The chronicles of Project Horizons : chapter 70 · 3:08am Jan 6th, 2019
We reached the last ten chapters of this fiction and you don't know how much I want to put this fiction behind me (even if I'm going to make blogposts that will talk about different aspect of the fictions after this but at least I won't have to reread a chapter to make a BP each time. The time I'll save will be insane.) So without delay...
Let's go !
After deciding to let Goldenblood the mass murderer lead the Resistance Army, our student of the month Blackjack decided to go on a little adventure to call the Highlanders and the Hellhounds for help. We also learn that the Twilight Society... who was supposed to have been reformed in some manners by LittlePip are still assholes ready to fry Hoofington at a moment's notice. At least, it does adress the obvious elephant in the room but... why is it so hard to differentiate allies from enemies ? The enemies are the Zebrabots and the allies... not the Zebrabots. So sorry if that passage doesn't convince me :
“You don’t understand,” he shook his head. “When I say act, I don’t mean against your enemy. I mean against the Hoof. They’ll fire up Celestia One and burn anything that looks hostile to slag. The Core. The Brood. Your forces. With how complicated things are here, telling friends from enemies is too much trouble and too much of a risk compared to shooting everything that moves. We won against Red Eye and the Enclave, and now they’re... concerned... about the events out here and losing them everything they’ve gained.”
Just as a reminder, the Celestia one is so precise it can destroy a single unit on command and they did use it like that during the Red Eye war so taking them out of the picture really feels... badly done. Taking the Celestia One could have been easily done by simply saying that... the place wasn't under the sun rays so they couldn't use the Celestia One. It would be simple enough and it would not make the Twilight Society another "antagonist" faction in this mess of a fiction. Fabricated drama of that level is really easy to spot but all in all, the Twilight Society will remain a rather useless faction.
Then we have Homage sharing her worries related to Pip and a rather... strange thing is said :
“I’m just afraid for her. She’s going to live a lot longer than the rest of us. In the S.P.P. hub, with Celestia’s soul powering the shield, she might even survive Horizons. I don’t like thinking of her all alone,” Homage said with a shiver. “I worry about her happiness… her health… even her sanity. How long can somepony stay alone watching without losing their mind?”
Why would Pip leave longer in the SPP ? From what I gathered in FO:E, the SPP had put her body in stasis so she was technically in a form of unlife but if she was to go out of the SPP, she would die in a matter of months because of how her body had suffered through her adventures. At that point, there's no issue, Pip in stasis will live longer than the rest, if you can consider it living. However, the S.P.P. isn't a medical bay and Pip doesn't have anything resembling an immortal body or cybernetic enhancements. It's important because that part of the story will be... stupidly extrapolated in the epilogue. I'm sure you can see what will happen. You can't just say : the S.P.P. will make her live longer. It was not designed to be that way. Hell, I'm not even sure it was designed to trap a single pony inside of it. The S.P.P. was supposed to be a form of automated weather system, not a doomsday device with medical bay. The Epilogue is its own can of worms though but it IS stupid.
Let's skip over the Highlanders and Hellhounds. They make it sound like they won't help the Resistance but we ALL know that Somber will make them intervene in the end. It's needless padding and besides, I don't think it's a good idea to have all of your factions act in the same manner. For fuck sake, even the Hellhounds help BJ in the end. It's tiresome because they simply accept after being asked while still making the reader guess "Will they or won't they come ?" and it would have been interesting if she actually didn't convince one of those factions because, yes, it's not easy to create a huge cooperative army when you mix so many factions with diverging interests.
There's also a discussion around Nemesis and the necessity of having one for many characters and honestly... I have the feeling that this part actually tells nothing. It's a springboard to give a bit more depth to Homage... Sorry but no thanks, I don't want to deal with Miss Preachy anymore than I did in FO:E. As for the Nemesis talk, I think there was the possibility of an interesting discussion of the necessity of conflicts for the growth of people and how adversity and rivality can actually be considered fertile elements for growing as a person. Giving you something to fight against, to compete against can seem counter-intuitive but like many things, fighting is a crucial part of life. So... there was a subject here to use but it really feels barely touched upon. Besides, I feel like the definition of Nemesis was very broad in that discussion. You see, sometimes Somber can really make compelling dialogue and sometimes, he does that half-assed shit where nothing is really said. It's noise essentially.
Skipping a scene where Velvet and Charity bickers about the merits or lack thereof of keeping an economy in times of war and how gratuity makes people stupid. An interesting discussion that ultimately leads to precious nothing but it does make me realize something simple : there are too many characters. Here, Somber feels the necessity to make us meet EVERYONE. Charity is just one on the list. Psalm is the second and she says something that makes me... a bit mad :
Psalm shook her head slowly. “Goldenblood strives for success, and he manipulates people like an artist manipulates pigment on canvas. He will achieve what you want, but you may not like how he does it. Maybe you convinced him to try a better approach… I hope so. But he won’t betray you, unless he feels you’ve betrayed yourself and everypony else.”
Goldenblood is not loyal to anyone. Hell, he only betrayed Luna when she decided to blackmail into staying and by that point, he already had started countless manipulations and created tons of secrets. You could say that he betrayed Luna because she decided to become a tyrant and he was stupid to believe her. Well, he also betrayed his country time and time again or should we forget that he gave Fluttershy the means to give the nukes to the zebras ? Didn't he blackmail Rarity to reach his goals and so on and so forth ? What do you fucking consider to be betrayal ? Goldenblood is a self-interested prick that doesn't work for anyone but him and his deluded vision of Equestria. Somber, stop trying to make him Mr Perfect. BJ should have made it an advisor and certainly NOT a leader. The guy has NO legitimity except the fact he has been designated by BJ who has NO FUCKING CLUE of what she's doing half the time.
Also : he strives for success ? Who doesn't exactly ? Do you know people that strives for failure ? If the sentence is to be understood is "He'll do anything to succeed." shouldn't that raise some death flags ? Especially in a situation where they have a clear disadvantage ? Also, can I ask since when GB became a general ? The guy can create a government, manipulate intel on like ten different fronts, create machines of stupid powers (Horizons has been conceived by him, even if he used Mechasprites and Blanks, it doesn't change that he manipulated them to create the Nightmare Castle, the firing system and everything around it), is a master hacker (remember how he countered Cognitum influence over the system ?) and can lead mares and stallions into battle on top of devising perfect battle plans when he didn't do shit military wise during the war ?
Do you understand why he is a Gary Stu ? The guy can do anything perfectly and the only times he fail is almost never his fault since there is the convenient excuse of being manipulated by X. He helped Fluttershy betray her country ? Yeah but she manipulated him after Luna raped him in his sleep. Horizons ? Big Bad Star God manipulated him when he was tired. He never did a mistake of his own accord, it can always be said that another did the wrong. It's tiresome.
Oh also, remember Cognitum firing on Sand Dogs and the Seahorse that BJ helped back in those chapters ? Well, no one died. Yep, just fake outs for fucking tertiary to quaternary characters. Such a subversion of expectation. We really needed them to be alive. It sure shows that the world is cold and dark. Yes, I know that Somber will start his genocide of characters soon but that's why I don't get that those guys are alive. Why ? Why purpose does that serve except making a quick joke about the Captain being an alcoholic ?
Skipping a boring fight scene : BJ gets her hand on Big Mac's shotgun, forgive another one of her rapist and get him and his team into the Resistance because he decided to fight for her after she saved him from the Brood. BJ's ability to forgive everyone is legendary. Except it's not stupid : it's completely unrealistic. Then again, Somber loves to make traumatic events selectively traumatic. I mean, after all, she got over her gangbang rape murder after one night of sex with Stygius. What do you want me to say after this kind of shit ?
Next, we learn how Peppermint, Twist's daughter became the last bearer of the Phenix Talisman and why she did forget about how she came to be. Honestly, the deal with Twist and Shujaa both pulling the Talisman out of their chest to save their loved ones is repetitive and it's an extremely convoluted way to explain Rampage. Besides... how did she remove the memory ? She was alone and an Earth Pony and after pulling the Talisman out of her chest, I don't really see how she could have removed the memory.
Yes, I assert that Rampage very reason for her existential crisis is NEVER EXPLAINED. She doesn't remember because her memory was taken away but it never was justified how it got removed in the first place. It makes Rampage a very messy character. Besides... why did Rampage get completely overwhelmed by memories of past lives but not Twist since she was saved the same way ? And why did Peppermint lose sight of herself since she still had memories of... everything prior to her Mom's death. Besides... who put the memory in Twist's locker ? Those lockers were locked and never looted so... another question that can't be answered to put onto the pile ?
Rampage is a fucking mess. It's a concept that isn't well-realized.
The last part is a party and I love parties. However, there a lot I don't like in this one. First, it's bloated with characters that I don't care about : Psalm romantic subplot continue. The fact that Steelhooves likes Psalm as much as Lacunae only shows how... superficial his love is. Lacunae and Psalm are miles apart in terms of personality and yet because they look the same, he wants to bang her. We also have the griffon ghoul tell us that the Talons won't participate in the war... even though I remember Gawd wanting to create a peaceful Republic and Blackwing being quite the adamant fighter back in Pip's days. It really feels strange to have neither of them to help to save the world. Then again, do I really want more characters to bloat the story ?
We also have the romantic subplot with Glory finding Tenebra (Stygius sister) to be a good fuck friend and possibly a lover. It's boring and my god end me. Glory became a character defined by her relationship to BJ and the few times it's not the case is where she shines but here she definitely is lost in the fucking pit of nothing happening of value. As for the new characters story : I won't even mention them. They don't matter.
Also, GB and BJ became friends that party together.
Closing thoughts : END ME
PS : I'll do more chapters starting next BP : I will be able to skip far more useless shit and as such get through it in a quicker fashion. Especially when the rocket trips are cluttered with "side characters fighting". It'll be fun to skip those.
I'll be honest I didn't buy the die within months out of the SPP simply because of what she managed to do prior and live with the help of rad regen and health potions. If Pip wasn't going to die from what she went through I don't buy her not being able to be fine after thanks to r&r combined with the two prior. Thus I didn't see her being stuck in the SPP as much of a real sacrifice outside of not being able to be with her friends in person. Surprise! They can still visit as Homage does and spoiler when Homage does Pip comes out of stasis. Besides what was the main reason for her staying in there at all? Because the other ponies didn't trust the remaining pegasi with the weather. Thus she would stay there until enough trust was built up to let the pegasi take over the weather again. I call that a paper mache sacrifice if a sacrifice at all.
Wait you wanted to talk about something in this chapter? Is there really anything worth talking about? Ok maybe the ridiculous indiscriminate targeting of Celestia One on whatever. The only thing that makes it remotely believable is that the Twilight Society is so concerned that what is in the Hoof as being so dangerous that they have to wipe it but then what are they waiting for and/or why don't they just open up? Either preemptive strike before things get hot or just melt the entire place before any evil forces can really gather enough strength. I mean lets be honest. Clouds are only a real blockage issue from the origin tower perspective based upon what the weapon is and how it would work. On the other end they just obscure the target area but the first shot will burn away the clouds from the area anyways and if your looking to just melt the area indiscriminately what does it matter at all? Besides they don't need the clouds cleared on the target end at all. The have GPS esque targeting ability as it is. If anything clouds prevent the target from suspecting that something is up which would be a good thing. Clearing the skies of clouds during the Red Eye fight I can buy to ensure hitting just the target you want. However if your considering just taking out an entire city and your not concerned about what you hit you don't need the clouds to be cleared before you fire.
4991874
I can get behind your reasoning when it comes to Pip's sacrifice but it was clearly stated that she had not much longer to live if she was to go out of the S.P.P. I do agree with you that the level of injuries she survived (Hello, Miss "I survived being nuked and even got some new leg out of it.") However, I cannot ignore what the fiction tells me : if Pip is supposed to be dying in a few years, then she should. However, let's admit that she wouldn't die immediately like you suggest : why the fuck is her life extended then ? I mean, the only thing she got was to regen a lot from radiations but when exactly did she become almost immortal ? As you pointed out, it is completely stupid that Pip get out of the S.P.P. when Homage visits since it lessens hard the importance of her "sacrifice".
My main problem is easy to understand. Pip is a character of poor quality, written very badly and inconsistently however... I am still wondering how the fuck Homage can visit. I mean, sure BJ will have Luna's soul later so that can make a bit of sense but I don't get Homage at all. There are so many contradictive events in these two fictions that I am completely lost.
As for the Celestia One, I think you misremember. I don't remember where exactly it is said but they need both the cannon and the place they attack to not be hidden from the sun light. However, that's not the main issue with the scene. The main issue is that this scene is only used to generate drama since the Twilight Society can snipe people with their super weapons but now they want to use it to burn the place to the ground. As I said in the BP : didn't the Twilight Society learn to work WITH others instead of being selfish, recluse assholes ? This part is not just a logistic problem, it's a continuity problem.
Perhaps you're right, I shouldn't have dwelled so much on this chapter, especially since I did repeat myself regarding GB, but don't worry, the next few chapters are... very, very boring if not for the start of Somber genocide plan.
4992056
I do remember it saying that both areas needed to be clear of clouds for Celestia One but if we take what we know of it as a weapon and how we know such things to work in our world then the target area shouldn't be needed to be cleared of clouds outside of wanting the first strike to be as precise as possible. Then again maybe because magic it doesn't work by scientific principals.
4992399
From the way it was depicted in FO: E, it seems to be a necessity for the weapon to work at all hence why Twilight was crying over the perceived uselessness of it.