Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons Reviews: Chapter 1 · 1:13am Nov 21st, 2016
Made by Emma Kaze.
Honestly, I'm not sure what to say here.
Project Horizons is possibly the single most divisive fanfiction ever written within the Fallout: Equestria fandom, you either love it or you hate it. I've been reading it and honestly other than some moments in it being wham moments, I've enjoyed it for the most part. However I've been hesitant to review any of it for personal reasons.
Then the other day I posted a thread asking if anyone wanted me to review any fanfics in particular, and Somber asked me to do one of Project Horizons. So here we are, I'm going to approach this as fairly and unbiased as I can
So, with that said, lets begin.
---Chapter 1: Inception---
Video owned by Legendary Pictures.
War. War never changes. It had consumed our home, a war fought by foreign aggressors until great and terrible magics had been unleashed to burn all the world to ash and dust. Only our constant devotion to the Princesses had carried us through that terrible war, just as our unwavering faith in the Overmare maintained our continued survival within the earth. Trust in the Overmare; obey the Overmare.
The Overmare is love, the Overmare is life.
So our narrator protagonist wakes up in Stable 99, and we get our first real introduction to Blackjack when she falls out of bed, and she doesn't exactly come across as a pony who's thrilled to live in Stable 99. We learn a bit about life in Stable 99, it seems to be regulated by schedules since Blackjack seems to only have an hour and a half to get ready in the morning before she has to report for duty.
Blackjack then seems to be strangely fascinated with the bottles on her dresser and the idea of a fermentation experiment as she calls it... or colonization by their future fungal overlords.
Video owned by Fox
So as Blackjack goes to showers and we get some of the Overmare's propaganda, and its not particularly subtle, you get a definite feeling of totalitarianism from Stable 99, very George Orwell of you Somber. When Blackjack reached the communal showers she found two mares Pastels and Misty Hooves participating in, uh, unconventional washing techniques, which as it turns out is punishable by flogging if done in public areas of the Stable.
So Blackjack sends the two lovers back to their quarters to finish things up, and we get the feeling that Stable 99 is a bit, uh crazy at times given that they need ways to pass the time. But also there is a lot of indications that the Stable is starting to fall apart and that maintenance is working hard to keep it running given the alternative is pretty much everypony leaving or dying.
Its also at this point that we learn more about life in Stable 99, jobs are passed down from mother to daughter. Blackjack for example being the daughter of a security mare is a security mare as well (though not a particularly good one). This also marks the first mention of the incident, though its not particularly clear what the Incident was right now.
So Blackjack chases after a mare named Midnight, which gets her caught by a pony named Daisy and put into hoofcuffs. This is also where we first learn that Blackjack's magical ability is limited to telekinesis, so she doesn't even know the spell to get her released from the hoofcuffs, and then we get this line:
I knew I’d never save 99.
Remember this line for later in the fanfic.
So when we get to the Atrium we start to get the feeling that Security isn't exactly well liked in the Stable given the general reaction to Blackjack. We also get a look at how food works in the Stable by recycling, well, everything including waste and the dead ponies, this is a rather unpleasant thought, but there's not much you can really do about that.
So we get some rather awkward conversation with Midnight and some rather bad attempts on Blackjack's part to try and get into Midnight's, uh... well they don't really wear pants do they... you know what I mean. This also marks the first mention of the queue, Rivet mentioning that Midnight's turn in it is up so she doubts that she'd have any time for Blackjack.
Then comes the first mention of Duct Tape and her daughter, more specifically Duct Tape who had died a week previously while trying to fix the Overmare's terminal which blew up in her face, leaving her daughter Scotch Tape to take her spot in maintenance.
Rivet also mentions that the Overmare has been having ponies under her do a lot of odd jobs, you get a very strong implication that the Overmare isn't exactly right in the head. There's a mention of a card game going on that night.
When Blackjack goes to the evening Briefing there is a lot of talk about the Stable and what's been going on, and of course a disturbingly enthusiastic Daisy who wants to whip one of the offenders who had been hoarding Med-X. Its at that point that we learn a bit more about the Stable:
Everypony in Stable 99 had a job assigned to them from birth. Maintenance ponies maintained, security ponies secured, and baker ponies baked. The forty or so males in Stable 99 were no different: they were breeding equipment. From birth, they had their segregated quarters in medical and were signed out by mares for reproductive purposes and, more frequently, recreational. There were twenty unicorns and twenty earth ponies on the breeding rotation. Once a male reached… how old was it? Twelve? Fifteen? -- they were put into breeding. Of course, to keep the number in rotation the same, that meant that a male had to be taken out of breeding and retired.
In this case the latest Earth Pony to be "retired" P-21 had escaped and was somewhere in the Stable, so its the job of the next shift to try and track him down.
So we learn that the head of security Gin Rummy is Blackjack's mom and she dispels the hoofcuffs that Blackjack has been stuck in this entire time. There is a bit of talk between the two about why she had been hoofcuffed and when she leaves she overhears Midnight being kicked out of the Overmare's office.
That's when Blackjack finds out that the Overmare had been having Maintenance look for a program, which had been found but it was encrypted. Midnight had been threatened by the Overmare because she had been unable to copy it into a PipBuck, Blackjack of course tries to hit on the head of maintenance again, with about as much luck as last time.
We then learn more about the structure of Stable 99, with the lowest levels being run by Rivet, essentially giving her and the ponies under her free reign. Blackjack at this point comes to the south in order to play, well, blackjack with Rivet and other mares. There's some talk about Daisy, then there's a brief mention of Blackjack's mother and the possibility of her doing more for the stable, possibly even taking it over from the Overmare.
Of course the maintenance ponies are understandably concerned about the Overmare, I can't possibly imagine why anypony would be worried about the crazy pony who's constantly giving everypony strange jobs. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Overmare has gone mad with power by this point.
Video owned by Fox
Wow, two Simpsons jokes in one review.
So after some talk about possibly rebelling against the Overmare, Blackjack finally has enough of it and leaves the game and starts looking for P-21. What I find interesting here is that its stated that most of the Stallions just report to Security for, uh, retirement. This means that the males are for the most part resigned to their fate, its only on very rare occasions that they do anything like what P-21 is doing. Blackjack is tracking a yellow mark on her EFS to try and find him, but instead she finds a filly, more specifically Scotch Tape, Duct Tape's daughter.
Yeah, this is now super awkward, Blackjack tries to reassure the filly, which goes about as well as you expect from Blackjack, she's not exactly great with kids. Its also at this point that we learn a little more about the Incident:
I couldn’t help but reach out and touch the steel walls of the stable. Somepony had daubed ‘Fuck the Overmare’ on the gray metal in flaking white paint. A shout of rebellion from the Incident almost a century ago, the last time the stable had torn itself apart. Back then, it’d been stallions challenging the Overmare and the rules imposed by Stable-Tec when the stable had been established. Today, it was Rivets against the Overmare.
Yeah, apparently it had been Stallions that caused the incident, big shock there given how Stallions are treated in the Stable.
We learn a little bit about this P-21, apparently he had a reputation for disappearing so there wasn't a huge surprise that he had managed to escape. Blackjack can't seem to quite remember what he looked like, and she comments that males aren't supposed to be smart like that.
Yes, smart, like you are Blackjack.
So she finally finds P-21 hiding in one of the storage areas, first confusing him for a mare until she took a closer look. Apparently he had planned to make a life for himself in this area away from the Overmare. Blackjack gives him the standard spiel of having to go to medical for retirement, but he asks that she just kill him, its what was going to happen anyway after all. Blackjack refuses of course and leads him upstairs, but not before P-21 refers to a him and calls Blackjack and everypony else a murderer, this seems to rattle Blackjack.
But before Blackjack can take him to security, they get ambushed by Daisy and Marmalade who have decided to take matters into their own hooves and kill P-21. Blackjack of course objects because Security isn't supposed to retire the males, but its pretty clear that Daisy and Marmalade don't care about regulations and start beating P-21 for "resisting security."
That's when something snaps in Blackjack, and we get the first real sign of Blackjack's character, she attacks Marmalade first, catching her completely off guard before she goes after Daisy. She uses S.A.T.S. and bashes Daisy's head in, and after getting a message from Security the two psycho mares let Blackjack and P-21 go.
Of course P-21 isn't exactly in the best shape so she asks Scotch Tape to go get a medical kit and then P-21 asks her why she had helped him. She's not really sure why either, but believes that it was what she had to do. She finds out that he doesn't have a name other than his designation, and Scotch Tape comes back with a medical kit to help heal the stallion. They use Med-X and fix up his leg, and Scotch Tape runs off to get back to work, P-21 asks Blackjack why she keeps rescuing him when he's just going to die anyway, and we get this bit of dialogue.
“Well, I can’t stop that. But I can at least try and help you. It’s what security mares are supposed to do.”
I have to say, that was a good line from Blackjack.
So after bringing P-21 to Security, Blackjack has a run-in with the Overmare. Dear Celestia I hate the Overmare of Stable 99, admittedly its not always a great role but she's just downright insufferable. It seems that she thinks of P-21 as her own personal Stallion, and its just wrong on so many levels. On top of that she's paranoid about Rivet and the rest of maintenance rebelling.
Okay, so crazy doesn't necessarily mean wrong.
However while the Overmare is distracted, Blackjack on prompting from P-21 copies files from his PipBuck onto her's. The Overmare finds the PipBuck and orders that everything on it is deleted, then tells all the security ponies but Blackjack to get armed and she's put into a cell along with P-21. The Overmare doesn't trust Gin Rummy who had been keeping Rivet from being arrested, which of course was because Rivet was keeping the Stable from falling apart.
Have I mentioned that I don't like the Overmare?
So while trapped in the cell she starts going through the files she had copied over, including an audio file of P-21 and the Overmare uh... in a rather uncompromising position when Duct Tape comes in. The Overmare talks a lot about the good of the Stable and everything, offering Duct Tape to be able to have more time with P-21 in return for her silence.
Of course P-21 doesn't seem too fond of the idea of helping Stable 99 and honestly I can't blame him. He's basically been used as breeding stock, and he just wants to be free. He agrees to help Blackjack deal with the Overmare, but he wants to be able to leave the Stable, even if he'd die, he'd at least die free.
Video owned by, umm, MGM I think, I don't actually know.
So P-21 literally pulls an escape plan out of his ass, he starts to pick the lock. That's when we get a bit of a bomb dropped on us from a second audio file of P-21 and Duct Tape:
“The Overmare has gotten in contact with Stable-Tec! The outside is safe and clean and we’re all going to be able to leave the stable soon!”
I'm sure I don't have to say how many things are wrong with that if you're even a little bit familiar with the universe of Fallout: Equestria. And of course its not paradise out there from what Duct Tape says, but she just thinks its winter, a fair enough assumption but incorrect.
This of course marks the first mention of the mysterious EC-1101, the Platinum Chip of Project Horizons to make a reference to Fallout: New Vegas. Apparently Stable-tec, or whoever is pretending to be them, is asking for it. There's talk about whether or not to trust the Overmare until finally Duct Tape agrees to further encrypt the file to keep it out of the Overmare's hooves.
So P-21 gets the cell open and makes a comment that he had figured out how to pick locks while he had nothing else to do. Blackjack leaves the Security station to go and find her mother so that she can get help in stopping the Overmare before she goes too far. However she can't find her in her quarters, so she leaves a note and heads for Midnight's quarters.
So of course because this fanfic loves putting Blackjack in awkward positions, she walks in on Midnight and U-10. Midnight is of course freaking out, but Blackjack explains that she needs her help intercepting the transmission that the Overmare was getting. She finally manages to get it open and its a text file:
Stable-Tec security forces incoming tonight, 0100 hours. Have EC-1101 prepared for extraction. You’re doing the right thing, Overmare. You’ll be getting control of your stable back. Deus.
Midnight tells Blackjack that she had prepared EC-1101 to be transferred to a PipBuck, with the complication that it can't be transferred again after that. That's when she looks at the time and realizes its 0122, and then the door opens and a really dangerous looking mare comes inside and kills U-10.
Blackjack tries to attack the strange mare with her baton who tried to kill her, but Blackjack manages to kill her instead with great difficulty. By this point, its clear that Stable 99 is under attack by outside forces, especially when she finds out that the mare had taken a PipBuck from one of her fellow Security Mares Snowdrop. She manages to calm the panicking Midnight down and told her to get everypony down below.
Blackjack manages to ambush and overpower one of the other attacking ponies, and that's when she finds out that the mare had been eating a filly, and dear Celestia no matter how many times I read that kind of thing its just, wrong. So Blackjack goes out after taking out the cannibal pony and overhears a conversation talking about the attack and mentioning Raiders as well as the Reapers, the Flash Fillies, and the Halfheart gang.
Blackjack kills one of the ponies but is caught off guard by the other, only to have him get attacked by her mother. Blackjack fills Gin Rummy in on everything she knows, and reaches the conclusion that she has to leave the Stable with EC-1101 in order to save it.
As she tries to make her way out of the Stable, she encounters Deus for the first time, and he's about as fun as you'd expect from a psychotic cyberpony. Which means they need a new plan to get out, and Blackjack comes up with one, she dresses up as one of the ponies she killed and disguises herself so that she pass as her.
Yeah, dressing as the enemy trope.
So Blackjack makes it to the bad guys and... dear Celestia I don't know what to say about this scene. While he's not named yet, Deus basically threatens to rape Blackjack, what a nice guy he is. Then when he learns that the program they're after is unable to be transferred and Blackjack gets a bit of a surprise when she finds out that one of the attackers is the "retired" U-21, who she then knocks out.
This is also when we get some of the first indications of the Raiders being, uh... well I'll get to that in a future review, I have some thoughts on that and I want to save them.
Blackjack kills one of the attackers while trying to make her way to the console, and apparently Daisy is still a colossal jerk because she attacks Blackjack again. Seriously, your home is under attack and you're still trying to do this? I swear this pony is crazy. Though Marmalade seems to want Blackjack to stay, apparently she had seen Blackjack as a friend.
So after, well, the usual amount of drama, Blackjack says that she wants to leave with P-21, who of course is absolutely thrilled with the idea, leading to some insults directed at Blackjack. He however agrees to it, and they get the program transferred to Blackjack's PipBuck. She accesses the Overmare's terminal and finds a list of the Overmare's enemies.
So with Deus hot on their heels, Blackjack and P-21 run for the Stable door.
---Final Thoughts---
Okay, this was the longest review I've written to date, and probably the most difficult review do date. I mean no disrespect to Somber, but this chapter was long and hard to get through. You may notice that I glossed over some of the more, explicit details, mostly because I wasn't really that comfortable with going into detail on those. This will be true for any future reviews as well.
So, my thoughts on the fanfic itself, or at least this chapter of it. Despite the fact that it was difficult to get through, I actually enjoyed this first chapter, and I've enjoyed the rest of the fanfic so far. It does well to establish Blackjack's character and backstory, as well as setting up Deus and being the first mention of Sanguine, both of which will continue to appear for awhile.
While Project Horizons tends to be divisive, I at least think that it's off to a good start, I want to thank Somber for requesting the review.
Chapter 1 of Project Horizons gets a score of 5/5 for quality and characterization.
Fallout: Equestria belongs to KKat.
Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons belongs to Somber.
Next week, we leave the Hoof and explore the world of a more, interesting idea for a Fallout: Equestria fanfic, one of machines, zebras, and cyborgs.
Made by Metallica.
Simply so no one assy can say it in a mean way right off the bat
WWWHHHYYYY??? WHY WOULD YOU REVIEW THIS OMG YOU H8 FOE YOU HATE MLP I HATE YOU
and now no one can use like an a
hole
COOKIES FOR EVERYPONY
Also good review as usual.
4310687 Well, as long as no one else makes them anyway.
Thanks.
.
Great review! I love your usage of YouTube videos, they compliment the rest nicely.
Maybe someday I'll get around to finishing Chapter 2 of PH...
10/10
Quality review.
Fun fact:
I discovered Fallout Equestria through a fanart of BlackJack on instagram by one of my favorite artist at the time...
I also bet that nobody who reads this gives a crap!
:D
4310740 Actually I find it interesting, always interesting to find out how people found it.
4310710 Yeah, I like the use of the YouTube videos, I work hard to make sure they work as a joke for the review.
Thank you very much. On reflection, I would have been better off splitting the first chapter in 2, and breaking where the raider first appears. As far as the explicitness... yeah... that's a thing I really need to work on.
Still, thank you very much for the review. It was instructive.
4311782 Yeah, length was the biggest problem here, this review took hours to finish.
You're welcome, I plan to review chapter 2 at some point but I haven't decided when yet.
Saw your recent comment on PH's page saying you reviewed Project Horizons chapter 3 and that was intriguing to browse into how many different FoE stories you've reviewed chapter by chapter. Very nice work. A good archive. (Jackpot for FoE fans) I like your review style and bringing videos to drive home a point or emphasize. The foreshadowing is certainly there in PH's 1st chapter, but you make it a bit more obvious with some revealing or subtle highlights. I've read the entire story of Project Horizons once before, and doing so again for the first volume or so. Was kind of surprised at first you did not mention how 'Stable-Tec security forces' treated the Overmare. If for a personal reason you do not mention, if at all possible, the sexual content side to the story, well I can respect that. I'll be back to read your chapter 2 review as a refresher. Honestly, Project Horizons can be as divisive as you say, but nevertheless I hope you enjoy the story for what it is. For a story of its size, seriously how does it not have a wiki itself or more in depth summaries? I search for these reviews by chapter and volumes because there is so many details, plot elements, etc all going on and not to be forgotten later.