6482090 I might give the edge to Lacunae, myself. But god I love Psalm, and the part she plays in everything. Some of the best segments in the story.

6482316 VC => Volunteer Corps.

Your mother is the aunt of a ministry mare.

I wonder if we ever learn who this is.

I thought it’d been destroyed…

Twilight's anger?

“You look like hell, Blackjack.”

The Dealer's voice is that of Rick Dicker from The Incredibles in my head. The character is voiced by Bud Luckey. Also narrates the short "Boundin'". Just has an old and tired voice.

Big Macintosh’s death quite personally and any held anyone with stripes culpable.

Remove

And Awesome, Crunchy Carrots, Finders Keepers, and little Dawn.

Found Glory's mom.

Barely any rust on it at all, in spite of all the saltwater.

I personally would want to raise it. Take a lot of work to seal the passages, but fill the hull with air and it should come up like a cork.

The name nagged at me; where’d I heard it before?

Forgets Spike's friends. Oh, how terrible.

I continued on the road east. No answer. Not a word.

Is this Psalm? This feels like Psalm. Shit happened to all the Macintosh Marauders. What the fuck put her down this path?

the velocity of a southbound pegasus carrying a coconut

What about an African Pegasus?

I could tell you. I’m an engineer, not a psychologist.

That sounds dangerously like "Rise the Luna" to me.

Like… it was me remembering them, not just watching the experiences of others.

Something something Taint, something something Unity. Lacunae and Blackjack are tied together?

Comments are craved desperately.

Bitch, I am comments

Zodiac seems good enough, but so did others in the past. She is leftover from 200 years ago and all those have other plans. I just hope she is good, I like her.

6482689
Thanks, I figured that out in this chapter and felt a little dumb.

I am not one for pointing out typos and the like usually, however, some were just asking for it. Inner Egghead here.

Zodiacglowered for a moment, then finally slumped.

missing space between Zodiac and glowered

She drew back enough look me in the eye and smiled.

enough to ?

Never tell me the odds

That reference is words to live by, just sayin'.

It wasn’t long before the music stopped and DJ Pon3’s voice burst out of with news about the Stable

of it ?

“It’s also been suggested that I give EC-1101 to Sanguine. Get myself some new organs, Glory a new wing, and the Goddess a date.

“Well I’m not going to do that either. After what he’s done, Sanguine’s never going to get his hooves on Chimera if I can help it.

Missing end quotation marks

“Let’s just that say there’s a reason everypony stays away from Black Pony Mountain.”

just say that

6483354
I had to think about the acronym too for a moment, having forgotten it for a second. Oh yeah it's Volunteer Corps.. duh.

I cannot believe last two chapters Glory actually lost her wing, every pony hurts themselves so much.. It feels this nightmare is just the tip of the icerberg scale of 'oh no..'.

Comments are craved desperately.

Is that so? I'll gladly oblige each chapter upon finishing a chapter. And damn are they getting long, not like that is a bad thing though.

50% to level, that's new..

A new chapter or two a day is fantastic. Looking forward to the next one and onwards no matter what happens

6482689 I'm glad you knew what VC meant immediately, because when I read that I just mindlessly assumed "Viet Cong" until Blackjack actually went there.

Whew... man, no words... no words... All of this crap going on, the feelings, the secrets and lies being uncovered, all the twists and turns. Making me antsy! As! Fuck! Man this story is devling into darker and darker territory the longer it goes on... and there is still so more to come.

Man, awesome job on this chapter, and nicely done! This was amazingly well done, some typos, like those that had been pointed out below, but I am loving this regardless!

PSALM SOUNDS ADORBS!
Keep it up.

Finally finished reading the Google Drive version...
I give it a 9.8/10. Apart form a few continuity errors, and some parts where I really had no idea what was going on, in the part where they are in Thunderhead, what with all the plots and betrayals and Dawn and things happening all at once, with Blackjack's understanding of Lighthooves's plan (went through 2 or 3 different things she thought he was doing before she found out what he was really doing) I really had no idea who was doing what apart from Blackjack. I got confused. But that may just be me. A few spelling mistakes here and there, but only one or two per couple of chapters.
In conclusion, I loved it as a whole, and you have gained one more loyal fan. I look forward to reading whatever you decide to write in the future. (Even if you don't, still, thank you for the wonderful read)
Sincerely, The Neverending Dark.

Also, my thanks to Swicked, Bronode, Snipedhamster and all the others who made it possible.

6482316 That reminds me, Somber, what was it in the end? The eater of souls? Another screaming room collective consciousness? I don't think it was ever fleshed out...

6483415

Is that so? I'll gladly oblige each chapter upon finishing a chapter. And damn are they getting long, not like that is a bad thing though.

I just want to point out that the author notes are the original ones. It means that this one is old, like years old.
That being said, I'm sure Somber will never get tired of comments.

I must say I'm really glad Somber isn't erasing the author notes and preserving the story in its original form.

6485601
Yeah I realized that not too long ago previewing the googledocs version.. like reading history when it was first published. I am also glad the original form of the story is kept intact. Thank you for the reply by the way, it means a lot to me with commenting on the story while reading it.

Protectaponies to sentry bots, stood silently on the tiers and around the edge of the central floor, and, in my amber night vision, I thought I could see a telltale stealth ripple next to one of them.

This. This right here is a problem. With the issues she has had with people shooting at her while stealthed you would think she would put buckshot into it if she even suspected she saw that ripple. I know I would have... Would probably end up regretting it but I still would in all likelihood have done it anyway. (Now back to reading the story.)

6485873
The four thing was more being a loon.

Took me long to think of what VC meant cause I was trying to think of all the factions Blackjack has killed. Other than Glory shooting her in the face, BJ has been on good terms with the Volunteer Corps.

6485215 What was what in the end? ::blink blink::

Hey, happy to see this here. I don't go to the front page a lot so I just kind of stumbled over it. Now I have no reason to use googledocs (AKA the spawn of Satan) ever again!

I'm thinking of making an "Ultra-Favorite" bookshelf and just sticking this story on it. Maybe call it the "Blackjack" shelf instead, hmm . . .

What I'm trying to say is that if I had to name a single story as my number one favorite, including published books, this is it. No story has ever moved me as much as this one, no story has ever entertained me as much as this one, and no story has ever inspired such simultaneous dread and desire to read it when it updates.

As I have, IIRC, seven chapters to read (I wasn't kidding about that dread. I love this story, but I also fear reading what happens (to BJ) next.) and I haven't read any part of it in a while, I will commemorte it's completion and arrival here by rereading it all for a fourth time once it's all uploaded.

Salud y paz.

6486544 The mechanical terminal bank face thing that nearly eats scotch, and yells 'GIVE ME EC-1101 I WANT TO LIVE' etc and which Blackjack uses Folly on.

6486868 well other than lacking a lot of bloody, pulpy flesh, it seems kinda similar to the stuff in The Core. So it's probably Cognitum (or whatever her name was) in one of her less sane moments, plus....stylistic influence from The Core

6487322 ah, but she never mentions that she wants to 'be alive' ect. She just wants to control the Tokomare... And it can't be dawn, she still has live parts then. So... idk. It never came back so it's kinda weird seeing as it can possess semingly ALL machinery, ( if it can get through the presumably numerous layers of protection in Core computers, it can get through anything.)it would be pretty nice to see some fleshing out in this slightly edited version on fimfiction.

6486868 That's what happens when you trigger a 'come to life' megaspell in close proximity to a dead technological eldrich abomination that wants to live again and needs EC-1101 to do it.

6487591 Ah. Okay,
Can you please put in a sentence or two of Blackjack putting 2 and 2 together there, otherwise more people might get confused. Thanks

6487917
Hmmmm, didn't know that.

Somber, this whole chapter lacks the space between paragraphs; I'm not sure if that was intentional, seeing as half the previous chapter was this way...

6490166
Yeah, I think another commenter and I already went over this.

I like dick

The ride was tough but we got there in the end... Well done Somber

6494748 me too.

So, is this the end, or i can look forward to more of my favorite drunk heroine?

6496623 oh my, looks like my friend typed that.

6496632 There is more but real life has gotten really difficult. I won't be able to upload more till this weekend.

6496642 lol. I know the feeling.
i was just being silly when i responded to it. I don't actually like dick... or do I? Dun dun DUN! We'll never know...

6496806 i look forward to it. I'm glad its still alive.

6498476
This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here *shotgun pump*

Okay! Okay! I'll let it go...

6496806
I hope everything works out for you in real life, Somber. I for one can wait patiently and it gives me a good reason to do my homework early. Also more motivation to do things. Of course I can always just read it on googledocs, which is not a problem. I wish googledocs had a word count per chapter like fimfiction does, it is super useful to estimate how long it will take to read one chapter to the next. If I just don't think about that option in the back of my mind, I wait patiently as if the story was just uploaded for public viewing the first time. It helps to subside the crave to read more further ahead otherwise. I am not in a big rush to read the entire story and this pacing is perfect to balance.

My original plan was to read this as you posted it.
Not. Going. To. Happen.

I'm already 10+ chapters behind your schedule now; There's no way in Tartarus that I'm going to read that much in the two hours I have left of my "me time."

s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4b/ab/a3/4baba39621f9f94330b32c6198db55b8.gif

I gotta say, Horizons was my favorite FoE sidefic until the end. Then it took a nosedive so hard that it destroyed the value of the whole book. To anyone reading it now, all I can say is don't waste your time. The last few chapters are so bad that they make every thing before them meaningless and the story becomes nothing but Somber's ego masturbating in text. Everyone you care about in the story dies in the last three chapters and blackjack becomes super-cunt forgetting everything she learned and saving the world on her own with the power of bad writing.

There, I just saved you 60 hours of your life.

6509977 Sorry to hear that. Could you be more specific? I'd like to know exactly when I ejaculated my ego. Was I wearing protection? Damn. I bet I wasn't. Did you get some in your eye? Sorry.

Also, how exactly do you masturbate your ego? I mean this sounds awesome! My ego is generally so tiny and frail that it can't stand up on its own. Give me some direction here! I love to learn from those more experienced than I.

Also, sixty hours? I figure most people get through it in 10. "Whine whine whine... Story! Angst angst angst... Story!" You must have been paying really close attention. What moment did it go to shit? Was it a gradual digestion, or just this whole corn slurry busting loose? Was it nice and easy or did you strain yourself? Smooth or spicy? Come on! I need feedback here!

Tell you what. You don't have to tell me. You don't have to like it. In fact, if you want, since only the ending sucked, why don't you show me how it's done? You can write a spin-spin-spinoff and show us all how my story, which I and several others created and offered you, free of charge, with no promise or guarantee of quality in advance, should have ended.

I look forward with bated breath.

6507504
i.ytimg.com/vi/nm4Qb6UqpNc/hqdefault.jpg
and, not in the mood for fucking your life...
just no, no thank you...
orig02.deviantart.net/5528/f/2011/288/c/2/oh_god_by_rober_raik-d4cxnm4.png

Not one comment can persuade me to stop reading this start to finish. I made a promise to do so and shall. Regardless how long it takes in total.

6511257
Heh...
That was seriously my intention. I found out quickly it wasn't going to happen, but still.

6510518

I thought I was pretty specific when I said that you fucked it up by killing off all the main characters so that Blackjack could become super-cunt alicorn princess, ignore everything she learned the entire length of the book and face the single most powerful evil in the world on her own, then win and abandon everyone she ever cared about to have a secret immortal love affair with Little Pip. In less than 4 chapters you went from it being a story about a group of heroes leading a revolution to a self aggrandizing clop fic worthy of awards for how much bullshit you pulled out of your ass to make your BlackPip shipping dream come true.

6512114 Right. First bit. I didn't kill all the characters. Rampage and Scotch didn't die. The reason that the characters who did die was simple: Blackjack is dropped into the depths of despair, and has to fight for the world, and not give up. So there's that. Secondly, Blackjack became a princess because she was facing off against an eldrich abomination. She needed Luna's power over dreams to even have a chance. Otherwise, the Eater would have put her into a mindscape, and killed her. The Legate originally planned on having Cognitum as said princess, someone who could never have fought off the Eater's seduction and corruption. Blackjack spoiled that by taking her body back.

As for facing the Eater on her own, did you read the fight? Everyone who helped her get to that point was a proxy in that struggle for the world. It wasn't an example of how badass she was, but how she had to embody everypony's desire and hope for tomorrow. Anypony who would have been with her would have been slaughtered, or worse, taken hostage. It had to be Blackjack as the Maiden of the stars for that final confrontation. Had it not been for others, she never would have REACHED the Eater. So your claim she does it all on her own is a bit flat.

Now, as for abandoning everyone. Blackjack wasn't the Lightbringer. There were LOTS of people who wanted her punished for the harm she caused others. Nopony actually saw the final fight, and only Scotch knew the stakes from Tom. Most ponies believed that Blackjack had set off another megaspell or something. So when she did come to several years later, she had to go into hiding. And a generation or two later, who would believe she was the real Blackjack? As for her love affair with Pip, that was the result of both of them being long lived. Homage and Velvet both would not want Littlepip left alone. As Rampage said: Dying last sucks.

Lastly, if you think the last 4 chapters were the problem, feel free to rewrite them. You might even do better than mine.

So, sorry that the ending wasn't what you liked, but it was the best I could do.

6512219

No Blackjack did not need to drop into a pit of disrepair to win. That is my issue all together. You spent 60+ chapters setting up Blackjack to learn about friendship and leadership just to throw away everything she had worked for because you wanted to get your emo boner on.

You know what works really well against the evils of Equestria? Friendship. You can't exactly have that if all your friends are dead or missing.

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19100276/job-meme.jpg

You want a better ending? It's easy. They stopped Cog on the moon because Bastard and her tech-wiz betrayed her. They all got back in the ship and returned to Equestria with the original body. Princess Blackjack leads her team to fight against the eater and there is the big railway battle and random-red-shirt-flamer-guy dies because no one cares about him, and they make it to the final boss and the final boss kicks the ever loving shit out of them until Tom falls right into his clutches and he starts to feed, then something goes horrible wrong for the Eater because all across Equestria ponies start to sing, guided by DJ-Pone3 they sing in a harmony that creates a counter to the enervation field, just like in Chapel and in the Colosseum and when Psychoshy sung, the eater was weakened by the power of harmony, the power of friendship and hope through out the wasteland for the first time in a long time thanks to the Lightbringer.

With the Eater weakened, P-21 had the chance to plant bombs on the containment field generators while Rampage held off his defenses and Blackjack and Glory used EC1101 to further distract it by running the emergency shut down program. Excitement, shooting, bucking, and then when the explosives are ready, the witty one liner as P-21 throws Blackjack the detonator and she fulfills her destiny as the Star Maiden by releasing Tom to destroy the eater while P-21 escapes on her back and foal sized Rampage escape on Glory's back through the air.

Alternatively: P-21 is crushed on the moon, Rampage gives him the stone in her heart and "dies" but becomes part of him. They defeat the Eater together in something similar to the above then Blackjack and P-21/Rampage raise Scotch at Chapel or with her cousin and her cousin's children at the Society. Both of them immortal, usher in a new age of equality and understanding with the occasional blasting of bad ponies as needed.

Alternatively: Alicorn-Blackjack, P-21, and Glory all die in the explosion as the Eater dies but are then reborn in Blank bodies inside the Project Redoubt Facility which we spent chapters unraveling the mystery of only to have it NEVER BE USED. Some of the ponies trapped in the rings, some of the ponies and creatures who died in the war, both good and bad could all come back to life in Blank bodies to live to fight another day.

These are just some things I came up with while taking a crap, none of which need all the characters to die for Blackjack to get the job done. I know you wanted to be edgy and dark, but no one kills off their main characters in the last chapters of their books. It's one of the things people don't do as a writer for a very good reason: People reading the book get invested in these characters and if you just kill them all off at the last moment it pisses people off.

I don't know if you just wanted to get the story over with or you stopped listening to your editors or what but you totally dropped the ball on the last chapters. They could have been so much better if you had applied any of the myriad of lessons that Blackjack had learned through out the story towards the solution to the problem instead of just trying to make your OC into a super-powered, immortal, God-Mode Sue to live out your sloppy lesbian sex fantasies with Little Pip.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue <-- This is what you did wrong.

6509977
6512114
6512363
Can you put some spoiler tags on these?

6512363 Good. if its that easy, get writing.

6513894
Frozen came out in late 2013. The chapters put on FIMFic so far were originally published in 2011 or the first half of 2012.

It was actually, I believe, an adaptation of The Beatles's "Let It Be."

6513506
It's your book. You already fucked it up. I'm not re-writing your work for you. Either fix it yourself or deal with the fact you fucked up what is most likely the most read work you'll ever make. Because that is exactly what you did. It's like you created a great oil painting on 2/3rds the canvas then painted with finger paints on the last bit. It just boggles my mind how you could have fucked it up that much. How your editors and friends that read it before it was released didn't say anything to you to let you know how horrible an idea this was.

I can only assume you rushed through it and ignored everyone else's advice because, daym! That was some monumental let down. The Star Wars Prequels had less let down than the ending of P.H. That is how disappointing your rush job was.

6514590 Wait wait wait wait. I thought it was EASY? You said that fixing it and doing it right would be easy. So, do it. Write the better ending, as you think it would be. You'll be famous. There's plenty of people who probably agree with you about the ending. So... do it yourself if its so easy.

Project Horizons has many flaws. Not everyone likes it. Many people like it in spite of its flaws. I freely admit that it is not perfect. I freely admit that it could be better. Were I truly mad, I'd rewrite the whole damn thing and make it half as long and probably twice as good.

But it's never, ever, easy.

It took me six months to write those last four or five chapters you hate so much. Six months of struggling, arguing, and trying to make the story fit the vision in my head. You know what would have been easy? Ending the story at Cognitum in the Core. That would have been easy. Or Ending the story at 33. That would have been really easy. Instead, I stuck to my vision and pushed to the end I planned when I started the whole damn thing.

Now, I see the mistake you're making. "My opinion is fact." You didn't like the ending, therefore it must be bad. Hate to break it to you, but I've had lots of e-mails of people that love the ending. They cried multiple times from the launch of the rocket to the epilogue. They hated what was happening, but anyone who knows my writing and caught the foreshadowing saw it coming a mile away. The people who were going to die, were going to die. If they hadn't on the moon, then they would have when Blackjack faced the Eater because Blackjack, with all her massive powers, dies. Inspite of all her Uberness, she dies. She dies fighting on behalf of everyone, but she still dies. Anyone who'd gone with her would have as well.

That monumental let down you feel? That's not a bug. It's a feature. You're feeling exactly what Blackjack was feeling. And I'll give you a hint: Blackjack would have given anything for a rewrite of that ending too.

But again, you don't like it? YOU rewrite it. YOU can get people to help you. YOU can get the threads tied up. YOU can try to get a happy ending where no one dies. YOU can try to write an Epilogue with a cybernetic alicorn princess trotting around. YOU can have all the praise. YOU do it. Go ahead.

Like you said, it'll be easy.

6515341

I never said writing was easy. I said coming up with an ending that wasn't total shit where 90% of everything in the book was ignored so your OC could get her Superman on, was easy.

I'm not cleaning up your mess for you. You fucked up. You can live with it or you can change it. But you should at least disclaimer the shit out of this story that most of it is pointless filler and none of the characters or anything that happens makes a single shit of difference in the end.

Blackjack ends up being no different than her first week out of the stable. All the character development for all the main characters was a massive waste of time since you just offed them to prove how badass Blackjack is that she keeps on going.

The entire book is there to end in a pitty party for your OC and by extension you.

You don't get to waste everyone's time lying to us as if all the events of the book are leading up to something when it's all just pretence for your own emotional self gratification.

You, as an author, lied to your readers. That is why you are a failure and people should never read anything you write again. It is a waste of time because it is only a selfish act on your part. You broke the first rule of writing. The most basic rule of writing.

Did you never actually take a writing class? Ever learn the basics of what not to do? Because this was some pretty basic shit. There is a thing called the Unspoken Contract. You broke it. You might not know about it, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

This is from a page for amature writers that might help clear up why you fucked up so badly. I found a game designer who made the same mistake you did to explain it to you.

http://writerunboxed.com/2012/03/14/contract-between-writer-and-reader/

6510518

Did you get some in your eye?

I can't get it off my eye!!!

Don't worry Somber. The only problem with PH is the lack of zebra clop.

6515795 Whatever dude. I'm done with you.