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And regarding Gideon inspecting old Talon Company: hey, you make do with what you have. He could complain to Stern about it but she'd probably just laugh at him unless he showed up with caches of old tech and weapons. She'd probably laugh off any organizational or procedural complaints too. It was working just fine from her perspective. Right up until it all fell apart, anyway.

Inviting Stern and her lieutenants to Ashfall, or Blacktalon Tower in Manehattan, is exactly what Gideon would do to show them what a real, professional paramilitary outfit looks like. He can't stomach the thought of his organization, which has effectively been his family's legacy for a thousand years, flying around in scavenged gear and relying on strained supply lines.

Working with Red Eye is a status quo he'd have to live with for the time being, though he'd try to steer the cyber stallion away from the more sadistic practices, through the lens of them being 'bad for business.' It'd be one hell of a long shot, but he'd try to get Red Eye to shift from slavery to the legitimate employment of ponies for labor.

In the more likely scenario that Gideon simply can't abide by what Red Eye and Stern are doing, he'd build up his own Talons, likely employing Gawdyna, and even go so far as to reach out to the Enclave for an "enemy of my enemy" alliance.

A new friend generated some fantastic AI art of Jet Fuel/Washout for a fic I'm letting him use an AU version of her for.
camo.fimfiction.net/0GbPYI40UisWtV7bDZPEjfhd3khnN4CiwPQTRhMW5V4?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ibb.co%2Fr53MXPR%2F7669765-B-5-FE6-4804-B11-B-D2-BCF786-D08-F.jpg
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As an aside, if any Fillydelphia veterans were confused as to what the "big explosion" was that cleared the sky and knocked out the cloud ships, Washout would happily demonstrate a Rain-Boom.

While she was born with the magical aptitude to perform them, it was excessive training that made them effortless for her. Her wing strength cannot be overstated. If a hellhound tried to rip them off, it would get its own arms ripped off instead.

Talon Company is very lucky that the Littlepip crew dealt with the Wonderbolts. While griffon infantry is typically superior to pegasus infantry, Wonderbolts are in a class of their own.

I'm not sure if I'll ever finish writing Vanguard, but I do want to share the end results of that timeline. The major things are that the Crystal Empire freezes over permanently after the Crystal Heart is destroyed, Cozy Glow integrates reformed changelings and what's left of the crystal ponies into her forces and society, and Flurry Heart becomes a prominent figure in the Commonwealth representing them.

As for the future beyond that, initial interactions between the Vanguard/Commonwealth and the NCR would be rocky. Cozy would immediately make use of the changelings as spies, planting them in key positions within the NCR for intel and leverage. If any were discovered, paranoia would likely ensue. While Cozy's intentions are cautionary, not malicious, the NCR might not see it that way. Once that cat is out of the bag, Cozy would arrange a face-to-face with the President to smooth things over.

General Glow would want nothing more than to be peaceful neighbors, and have zero desire to be integrated into the NCR. I don't know if you know much about Cozy, but she has pathological tendencies towards being an egotistical control freak. She likes being in charge, and she, frankly, sees the NCR as inferior to her vision. Cozy's foreign policy would be to simply be the greener grass on the other side of the fence, figuring that settlements would start changing flags on their own. She's immortal, so she has no qualms simply outlasting the competition.

Sunshine and Rainbows made her ego bigger than ever, since the cloud cover was the big thing holding her solar-powered synthezoid body back. With a constant supply of sunlight, she feels like a goddess. If the NCR did wake up and choose violence, Celestia One is the worst weapon they could use on her.

The parallel to Tony Stark is something I've realized I've accidentally done. Cozy Glow is a character whose only weapon/tool, really, is her mind.

She's also someone whose world view and aspirations were dramatically shifted, multiple times, by death. The death of her selflessly adoring mother made her jaded and self serving. The death of her criminal father taught her that such a mindset would be her demise. When she received her leukemia diagnosis, she spat on it and devoted herself to building a lasting future for own family through her growing magic-tech business with the time she had left. When her husband and children died at Littlehorn, she was faced with the reality that no matter how hard she tries to control death, she can't.

And she refused to accept that reality. Even when the bombs fell, she continued to defy her own illness with cybernetics, eventually being far more machine than pony by the time a sect of the Enclave chose to defy the rest and settle Equestria's west coast. 30 years after the bombs fell, her brain is the only thing left of her original body, and its number is nearly up. Still refusing to admit defeat, she digs into something she had previously dismissed; soul jars. She understood the risks involved with transferring her essence into an object; a synthetic body of nigh indestructible Star Metal. She understands that the necromantic process would break most people. She figured, "I'm already broken, so what the hell?"

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Kaz would certainly be happy to have his bills paid up like that. As I'm sure I implied well in the epilogue, despite being a doctor I figured he and Amy were roughing it like most people. Maybe that's more due to a lack of resources in the area than just money, but money certainly helps.

I can imagine that Gritt racked up quite a lot of savings in his line of work. If you get called to deal with the world's most dangerous people and things, you get paid well for that.

And regarding Gideon inspecting old Talon Company: hey, you make do with what you have. He could complain to Stern about it but she'd probably just laugh at him unless he showed up with caches of old tech and weapons. She'd probably laugh off any organizational or procedural complaints too. It was working just fine from her perspective. Right up until it all fell apart, anyway.

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I really do wish we'd seen a canon deer civilization, but this is essentially how I'd have pictured them living too, including how things would have turned out in FO:E. If they did have powerful druidic magic, they'd have probably eeked by outside of the eye of the other civilizations before the war. During the war, they again probably would have been considered mostly unimportant unless their territory had useful resources. After the war, they suddenly become the most valuable people in the world if they can still grow food and purify water. If they appear to be weak, they'd be prime slave fodder.

Regarding heavy shock troops for Talon Company: yeah, I'm sure if they had high quality powered armor like the Enclave they'd have loved to do something like that. Really, griffons would be better than pegasi in almost every way in a fight.

Logistics of course would be the killer.

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Rabies is a frightening disease, and surely would be even more so in the wasteland. I imagine it could have survived in isolated populations in the Everfree or something to that effect, and it only takes a bite to transmit it.

It's likely that prewar Equestria would have had magical treatments that could have cured it, but in FO:E's wasteland people aren't so lucky. A bullet might be a mercy at that point.

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Yeah, I'd expect a lot of people from every walk of life that experienced something like Fillydelphia or Operation Cauterize to turn to creative hobbies like art or music to help deal with the trauma. I could easily see it forming new genres as civilization began to recover for that matter. Then, of course, cue the next generation emulating it without having experienced the worst of it.

Neo Griffonia mostly functions as a tiered democracy. Common citizens only directly elect Mayors for their specific towns, who then appoint a Councilor to represent their interests in that province's Parliament. The three Parliaments of Griffonstone, Wingbardy, and Aquileia then appoint High Ministers.

Oddly, the griffons of the homeland still care about royal bloodlines and have miraculously managed to keep track of them enough to know who has legitimate claims to the Griffonian throne. Even more of a miracle, Grover I still has living direct descendants, and Grover IX becomes the first King in centuries.

The Royal Family is mostly a symbolic figurehead, though they do have arbitration authority when the High Ministers can't agree on something.

Instead of choosing Griffonstone as the capital as the old Griffonian Empire had, Neo Griffonia built a new one where the three provinces shared a border, and named it Boreas.
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The Blacktalon family, "Talons," and Fort Ashfall, all have history dating back to King Grover I, the original unification of Griffonia, and the thwarting of Equestrian expansion into Griffonia.

During the reign of Grover I, General Ghislaine Blacktalon commanded his most elite soldiers. Brandishing a bared talon on their breastplates, a symbol strongly associated with the griffon god of war, Arcturius, Ghislaine's forces swiftly subdued Grover's opposition wherever they were sent. After the continent was unified, Ghislaine ordered the construction of a fort in the Griffish Isles, their most western territory bordering the newly founded Equestria.

As Equestria expanded, the ponies saw Griffonia as a worthwhile prize, and began launching expeditions to claim territory. Ghislaine's "Talons" ensured that not a single hoof ventured beyond Trottingham. Ashfall was marked in history as "the fort that never fell."

Fort Ashfall has been expanded and renovated countless times over the centuries, but its foundations are over a millennia old and still going strong. They don't make them like they used to.