The chronicles of Project Horizons : chapter 58 to 62 (part 1 & 2)

I only wanted to do a quintuple BP but then I saw that the last chapter of Book 4 was split in two parts and I didn't feel like it would be particularly interesting to simply stop at half a chapter. So I pushed on and decided to give you this massive beast of a BP and believe me, I have quite a lot of things to say and believe it or not, I actually have some praise to give on some aspects. People could believe (and I won't blame them) that I utterly despise Project Horizons on the same level that I don't like Fallout:Equestria. However that is not the case.

While I do believe Project Horizons to have some severe flaws within its narratives, characters, character progression and so on, I don't have as much of an issue with it because it is clear that Somber knows the basics of storytelling. From a technical perspective, I could really praise him and point to all the characters or things he did that I find genuinely interesting. The themes he talks about are far more interesting and well-handled. I think I'll make a sort of mini-review at the end of those BP to try and tell you what I mean. For now...

Let's go !

Fair warning : For the sake of my mental health, I'll try to make a thematic focus rather than a chronological one for this BP. It is incredibly long to go through every single things without having something meaningful to say most of the time.

So this chapter is the chapter that I would call "Removing a splinter". Why ? Because the Goddess plot point was boring and the fact that Somber focused as much on it really made the story stakeless. We knew the control by the Goddess would eventually disappear, we knew LittlePip wouldn't die and we knew precisely what was going to happen. I'll even go as far as to say that the character of Lacunae/Psalm was a bit redundant with the character of Rampage : both were characters born from an amalgamation of things alien to them (one was soul, memories and personalities and the other was... emotions and memories), both talked about identity by saying they were nothing since they didn't have a sense of self, etc. They were redundant characters and I would even go as far as saying that this whole Goddess aspect from the very existence of Lacunae herself was superfluous : we knew that BJ would not help Pip in defeating the Goddess and really, I'll go as far as to say that, of all things to hijack, it is really a needless one.

So yes, I don't consider the end of the Goddess arc to be particularly interesting because I don't care about Lacunae that I consider to be a walking plot device with little to no interesting personality. So what happens in this chapter : Blackjack is controlled by the Goddess and she wants to control her to kill LittlePip. So they teleport multiple times towards Maripony, BJ stopping to pick Psalm's Sniper rifle in her locker (because Psalm decided to put her prized Penance in a locker before going on a mission to kill the Mane 6 ?

The opposition of Lacunae against the Goddess is interesting and that's a bit sad that's the most character development Lacunae gets is for the last chapter she's in (unless they resurrect her later but then again, who am I to judge ?). The will to fight despite being a cog in a larger machine could really be interesting, especially with the Goddess having more personality than the "I write in all caps" version of FO:E. Why do I say "could" ? Because for me, Lacunae doesn't have the character to make this scene work. She cries a lot and she'll really fight against the Goddess but ultimately, I think that the lack of true interesting personality (even despite the death fake-out of Hightower Jail). For me, she needed more than just a tear-jerker for me to care truly.

In other news, apparently GB never had access to the Black Book... which is strange since at the beginning, Lacunae seems to say that there was a copy of the Blackbook in Hoofington which is patently false then. It's really a strange plot point but it serves to tell us that GB is interested in slamming a star onto the Earth. Or a Moon.

There's also an explanation about how a balefire megaspell isn't an explosion but a teleportation of fire from somewhere else to the place the spell is. Honestly it's a bit strange so I'm just going to put this here :

“Balefire isn’t normal combustion. It’s not even megaspell combustion, like we thought. It’s more like a megaspell teleportation field. It brings a phenomenal amount of fire from… somewhere else. Don’t ask me where. It could be the sun, or even another world! It has a chaotic element that defies our normal laws of physics. If one of these goes off, spell effects could be disrupted. Worse, just as it teleports fire here, it teleports other material there. It’s almost perfectly destructive.”

Otherwise, I much prefer the details of the Goddess psyche and how her distress caused her attitude at the end. It gives a bit more texture to what was otherwise a pretty uninteresting villain in the original. However, the whole "surviving a nuke" thing that BJ goes through was incredibly unnecessary. Saying that Lacunae has enough magic to shield her from the flames and that they both survived the first blast and that Lacunae healed her completely of all radiations when... BJ goes next to the point of impact later without so much as a spike in rads. It's really pushing the power fantasy element of "BJ is unkillable."

In any case, Harbinger (one of the bad Enclave ponies) died, the Goddess died and for some reason... Twilight find refuge in Lacunae and we have to understand that the one that allowed the other alicorns to have their memories back was Lacunae through the sacrifice of her very self. It's an emotional moment but I won't bother telling you why I felt close to nothing. Super former Lacunae goes to save LittlePip as BJ leaves the scene. I usually don't like how PH needs to put itself at the heart of every single event that the original had on top of showing BJ's adventure as more important, more capital than Pip's but here, I don't mind. Is it still super forceful ? Yes. However, Somber did characterize the Goddess better than Kkat and made her death far more interesting so I'll give him a pass.

What I find funny though is how even Somber dropped the ball in trying to fix that scene. He recontextualized a lot of things but as for explaining how Pip succeeded in getting Red Eye's balefire megaspell, he simply doesn't even try and I don't blame him, it's one of the most incredibly bullshit point of the original and no one should try to cover up this mess.

Then she meets back with her friends after a while and they discuss about their sex life with P-21 and Glory, the coping mechanism of BJ seeming to be tone whiplash. The scene however ends with BJ actually mourning deeply Lacunae, remembering the good moments she had with her while the team's mascot Boo give her some care. Should I call her Scooby Boo ?

********

If I can praise PH for something, it is for the zebra lore because it really feels like Somber worked a lot on that, which was easier since they were a blank slate in the original. He had a lot more issues trying to put his own version of Equestria in accordance with the original but that's nothing new. I won't repeat what Lancer is telling about the details of the lore, just know that it quite interesting. We also have Lancer trying to get back on the "interesting" side by spitting his hate at BJ and saying she always win. It is a fact that she always win, I don't recall her ever suffering a clear cut defeat born from her own actions. Sure, she did some horrible things but that do not change the fact that there is no enemy she didn't manage to defeat or kill (even the Legate had to be saved by Lancer) but Lancer isn't meant to win anyway as we'll see.

P-21 essentially calls Lancer a coward because he doesn't want to face anything not even himself and Lancer then spill out his doubts and everything which is honestly just boring. Every single enemies so far have been demoted to powerful enemies with convictions to either guest members to the BJ gang or poor doubtful wrecks when it isn't that they are controlled by some higher power like Dawn. It's boring to say the least.

After that we get some more lore and something strange where Glory says that the reason that the Sun and Moon moves even with the Princess gone is simply that they usually move on their own but the Princesses just give them nudges. I am not a fan of something that directly contradicts the canon especially since I assumed that in the original, Celestia was moving the Sun and Moon from the SPP (she can cast spells after all even as a soul in the machine.) Whatever, I suppose, it's not essential.

Now the abduction of Celestia that was actually a ploy made by Celestia and Fluttershy to make her defect and negotiate a peace... it's dumb. There's no other word. No one would devise such a braindead plan in such a situation. Somber, stop trying to force a round peg into a square hole to make your rewriting of the original work, it's simply not working.

The meeting with Storm Chaser, the female General of the Enclave is not very interesting and while I find her to be a good character, I simply find the whole scene recapitulating the details of BJ's adventures boring and unnecessary. Essentially, BJ convinces her to not do anything rash while BJ takes care of Lighthooves herself (or try to).

There is a scene where I could nitpick where two fliers deactivates their armor which should make them unable to fly but they still fly and push the dirigible towards Thunderhead. It's nothing important but I just like to notice those details that makes me cock an eyebrow each time. Skipping ahead.

They get Dusk, we learn that Four Stars is called Four Stars in relation to the stars that freed Nightmare moon in the first episode of the show (there is indeed four stars that gravitates towars the Moon but Twilight says "the stars", I went and checked it) and we learn that there is still a secret war going on but who are the actors nobody knows. Mystery... Again.

Lancer leaves the gang to go to Chapel and see his mother and sister, gives his magic invisibility cloak to BJ and then we go to Thunderhead with some lore peppered in.

*******

This chapter is the "Civilization is strange" chapter but I'll try to be swift about it because nothing truly important happens. BJ instantly mastered the cloud-walking spell because of course she did and a few moments later we meet Moonshadow, Dusk and Glory's elder sister. I really like this character because she is grounded, as her priorities straight and isn't starting as an ass-kisser to the BJ gang and it's amusing to see that the tertiary characters are still the ones that are the best written in this fiction. Moonshadow has a real nice head on her shoulders and she does have some convictions ! Fucking awesome ! More of that please.

Later we meet Mare Do Well for the first time who acts like any Batman wannabe would and essentially shimmer away into nothingness as if she had just been a dream. Nobody believes BJ except P21 and we move on to the "Civilization is weird" part of the chapter : ponies living their lives in peace, electricity giving life to screens, etc. Essentially, BJ is hiding with her cloak and all the other are either in armor or wears plastic horns to make it look like their the unicorns allowed in Thunderhead.

Some more Lore about the Enclave and a poop joke later, we saw some flash news that reeks of propaganda and the most amusing of all : LittlePip and Blackjack's life being turned into a cartoon. I don't really know what to say, the joke is a bit too random for my tastes and it does give a bit too much of self-agrandizing on the part of Somber but I suppose it's harmless.

Then a fight and runaway sequence later, BJ is saved by Chicanery that makes it look like it was just a publicity stunt for the new cartoon, Wastelander. Well, it seems that it's less than harmless then... We learn that he created the cartoon thanks to a contrived plot device called the Perceptitron and that allows to see through the eyes and hear through the ears of anyone wearing a Pipbuck. It's an extremely specific and useless device and I really don't know how Pipbucks can constantly send out signals to be intercepted by other Pipbucks or prototypes so the whole explanation seems rancid to me. Especially since we know that most Pipbucks don't have a broadcaster module.

We learn later that there are Satellites in space and that one of them is sending signals to start Project Horizons and there's also someone sending a signal from Black Pony Mountain, most certainly where BJ was with Boing but it seems that the place is enchanted for people to not care about it. A sort of passive enchantment. Very mysterious indeed.

Then fight with Lighthooves where we learn his true name is Legerdemain and Chicanery is his brother. After an actually smart way of using spells to run away, BJ is taken care by a pegasus named Skyshine and a whole joke about abusive relationship is made. The joke is a bit too long to be funny for me but it's the thought that counts.

We meet the Dr Morningstar and in few words : he works on a cure for the Killing Joke poison and he has a Small Project Chimera Tree in his lab, hinting at something I assume. After that, BJ goes to bed before waking up and noticing a huge trail of blood leading to the Sky Striker househould where she meets Dawn that killed Councilor Star Gazer and its retinue. CLIFFHANGER OHMURGURD !

*****

Fight with Dawn. Dawn is bitchslapped by Cognitum which feels like a Goddess 2.0. Dawn says that BJ has been betrayed by someone in her group. BJ wins but Dawn flees. BJ then is captured by the Enclave. I really have to say... Cognitum really feels like the Goddess from FO:E : she speaks in all caps, she is all about people obeying her or dying and she speaks in an old timey way that makes me think of Luna but I believe in PH to not make Luna a part of Cognitum because then i would have to burn this poor fiction for reaching so hard it hurts.

Then we have a scene where BJ is locked up. Stratus, the stallion that arrested her, gloats about going to kill he friends like a bad villain then Chicanery comes to talk about his brother a bit (can you tell I don't care about Lighthooves motivations ? Because I don't, the Enclave has like two characters that I don't want to see die, otherwise, I have no personal investment.) Then she finds a memory orb in the vent that she uses to speak with Chicanery and...

No. For fuck sake can you stop with the Pinkie Pie Oracle of the Ages crap ? This Memory Orb is about telling Dash the Memory orbs she'll have to put everywhere LittlePip and BJ will need it. However, Pinkie is talking not as if she has intuitions, she literally saw multiples futures a la Dr Strange and she decided that the Wasteland one was the best of all and that they deserve to die for what they did. Honestly, telling Dash, a general, that Equestria deserves to die and there's nothing you can do about it feels not quite... logical to me. Sure, she's an emotional wreck but I also find her a bit too... easy-going with Pinkie. We're talking world annihilation here.

Then more dead bodies, she can escape and when she meet up with Rampage, this one is being uncharacteristically bitchy. I suppose it's to be a red herring now that we know that there's a traitor in the team but honestly, Rampage seems too obvious but then again I don't see any other active members of the team betraying her. So I suppose it's Zodiac. There's also a teenage level of romance with BJ being flustered about knowing if P-21 actually loves her or not. Did I say that he was dead to me ? I think I did.

BJ kills a pinned down enemy with repeated bullets to the head (and not the gun I assume she's trying to stop ?) and kills her in the process. So much for not being an executioner ? Then after another battle well-handled, they meet up with Mare Do Well who just happened to be there and follow her to the Mare Lair (well, at least he doesn't do things halfway). So quickly, we learn that Mare Do well has eyes everywhere, that she is called GrandMa by Lighthooves because she is working with him but has been double-crossed by him because she didn't know about the virus affecting pegasi and we also learn to the surprise of no one that Mare Do well is actually Rainbow Dash the Ghoul. Because of course. Lighthooves can also control the beam towers of the Core.

So... Rainbow Dash is alive and is focused on the Enclave and not the Wasteland that she so dearly wanted to save. She was killed by Gilda but radiations revived her and she has been meddling with Thunderhead politics ever since but... she never thought of going to the SPP ? Using it to actually do something ? It seems quite strange to have Rainbow alive when her existence could have been used for a lot of things. Just saying for 200 years, I'm a horrible person seems... strange to me, especially for Rainbow who is all about acting. I'm a bit miffed. Hell even her comments about how Luna was evil for thinking of the SPP as a weapon... You're trying to make approve an extremely costly, lengthy and ressource-heavy project just to free some pegasi when the project is finished... OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO NEED TO SEE THE POTENTIAL OF IT AS MORE THAN JUST A GLORIFIED STRESS RELIEVER.

Somber, stop trying to reframe scenes of the original... You're not good at it.

Then BJ goes to save Glory, makes a passionate speech, gets hijacked by Lighthooves and Glory goes back to being one-winged Glory instead of RD just to spite her abductor. I don't know why Killing Jokes effect have a time limit for our heroes but for others, nope. 200 years as a tree for FS and months if not years for Capricorn and Pisces. I hate those plot device plants. Panic in the Enclave, Neighvarro is ready to strike.

******

Chapter 62 at last ! It's a long one so I'll try to really focus on the most important part because honestly, most of it are fights upon fights upon fights.

BJ goes with Rampage and Boo to the Tower while the rest of the Gang stays in Thunderhead with Glory making a cure for the disease. Chaos everywhere. BJ meets with Storm Chaser and convinces her that she's the good guy by having a tantrum and then after a good long while they are attacked by Cyberponies loyal to Lighthooves. Fighting. A Captain dies and the Cyberponies are mostly dealt with and the General is down and seems to be dying.

Seems.

Doctor Octopus emerge from Rampage and saves her life so there's that. He also makes a psychological profile of Lighthooves where he essentially says that he is a self-destructive moron that tries to take revenge on the world for his own problems. It's a bit of a letdown to just reduce Lighthooves to a conceited child pulling a tantrum. Then again, since when does any villain in this series can have the dignity to have convictions and stand by them not out of spite but out of resolve. He hates himself so he wants to break everything, that's the gist of it.

One Raptor is blown out of the sky but BJ uses her EC-1101 to just shut down the Towers and one of them explode. Then we learn that the General has been demoted and she's asked to bombard Thunderhead and here we have a nice character moment where she has her life's work being pulled from under her and... Rampage and BJ gives her a pep talk helped in that by the crew and they decide to go back and join the fray. Storm Chaser really is a nice character and I like that she had her moment.

Then BJ starts her plan and infiltrates the tower by going near the base of the cloud layer and using her sword to enter a vent access.

********

She infiltrates the tower. Fighting. We learn that Doctor Mephitis was a hero for the Enclave (the doctor who abandoned the zebra to devour each other in Yellow River) and that Chicanery is drunk as fuck. We also learn that there is a Stable in the Tower : Stable 96. She meets with Chicanery's mom, says that they'll evacuate them towards Stable 99. We also learn that Dr Mephitis is Lighthooves ancestor and that he became the madman we know now after he went to visit Yellow River.

There's more discussion about what being a cyberpony does to the mind with BJ being the very definition of preachy to everyone around her. However, there's a point where they can't break through the defenses of the enemy and BJ needs to go through more... cyberpony upgrades and the Dealer says this :

“Steelpony is in your PipBuck, as am I. I can interface with it and help smooth things along,” he replied quietly. “I’ve been there when you’ve been worked on in the past. I know which files to use.”

Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember quite clearly that BJ sent Steelpony to Zodiac and never had it back. I remember it because BJ was surprised and scared that the Project wasn't in her Pipbuck anymore. This is an important detail because the integrality of her new upgrades resides in Steelpony being in her Pipbuck.

Then we have a scene of horror where BJ goes through her change while awake. It's a horrible scene where we learn more about the Enclave and where ultimately, BJ becomes a cyber alicorn... oh, and she's pregnant with P-21's child too. Scooby Boo also gets to learn her first word 'Bwackjack'. It's cute but she remains just a mascot for now.

Joke and fighting ensues, the Stable 96 people are in the process of being helped and she flies towards the top of the tower. She reaches it by the skin of her teeth but lose her sword and is saved by Mare Do Well that decided to chime in. She also have a dream of Echo's sentence to become a ghost in the machine that is EC-1101. If the device were to not come back to Luna, Echo's soul and mind would disappear.

See if I care.

Blackjack makes sure everyone is evacuating and BJ asks Glory and friends to convince every pegasi to push Thunderhead away from the Tower. Just that. Also, Blackjack outsmarted Lighthooves by forcing him to confess his sins since he wanted to do it because he hates himself, hoping to turn his crew against him but when they do, he activates a command that simply kills all the cyberponies. I'm curious about why BJ wasn't affected by the command but it must be because Echo did the job so perhaps he just circumvented it.

They fight and eventually, Lighthooves loses and BJ is offering him a second chance... I really don't want to repeat myself ad nauseam and do a repeat of what I said with Sanguine because that's the exact same scenario except here, Lighthooves as humiliated as he is, still don't want to be forgiven and allowed to live.

What do I think of this confrontation ? Nothing much. I would have done without making Lighthooves a pathetic fool that was torn by the sins of his ancestors, I would have done without the endless "I'm not an executioner" when I do remember her killing Clink, her rapist, not so long ago. I guess she still hasn't realized how empty this sentence is. I would like to say more but BJ essentially won because Lighthooves couldn't help but scream his sins to everyone and because BJ is just invincible.

Then, she makes a Megaspell explodes or rather implodes in the Tower, destroying the major party of it and here we have a really impressive description of the power of the spell and it is quite the finale for Book 4. We even finish with BJ being crushed by a Raptor and a running gag. Isn't that swell ?

You noticed that as usual I skipped the fight but they are pretty well choregraphed and pretty intense if you care for the spectacle but they also are too heavily present in those chapters. It's either an asset or a fault of PH but it's clearly used a lot...

Closing thoughts : Book 4 end and honestly, while we got some really nice characters, I regret that Lighthooves ended up being so pathetic. He might be the most interesting villain of all in this fiction but that just means that all of them are quite pathetic.