The Morale Officer Orb · 10:14am Sep 27th, 2013
After the wonderful reception for my blogging of "The Motorwagon Orb", I decided to occasionally share other bits of writing that I have done for my Fallout: Equestria roleplaying campaigns. Again, please remember that these are not canon (they are headcanon at best), so please to not fret if this clashes with anyone else's games or side stories.
The orb below was actually used in both of my campaigns. The orb's purpose was two-fold. I needed to give the player's characters in-game knowledge of things Littlepip learned about through a memory orb that the game's PCs could not possibly have access to. At the same time, creating this memory orb allowed a glimpse at the actual warfare -- a view from the battlefield.
As before, the memory orb is written in second person, present tense.
Enjoy! 
<-=======ooO The Morale Officer Orb Ooo=======->
Your senses rush back to you, hauling you out of brief oblivion. Your host’s body aches from over-exertion, her muscles fighting strain and fatigue. You feel the press of riot armor, separated from her coat by a film of sweat and grit and the helmet crushing her mane, a small microphone hovering before her muzzle. The world smells of blood and burnt flesh and dirt. The air feels oppressive, the dark clouds blanketing the sky above holding an impending rainstorm that just won't break.
Your host’s ears catch a high-pitched whine, and then are deafened by the explosion that sends gouts of fire and a storm of dirt into the foxhole. Your host rolls, covering her eyes and muzzle. Her ears are ringing, the voices of the other ponies clad in combat barding sound distant as they call out to her and each other. One of them picks his assault rifle up in his teeth and scoots over to the embankment.
Your host follows, rolling back over and peeking up out of the foxhole. On the hillside ahead, beyond the broken bodies of pony and zebra corpses, beyond the burned-out husk of an Equestrian tank, looms the bulk of a zebra walker. The zebra battle machine rests at an odd tilt between grass and sky. The walker’s spider-like legs are little more than wreckage, turning what was once a mobile firing platform into an oddly-canted pillbox.
Muzzle-flashes light up inside the gunnery windows, spraying a hail of bullets towards the foxhole. The bullets slam into the dirt, hissing little plumes of smoke, as your host dodges back into safety. The bullets are on fire.
Your host catches the muffled-sounding “Woohoo!” of one of the soldier ponies behind her as a dark figure shoots overhead, trailing a cloud of smoke. The world seems to shake as an explosion rips apart the landscape where the “pillbox” used to be, a mushroom-shaped cloud bellowing upwards as a ring of electrical static washes across the sky above the foxhole.
A moment later, the figure of a rainbow-maned Shadowbolt zips into view. “They’re on the run now! Forward!”
Your host hops up, shucking on the battle saddle laying next to her – a battle saddle not filled with firearms and ammo, but bristling with musical instruments -- and kicking a lever by her left hind hoof. “You heard Her, everypony!” she calls out cheerfully to her companions, her voice sounding odd over the ringing in her ears. You can feel something stir along her back. She glances behind her as the pole rises up from her battle saddle, the flag of Equestria unfurling.
Galloping forward out of the dirt pit, she cries out, “The day is ours! To victory!” Her voice, filled with happy patriotism, is amplified by speakers on her battle saddle. Several of the instruments begin to play, performing a rousing anthem. “For Stalliongrad!”
Suddenly, PAIN! Your host screams as you feel her armor and body perforated, her internal organs catching fire. She collapses, fighting back the tears as she shakes in growing agony.
It lasts forever. You witness as the flames consume her eyes, turning the world black. And it keeps getting worse. Then… finally, mercifully, the fire begins to fully consume the mare’s nerves, killing off her ability to feel the torture.
Oblivion reaches out to consume your senses once again…
…then withdraws. But with it, so does the pain and the darkness. Your host gasps, staring at mud and grass, feeling the odd bits of her armor that did not burn fully away, and the drops of rain that fall against her coat where it did.
Her ears are not even ringing anymore. The sound of the battlefield is eerily silent.
Then, somewhere in the distance, she hears clearly the voice of the rainbow-maned mare crying out:
“What did you do?! Fluttershy! What. Did. You. Do?!”
<-=======ooO Ooo=======->
Hmm, I'd like to get in on one of these RP sessions, if only because all other Rps I've gotten involved have always ended up having the others devolving it into an orgy that would make Slaneesh proud with me quietly sitting in a corner occasionally sniping a radroach or two.
EDIT: On second thought, I just remembered I can't roleplay for shit.
Really enjoyed that one. Very atmospheric.
I like it, offers insight into things we don't get to see in the main fallout: equestria story, even if it's non-cannon. still nice to see different sides of an event, you know?
Dammit, there it is again.
That last line gave me that feeling again I love so much from Fallout.
That damn shiver that runs up and down your spine...
Great job Kkat! I would so love to get in a Group with you once, but I guess time zones prevent that. >.<
I really, really, really love this one. Not only is it nicely woven into the battle, it also shows a bit of your headcanon. You know, with the whole permanently-altered-ponies-who-fought-in-the-battle-for-Stalliongrad thingy.
It's very nice to read little pieces of fiction from you every now and again. I hope that you have time next year and write something... well, more... substantial, so to speak. Like a whole new story or an Fo:E one-shot, maybe?
Extremely intriguing. Morale officers do seem to be the kind of soldiers that Equestria would field.
Not to bring the side stories into this, which I'm sure people do all the time, but this really reminds me of a Project Horizons moment when a zebra remarked that pony combat effectiveness was recorded as increasing by over 70% while singing.
Have you considered putting your various memory orb pieces together as a compilation story?
1379186
"Random Apocaliptic Memorabilia" Needs to be a fic. Right now.
Please?
-Wrote F:E
-Says that your idea's are just headcanon
-When you wrote the canon
Oh god I love you.
Oh! This is a scene from the battlefield where Fluttershy first deployed the healing megaspell, right? The one where they all had to fight the same battle, again?
1379144
I laughed forever when I heard that.
What else was written under that article? I think it was something like, "It is advised to retreat until the song is over". I had a good kick at that part.
I remember it was in a zebra training manual or something.
If Pip and Velvet had ever gotten together, how do you think it would have occurred, and what implications would it have had for Fo:E?
This was really interesting. Generally, I prefer ones that have canon characters interacting, but this was a pretty iconic point in the war.
Also, how do earth ponies and pegasi get information from memory orbs? Are the parties all unicorns, or does a unicorn just relay anything they found in the orb?
Oh wow, the unleashing of the healing megaspell. I remember Project Horizons did almost this exact same scene from the perspective of a dying Applesnack, though of course in that story the battle was near Hoofington rather than Stalliongrad. But it's almost eerie how similar the scenes turned out otherwise. Rainbow Dash in particular acts almost exactly the same in both versions. Coincidence, I'm sure, but I still found it funny.
Star Wars has a thing called "G-Canon". It basically means that whatever comes out of George Lucas's crazy little mind is indisputably canon, and overrides every other piece of source material that conflicts with it.
Personally, that's the way I prefer to look at these orbs. As far as I'm concerned, they are "K-Kanon".
nice, totaly had forgot about that first time the megaspell was used.
Ahh, Kkat, you never fail to make me want to go read FO:E all over again with these blog posts. I'm sure you've heard all the praise that there is to hear by now.
So, have you ever decided on what kind of new story you want to write yet? I'm scratching my head trying to guess what you're going to do this time around.
Wow, I had no idea of the existence of this roleplaying, does anybody knows if people who don't roleplay can read these campaings?
1383750 That's how I've always felt, hehe.
1379144 That's a good point, actually.
I'm late reading this, but its a very interesting look at that moment from a soldier's-eye view.
NitoKa recently did a reading of this as a warm-up exercise for audiobooking.
Moral officers... you mean like, Commissars?
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