having that perk means having good aim, but naming is crucial, and you wouldn't see a perk called "Vault Shot" in an actual Fallout game.
Chapter 11: Jailhouse Blues (Third Layer of Filler Hell)
Make fun of how Fallout handles skill books. Narrate story worse than Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. Wasteland Savior
Constantly say things like "unicorn pony". Notices how audio recording capitalizes "Really Bad Ponies". Wasteland Savior
If I may jump ahead a bit, Deadeyes is somehow both the most clever and the dumbest wastelander out there, and that's something considering everything Littlepip's done. Who else would set up some elaborate scheme to oust a business rival and get ahead in life, and then throw that out for a worse plan for no good reason? But then again, anybody who'd mistake Vault dwellers in armored jumpsuits for escaped slaves or nod his head at a complete stranger saying she used magic to sneak in doesn't even seem bright enough for such a complex plan. At least in New Vegas, visiting the prison peacefully requires paying a toll, so everyone knows your supposed to be there.
I can't remember if I've already said this before, but establishing right in the prologue that Littlepip can't die from what she's going through feels bad for the narrative. Let's face it - anybody else cornered in a gangster's hideout like that and giving wiseguy answers like "I used magic." or "Why? Why I came in here?" would get flash-fried with laser guns. Maybe that's how she cheesed her way out of that fight with the alicorn.
Speaking of cheesing the plot, ain't it something how DJ Pon3 seems to know all those goons at the train were from Old Appleoosa, nevermind how they could know their town got shot up or even got ahead to set up an ambush? Sure, Galaxy News Radio knew every little thing in the Capital Wasteland because reasons, but let's not get too carried away with all this copypasta.
Make fun of how news in Fallout 3 keeps looping. Autobiography is even worse than Fallout 3. Wasteland Savior
Autobiography touted as "the good parts version" in epilogue. Leave in filler and gloss over delivering Deadeyes' mail to Red Eye's toady. Wasteland Savior
I'm not kidding about all the filler. You think it's bad enough that old recordings of Diamond Tiara got more showtime than Deadeyes this chapter? Just wait until Red Eye's speeches start bumping up the page count. Believe it or not, Red Eye's the only person in this whole story I can actually stand - no, actually like, - even if his speeches have awkward cadences and ape President Eden's so closely it feels like he's about to mention the joys of baseball.
Tag the Sneak skill. Silent Running Gallop means tapdancing onto a desk while invisible. Wasteland Savior
"My mind reeled. Deadeyes was making deals with the slavers? He was going to let Red Eye’s forces come in and capture the ponies he was supposed to be protecting here?"
Have high Intelligence and above-average Perception. Parrot exposition from two seconds ago and state the obvious. Wasteland Savior
All this talk about Preacher and the Unity's got me thinking - most of what I've been saying about Fallout: Equestria is harsh, but at the same time I'm being fair. Who wants to bet that if I was ripping on Conversion Bureau pig-slop and it's attitude that humans are stupid eeebuhl brutes deserving extinction, I'd be banned so fast it'd set a new record? There's a big difference between treating something with disdain and treating something with outright hatred, and "Burrconium Encounters the Conversion Bureau Mythos" would make "Burrconium Encounters Pony Fallout" look like a friendly Sunday picnic.
The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
I really, really, really, really fucking dislike it when people confuse "hoard" with "horde".
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh235/Valikdu/motivator61a54524aedc9c05405aea437a10f5ef232eeb98.jpg~original