• Member Since 9th Feb, 2012
  • offline last seen Dec 29th, 2022

Visiden Visidane


Is that a terrorist?!?

T

Black Rose's elite agents serve her in various ways. To accomplish her tasks, their talents must be both great and diverse, requiring individuals from the far-flung corners of Equestria. To gather them is a difficult task in and of itself, a task that two siblings must deal with if Black Rose's plans could even have a chance to succeed.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 20 )

Well, this was indeed good. Can't wait to see more of these!

A cool behind the scenes look at the origin of the Thorns. Getting a glimpse of the various member's background was definitely the highlight the story.
Still it was also pretty awesome to see how dangerous fighting in the Southern Barrier Lands can be. Christ imagine how screwed Twilight would have been if she had accidentally ported there instead of the North...Welcome to the jungle :twilightoops:

Another excellent short, Visiden, I'm loving these. :pinkiehappy:

Hmm, Rhapsody is delightfully psychopathic. The Southern Barrier Land borders with a jungle that wouldn't look out of place on Catachan?...Yikes. :twilightoops: Huh, so the Ophidites seem to be the most tactically competent of the three hostile nations to Equestria, being the only one so far to use proper formations to their advantage. Frenzy Heart seems like an...interesting pony to be around. So, the Sablesteel/Lion Court shipping began as soon as they met :twilightsheepish:. Huh, so Warsinger was a Old Kingdom artifact, that explains why it's so...deadly and at the same time self destructive. Also, the true Old Kingdom seems to be common knowledge to at least some part of the Barrier Lands population. Longstride was...created, no wonder he feels such a sense of duty, and he could have been female :rainbowlaugh:. Oh, come now Blue Moon, no one could tell the difference even if you didn't wear a dress :trollestia:.

There was no mission assigned to company Rhapsody was attached to.

You're missing a 'the' between 'to' and 'company', Visiden.

An earth pony feared and hated by a group of extremist ponies for being too extreme

Visiden, consider taking out 'ponies' and adding a 's' onto the end of 'extreme' for better flow. (Ex: 'feared and hated by a group of extremists for being too extreme')

YESHHH

anotherone :rainbowkiss: :heart:

Ooooh, we're getting to know more of the Thorns. I really enjoyed this one, well done.

The early story gave me flashbacks of Sen's Fortress.

Willow Whip assures me that he's their most successful Longstride ever.

...Now I'm curious.

Wow... Poor Blue Moon, lost a bet and now has to choose between dying a fortune or go mare after prom. With his face would be able to get out of there with a group of stallions wanting fuck him.:trixieshiftright::rainbowlaugh:

If I remember correctly; Sabersteel had said it was Black Rose who'd found her slugging through a bunch of Ophidites, though I may be mistaken.

Are we ever going to hear the details of Sabersteel and Rhapsedy, or this 'Longstride' project? If it's a breeding program to produce supersoldiers, you'd think I'd think they'd want Longstride for studding.

Either way, enjoyed it.

I'd really like to hear more about the Longstride project; and why, after finally getting a success after 200 years, Black Rose thinks it would strill take them 200 years to make another one.

I take it as a quest for super soldiers; probably using either selective breeding, magic, drugs, or a combination of all 3;

If it's selective breeding than Longstride should be studding, if it's magic or drugs than now that they've found what works, they should be able to make more within a few more decades, in which case Black Rose or Terroto should be sponsoring them/ choosing a new leader ect.

4985582

You're assuming that what caused Longstride to succeed is genetic. Or that the spells/drugs needed are consistent/cost-free.

4980785 It was Terrato who said that Black Rose supposedly found Sablesteel herself, judging by BR's personality and the fact that she's the Thorn's direct superior officer, I wouldn't doubt that she'd take the credit for recruiting Sablesteel especially in front of Terrato. Or it could just be one unimportant plot hole that slipped by Visiden. We already know a lot about Sablesteel's past from Reckoning, and we have quite a bit of information on Rhapsody if you read closely enough. Same with Longstride.

4985582 To quote Longstride in Chapter 46: ""A great sacrifice was made to create that bow." He touched his eye with a hoof. "Another was made to create the eyes that could use it to its potential. A third to create the back that won't break while a lifetime was spent to master it."" From this we can determine that the method of augmentation was enchanting, since he's specifically mentioned the bow and certain body parts, not himself as a whole. You know what it takes to create incredibly powerful enchantments? According to NIghtcanter (in Chapter 8), about Apple Slice's chain: "but an enchantment to last through centuries…a unicorn died to make this, Applejack. Probably several." So, that means that at least three unicorns died to empower Longstride. No wonder the guy feels such a sense of duty. That would mean for each attempt at creating a 'Longstride' at least three unicorns would die, and considering how many Longstrides were unsuccessful that would mean a lot of dead unicorns leading up to the successful Longstride (add even more guilt to poor old Longstride). Considering where these unicorns were coming from, I can probably see why the local population was tiring of the whole 'project'. From what Black Rose says, these enchantments aren't exactly easy to recreate (or something). Thus, the project was extremely high-cost, highly time consuming, for what? One super sniper?

4990156

Nevertheless; if you have done 200 years of research, and have achieved a success; you should be able to produce another success in less than 200 years.

Essentially what Black Rose is saying is that in 200 years of sacrifice, this Longstride Project has learned absolutely nothing to increase their chances, and making another one would require starting from square 1 again.

4990225 No, what she's saying is that the current leader is not long for this world and the resulting power vacuum would probably set them back long enough for the locals to finally get tired enough of them and (probably) wipe them out, or at least wreck their shit enough to, in fact, set them back 200 years.

Woo, I'm finally caught up with the Upheaval series. This has been great.

Wait, Longstride's like an experimental super-soldier? Was this explained in the stories? I forget.:rainbowhuh:

:trollestia:

5387968 Well, it was pretty clear that he had been enhanced in a bunch of ways, one of the main ones being his eyes:

"His eyes looked as if somepony had stuck a pair of gold coins where his irises should be. [Rainbow] could have sworn there was even writing on them. (Reckoning chpt. 35)"

not to mention the fact that he can shoot anything within line of sight. He also mentions that it took three great sacrifices to make him what he is now:

"A great sacrifice was made to create that bow." He touched his eye with a hoof. "Another was made to create the eyes that could use it to its potential. A third to create the back that won't break while a lifetime was spent to master it. (Reckoning chpt. 43)"

The enhancement program that made him wasn't mentioned in the main story, nor was it's less-than-successful history, so you're mostly correct about it not being explained. Especially since the rest of the Thorns seem to get by fine with just natural talent and training.

As always, your writing is awesome.

Note: this story truly lives up to the 'gore' tag.

Nope. This Longstride has the magic bow, so it’s not 24.

Oh joy, the Thorns and they're just as interesting to read about as ever. :ajsleepy:

I'm sorry, Blue Moon is okay and Longstride (or the process that made him) is intriguing but as characters they are just plain boring to me and this one-shot does nothing to change that. I gave it a like because it's well written but I didn't really enjoy it, The Last Shadows (as much as it annoyed me) was entertaining to read and gave some world building to the most interesting non-Pony race in this series and The Old Guard had a good fight scene and lore.

Kin and Kind is still generally the best of these one-shots by far.

I’ve read all the way up through to the current journey chapter and this is the last one-shot that I missed and went back to read...


...and only now am I getting the connection between the Ophidites and the snake-man bastards in Dark Souls one that were in the keep and in Seath’s lair

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