The Zone

by Rostok

Appendix - Character List

Here are the collected backstories of all of the characters that come up in the story, set from the perspective of just before the story starts. I'll update this with every chapter I release. Warning: May contain spoilers!

Hiker
Faction: Loner
Armour: SEVA Suit
Signature Weapon: Custom Silenced AK74
Skills: Skilled Pathfinder

Hiker has been a stalker for longer than most, and has experienced much of the Zone's history first hand. A skilled trekker and pathfinder, he is often found in the wilderness areas of the Zone, trying to reach areas previously undiscovered. Not much of a fighter, he prefers stealth and tactics over pure force.

Garry
Faction: Loner
Armour: Sunrise Suit
Signature Weapon: VSS Vintorez
Skills: Master Guide and Pathfinder

Garry is a well-known character among stalkers, renowned for discovering routes to Yanov Station and the Jupiter Factory, Eastern Pripyat and other locations in the central Zone, and also one of Barkeep's staff for a time. He is without peer at his trade, and also a skilled artifact hunter. Like many guides, he often avoids combat, and spends much of his time leading people from place to place. A pragmatic man, his past is enigmatic, and there are many rumours that state that he is Guide, the man thought to be first stalker into the Zone and affiliated with Strelok's group.

Forester
Faction: None
Armour: None
Signature Weapon: Custom VSS (Given to Scar)
Skills: Groundsman for the Red Forest before the incident

Forester was the caretaker for the Red Forest before the accident in 1986, and now still lives there, keeping his vigil over the forest, helping those in it's deadly clutches to survive. He was instrumental in helping Clear Sky and Scar reach Limansk, and freeing the party of Mercenaries headed by Leshiy.

Giant
Faction: Monolith (Abandoned0
Armour: Monolith Exoskeleton
Signature Weapon: AS VAL, PKM
Skills: None outstanding

One of the few ex-Monolithians, he is a giant in stature, bearing many pieces of extremely rare kit, such as his PKM and exoskeleton. Though bearing little to no knowledge of his life before waking up outside of Monolith control, he was obviously one of their heavy-weapons experts, and his time in the Monolith has left him privy to many secrets of the Zone.

Murk
Faction: Freedom
Armour: Custom SEVA Suit
Signature Weapon: FN F2000
Skills: Decent survivalist

Murk is a little-known expert among Freedom's ranks, spending almost all of his time away from his faction, scouting the depths of the Zone. Unlike most stalkers, Murk lives most of his life away any safe stalker camp, sleeping rough and used to scavenging for gear and supplies. After hooking up with fellow Freedom veterans Leshiy and Yar, they began to delve deeper into the center of the Zone, leaving behind the outdated and declining faction war between Duty and Freedom.

Hog
Faction: Ex-mercenary
Armour: Grey Exoskeleton
Signature Weapon: Sig 550
Skills: Long time veteran of the Zone

Hog was one of the best Merc commanders; level-headed and disciplined. After completing his mission in the Army Warehouses, and securing the release of Leshiy from a space anomaly, he remained in the Zone to repay his debt to Kostyan, a freedom expert who saved his life. The disappearance of his close friend Hatchet and his squad initially led him to the Northern Zone.

Max
Faction: Freedom
Armour: Guardian of Freedom Suit
Signature Weapon: Custom SVU; Gauss rifle
Skills: Master Sniper, Freedom Second in Command

Max is a reclusive character, Lukash's right hand man and chief scout after the emission storms wracked the Zone. Ruthless and focused, he is one of the few that has the skills necessary to live on his own almost without need of the main stalker safe zones.

Yar
Faction: Freedom
Armour: Guardian of Freedom Suit
Signature Weapon: personally tuned SVD;
Skills: Technician, skilled sniper, renowned expert in tuning sniper rifles

One of the oldest of the real stalkers in the Zone, who spent time hiking through the wilderness before coming there. He's the undisputed master of tuning all kinds of weapons for marksman purposes in the Zone, and one of Freedom's crack snipers.

Alexander Degtayrev
Faction: Ukrainian Secret Service
Armour: Various
Signature Weapon: Various
Skills: Ex Military Stalker, excellent bargainer and leader

The USS agent responsible for infiltrating the Zone to discover the source of the Fairway disaster, he gained much repute by successfully leading the first team from the Northern Zone into the barely touched residential east side of Pripyat.

Strelok
A legend among stalkers, a survivor of the full malice of the Zone and a man bearing the distinctive S.T.A.L.K.E.R tattoo that gave him his nickname 'The Marked One'.

Comments

[Stillmatic]

You know, I understand where you're coming from. They tell you you can be anything, so you chose to be an industrial plant. I ended up being a rap album.

[Swedish Royal Guard]

1927641
........*sigh*
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for the story so far: Great work, really enjoy reading the story and I hope for an update soon!
And now im going to play the mod Stalkersoup because whenever I read a stalker/mlp fanfic I am left with an urge to play stalker...

[dartmaul15]

1964822
Not to mention the invading Mercenary and Duty forces (depending on COP ending).
(lots of broing lore bullshit that nobody bothers to read in a comments section will be sent per pm)

[RoadRunneR]

1965452
Same here. That did bother me, but I let it slip.

...how did ponies even reverse engineer firearms without blowing their heads off?

[Rostok]

1965452
Ponies that want to steal your tech and make friends seem a whole lot better than a dreary world of rabid monsters and unnatural phenomena that want to kill you at every turn, where the very air you breathe is literally giving you cancer and there are all sorts of nasty things being emitted that are designed to control your brain.

Just my take on it, and anyway, things have yet to kick off.

[dartmaul15]

1965483 They didn't. Why do you think celestia made her castle that big

[RoadRunneR]

1965527
HA-HA. If I had to choose between ponyland and the Zone? The Zone, no hesitation.
So yes, I would be VERY angry.

[Rostok]

1975379
I'd also choose the Zone, but even still I wouldn't be particularly pissed if I was taken to somewhere with a much greater life expectancy for a while. Anyway, Equestria has some interesting depths to it, in the uncharted areas beyond pony habitation.

[RoadRunneR]

2141489
I always liked Murk, dunno why. Once, he thought it was a good idea to attack alone the Duty group in the Army Warehouses. Poor Murk. Didn't even stand a chance. Such is life in the Zone it seems.

Also, I looked through his gear... and this is what I found:

img4.hostingpics.net/pics/235329wutdo.jpg

I had a hard time stashing all this ammo. I left him with his pistol, rifle and 150 rounds. I was short in NATO rounds, guess this was a gift of the Zone.

[Rostok]

2141950
Murk is rather a badass, considering his ownership of an FN2000, his custom Freedom SEVA and apparent spine of steel, letting him hold an exoskeleton's value in ammo.

I remember in Clear Sky once, all of the player storage containers had at least a few hundred of every type of ammo in them (including AP, sniper versions), along with a few dozen of each grenade and medkit. I had a field day with my SVD. Gotta love it when the devs leave all their cheats in by accident.

[RoadRunneR]

2141990
H&K G36, not FN F2000.

That said... sniping is awesome. Popping headshots from 800 meters away... OH MONOLITH YES!
I kinda dislike how all distances are warped in the stalker though. I would definitely like a huge-ass stalker mod for ARMA II. Sniping would be serious business then.

2142149
Making an enemy out of the biggest military faction in the Zone? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND? I'm courageous, not suicidal.

[Rostok]

2142368
Rostok uses obscure lore knowledge!

Murk's stash is the only source of the holy fn2000s outside the NPP itself, quite an accolade.

Pointless knowledge besides, I've found stalker's gunplay to be some of the most realistic ironically. I don't really mind the shoddy quality of most weapons, if you line a sniper shot properly, you don't miss. Personally, stalkersource would be my preference of port, hl2 has quite a lot of similarities in both graphics and physics.

[RoadRunneR]

2142686
I never really used a F2000 tbh. Looks like a toy gun.

Also
>not using the fast shooting AK-74 UNTIL THE END

[Rostok]

2142866
I just love the way it looks, sounds and feels like a deadly super-soaker. It's an all-in-one bullet hose.

I seem to remember modifying the data files, and doing the NPP with a full auto 900 rpm gauss rifle. That and a PMM I modded to shoot rpgs.

[RoadRunneR]

2147082
Bwahahaha

I never mod weapons to such silliness. I sometimes change their durability/damage... I think I'm gonna do yet another SoC playthrough. Maybe with OGSE. Or SOUP.

[Rostok]

Delete a line here, copypaste there, add a few zeros, job done (with moderately low chance of fatal error). I've had some other great glitches over the years though:
- My graphics card driver was out of date, so the sky glowed fluorescent yellow at all times (pitch black on violent yellow in a night fight is weird as fuck).
- Clear Sky would load perfectly well, then if I was to quit and restart the game, it would bluescreenofdeath on me. For some strange reason it would refuse to play more than once per boot.
- Every single NPC in the entire game hiding as if there was an emission. Which there wasn't. They stayed there forever (until I reloaded a save from a few days before.
- The main quest in CS deciding half way through the game that I was unworthy of mission updates and proceeding to never send them again.

Also, the problems with an auto gauss rifle is that all the monolith snipers get very, very trigger happy with an instakill gun. What with my modified jump height, Pripyat in SOC felt like a warped version of crysis.

[Rostok]

2206712
Methinks you are confusing Garry and Hiker. Garry (aka Guide) is helping the humanised group in the zone. Hiker (an OC) is the one trekking through the everfree.

2206596
Things can always get worse, it's covered under Murphy and Sod's laws.

Oh, and things will get even worse. Quite a lot worse actually. Worse than death, possibly.

[dartmaul15]

So basically everypony died, and on of the humans went on a killingspree? Yet despite this, they still established peacefull connections?
And what the hel was that beast really?

[Rostok]

2230070
2232706
2230145
I get that, but this isn't really the end... more the dark climax before the intermission. There will be more, sometime in the future.

2255961
Not really a killing spree as such, but Hiker is in pretty deep trouble. Still, who knows what happens in between that and the peace conference? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Sorry I'm a bit late, things have been intense around here at the moment.

[dartmaul15]

2264449 Then why is it tagged as complete?

Also the ending felt more like you either rand out of ideas or got bored, and had to end it

[Rostok]

2267766
It's as complete as it'll be for a while, as I get the next part of it on the go, more like the end of Part 1. This is the zone being the zone, quite a lot of the feedback people give is that they find the bizarreness and brutality to be oddly compelling. TBH part of me likes to watch the characters squirm.

[Rostok]

2317775
I probably should have realised that..... *Insert creative license excuse here*

[Rostok]

2522785
It was super effective...

2526255

----->

[Rostok]

2542112
NYES!
(Have you learned the art of speech?)

[DualThrone]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. crossover with MLPFIM.

*maniacal, evil, evil laughter*

[Rostok]

2614876
You realize I'm forced to keep this up for eternity, otherwise I'd end up writing another shit ending sequence.

Already a fair way through the next chapter anyway, might be done by next week

[Jack Kellar]

Yanno, for the entirety of part 1, this story was confusing and lackluster, a bunch of wrong characters in the wrong situations. Zecora was a glaring example of underutilization, and the whole thing with how Celestia regarded the pony-killing stalkers was plain silly. And that ending, jeez, that ending full of rushed, pointless character deaths.

Part 2 really stepped up the game, though, and I shall write more of my view on it when I'm not on a smartphone. For now, I'll be watching.

[Rostok]

2811855
Yeah, basically. I didn't have much of a plan at that point, and just wrote whatever, without too much thought.

Now I've got some decent plans. That and I realised that I much preferred the stalker element to the mlp side.

Another chapter will be coming soon as well.

[Rostok]

2884596
Bit of a scene-setting lore exploration.

OL is great, finishing it on master was an experience and a half, but inf-sprint is so incredible it's amazing. Also having like +1200 health and bleeding from artifacts by the end was crazy.

[zsewqthewolf]

ok am lost now what the fuck is going on???

[Rostok]

3127737
Once I've remembered myself I might necro this story for a laugh. I've got the feeling there's another chapter lying around somewhere.

[Tehonepony]

Sorry, I ruined your even 1000 views... anyway, have a like to make up for it

[Rostok]

3509820
It had 1000 views? Wowzers.

Haven't been checking here in months.

[Rostok]

3988657

You don't say....

Don't worry, I hold as much value to lives in this fic as the game does. Which is to say, less than that of a makarov.

[Rostok]

4134650

In lore terms, he's not stated to be one, but if you look at how the Zone operates, both Scar and Strelok were given amnesia and repurposed for it's own ends. Given also that Strider is clearly a master stalker, it's not a jump that a similar thing happened to him. The way that the title of 'marked one' is referenced in places does imply it's not not just something that happened to Strelok.

[Dogstar_DogOfWar]

4138577 when you gonna update?

[Rostok]

4346928

Well, I've got the most important exams of my life in the next couple of months, possibly the biggest sporting competition of my life in the next 3 weeks, an album I'm halfway through writing and this plus a couple of fanfics I read are the only thing left tying me to the fandom.

Might be later rather than sooner in this case. Still, I've come too far to give up now. This fic's not dead yet, just lapsing in and out of a coma.

[Agent_Smith]

4348858
This is one fic I do not understand.

[Rostok]

4506352
Sorry about that, STALKER's one confusing game at first, and the lore often requires quite a bit of playing and immersing yourself in the game find. I make use of quite a lot of it so if you haven't played the game it's understandable. Feel free to message me if you've got questions.

But yeah, next chapter is not going to be that far off now as other stuff is drawing to a close and I've got more time.

[Agent_Smith]

4507190
No, you mistook my comment a bit there Rostok. What I meant was that THIS fic as in this one fic. I hav played pripyat enough to understand the lore, adding to that I played with the Misery mod I know the game enough, but thats not what I came to say in this comment. I am starting to absorb all the info but you mind telling me whos dead in the Mane Six group? Rainbow's dead...I think but it would be nice of you to tell me whos dead and whos not.

Now I must go kill defect clones. Good day, Mr. Rostok.

[Rostok]

4508765

So, the death toll so far:

Ponies
Luna
Rainbow
Scootaloo

(Notable) Humans
Hiker
Murk
Leshiy
Giant
Garry
Kostyan
Kremen
Beard
Owl

[Rostok]

5623955
That's true, it's a good, if short novel. A film was made under the name stalker too, but that bears far more resemblance to the the book than the game series.

[Rostok]

6145982

dem comments

[Starlight Nova]

What do you mean by "in capitals"?

[Starlight Nova]

Does S.T.A.L.K.E.R have voice actors in it? ...Hiker is NOT an OC, right?

[Rostok]

9175353
A handful of key characters have unique English voiceovers for certain story-critical dialogues, and there's some incidental flavour dialogue in English too, but talking to character is text based that only plays voice if it exists for the section of speech.

The game is aimed at the Russian language audience so most of the general speech not tied to interacting with a character is in Russian even in the English language versions for immersion.

Hiker and Giant are OC's but pretty much everyone else appears in game. It's antisocial Slav survival simulator so very few characters open up about their personality, allowing you to infer and create from their situation.

[A Xenomorph]

wait what? it says that this chapter has been posted 2013 but its the "newest " chapter?! What?!

[Rostok]

9204856
It's an appendix, so it sits at the end.

[A Xenomorph]

9205161
oh okay

[Cheese Legs]

Hikers demise was a tad disappointing. Felt he shoulda taken out as many as he could before he went down, not just scootalo.