The Economics of a Wasteland · 3:55pm Apr 27th, 2022
Well.
This is a long overdue post, isn't it? Looking back, I honestly can't believe it's been five years since the last chapter released, and, to get to the point straight away, WEcon is not coming back.
There's a whole mess of factors involved in this, and frankly I almost don't know where to begin. But the short version is, if I'm honest, that the "Unfinished Painting" scene was the drive that made me need to write this story from the get-go, this story about a quiet, introverted, but creative person that hardened her heart through hardship and a world that doesn't care about beauty. I've said it dozens of times over the years but what drew me into stories like this isn't the darkness or grittiness, but the way that the grime allows the light to shine all the brighter. And in the end, the weird thing was that once that scene had been written and put out into the world, once Alloy had reached that point in her character arc, her voice began to dissipate from me.
From there, I did have a plan for how the rest of the story would go (and we'll get to that in a moment, don't worry), but so much of it felt like I was just shoving the characters along their path rather than letting them walk it themselves, and that made it harder and harder to write for them. On top of that, my life has changed so much since I started writing WEcon, I don't even know where to begin - I'm hardly even the same person, in ways that I won't talk about here for the sake of privacy. Chapter 17 actually sat about 80% complete for this entire time, held on a very specific moment that, no matter what happened, I couldn't find a way to make it feel like something Alloy would do of her own impetus rather than something I was making her do. My solution I had landed on was for Grit to do it instead, but then that felt just a little too hollow, and..... there it sat. I'll drop a link to the google doc of Chapter 17 at the end of this but know that it's in a draft state with incomplete language and zero real editing passes.
All this said, I know it absolutely sucks to have a story just drop away like this, and having experienced it myself dozens of times over the years, I hate that I've become that person now. This won't exactly provide a real measure of closure to the story, but I'd like to at least lay out the bones of how this was all going to go by the end.
In Chapter 17, the ponies and zebras of the Bayou fend off a boat of raiders coming up from Malice's territory, which is followed by Alloy and Grit talking about how it would be nice if they could take this loose band of cooperators and make it an actual community, rather than the isolated towns at the start of the story. This is, you might imagine, the sticking point I had, but that's neither here nor there. This concludes with a night raid on the encampment outside Stable 15 by the Caimon, capturing a number of ponies, including Alloy, and taking them away.
This was meant to be seen as utterly out-of-the-ordinary behavior for them, leaving their territory to take prisoners, but the answer would come when Alloy and the other prisoners are brought before the new leader of the Caimon, an alicorn of Unity. The fact that the Caimon worship the princesses as well made it easy for the Alicorn to assume command of them in a covert bid to expand their numbers before the events of FoE proper. Another somewhat looming sticking point here, in that my idea was to have this be a true test of Alloy's bargaining ability, to negotiate a peaceful exchange rather than the prisoner raids that the Caimon were engaging in. Additionally, Laveau was more willing to listen to this argument, since she was uncomfortable with the idea of an "Avatar of Princess Luna" being present without the balance of a voice for Celestia. At its core, the agreement would have ultimately been allowing ponies to go to Unity if they wanted to, with the core idea that those who went willingly would be better overall, and it wouldn't risk a violent attack by the rest of the ponies of the Bayou. Unity in this would have been presented a lot more benevolently, with the only source of information being the alicorn herself of course, and the alicorn's conditions would be that they cannot have a peaceful exchange with the raiders of the Bayou still present.
Following this encounter, and with the prisoners returned to the encampment at Stable 15, a group of raiders would arrive in airboats waving white flags, and ask to talk, expressing a desire to break away from Malice's group.
We cut for one chapter to Malice's PoV here actually, showing her mounting anger that the ponies of the Bayou aren't afraid of her anymore. I'll stop for a moment here to point out that one thing I wanted to examine with the story was the fact that "raider" is just a name given to someone, I didn't see raiders as inherently unhinged, but rather just a title like "bandit" or "crook," but in the Malice chapter, we'd see her growing increasingly unhinged, while the most sadistic of her followers support her unquestioningly. Part of this also is the reveal that Malice isn't her real name (who would name their daughter "Malice?" ) and the fact that she came from Sugarland originally before being kidnapped. One thing I have to admit I never decided firmly on was whether or not she was Bourbon's daughter, but her real cutie mark is a songbird, though it's mostly been covered up by scars. Malice's chapter ends with her losing her shit at the "traitors" leaving, and she resolves to just kill them all.
The final confrontation was to be with Malice taking a larger ship with guns on it taken from the HMS Shining Armor and sailing it up the Bridle River to bombard every settlement in the Bayou. The "final battle" here also gets a bit hazy in my outline as it felt a little tonally dissonant from the themes of this story, but my idea was that the entire Bayou teams up to fight back, though the ship itself is taken out by what was essentially a monstrous-sized Cragadile. You'll unfortunately have to take my word for it that I had thought of a rock-skinned giant crocodile before it had shown up in the show, but regardless, this was also the entity that killed the Fisher much earlier in the story. Malice's bombardments wake it up, and it, rather effortlessly, shreds the hull with its tail before munching on a couple raiders and going back to sleep.
Ultimately, the remaining raiders flee north out of the Bayou while Malice herself is captured, choosing to go off and join Unity now that she has nothing left. The former-raiders' airboats serve as the glue that unify the community of the Bayou together, and we end on a flash-forward to ten years later, with a large caravan visiting Four Shoes a day or two after the skies clear up. Alloy greets the caravan, eagerly shouting that she's running a Blue Skies Sale, a modified version of her original "Buying or selling?" spiel. What can I say, I love bookends.
So that's it. I'm sure this is an unsatisfying way to wrap things up, but I figured some closure was better than none at all, and I apologize if it didn't help at all.
"What was Kyra's deal?" Awkwardly, this one kept changing very often. Kyra's a well-meaning but irresponsible griffon who owed a lot of money to the Black Talons. For the longest time, she was the catalyst to Malice's final attack, sneaking in and robbing Malice of as many caps and goods as she could make off with, but as the story progressed that felt like it fit Kyra less and less. She's definitely short-sighted, but not stupid, and PromptAnon and I never ironed out where to take her to resolve her story instead.
To everyone pulling for Grit and Alloy to wind up together, I'm afraid that was never in the cards. Alloy needed a friend more than a partner, and she got a true friend in Grit. Ditto for Alloy and Malice, though in that case I'm sure nobody really expected them to end up romantically involved.
And now we come to the sappy ending of this. It feels perhaps a bit hollow to have a section thanking people on the post cancelling a story that never reached its proper conclusion, but I need to thank these people all the same. To all the wonderful authors I met along the journey of writing this story, that I laughed and cried with, that gave me a sense of camaraderie, thank you all so much. I'm sure none of them will see this blogpost, but I really hope all of you are doing well.
Of course I need to especially thank Pipistrelle, PromptAnon, and Mondo for their extremely diligent and hard work in refining WEcon. It honestly would never have reached the level of quality it now stands at without every single one of them. I also want you all to know, readers of this blogpost, that in the five years since the last chapter came out, PromptAnon never stopped messaging me. He wouldn't always pressure me to write, but he never let the subject sit for too long without asking about it.
Finally, to everyone who left a comment, a like, a private message, anything--your kind words mean more to me than I can ever express. They lifted me up on bad days and honestly made me feel better about myself in ways I never could have imagined. One of the reasons I stopped even logging into FiMFiction was because I felt like I was letting every single one of you down after you gave me such a wonderful gift. Truly, thank you. I love and treasure every single one of you, and wish you all the best in life.
To all of you, stay safe, and have a good one.
I'll mourn the loss of one of the most unique Fallout Equestria stories on this site, despite all my efforts to see it live to completion, Rest well in the peace of the shadowlands, Wasteland Economics and be well Doctor Ham.
A shame to see you stop, but at the same time I'm happy for the closure. It was a fun read all those years ago and I think I'll give it another go now that I know the conclusion.
Good luck in your travels!
It's hard to express just how relieved I am to see this post, though it is also very bittersweet. WEcon, despite its incompletion, has remained my favorite side story in the fandom, and that was further cemented by my latest reread last year. Afterwards I desperately considered asking you on Discord for a brief summary like this, and it really fills a void in my fanfiction soul to finally read your plans for the rest of the story. Even if it's incomplete, getting access to chapter 17 is also incredibly welcome.
Thank you for the wonderful story, Doctor Ham! It inspired me greatly in my own FoE fic, which in turn introduced me to some of my best friends through this niche but remarkably creative subfandom. While I've long since come to terms with the premature end of WEcon, it will forever have a treasured place in my memories and continue to inspire my own fiction. Stay safe, stay healthy, and kudos!
Wasteland Economics has been one of my favorite Fallout: Equestria stories ever, and a big part of that was how the story always seemed to live up to this idea. It did what I like to see done with the setting. Better yet, it had a unique story to tell, with a protagonist very different from the usual fare.
It was sad when I first recognized that the story would never be finished. I thought it had a lot of potential and was a story I was interested in hearing more about. But I am glad to have that finally confirmed instead of just left to linger, and to get a glimpse of where it was heading. To get that little bit of closure.
Thanks for all the hours of entertaining reading, and I hope that whatever you're up to nowadays, it's going well
Don't feel bad man. There was something in 2015 for me where I stopped even reading updates to FOE and pony stories in general, I still need to actually finish Heroes and I cant believe that was 3 years ago now.
Some kind of "Spark" was lost back then as most of the stories I was following but wasn't reading also stopped updating. It wasn't just you it was everyone. It felt like the Fallout fandom as well as the Pony Fandom became much quieter.
I don't know if anyone else feels this way but its both the readers and authors that lost interest. I guess as much as I personally love them the later half of the show and Fallout 4 +76 just wasn't enough so both fandom's suffered and when you look at FOE its no wonder that many authors just didn't have it in them to continue. You didn't say it was a factor but less interest and less readers would make me not care as much.
...I haven't even read any chapters since 2015.
It was a once in a lifetime thing. Something like it will probably never happen again. I'm glad that most of the bigger stories got to have an ending but I'm ok and can live with all the others never getting an ending as much as that is a bummer.
I wont forget any of the stories or the time during lunch break at school where I came up with my own story. Now that I think about it was a faction type story that is very is more like 4 then NV but with 4 main characters each joining a separate faction. They also all came from the same stable because everyone did either a stable character or someone in a party was one while the rest were wastlanders but what if the entire party WAS stable dwellers huh? I also had the it planned to be a listened too and based on the Poets of the Fall album Carnival of Rust. I listened to the album picturing scenes in my head. God how does FOE work so well. Oh well.
Wasteland Economics is my favorite outside The original and Heroes, this may not be a written ending but its good enough for me. However, I want to give you some good news. I made a video game maker for FOE in RPG Maker and I needed a game to show off everything I made, and think your story is perfect for it.
I want to make WE into a CRPG in the vein of Fallout 1 and since the story has an ending I don't have to hammer out the details. I still need a list of characters and locations if you would be willing to help?
I only started reading Fallout Equestria stories starting in 2021, and was recommended WEcon by a friend with the understanding that it hadn't updated in years. Despite having very little experience in the universe, your story captivated me and is one of a handful of stories that I hold up as the things that kept me invested in the setting despite a bad first impression.
I'm an artist myself, and Alloy's artistry and her struggle to survive in a harsh world really captivated and inspired me.
I just wanted to thank you for that journey. Even unfinished, this story is compelling and beautiful, and I will never forget it.
5653747
5653756
5653804
5653820
5653837
5653983
Just wanna say thank you all for these kind words as well. <3
5653838
To this question specifically, sure feel free to send me a DM. I still have the original grid map I drew up for WEcon that I'd be happy to share, as well.