The LAST fight against Project Horizons : chapter 76 to Epilogue · 5:27pm Jan 11th, 2019
The rain is falling down on the graveyards. So many lives lost against Project Horizons, I think to mysel, blowing the smoke of my cigarette that was barely protected from the rain thanks to my hat. So many soldiers died trying to make sense of that bloated creature that is not unlike the Legate : huge, shapeless, full of wounds and angst and ultimately ends in a disappointment. I look at the grave of Duvet who died of self-induced rage, of so many people who didn't understand how taking two 200 year old rockets that somehow survived that long in a destroyed Wasteland was anything but stupid... However, the last grave was the most impressive of all, the grave of all the fucks I had to give for this story.
How did it all happen you may ask ? Let me tell you that around a glass of whiskey.
We had finished the last chapter on a somewhat happy note as BJ learned that Glory was alive in some capacity. The foolishness of youth ! Feelings were just trick but she didn't know that. Only pain can make me feel alive right now, that's why I use a Rubik's cube. Never finished the damn thing... Jokes aside, the rocket is reentering the atmosphere is everything is going to shit. Death is close. BJ could die.
Anyway, BJ and co survives and they land on Earth in a blaze of glory. Skipping ahead to spare you the uninteresting tale of BJ meeting non-characters like Big Momma, we continue directly to the Collegiate. It's quite a chore to go through those scenes... So essentially, we discover that Glory barely survived being nuked (do not ask me how the fuck she survived being nuked) and is essentially in critical conditions. People whine left and right, Calamity because his NPC of a brother died, the father of Glory because his daughter suffers and he helds BJ responsible, yadda yadda. The world was hard for NPCs.
In the process of being attacked by the father, BJ reveals that the soul of Luna is taking hold of her personality and I'm quite seriously not a fan of the aristocratic Luna that calls people peasants. It sounds like the author didn't want to put any form of personality to Luna aside from she screams and talks like she's royalty. An interesting concept as I said in the previous report but barely touched upon and ultimately pointless. Also, for the record, we need more character like Triage that actually have an important role in the story. She's wasted here, unfortunately.
So, you might ask what's the point of keeping Glory at death door when so many people need more help than she does and for a result that is more than just a mockery of living ? Because we needed to milk that Glory death extra hard and give a Deus Ex Machina to our beautiful little BlackJack. Yes, the survival of Glory isn't just a way to fabricate drama, it's also a way to lengthen this fucking tale for an extra 70K words. Let me tell you the tale of Glory's bullshit solution.
So... it all started with--
“What did you... ooooh...” She rubbed her brow and then sighed. “Just because something was okay in 99 doesn’t mean it’s okay out here. A grown stallion and a filly–”
“Not a filly,” I interrupted her, and that seemed to surprise her. “Not anymore. She’s a young mare now, and if that’s what she wanted to do, then so be it.” I relaxed a little too. “Besides, having done it, I don’t think she’s going to try the Blackjack recovery method again soon.”
Hahaha. Hahahahaha. Fuck you Somber. Just, fuck you. Don't try to justify your pedophilic scene with that kind of feeble-minded logic. If you were confident in it, you wouldn't have put warnings around the scene in question. Unsufferable... So where was I ? Oh, yeah. Glory's plan.
“Yes, but what if we only took down half the shields?” Glory asked with a smug smile.
“Huh?” I blinked. “And that won’t just... kill half of us?”
The air between her outstretched hooves shimmered, and a glowing white shape coalesced. It was a thick ring with hundreds of pairs of little rib-like branches sprouting from its inner and outer edges, the inner ones curving clockwise, the outer counterclockwise, and both sets curling up and back down to form two coplanar and coaxial toruses, little knobs and bobs scattered here and there on the main structure at, as far as I could tell, random. “This is the Tokomare.”
“How?” I gaped at it.
“Rover. He’s had the blueprints on the wall of this workroom for two centuries,” Glory said as she smiled at the white shape. “The rest of it I got from the vision. There’s quite a bit of guesswork too, but I think I have the most important parts. The geometry of the F.A.D.E. shields.” The ring shrunk, and the nest of buildings appeared around it. With this close view, I could see that dozens of diagonal skyscrapers, conjoined at their bases and pointing out, were supporting the web of wire on which the Eater rested. The six largest supports were actually multiple buildings merged together, and their broken tops glowed bright blue. “The shield generators that defended the city were on the roofs of the skyscrapers in the center of the Core, designed to form a hexagonal pyramid to...” She caught my hapless, loving smile and flushed. “Well, in this arrangement, they’ll form the walls of the chute that will guide Tom straight to the Eater.”
She pointed a wing at the Tokomare’s thick main ring. Six points on it lit up. “These points are the generators that will form the aperture to hold the stone in place while the Eater feeds.” From those six points, smaller, thinner fields radiated out, forming a cup at the base of the chute with a tiny hole in the middle. “You have to disable those six before Tom hits.”
“What happens if I do?” I asked as I stared at the diagram.
A tiny Tom flew down the chute as the cup disappeared. It hit the Tokomare, and a fountain of light gushed back up the chute like a shotgun blast. Glory slumped against me, nuzzling my chest. “The main F.A.D.E. shields should funnel the majority of the energy off into space. Not all. I imagine what’s left of the Core will be quite molten, if it’s not vaporized completely, but the world should be safe.”
Sorry, but I am completely lost about how that's supposed to work. So essentially, the shield geometry will redirect the energy of Tom towards space to avoid feeding the Eater of Souls and Rover just happened to have the blueprints of the fucking thing all this time but just so happen to talk about it to Glory when she was in a coma, having seizures, vomiting and trying not to die ? And she figured that plan in the what... ten hours that separated the moment where BJ left Equus to the point where she came back ? And ten hours is a generous amount because I don't think it took more than 2 hours for the way to the Moon and 2 for the way back. The whole thing on the Moon itself ? I honestly think it's barely above an hour, perhaps two depending on how long BJ was in a coma. So yeah, ten hours.
Actually, no, not ten hours. Because Glory said that she got the idea after the discussion they had with Tom on the Moon, meaning it's likely to be half that. Somewhere around 5 or 4 hours. They are damn effective in the Wasteland, especially when discussing a pseudo-plan coming from a dying mare. But anyway.
Deus Ex Machina out of Bullshitium coming from the explanation of a technology we don't understand. Essentially, Glory could have said "It just worked" and it would have had the same effect. The explanation barely makes sense and the worst part is that it will somehow works in the favor of BJ. Yes, I didn't talk about it but BJ has a lot of alternatives that is offered to her but she essentially chose (explaining her reasons) the most bullshit one and the less likely to work. So... yeah.
The rest of the plan is half as ridiculous and is just based on how conveniently things just seemed to be working. Apparently in the same timespan where Glory was being taken care of and almost dying, she shared her plan with Charity and Rover that just prepared everything needed for that plan. Somber is having a seizure and no one is trying to stop it. Then Glory says that BJ will be able to dump her babies into her cousin and then Glory dies. For the final time.
Let's make a pause here : Everypony except BJ and Scotch are dead but there's still the last fight to do, so you could ask yourself : Are we really going to have to see random characters go with BJ for her last run ? Yep. We're going to have a beautiful Z-team of people nobody cares about but I'll present them to you when we get to it.
BJ deals with a situation with her new alicorn charisma (fucking kill me...) and essentially saves the poor Brood by putting the remote control into the body of Psalm because she had experience with being part of a Hive mind. It's useless and aside from saving nobodies, it serves no other purpose. We then have some Zebra lore about Starmetal and how it comes from different stars and we even had some lore about souls like how an old soul can alter things around it. It is an interesting tidbit. It's like finding a marshmallow into a field of salt : a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
We have some closure for the arc of Psalm, the idea that the special talent of BJ isn't winning but something else because Boo says it's stupid and a letter from GB from beyond the grave where he gives note for a new political system. Even from beyond the grave, guy is a Gary Stu, impressive.
Luna-Blackjack has a discussion with Celestia using memories that BJ isn't supposed to have since soul and spirit are separated but, eh, why should I care honestly ? Let's get on with it, you have a war to win and time isn't your ally at the moment, so let's skip the sobbing parade if you will. I also don't care about Bastard and Triage being related. It's chapter 76, dude, you don't have time to introduce and develop new pedophiles.
So... now, BJ is making a team to attack the beautiful Eater. She says no to Scotch Tape because it's possibly a suicide run which means that aside from BJ all people that will accompany her will be NPCs. How much will you care about this splendid roster ? Let me present them to you... in the next chapter~.
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First is Psychoshy also known as Whisper, she had some character development along the course of the story and while I personnally don't care about her, she does have some reason to follow Blackjack. A good fighter and a character of some kind. Let's say it's a good start for our team of apocalypse fighter.
Second one is Dusk, Glory's sister... which is barely a character. She is the pissy version of Glory and honestly, we're already touching characters that are in the realm of "Who were you again ?" A good fighter but fuck me if you expect me to care about this character that got barely any screen time.
Third is Crumpets the Steel Ranger that is better defined as "the Steel Ranger that screamed at Psalm for not loving Stronghoof right away." I assume she's a competent fighter but like Dusk, she's a bit more of a mixed bag. I didn't like her that much but at least she had some scenes to make me remember who she was. So a bit above Dusk in memorability but around the same in care I have for her.
Fourth is Pythia, the zebra filly seer. I don't have anything to say. She is a snarky one and she can see the future. I have no reason to care about if she lives or dies because I don't know why she's even fighting with the good guys aside from not wanting to die. I absolutely don't care about her despite her personality. Plus, she barely had enough scenes to warrant my interest.
Fifth is Lancer and oh my god I don't care. He is a half-baked villain that got ridiculed by BJ and is now for some reason a good guy because he found love again or some shit... Kill me. Or him, whichever is quicker.
Sixth is Aries... You know, Aries Zodiac ? The Red armored pony that uses flamethrowers ? You know, this zodiac we barely saw back when BJ got her new Pipbuck ? Aries Zodiac ! No ? No one. Awww, she's so great a character though...
Seventh is the Sweetie Sexbot. I have nothing.
Eighth and last (except BJ of course) is Psalm. You know, the whiny assassin that killed Big Mac but now is fine with killing again because it's to protect the Armstrong rip-off that has like... no chemistry with her. At least there was some with Lacunae...
Why did I waste so much time presenting them instead of talking of the rather long and adrenaline-filled Indiana Jones like sequence where they get chased and they all discuss and try to have chemistry ? Because it's the end and I couldn't care less even if I tried. So skipping ahead to something that has real value to discuss. Also, Lancer dies.
The battle against the Legate is quite long and interestingly described and I have to give it to Somber that the fight is actually interesting. It doesn't have interesting people in it, but still, it's visually satisfying. He works like a puzzle boss in a Shadow of the Colossus game, destroy the weak points one by one to try and take him down. Sweetie bot "dies" too and so does Aries. Boo to the fuckin hoo.
When they destroyed all the weak points, The Legate revert back to his old size in a cybernetic sort of body like Dawn had, suggesting that the Eater of Souls was keeping him alive and as long as the Eater does that, the Legate is immortal. Yes, the fight is really long but that's not my issue. My issue is how it ends.
“The Eater of Souls needs me!” he insisted, his flaring, flickering eyes narrowing.
“For what?” I asked, rubbing my face as I stood. “You’re nothing to the Eater. It doesn’t need you.”
“It has always needed me!” he shouted at me.
“Since when?” I laughed, scornfully.
“Always! I was the one who could hear its dying whispers! I was the only one who would listen to its call. It needed me to get my own wretched tribe to resurrect it! It needed me to use your people to raise it! It needs me now to forestall you just a few minutes more!”
Then we heard it. The scream of Enervation changed. Focused. For a moment, all around us, came a slightly different modulation of the noise. It could be summed up in three words.
OH, DO I?
The Legate’s colors reverted back to white and red, and he stared at his hooves. His look of utter horror was absolute, and he gaped at me, his mouth moving silently. Finally, he rasped, “I... I am your ever-loyal servant! I would never presume...” He gagged, his jaw working. I just watched. “I... am... worthy! I–”
He hunched over as his body seemed to soften like hot wax. “No! Not like this!” He thrust a hoof towards the ceiling and screamed as his flesh ran in the heat of the Eater’s ire. “You owe me!” he screamed as his gut distended, then burst like a boil.
The Eater kills the Legate by spirit of contradiction. Let me repeat that : the Eater of Souls, that is not completely regenerated and need for Tom to come and give him the last push, kills off an immortal death machine that is subservient to him because he said that the Eater needed him. That's the most anticlimactic and retarded way to die ever. We had a super fight against a giant and now, the Eater just hit the "Off" button and the Legate dies ? The Eater is supposed to be a master manipulator but because the Legate who served him for MILLENIA, said that he needed him... he kills him off ? Do you smell how stupidly convenient and uncharacteristic it is ? Do you smell how it is another completely stupid decision to allow for something completely anticlimactic. He could have just died as a giant or the Eater could have crushed his personality through his power making it an automaton, but no. He killed off his last line of defense because of what ? Pride ? My god, how insecure is that Star God ?
After that, BJ sends everyone back and goes to fight the Eater alone but not after getting some favors from the Stars that Pythia apparently commands. Keep that in mind, it'll be stupid later. Also, Psychoshy is pregnant with Stygius' child.
And now comes... the part that irked me the most in this chapter. The Dealer comes back. How ? Well, let me quote the man to make it clear.
“I was always more than just him. Besides, I know you wouldn’t want to make this trip without an escort. Nopony should die alone,” he said as I climbed.
[...]
“No? Well, who can tell for sure?” The Dealer took his hat off. “If I were anything... and I’m not saying I am... I’d call me the Wasteland.” And he gave me a little bow.
“The Wasteland?” I echoed as I stared at him.
“The desolation. The loss. The pain and sacrifice. I take you... all of you... and I make your lives living, bloody hell. I twist you. I tear you. I see what you’re all made of. How far you can go. Where, exactly, you break.” He showed cards of me after the Seahorse. Of me outside Maripony right before the bomb went off. Of Shadowbolt Tower dying. “And you... Blackjack... you’re a pony who should have fallen a hundred times over. I try, and I try, and I try... but I can’t quite get you.”
I will tell the following in no uncertain term : Somber, what you just did right now is the most disgusting move you could have done when it came to the Dealer. For chapters upon chapters, people like me believe that the Dealer was of course the expression of the Wasteland in some fashion or another, either through an hallucination caused by the sick mind of BJ or a real ghostly apparition. It was thematically interesting to make BJ face the harsh reality of the Wasteland to destroy her naivety and perhaps make her evolve. It also allowed for creative visual and it could have been an entity on par with Discord since both are trickster-like characters. It was what people imagined it to be and while it was not particularly well-executed since the Dealer was mostly there to be an ass instead of coming when it was interesting, it still had potential.
Then you revealed that the Dealer was a real person named Echo (EC-1101, lol) and that the appearance he was projecting was actually a RP character he created that he was hiding behind because it was cool. At this very moment, we never saw the old Dealer back at no point. The hypothesis of the Dealer being more was dead and buried and replaced by a living joke of an edgy pony wanting to be cool through his edgy persona. You killed the Dealer yourself and all the potential it had with that extremely piss poor decision. It was the kind of alternative that nobody wanted... but you know what ? At least you had remained consistent up to this point. Dealer was Echo and nothing more.
Then, at the last point of your fucking story, you have the audacity to try and retroactively say that the Dealer is actually the spirit of the Wasteland like so many people thought it was at the beginning ? How fucking pathetic can you be ? You destroyed a possible alternative with a lesser one and instead of keeping to it, you're trying to be all meta and making it intervene at the end like the worst game of "Gotcha" ? And why do you make him appear at this point ? To tell us something that even stupider than before : BJ's special talent is winning through the death of others. That's it. Her special talent makes her reach her goal through casualties. How fucking pathetically edgy can you be ?
"My character power is to win every single battle she wages but other have to die for that to happen." You made the very destiny of a character to be unkillable and angsty because people died around her. Did you think that making the Dealer say it would make it less pathetic ? Because he tries to make her doubt when she is climbing the last hill to fight the Eater of Souls.
This right here is a double failure : first you try to dishonestly imply that the Dealer was always more than just Echo when it clearly never was hinted at whatsoever and rather than letting the embarassment that was "my character's special talent is winning" remain vague, you doubled down on it to make it sound like your character was the tool of forces bigger than hers, making her extremely pathetic in the first sense of the term. Woe is her for she is born under a star of blood and angst.
I have nothing but contempt for this scene and the double message it sends. Fuck you, Somber.
Also, I'll leave that quote here just to let you people judge it...
“But of course you do!” He laughed. “Weren’t you always hating yourself for being a screwup? You’re now the most dangerously competent pony in the Wasteland. Weren’t you always hating your tiny little horn and lack of magic? Well, you’re descended from Twilight Sparkle now! Weren’t you pining for friends and lovers? I’ve given you more than a few!” He cackled. “I am so generous, like you. I give people what they crave! What they yearn for more than anything!” He swept his hoof towards the ceiling above me. “And now, I give you what you desire most... a heroic death.” He leered at me. “Make it a good one. You’ve none left to die for you.”
The next part is BJ going through all ways she could deal with the Eater of Souls and choosing the one she thinks it's right by linking all alternatives to pits that her enemies fell in. It's actually an interesting moment and a good way to show a sense of meaning in your characters even if it might a bit too apparent doing it that way but Somber never was subtle.
The Eater instead of destroying her through a huge wave of Enervation is sending dreams after dreams to try and make her give up. First it's a nice dream for BJ back in her Stable. Next a nice dream for Luna that signed an armistice and the last is a carbon copy of the "BJ is a madmare in a mental institute". Honestly, this last one is boring as sin.
Side note : I'm using the black version of Fimfiction and the Eater of Souls speak using Dark Green fonts so it's really painful to read it. In any case, BJ is facing the Eater of souls in all its mass. The Eater's "personality" is boring and is basically a Cognitum/Goddess 2.0. I think Somber just thought that when a creature is above mortals, they just scream their lines and speak like they're royalty.
The fight is boring but essentially, BJ is destroying the shields she need to destroy one by one. At one point, her wings get destroyed and cut off and she was then tore in two but she kept herself conscious... because she is just that resistant to having her blood and intestines spill everywhere I guess. Then she discovers that the Heart that she had is a Moonstone and... stop.
Two things. First, if that was the case, why in the everflying fuck is that nobody told her directly that it was the case. I know that it's supposed to be a "Ooooh" moment since it would explain why she is seemingly immune to Enervation. Except she fucking isn't immune ! Remember the fight with Dawn in Roseluck's enterprise ? She was on the verge of dying there and I think that the Eater of Souls Enervation is stronger than a few starmetal rings. She was clearly shown as resistant but not immune and Moonstone is supposed to make her immune so I have the very noticeable feeling that someone thought of that at the last minute, perhaps around the start of book 5 perhaps ?
Second, the Enervation of the Eater is now boundless and unrestrained, so much so that the slugs of Moonstone she used were nothing but starmetal. As such... Why the fuck is her heart not Starmetal ? Sure, the Heart must be a bit bigger than a slug but the difference is that, while the slugs were only exposed to Enervation up to when she decided to come into contact with the Eater of Souls... Her heart had to fight off countless high enervation moments. Hell she was stuck in the Core for THREE months and you're going to tell me that it didn't affect her Heart at all, even when she's fighting ON THE EATER HIMSELF ?
It's a poor twist with nothing but logical errors making it work and yet that's the thing that allows for BJ to win as she uses to destroy the last shield, letting Tom kill the Eater of Souls with that beautiful piece of Bullshit :
No. I refused. Every second of life I had left would be opposing this thing. For my friends who had fallen, and for those who still survived. For Glory. For P-21. For my Sister. I stared at the stone and then closed my eyes. I might be broken. I might be dying. I might be in agony. I was used to it. And while I couldn’t raise or lower the whole moon...
I could raise a small piece of it.
My horn flared as I pushed Tom up the shaft. Just a bit. Just enough for the wedge of magic to lose power, flicker, and disappear. With a relieved smile, I cut the magic.
Tom fell.
Thus, the fight ends with BJ laying there, broken and dying while Tom and the Eater died, their presence vanishing from the world.
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Epilogue. I will be brief about it and I won't try to explain the details of new things that happened. Just know that we're now far into the future, 200 years or so and the story of BJ and Pip are now stuff of legend. The Epilogue goes back to the past and the future so I'll focus on the past. Among other things, Scotch Tape, Pythia and Majina went towards Zebraland after the events, kicking up the events of Homelands, the sequel to PH.
Grace raised the kids of BJ as her own and she called them Baccarat and Bouillote (apparently knowing about the fact that the family of BJ had card games for name.) Crumpets and Dusk became a couple, Velvet had 8 kids with Calamity, Psychoshy had her own and met back with her mother in some kind of emotional moment if you cared for Whisper.
Blackjack got a new body that is apparently immortal as a price for asking the help of the Stars and she is now wandering the new world that she helped create. Littlepip is the same way and it is known that they fucked a lot. You must be happy Somber, your fanboy dreams are getting real. We also know that Boo is becoming the new Discord and that she apparently went full agent of murder and chaos... Not sure what I think about it aside from being extensively random and out of character for the kind soul that she was.
We learn that apparently Psychoshy was the fucking element of Magic... Yeah, sure. And Pip and BJ goes back to the Moon on a makeshift rocket to go save Rampage which was still alive after so many years. However, the Phenix Talisman died after 200 years of constant use and it is a sad and happy Rampage now Peppermint that joins Pip and BJ back to Equus.
Thus ending Project Horizons.
Closing thoughts : I'm free but I feel nothing. I'm just not linked to that fucking fiction anymore. I'm simply relieved I suppose.
Rest well. Your struggle is over, hero.
Thanks, Plenitude. I just finished reading through your blogpost review of Project Horizons a few days ago.
Having never read the fic myself, this commentary does help me come to a deeper understanding of why I felt antipathy towards it when so many of my peers were becoming charmed by or engrossed in it. Comparing my subjective journey with Fallout: Equestria to my subjective journey with PH over my years in the fandom, I think there's probably one "sin" in particular that Somber commits in and with PH that drives me away from the work and its fandom, whatever virtues they may or may not possess.
With Fallout: Equestria, One of the things I felt that Kkat did really well and used to their advantage was the idea of "sharing" or a "shared experience". In your review of FoE, you touched upon this frequently, remarking on how you experienced Kkat's synthesis of the two disparate settings -- Fallout and MLP FiM -- from the perspective of an outsider on the Fallout side, and an insider on the FiM side. By contrast, I came to FoE as an experienced fan of Fallout and a newly minted and energized fan of FiM.
You definitely made a salient point about the inability of referential conceit to stand-in for robust worldbuilding, but I think the effectiveness of the apparatus encompassed more than just that function. I remember being endlessly impressed and enthralled when I first realized the possibilities available when Fallout's atom-punk superscience was transmuted to magitek (e.g. the medical-black-box "Stimpak" replaced by the more elegant "magical healing potion"; the threat and promise of nuclear energy replaced by the terror and wonder of grand spellcraft; the somewhat blurry difference between "super-science" and "mundane science" reborn as the mysterious interface between a sharper dichotomy, "magical science" and what we'd call "natural science"). I think this is and was a silent pillar of strength for the FoE community since its infancy, and was particularly important in helping cultivate its burgeoning culture of side-fic and spinoff creation. Kkat set a clever example by playing extensively and rigorously with the raw materials of their crossover, and (to me at least) that form ended-up being more important than the mixed quality of the examples Kkat produced over FoE's run. It set a precedent whereby the compelling themes and elements of the base work are singing a siren song, asking to be extracted and refined into new forms by new authors. An irresistible situation for people like myself.
Somber erodes that.
Comprehensively, the urge to upstage FoE comes through very strongly in Project Horizons. You made that assessment pretty-much unimpeachable in your review, and I really cannot understate how much that picture irritates me, a person who thinks one of FoE's (and the FoE community's) greatest virtues is that it sets-up a space for cooperative and/or parallel work in a shared thematic universe.
Somber engages wholeheartedly with Kkat's modeled "spinoff creation realm", sure, but it's with a goal I find quite disappointing and disheartening. In the report your review gives, Somber is engaging with FoE in order to supplant the original as much as possible, rather than in pursuit of a spirit of equitable collaboration, or at least parallel creation. That's why, despite the various tales from my friends and acquaintances about the "innovations" Project Horizons makes to the realm of Fallout: Equestria, I don't think I'll ever be comfortable welcoming it into my heart.
Please let me know your thoughts.
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First, thanks for having taking the time to read this entire ordeal, I know that it must have been quite a lengthy process and probably hard to follow if you had absolutely no knowledge of the fiction itself. Now, as for your comments about the inherent qualities of Fallout Equestria that are born of the potential that can be extracted from it rather than the actual applications by the source itself, I can absolutely see it. It is absolutely understandable that the crossover itself and its adaptations (when there are some) are absolutely bursting with possibilities and potentials and it is understandable that an author would like to take that fertile ground to make something out of it.
I mean, there is a reason why there are so many spin-off fictions about FO:E despite the fact that I still strongly and adamantly believes the work to be absolutely mediocre and to squander all the potential it can have. For me, what's being seen in FO:E isn't the work itself but a projected image of the reader's own imagination, that's why there are as many fictions born out of love as some born out of frustration or simply a feeling that some aspects were undercooked in the original (which encompasses a rather large number of aspects.) I can grant KKat to have been the first to fuse two diametrically opposed settings to generate serendipitously something that would attract everyone but it is such a shame that the foundations of it all are so very weak. Extremely so, down to the point that many creators need to reinforce or downright change some in order for things to be more coherent.
Now, my issue with Somber isn't totally that he changes some aspects of the word. Going deeper with everything related to the zebras is something that was sorely needed in the original, making the technology and other aspects more defined as well. I have no issue with you essentially navigating around ill-defined concepts to make them stronger because as a creator, even if it is a spin-off of something, you shouldn't be beholdent to something you consider to be weak or ill-explored.
My issue with Somber is that he also does something absolutely tasteless : he makes the core of FO:E about his characters. Instead of doing something alongside the original heroes, after the original story (or before, why not ?), it decides to upstage the original in every single aspect. The story of the original is actually not that important and Blackjack is actually the Real Unsung Martyr of the Wastelands, not LittlePip. What LittlePip did is reduced in a fucking footnote in comparison to the eldritch, world-ending menace that Blackjack faced. Speaking of which, and I touched upon it in one of my blog posts, turning a post-apocalyptic setting born of the faults of people and their own vindictiveness into a "the people were essentially brainwashed and pushed to violence and conflict since the dawn of time by a secret star-God nestled under a city" to be not only tasteless but downright antithetical to what made the world of Fallout Equestria so enthralling from the point of views of many people.
In many aspects, Project Horizons is better constructed as a world than FO:E is but it is also pidgeon-holing itself in trying to exist side by side (temporally) with the original story in order to have the "I fucked with Littlepip and Homage" scene and yet still make sure that there is just absolutely no chance that LittlePip that was already a Jesus analogue of unstoppable moral virtue according to the fiction, could hold a candle to the cyber-Jesus alicorn that shares a soul with Luna.
In short, Project Horizons suffers from A LOT of issues that makes it an impossible horror to read and slog through and it is also tasteless to the original. I mean, there is a reason that there was a shitstorm around Project Horizons so bad that talking about PH is now banned to avoid another flame war between people who thinks that PH is just FO:E but actually well-written and those who thinks PH is just a derivative and self-aggrandizing piece of content that tries to upstage the original.
Black Jack and LittlePip do share something in common : they both are presented as martyrs and paragons of virtue but have absolutely bone-chilling morals that are presented as simply good.