Characters / Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons

Protagonists

Blackjack

Blackjack, aka. 'The Security Mare' (Given name: Go Fish)

The main protagonist of Project Horizons, Blackjack is a security pony in Stable 99 where Free-Love Future rules and the stallions are used as breeding tools. Upon discovering the EC-1101 in the Stable's systems, Blackjack flees out into the Wasteland to uncover its secrets, facing the horrors of Hoofington. Becoming known as the Security Mare, Blackjack considers herself Book Dumb, will charge into a situation recklessly, and believes she is at her best when drunk. Her greatest strength and weakness is her Chronic Hero Syndrome, and she wishes to help everyone in the Hoof, or die trying.

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• Action Bomb: Following an encounter with Killing Joke. Not as awesome as you'd think, since it only goes off when it's "funny."
  • Something of a subversion, since Blackjack herself doesn't explode. Anything she touches (the ground, a ruined vehicle, an elevator car, Rampage) explodes instead.
• A-Cup Angst: Parodied with Blackjack's "compact" horn and her clear envy of Lacunae's far longer horn. Of course, "horns" stands in for "breasts".
• The Alcoholic: Blackjack never, ever passes up an opportunity to get wasted, any alcohol she stumbles upon is usually consumed within minutes, particularly if it's Wild Pegasus whiskey. Drowning My Sorrows occasionally applies, but given how much mental, physical, and spiritual trauma she has been through, can you blame her?
• Anti-Hero: While Blackjack tries her hardest to be good, she is often met with situations that force her to pick between the lesser of two evils, and when faced with such choices, she will be more than willing to kill anyone necessary.
• Apocalypse Maiden: What the zebras believe her to be.
• Apologetic Attacker: If her hoof is forced she will beat and/or kill you. But then she'll feel bad and whine about it.
• Apologises a Lot: Even outside of combat she has a mild case of apologizing over most things.
• Appropriated Appellation: Resents DJ PON-3's 'Security' label at first but eventually warms to it, to the point where she occasionally uses it to refer to herself in narration.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to Lacunae, Blackjack doesn't qualify for Unity because she's unpredictable, unstable, irrational, self-destructive, and whiny.
• Artificial Limbs: With a built-in PipBuck and retractable fingers.
• The Atoner: Bordering on Death Seeker.
• Ax-Crazy: A rare heroic example. Blackjack, especially whenever she gets drunk, can become an unstoppable maniac that kills everything in her way while smiling the entire time.
• Back from the Dead: Following the total failure of her heart and respiratory system, Blackjack is clinically dead for several hours. Her brain and body only survive because Rampage is used as a willing life-support machine until BJ can be implanted with synthetic organs.
• Badass Boast: As time goes on and the near death situations continue to pile up, Blackjack becomes increasingly fond of these.
  Blackjack: But right now, I got my gun, my beer, a fire in my belly, and a grin on my face and there’s not a mother-fucking pony in the Wasteland who can stop me!
• Bad with the Bone:
  • During the solo fight in the museum, Blackjack finds a dragon claw. It replaces the police baton as her go-to melee weapon until it gets destroyed.
  • During the mansion adventure, she improvises with diamond dog claws glued to the end of a thighbone.
  • In Chapter 42, Blackjack kills an Enclave pegasus by stabbing several bones into the socket of her severed wing.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: After the addition of Glory shifts the group dynamic to a Freudian Trio, Blackjack for once becomes the brains to Glory’s beauty and P-21’s brawn. With Glory providing an emotional center to the group, P-21 is free to increasingly hint at his suppressed aggression while Blackjack is cooled by reminders that her actions have consequences. She finds herself as the Ego that must balance P-21's vengeful, self-serving Id and Glory's naively over-civilized (for the Wasteland) Superego.
• Being Good Sucks: Most chapters involve her being severely punished for doing good things.
• Berserk Button: Blackjack tends to flip out if she sees innocents or her friends being harmed for any reason.
  • Following Chapter 33, being reminded of her rape becomes this.
• Big Eater: Blackjack starts out as just a non-picky eater, nomming down happily on a Lethal Chef's cooking and Foreign Queasine with gusto, but when she's augmented, it really takes off. Bonus points go to when she's hit with an assassination attempt and, instead, eats the knife.
• Big "NO!": Blackjack is not happy when Lacunae spoils the sacrifice portion of her Heroic Sacrifice in Chapter 22.
• Blood from the Mouth: Occasionally. Blackjack literally vomits blood at one point due to Enervation exposure.
• Body Horror:
  • In chapter 30, Blackjack discovers a horrific tumor growing in her empty eye socket.
  • Initially, Blackjack viewed her entire conversion to a cyborg as this, before coming to accept it.
• Book Dumb: Considers herself this.
• Broken Tears: Happens multiple times over the course of the story, but a notable example is when she breaks down in front of P-21 following her rape.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Zigzagged. Initially, she can't understand why P-21 seems to loathe her personally, even if life in Stable 99 was pretty crappy, because it's not as if she personally tried to hurt P-21. Then she gets some video-recordings from P-21's PipBuck and learns she actually did personally hurt him; she raped him at her coming-of-age party, and she beat his lover U-20 to death when the unicorn committed Suicide by Cop. Once she remembers she did this, however, she is horrified and guilt-stricken.
• But I Can't Be Pregnant!: She had believed her contraceptive implant would prevent pregnancy. It didn't.
• Came Back Strong: Temporarily lost use of her magic, but gained an augmented cybernetic body.
• Can't Bathe Without a Weapon: While in Flank, Blackjack takes a bath in full armor with her weapons in easy reach. She isn't attacked, but she mentions she's ready for it.
  Blackjack: I have a very very valuable head.
• Casual Kink: Blackjack has masochistic tendencies, though it's unclear whether she always had them or if they developed subconsciously from her early guilt and desire to be punished. She gradually becomes more open about them, both with herself and her friends, and enjoys having Glory rough her up in bed.
• Catchphrase: Several of them:
  • "I'm not a smart pony."
  • "Security saves ponies."
    • Similar to the above, and often used with it: "I'm not an executioner."
  • "Ante up."
• Centipede's Dilemma: Word of God on why she had trouble with her augmentations at first.
• Character Development: When she first left the stable Blackjack initially had an extremely sheltered and limited world view. Being almost completely unable to comprehend what would drive ponies to madness. Her own always do better mentality caused her early on to feel immense pressure. this pressure compounded with immense feelings of regret in regards to innocents and friends she got killed, or had to kill, often lead Blackjack to thoughts and even acts of attempted suicide. However, through the help of her friends, and their reassurance that she was important and was making a positive impact on the world she learned and realized that she had and could persevere more than any other pony. With her past in mind she pushes forward with the faith of others and her history to remind her to never give up, to always push to do better and be better.
• Character Exaggeration: Blackjack becomes a lot more openly sex-driven about a third of the way into the story. She starts the story with an appreciation for attractive ponies of both sexes, but never focused on sex enough to actually make the first move — in fact, she turns down Morning Glory when she first hits on her, because she doesn't believe their relationship would be healthy. Once she starts up a long-term sexual relationship, however, her sexual attitudes become much more prominent. Possibly because of either her traumatic experiences, the cyberpony conversion, or a mixture of the two.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Blackjack is a life-long sufferer, with an unfortunate tendency to act without considering the consequences. A likely candidate for BJ's Fatal Flaw. She's so focused on helping others that she ends up saddled with crippling guilt when things inevitably go wrong, to the point of almost completely disregarding her own health. She becomes overwhelmed with guilt whenever she is forced to harm noncombatants herself, and normally can't bring herself to kill in cold blood.
• Combat Pragmatist: Blackjack is just about willing to do anything to win a fight, often through radical, crazy and suicidal means.
• Cool Big Sis: Once Scotch Tape joins her team, Blackjack tries to be this for her with varying results.
• Cosmic Plaything: Blackjack has good intentions, but things rarely turn out as she hopes and her attempts to help often make things worse. This trope may be literal, if Big Daddy and/or the zebras are to be believed.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: She grew up complicit in Stable 99's brutal mistreatments of stallions and never openly questioned it, even if she did hold private doubts. Life in the Wasteland causes her to realize just how messed up Stable 99's sexual mores and behaviors were, and she becomes determined to change things. Unfortunately, Stable 99 ends up wiped out instead.
• Covered with Scars: Naturally, given Blackjack soaks up almost as much physical abuse as Rampage, she picks up a very impressive library of scars over the course of the story.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Rampage occasionally gets out of control, to the point where Blackjack responds by shooting her in the head until she calms down. Rampage even thanks her for it. Lampshaded:
  Glory: Blackjack! You don’t do therapy with bullets!
  Blackjack: You do when you’re dealing with a regenerating mare who thinks she’s a crazy zebra.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Blackjack [[spoiler: goes kill crazy at the end of Chapter 42, and brutally kills a squad of Enclave by herself.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: A common side-effect of cybernetic augmentation and Blackjack's prime fear following hers. Even if the augmentation doesn't cause acute pain, the lack of familiar bodily reactions and general "feeling less like a pony" is a tremendous stress. BJ manages to stave off the worst of it thanks to her friends and love being there for her.
• Cyborg: As of Chapter 34. Taken even further as of 62b. She's now more machine than pony.
  • As of chapter 65, she is a cyborg no more, because her mind was transported to a clone of her body, and her old body was taken over by Cognitum.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her new cyborg alicorn augmentation is almost all black with glowing red eyes.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Most of Blackjack's foes that survive their encounter with her ends up assisting the group later on. Lampshaded by Rampage.
  • Done hilariously in Chapter 58, when Lancer reluctantly joins Blackjack's party.
    Blackjack: What are you doing here?
    Lancer: The Proditor said it was the ‘Blackjack defeat effect’. Apparently I now have to follow you around until I find a new purpose in life or something.
• Determinator: To a fault. Her eagerness to act causes almost as many problems as it solves, but stopping to reflect often leaves her wallowing in guilt.
  • Lampshaded. Blackjack's Chapter 27 perk is Made of Stubbornium.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: At the end of Chapter 33, Blackjack dies while snuggling under Glory's wing. It doesn’t last.
• The Dreaded: After she comes back from the dead, the Zebra Remnant refer to her as 'Maiden of the Stars,' a title they previously reserved for Nightmare Moon.
• Dreadful Musician: Surprisingly averted. Her music with Octavia's contrabass is rough around the edges, but is apparently quite pleasant. Octavia's soul may be helping.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Blackjack attempts to gas herself in Chapter 22, Interrupted Suicide: but Lacunae intervenes.]] The only reason that Blackjack is still alive at the end of Chapter 23 is because she forgot to turn her gun's safety off. Even after she gets better, Blackjack remains borderline suicidal for much of the story.
  • Played with in Chapter 50, where Blackjack tries to shoot herself in a desperate attempt to stop the Goddess pulling the knowledge of Gardens of Equestria from her mind. The Goddess simply squashes BJ's suicidal impulses and takes it anyway.
• Drowning My Sorrows: One of Blackjack’s go to methods for coping with a traumatic experience is to down as much alcohol as she can find, a notable example is when she does with vodka after Glory’s branding.
• Drugs Are Bad: Played with. Chems help Blackjack survive horrific injuries and perform incredible feats, and she seems to lack Littlepip's weakness to addiction, but overdoses and side effects wreak havoc on her long-term health.
• Drunken Master: Tends to kick the most ass with a little alcohol in her.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: Following her augmentation, BJ is able - and required - to eat scrap metal and gems to maintain her cybernetics.
• Embarrassing First Name: Her birth name is actually Go Fish, or 'Fishy.' She instead adopted the name Blackjack after her Cutie Mark manifested.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Following her augmentation.
  • Badass Transplant: Some of her cybernetics belonged to her old nemesis, Deus. Illustrated hilariously here.
• Ethical Slut: Due to her upbringing in Stable 99, Blackjack considers most sex (not including rape) to be casual recreation and not something to get hung up on. She can't quite grasp why Glory gets so upset about her bedding Stygius - it's not like she loved him! Glory is rather stunned when she finds out how things were done in 99, particularly when she learns that Scotch Tape - a young filly who hasn't even gotten her cutiemark yet - has had multiple sexual encounters with both genders.
  • As of chapter 57, Blackjack seems to be bringing Glory around a bit, since Glory willingly slept with a stallion without asking Blackjack first, and decided to allow Blackjack to have sex with one stallion as a matter of fairness. Not to mention the chapter ended after a threesome between Glory, Blackjack, and P-21.
• Extreme Omnivore: The lesser variety. Blackjack's bizarre sense of taste says that the rancid-orange-juice flavor of Rad-Away is "tangy" and a raw-egg-and-chili-powder hangover cure is "not bad". Said hangover cure made Rampage vomit. She happily eats Glory's cooking. After upgrades, she adds metal and rocks to her diet.
• Eye Scream: [[spoiler: Blackjack loses an eye at some point between Chapters 26 and 27. In Chapter 30, the empty socket develops a malignant tumor, thanks to radiation and taint, and in Chapter 32, her remaining eye is blown out by Steel Rain. Then she gets soaked in taint and falls in salt water.
• First-Person Smartass: A lot of her narration comes with sarcastic comments.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Blackjack starts out as the most incompetent security mare in Stable 99. Within weeks of leaving, she accumulates a kill count in the hundreds, including innocents and children.
• Gallows Humor: Blackjack is quite capable of this, thanks to her low self-esteem and Stepford Smiler tendencies.
  Blackjack: Hey, Scotch. What do you call a mare with no legs who's in security? Baton.
  Scotch Tape: [Starts crying]
• Glowing Eyes: Gains a pair, but often hides them with a pair of Cool Shades. Eventually replaced with robot eyes that glow.
• Good Is Not Soft: While Blackjack can be very affable most of the time, if someone gets on her bad side, she will not hesitate to kill them, often in a very bloody and brutal fashion.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars/Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Blackjack becomes increasingly disfigured over time, accumulating significant laser scars and partly-healed bullet wounds on her face and torso, along with a large 'Y' shaped scar over her missing eye. Eventually, her taint contamination starts to manifest in the form of hideous tumors and does awful, unseen things to her legs.
  • This changes, at least in the long term, once she becomes a cyberpony - her healing talisman regenerates superficial wounds, so long as she's mostly intact.
• Hallucinations: What she believes Dealer to be, but also sees others while in strong magical fields or

suffering from sleep deprivation.

• Handicapped Badass: From Chapter 27 onwards, eventually escalating to an insane degree. As of Chapter 33, she's missing both eyes and all four legs, and still manages to kill one of her attackers while nailed to the floor.
• Healing Factor: Inbuilt healing and repair talismans grant her this following her augmentation, but she needs to fuel the repairs by eating raw materials.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Played With. Blackjack frequently goes without any headgear whatsoever but occasionally either someone's suggestion or her remembering a recent incident where head protection would've helped can get her to wear one. More than once, wearing a helmet explicitly saves her life.
• Heroic RRoD:
  • Upon first arriving in Flank, Blackjack is suffering from heavy injuries and the side effects of several chems. She's forced to take Dash and gallop through an enervation field to reach the town, and ends up having a heart attack. Fortunately, help is at hand.
  • At the end of Chapter 42, Blackjack runs her cybernetics out of power, to the point where her legs and eyes completely shut down.
  • Also at the end of Chapter 77, Blackjack has expended so much power fighting the Eater that by the time the crisis is finally averted, her final moments are spent watching the number for her reserve power quickly go down due to her extensive injuries, and ends with her running out of power and dying.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted in Chapter 22. Her friends think it's a heroic sacrifice, when it's actually more of a suicide attempt.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Blackjack takes Littlepip's issues to the point where she's motivated by nothing but sheer seething hatred of both herself and the Wasteland. And unlike Littlepip, she has attempted suicide multiple times.
• Hero with an F in Good: She means well, but Blackjack's attempts at heroism or redemption generally wind up resulting in massacres, dead foals, permanent physical or psychological damage for herself and her friends, or any combination of the above. The Ragtag Band of Misfits only stays together and follows her because they're all more or less equally broken.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Blackjack's greatest fear is being corrupted by the wasteland. Eventually Invoked, in a literal sense. Blackjack becomes a cyborg and finds herself having more in common with Deus than she'd like.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Blackjack has a serious case of this after being heavily augmented with cybernetics. She spends two chapters re-learning how to walk, and ends up triggering various functions of her new body completely by accident. Fortunately it's mostly Played for Laughs, and she's fine after she gets some alcohol in her system.
• Idiot Hero: BJ often misses things that other characters catch on to quickly, asks more verbose characters to explain things in simple terms, and berates herself for lacking intelligence.
  • Invoked! Somber stated he had trouble trying to figure out what kind of pony he wanted Blackjack to be. Then he found out this trope on This Very Wiki; at which point, 'click.'
  • She gradually becomes less so, learning to think more about the consequences of her actions and to see things through others' perspectives.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Implied; in chapter 29, she unwittingly enters a memory orb containing a marathon lovemaking session between Rarity and Vanity. When she returns to the real world, everypony is looking at her and grinning in amusement, even P-21, and Blackjack is mortified to realize she must have been climaxing from the memory feedback in front of them all.
• It's All About Me: Blackjack, to the point where she assumes this is why ponies around her are upset. She realizes she's wrong in Chapter 25, just in time to save P-21, but still forgets at times.
• The Lad-ette: Blackjack loves drinking alcohol, gives little care for her physical appearance unless it’s as a disguise, had a mess of a bedroom before leaving her stable, and when outside of combat or not having an emotional breakdown is usually laid-back and easy going in her social interactions.
• The Leader: After her Five-Man Band is officially assembled, Blackjack takes on the role of The Leader and serves mostly as a headstrong and charismatic type. She also tries to be a logical type, but fails almost consistently due to her impulsive nature, leaving either P-21 or Morning Glory to pick up the slack in that regard depending on the situation.
• Made of Iron: Blackjack can soak up a ridiculous amount of punishment, and she knows it.
  Blackjack: I’ve had cyberponies blast me with artillery! I’ve been shot in the back by zebra snipers and taken an armor piercing round through my skull! I’ve had my face attacked by almost every single pony I call a close and personal friend! I’ve had boats dropped on me! Don’t you tell me what will and won’t kill me!
• Martyr Without a Cause: Tries to become this one more than one occasion, hoping the Wasteland will finally take her out in a moment of heroism so she can finally die. But fate has other plans.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Very downplayed but in some ways is the masculine girl to P-21’s feminine boy. Blackjack is more impulsive and constantly tries to bury her feelings under a layer of constant bravado when around others. P-21, while still fairly masculine in his own right, is also more sensible and open about how he is feeling at any given moment.
• Mighty Glacier: Blackjack made be a Book Dumb unicorn, but when it comes to battle, survival, and protecting her friends, she is a powerful, near-unstoppable force on the battlefield.
• Mind over Matter: As standard for a unicorn. Her magical abilities are nothing special, but she sometimes uses her telekinesis to sabotage her opponents' weapons.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Blackjack has a minor epiphany when she realises that she raped P-21 at least once and goes to greater lengths to try and reconcile with him afterwards.
• My Greatest Failure: At first it is preventing Scoodle from dying, and it only tops itself each time afterward.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Or rather, Mutant Cyborg Unicorn.
• Nuclear Mutant: Develops a relatively minor mutation early on.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Blackjack is actually a nickname chosen to hide her Embarrassing First Name.
• Pet the Dog: When Blackjack realizes that Discord has spent two centuries in an active torture machine, she immediately turns it off. He is very relieved. A short while later, she sets him free, despite the potential consequences. Pays off later when a powerful Harbinger tank attacks the place and he saves her by bringing the place down on it, even though it means he'll be buried too.
• Power Glows: The intensity of the glow correlates with how irradiated BJ is at the time.
• Primal Fear: Played for Laughs with her fear of heights.
• Projectile Spell: Blackjack learns to fire bursts of energy from her horn. This ability develops over the course of the story, eventually gaining shotgun-grade power and extreme range.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Dealer suggests this is the true nature of her Cutie Mark, Blackjack can gain great victories, but often with a huge cost. Blackjack recalls she gained her Cutie Mark after winning a card game in her Stable, only for one of her friends to be crushed by a door.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • Blackjack is not happy when Rampage pushes the subject of rape on her.
  • BJ completely loses it while learning of the various crimes committed at Yellow River. Discovering Shujaa's butchered remains drives her over the edge.
• Rasputinian Death: A combination of cancer, mutation, multiple limb amputation, blood loss, pneumonia and finally, heart failure. She gets better.
• Really Gets Around: Played with. Blackjack is not the standard hornball character; she is appreciative of attractive ponies of both genders, but sex is rarely on her mind, and certainly not if there are other concerns to attend. However, Stable 99 had a very... "unique" approach to sex, where love was very much a separate element to sex. Stallions were treated as little better than communal dildos with the ability to impregnate mares, and mares sexually pleasured each other just for casual release. Whilst Blackjack does have a set of sexual morals, they center around the idea that rape, incest, abuse and social disruptiveness are bad; sexual monogamy is a foreign concept to her. This drives a temporary wedge between her and Glory after Glory learns about Blackjack sleeping with Stygius; to Blackjack, it was just a convenient chance to try and work past her aversion to stallions after being raped, but Glory thought that it meant Blackjack no longer loved her. She notes in chapter 50 that she had probably had sex with about twenty different mares, and twenty or so different stallions^note based on the breeding queue mechanics and her age, she had sex with 1 stallion each month for 6-7 years, before leaving Stable 99.
  • After entering the Wasteland, her sexual encounters dropped considerably. Her first relationship was with Capice, and that was instigated by Capice herself. That ended, and then came Glory, becoming a long-term, emotionally invested relationship. After becoming a cyborg, there was a drunken encounter with Littlepip, and possibly an orgy with herself, Littlepip, Glory and Homage. Then there was a one-night stand with Stygius. Then back to Glory exclusively, save for the drunken threesome with Glory and P-21 that left Blackjack pregnant.
  • Blackjack does seem to become more openly sex-focused after becoming a cyborg. She postulates that cyborgs have a tendency to fixate on sex, if they're physically capable, because it helps them fight the psychological alienation caused by being half-machine.
• Red Baron: Blackjack, AKA 'The Security Mare'.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her standard eye colour. Becomes more pronounced after she becomes a cyborg. And again more apparent after being further augmented.
• Running Gag: Whenever someone new joins the party more often than not she will get shot by them.
  • Blackjack thinks Littlepip and Stable Dweller are two different ponies and every time someone tries to correct her, something interferes.
• Samaritan Syndrome: The darker side of her heroic nature, Blackjack has a need to help anyone and everyone, even the ponies who rape and murder their way across the Wasteland.
• Sanity Slippage: Has moments of this, particularly when the stress, guilt, chem abuse, brain damage and taint contamination start piling up on her. She suffers recurring hallucinations and nightmares involving a stallion she calls the Dealer, due to his association with cryptic playing card-related metaphors, and in one case threatens him only to find that she's actually pointing her gun at Glory's head.
  • At least, Blackjack assumes he's a hallucination...
  • Blackjack has a tea party with the ministry mare figurines in Chapter 41, not unlike Pinkie in "Party Of One."
• Scars Are Forever: Whilst healing potions and Hydra can patch up the incredible amounts of injury that Blackjack gets put through, they can't stop her from being scarred afterwards.
• Secret Legacy: Blackjack is revealed to be a direct descendant of Twilight Sparkle and Big Macintosh. During the war, Twilight became pregnant but her cousin Marigold acts as a surrogate mother, adopting Twilight's child and named her Tarot. Tarot was eventually taken into Stable 99, and many years later, Blackjack was born.
• Spin-Offspring: After much debate and red herrings, it turns out that Blackjack is the offspring of Twilight Sparkle.
• Skilled, but Naive: Being from a Stable leaves her with no wasteland experience. She quickly adapts.
• Stepford Smiler: Blackjack is capable of putting on a brave face and cheerful demeanor for a time, but it quickly becomes apparent it’s a way to mask how depressed she is from the multiple traumas that she has been through.
• Stoic Woobie: Invoked. She tries to keep this facade up for her friends' benefit.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: The strong girl to P-21’s smart guy. Blackjack is the more experienced combatant, while P-21 is openly stated by Blackjack herself to be smarter than her.
• Super Drowning Skills: Having grown up underground, BJ is naturally a weak swimmer. Later Justified even further; her extensive cybernetics weigh her down enough that she immediately sinks. In chapter 36, she almost drowns in a (large, but relatively shallow) pool of blood.
• Survival Mantra: Several, most notably "Do better" and "I'm not an executioner."
• Telepathy: The magic tumors in her head are eventually advanced enough for her to start hearing the Goddess. Neither party is pleased with this.
• Technical Pacifist: To a degree. She tries desperately to be a full-fledged one, but alas, whatever for self-defense or Berserk Button, she fails most of the time.
• Trauma Conga Line: Her life from the start of the story is just one recurring series of "and then Blackjack suffered, physically and/or emotionally".
• To Be Lawful or Good: Blackjack was constantly faced with this decision throughout her time in Stable 99. She repeatedly chose the lawful until she met P-21. After leaving, she is faced with the choice again in whether or not to subscribe to the Black-and-White Insanity that her Pipbuck tracking system encourages and ultimately chooses the good option again.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Tomboy to Morning Glory’s girly girl. Blackjack was raised to be a security guard and her expertise lies in physical combat while having an aggressive nature to go along with it, while Morning Glory is a medic with a nurturing demeanor.
  • Blackjack herself is the girly girl to Rampage’s tomboy. While Blackjack doesn’t have that many feminine qualities Rampage still always comes across as more masculine than her and is the only member of the team that Blackjack usually comes across as more sensible when compared to her.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Blackjack is a skilled fighter who loves drinking alcohol, using guns, and doesn’t mind getting dirty in the slightest, but whenever she has to wear a dress at a formal event, she takes to it far better than Rampage does.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Blackjack is the submissive partner during her BDSM sessions with Glory. When one of her foes - Lancer - ties her up and blindfolds her, she has a hard time concentrating on the matter at hoof because she's so turned on.
• Trademark Favorite Food: While Blackjack loves consuming all kinds of alcohol, she seems to get particularly excited whenever it’s Wild Pegasus whiskey.
• Tranquil Fury: Blackjack drops into one upon finding Stable 99 turned into a raider nest. It takes a bullet to the head to snap her out of it.
  • Also in Chapter 42, sort of. After being hit by an explosion (not a spoiler with how often that happens), her Pip Buck gets temporarily messed up, so all she can hear is Octavia's contrabass.
• Trauma Conga Line: Oh, boy. She makes Littlepip's journey and hardships look like a walk in the park. She carries guilt for just about every mistake or death she causes or is unable to prevent, blames herself for P-21's use as a sex slave, Glory's banishment, Rampage and Lacunae's conditions, and every single sight of misery and suffering in the Wasteland. She strives to do better and encourage ponies to do the same. But her pain grows and grows throughout the story. In brief, she gets a filly killed in the opening chapters, then mercy kills forty more, suffered a mental breakdown more than once, forced to gas her own home to death when they start turning to cannibalism, tries to commit suicide which leads to P-21 trying to do the same, develops a tumour, goes blind, gets nailed to a table and raped, transformed into a cyborg using the body parts of the monster who drove her from her Stable to begin with, loses multiple friends and loved ones to war, violence, and illness, shoots another filly, has another mental breakdown, faces being assimilated into Unity, becomes pregnant, her body is hijacked by Cognitum, gets transformed into an alicorn, and ultimately survives the story as an immortal yet she outlives most of her friends.
• Unicorn: Her species. Although she later becomes a cyber-unicorn.
• Unreliable Narrator: Unintentionally. Blackjack's emotional instability often ends up influencing her narration of events.
• Unstoppable Rage:
  • When the Enclave brand Glory, Blackjack deliberately helps this trope along by injecting herself with a cocktail of chems.
  • In chapter 42 Blackjack falls into this against a squad of Thunderhead Enclave soldiers. Her brutality makes a member of the Highlanders visibly afraid.
• Villain Override: The Goddess eventually gains a measure of control over Blackjack's mind, occasionally forcing her to act against her will and tampering with her memories.
  • Played with in chapter 65, at the end of which Cognitum moves Blackjack's mind to a clone of Blackjack's body, and takes over Blackjack's cyberpony body.
• Walking Disaster Area: Places that Blackjack visits often end up shot up, blown up, set on fire, or otherwise destroyed, even if Blackjack didn't mean to.
• Walking Spoiler: Most of the spoilers on this page, as well as any fanart past a certain point, are due to the fact that Blackjack dies and is rebuilt as a cyberpony.
• Warrior Poet: Sort of. Blackjack has a tendency to break out in crude, often violent songs, including renditions of certain numbers from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. However, she quickly takes to a musical instrument and the narration of her Tranquil Fury in Chapter 22 is interspersed with an adapted version of William Blake's The Tyger.
  • Lampshaded by Xanthe in Chapter 47. According to a field report she heard about, singing in combat improves one's ability by around seventy percent, and that any singing adversary is to be avoided.
• Was Once a Man: Black Jack feels this way about herself following her mutations and cybernetic augmentation.
• We Can Rebuild Him: In Volume Three [[spoiler: Blackjack gets rebuilt with Magitek cybernetics after dying of her horrific injuries, including Taint, mutilated limbs and the loss of both eyes. Her eyes and many of her internal organs are given cybernetic replacements, and her legs are fully mechanical. Built-in talismans give her the ability to eat and digest gems (for magical power) and metal (for self-repair capabilities). Blackjack is less than pleased with her mechanical body - having seen first-hand that Cybernetics Eat Your Soul - and often expresses her frustration at the fact that her body no longer reacts to her emotions.
• What Have I Become?: Blackjack shows elements of this following her augmentation. She finds her automated breathing, lack of heartbeat, and optical interface deeply disturbing, to the point of sympathizing with Deus.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Blackjack receives these frequently, though more often out of concern than outrage. However, her various abuses of P-21 in Stable 99 and suicide attempts are genuine examples. Rampage calls her out on going ahead with Scotch Tape's memory wipe, and temporarily leaves the party as a consequence.
  • Blackjack gets this from just about everyone after she cheats on Glory with Stygius.
• Where I Was Born and Razed: Although she tries to make things better, Blackjack is eventually forced to Mercy Kill the entire population. It would have been a Heroic Sacrifice (of sorts), but a prior deal with the Goddess literally dragged her out.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Twice. Once due to terminal illness, averted by her cyborg conversion, and again thanks to a soul-draining spell cast on her by Snips.

P- 21

P-21

The oldest stallion in Stable 99, P-21 is used as a breeding tool and sex toy by the mares. Facing his inevitable "retirement", P-21 takes the opportunity to flee with Blackjack out into the Wasteland. A grumpy and deeply traumatised buck, P-21 is The One Guy in the team and keeps to himself, and Hates Being Touched.

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• Ambiguously Bi: P-21 definitely prefers stallions, and seeks them out as romantic partners, but is also able to "perform" for mares. He even admits to Priest that he actually does love Blackjack even as he hates her, and he goes on to admit to loving Blackjack (if not in a romantic way) at multiple points in the story. And ironically he gets her pregnant after a drunken threesome with Blackjack and Morning Glory. Complicating matters is that the extremely messed up society he grew up in makes it impossible to decisively attribute anything about his sexuality to nature or nurture. He could be gay but have been torturously conditioned into "responding" to aroused mares, straight but conditioned to seek emotional intimacy and security with his own gender, or even just bisexual and with a lot of hangups about trusting mares.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Spent his entire life as 'breeding equipment' in Stable 99, desperately trying to educate himself and find a way to escape before his 'retirement.'
• Deadpan Snarker: Dry sarcasm is his go-to means of communicating with others.
• Death Seeker: After the massacre of Stable 99, but Priest talks him out of it. Priest's death sends him right back over the edge, but taking responsibility for his daughter helps level him out again.
• Doesn't Like Guns: P-21 outright refuses to use projectile weapons, even in desperate situations (though he takes to a Grenade Launcher after a little convincing). He restricts himself to weapons that require care and planning because he's afraid that his repressed hatred of Stable 99's mares might make him shoot Blackjack on impulse. Discovering that she once raped him and later beat his lover to death, admittedly because said lover was committing Suicide by Cop, makes this a lot easier to understand.
• Driven to Suicide: P-21 takes Blackjack's suicide attempt very badly, and shares a measure of her guilt over Stable 99. Fortunately, she manages to avert this trope at the last minute. He falls into Death Seeker mode after Priest is killed, but gradually gets better]].
• Functional Addict: A lifelong Med-X addict. At least until he steals the Med-X slated for Scotch Tape's lung transplant and damages her stasis pod in the process, nearly leading to her death.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Impaled by metal debris during the battle to destroy Project Horizons and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to blow it up.
• The Lancer: Always Blackjack's backup.
• Luke, I Am Your Father To Scotch Tape. He tries to keep it secret because he doesn't know how to be a father, or particularly want to know. He eventually gets better.
• Master of Unlocking: P-21 is the only member of the party with significant lockpicking or computer skills.
• The One Guy: He's the only stallion member of the main crew.
• Only Sane Man: Occasional lapses aside, P-21 tends to be calm and down-to-earth.
• The Quiet One: P-21 rarely speaks unless he feels he needs to, and tends to literally creep around in the background.
• Sociopathic Hero: At times. Occasionally lapses into Comedic Sociopathy, such as when Rampage complains that she's getting caught in his grenade blasts.
  P-21 laughed as he popped open Persuasion and loaded a new grenade. “Oh, this is very therapeutic.”
• Straight Gay: He loves stallions, but he doesn't act even remotely camp. Admittedly, narrowing down P-21's precise sexuality is...complicated.
• You Are Number 6: He actually wears his name as a point of pride. There are normally only 20 males of each type in Stable 99, so being number 21 and alive is an accomplishment.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory, aka. Fallen Glory, later 'Rainbow Glory'

A pegasus who is a surviving member of the Volunteer Corps, Morning Glory joins Blackjack and P-21 shortly after their arrival in the Wasteland. An idealistic Combat Medic, Glory becomes Blackjack's marefriend and morality chain. She suffers a lot in the story.

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• Ambiguously Bi: Like P-21, she is very vocal about being 100% gay, but there are hints that, even if she prefers mares, she actually is attracted to stallions as well. She does try to blame it on her transformation, but the story is very ambiguous about how much the transformation actually affects her personality. Most notably, in the Society arc, she voluntarily sleeps with Splendid, and admits she actually enjoyed it, even if it lacked the emotional connection she has with Blackjack. And then there's the subsequent drunken threesome with Blackjack and P-21, with it being ambiguous if Blackjack was the only mare getting penetrated.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • When Rampage attempts to kill Blackjack in Chapter 20, Glory has no qualms with outright vaporising her.
  • Glory's relationship with Blackjack, which starts out as a Security Cling^note no pun intended on Glory's part, eventually develops to the point of involving rough BDSM, with Glory as the dominant partner.
• Brains and Bondage: She's a highly intelligent scientist who comes to discover she has a taste for domination and sadism, especially since that's what Blackjack likes.
• Break the Cutie: Repeatedly. She loses her friends, her confidence, her innocence, her cutie mark, her family, her lover, the same lover again, her wing, her body^note Though the transformation restores her wing, at least., and possibly a measure of her intelligence. Her mother is revealed to be a monster, and puts her father on life support indefinitely.
  • She gradually becomes a much stronger, more confident character despite (or perhaps due to) her various traumas.
• Broken Angel: After Enervation damage claims her wing.
  • Averted when an encounter with Killing Joke transforms her into a Rainbow Dash Expy. Of course, this comes with several problems of its own.
• Combat Medic: Once the Chapters get into the 20's, Glory develops the confidence to provide aerial fire support.
• The Conscience: Glory is often the voice of mercy and compassion, particularly when contrasted with P-21 and Rampage.
• Covert Pervert: In Chapter 30, Glory is quite happy to make use of the hoofcuffs, blindfold and ball gag she salvaged from the ruins of a lingerie shop.
• Cursed with Awesome: Rainbow Glory.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: After her Heroic Sacrifice in Rocket Town, she was found barely still alive. However, she lives long enough to die in Blackjack's presence after her return from the moon.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: It's a running gag that she doesn't get jokes or sarcastic comments, initially taking them literally until she finally catches on.
• Fragile Speedster: As a completely normal pegasus, Glory is faster and more mobile than her groundbound companions, but she can't take anywhere near the damage, and her need to stay light to be able to fly restricts her to the lighter forms of armor.
• Gatling Good: After accidentally breaking Leo's AER-14 rifle, Glory buys a gatling laser, and later uses its barrel assembly to repair and upgrade the AER-14. Cue Beam Spam.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Remains behind to ensure Blackjack, P-21, and Scotch are launched in a rocket to the moon to stop Cognitum, just as a missile is about to strike the space centre. She survives, only to pass away in Blackjack's presence when she finally returns from the moon.
• Hidden Depths: Glory is much more competent with medicine than she initially lets on, and performs a number of life-saving surgeries over the course of the story. This includes spinal surgery, skin grafts, tumor excision and lung and eye transplants^note With the assistance of a priceless medical robot. She also assists Professor Zodiac and Rover in jury-rigging a life support system from Rampage's body and rebuilding Blackjack as a cyberpony, but the extent of her involvement in these procedures is unclear.
• Lethal Chef: Only Blackjack can stand her cooking, due to BJ's bizarre sense of taste. After BJ's upgrades, Glory considers gemstones and metal to be valid ingredients.
• That Man Is Dead: Changes her name to Fallen Glory shortly after her branding, claiming that things will be better for everyone if the Enclave believe her old self is dead. The name doesn't stick for long though, and most characters simply refer to her as Glory.
• Meaningful Name: Morning Glories were a flower species that was first cultivated in China for medicinal use.
• The Medic: Glory is an Enclave medical technician.
• Parental Abandonment: Glory's mother Dawn left the Enclave when Glory was young. She eventually shows up in Chapel, looking for EC-1101.
• Pegasus: Enclave-born and bred, but somehow she avoided the racist elements of the Enclave's ideology.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to P-21 and Blackjack. Though the roles are eventually reversed in Glory and Blackjack's sexual relationship.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Wholeheartedly believes in the Enclave, even after Operative Lighthooves betrays her and has her branded as a dashite.

Rampage

Rampage / Arloste / Peppermint

A deeply troubled but powerful and immortal Reaper, Rampage is a daring and adventurous mare who likes to charge headlong into battle and is The Big Guy of Blackjack's team.

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• Anti-Hero: Even at her most sane, she still displays some psychopathic tendencies.
• Amnesiac Hero: She doesn't remember much of who she used to be and is not happy about it.
  Rampage: It fucking sucks to not remember.
• The Berserker: Partially because of her Healing Factor, partially because she's a Death Seeker, Rampage's approach to combat is to literally fling herself blindly into the fray, flailing and smashing until she's outlasted whatever is in her way.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Rampage has barbed wire woven into her tail hair.
• The Big Guy: She's the largest, strongest, most violent and combat-focused of the main characters.
• Body Horror: Taint exposure causes Rampage to mutate - her hide turns scaly, and she spontaneously grows a single wing while a horn emerges from the side of her face. Fortunately, she 'gets better'.
• Broken Bird: Very much. Largely a result of killing her daughter.
• Child by Rape: Twist had her after she was raped by Doof.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Rampage's origin is a mystery even to her, but most of her known past is deeply unpleasant.
• Death by Origin Story: At least half a dozen ponies, including Twist, died in the process of creating Rampage. More recently, Rampage (under control of the Angel of Death) killed her own daughter.
• Deal with the Devil: She makes a deal with Cognitum, agreeing to help her in return for being able to die. This was done under the Angel's influence, and she realizes how stupid this was when Blackjack purges the Angel as Cognitum never discards her tools.
• Death Seeker: Rampage openly admits that she really doesn't care if she lives or dies. In fact, she wants to die, because being immortal in the Wasteland is just an endless Trauma Conga Line. She's just never been able to find anything to make death stick.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Rampage fights exclusively in melee, but the reason for this is never discussed.
• Enemy Within: The Angel of Death; originally known as Nurse Candy, she was a Pre-War Serial Killer who targeted foals throughout Hoofington, until she was caught and her soul used to create the Soul Jar that became the Phoenix Talisman. She is finally removed for good by Blackjack, who uses moon dust to directly tap in Rampage's mind to do it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Against expectations, the Angel of Death refuses to Mercy Kill Blackjack in Chapter 33.
  “I give a gift to end suffering. You spurned that gift,” she purred in my ear. “Take your own damned life.”
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • She gets captured by the Stable 99 Raiders and strapped to a table where she's repeatedly butchered without ever being able to die, so she can serve as an infinite source of food to the cannibals. Thankfully she gets rescued.
    Her liver's back!
  • Near the end of the story, she ends up making a Heroic Sacrifice on the moon to allow Blackjack to escape, despite this stranding her on the moon's surface. In hard vacuum. She's rescued again, but this time it takes more than a century.
• Feel No Pain: Averted, leaning her Healing Factor towards Blessed with Suck territory. Of course, that didn't stop her from jumping into a wood chipper on a bet.
• Fiery Redhead: She has a bright red color scheme and a furious temper.
• Friend to All Children: Rampage loves children, and helped start the Crusaders along with Priest. Seeing a foal suffer is probably her biggest Berserk Button. Unfortunately, one of her personalities is a foal-murdering serial killer.
• From a Single Cell: A small talisman in Rampage's chest can regenerate her entire body, even after she's disintegrated.
• Given Name Reveal: She comes clean to Blackjack and company shortly after joining the group that Rampage isn't her given name; she doesn't know what her birth name is, but she was originally called "Arlost" by her adoptive parents Bonesaw and Scalpel. She took the name "Rampage" after killing the original Reaper who called herself that. It turns out her real name is Peppermint, daughter of Macintosh's Marauders members Twist and Doof.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Rampage practically embodies this trope. Her frequent deaths are played for both drama and comedy.
• Healing Factor: She can physically regenerate from any injury she suffers. Missing limbs, shredded organs, bruises, decapitation; she laughs at anything you can do to her.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Implied. Just where does Rampage's 'high-protein diet' come from? In the bar scene following the Battle of Flank (in which she single-handedly fought off the Pecos gang in a drug-induced frenzy), she vomits meat.
• Immortality Hurts: Rampage can heal any wound, but it still hurts as much as you'd expect it. She also have the full-blown Who Wants to Live Forever? angst pack going on.
• Immortal Life Is Cheap: To the point where Blackjack can be reasonably expected to shoot her in the head if she steps out of line.
• Implacable Man: It takes massive damage just to slow her down.
• Lightning Bruiser: Rampage is incredibly fast and incredibly strong, which meshes well with her fighting style, which relies exclusively on melee combat.
• Little Miss Badass: If Rampage's body is completely destroyed, she regenerates as a small filly and takes several days to grow back to her adult weight.
• Mind Hive: Rampage is actually a collective of all the ponies who made use of a Super Prototype healing talisman, the Phoenix Talisman, created by Project Eternity. For unknown reasons, the full power of the Phoenix Talisman didn't catalyze until after multiple different ponies had died after using it. Originally, each of the minds within the Hive was unaware of its condition or the presence of the others, but over the course of the story, this changes. The component minds are:
  • Rampage herself, who represents the final host of the Phoenix Talisman. This final host was Peppermint, and she is the only personality to survive after Rampage is Brought Down to Normal at the fic's end.
  • Nurse Candy, the oldest of the minds in the hive. Taken from a Serial Killer known as the Hoofington Angel of Death, who preyed exclusively on foals with an "Angel of Mercy" mentality, killing distressed foals to offer them "solace". She was the foundation of the Soul Jar that was turned into the Phoenix Talisman, and subsequently haunted its future bearers. She's the first of the personas to surface in the story. When she's in control, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into a skull.
  • Officer Softheart, the first official host of the Phoenix Talisman. Violently protective of children, mortally injured apprehending Nurse Candy, committed suicide to avoid being pushed by Nurse Candy's persona to harm her daughter. When dominant, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into a teddy bear.
  • Razorwire, a female thief and drug dealer who was imprisoned at Hightower Prison. Implanted with the Phoenix Talisman solely to be used as a testbed for its effectiveness against headwounds. When dominant, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into a mass of barbed wire.
  • Doctor Octopus was a senior psychologist at the Fluttershy Medical Center. How/why he came to bear the Phoenix Talisman is unknown, but he was killed suddenly in a sky carriage accident. When dominant, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into a bed of tentacles.
  • Shujaa was a zebra defector who fought alongside Macintosh's Marauders as the leader of the Zebra Proditors. Lover of Twist, she was an honorable warrior and a master of martial arts. When dominant, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into a zebra glyph. She was Peppermint's adoptive mother, and was killed in a scouting mission gone bad near Brimstone's Fall; she willingly transferred the Phoenix Talisman from herself to Twist to save the latter's life.
  • Twist was a female earth pony who fought in Macintosh's Marauders. When dominant, Rampage's Cutie Mark changes into two peppermint sticks. She was Peppermint's biological mother, and gave up the Phoenix Talisman to save Peppermint's life when Peppermint was fatally wounded as they escaped from Miramare Station on the Last Day.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Her given name is "Rampage"; it hardly sounds cute and cuddly.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Only Priest and the Crusaders call her Arloste. Everyone else calls her Rampage.
• Older Than They Look/Really 700 Years Old: She looks to be in her late twenties but due to her Healing Factor stopping her aging, no one knows how old she is. Though she admits she has been "alive" for 60 years. Since she is Twist's daughter, she is over 200 years old.
• Split Personality: Rampage appears to suffer from Dissociative identity disorder, leading to sudden changes in personality. She actually contains the souls of multiple separate ponies, which constantly battle for dominance over her body. Discovering this leads her to question whether 'Rampage' even exists at all.
• Team Mom: Oddly enough, Rampage falls into this role a lot - when she's not dealing with her own problems, she's often on hand to offer emotional support and comic relief.
• Warrior Therapist: On occasion. One of the ponies inside her apparently had training a therapist, with their arrival marked by a teddy bear on her flank.
• Weaponized Headgear: Typically adds spikes to her helmet to add some extra "oomph" to her headbutts.
• Would Hurt a Child: One of her personalities has a tendency to murder them, and is insane enough to believe that it's doing them a favor.

Lacunae

Lacunae

An alicorn and a member of the Goddess' Unity. She was asked by the Goddess to join Blackjack's group for the Unity's well-being. She is a quiet and reserved person, and wears a black lace dress to hide her alicorn form when in public and is skilled with a minigun.

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• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Lacunae apparently finds radiation exposure pleasurable, and responds accordingly.
  There was something fundamentally disturbing about the way she splashed it all over herself. Nopony should have that much fun in magical waste.
  • Later on, when Blackjack accidentally triggers a powerful flash of radiation,
  I stared at the rad readout as I watched the needle visibly rise! Lacunae groaned, her eyes closed with an expression of bliss and a blush on her cheeks.
• Elephant in the Living Room: As with Fawkes in Fallout 3, nopony seems to pay much attention to the enormous, minigun-wielding alicorn following Blackjack around. Somewhat justified in that Lacunae makes an effort to conceal her wings.
  Lacunae: One advantage to being a giant unicorn is that few bother you with why you are a giant unicorn.
• Expy: Of Legion. Unique, friendly member of a Hive Mind race commonly seen as villains? Check. The Smart Guy? Check. Proficient with a sniper rifle? Check. Has trouble fitting in with others due to limited social understanding? Check. Disseminates herself so that her kind can live as whole individuals? Check.
• Flashy Teleportation: As said in "Battle", it has a "purple flash", but that's the only time uptil then that the flash is referenced. It comes with being a purple alicorn.
• Foregone Conclusion: The Goddess is going to die. Chapter 58 confirmed this trope with the Goddess' death. Lacunae survived the destruction of Maripony, only to willingly destroy herself to allow all of the removed memories to return to their rightful owners. Twilight Sparkle then takes over the body, saving Littlepip in Fallout Equestria.
• Gatling Good: Spends several chapters carrying a minigun, but is eventually forced to leave it behind.
• Healing Hands: She is given a healing spell that allows her to restore the others without the need for potions or drugs.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Erases herself to return the memories and feelings dumped in her to their original alicorn owners.
• Hive Mind: Part of one by virtue of being an alicorn, though more independent than most.
• Killed Off for Real: Utterly disseminates herself back into the minds of all the ponies who were once part of the Alicorn Unity, restoring their memories and emotions.
• Lady of Black Magic: She is the most proficient member of the cast at using combat magic, with the only other unicorn being Blackjack, whose sole combat spell is a Magic Missile Storm.
• Meaningful Name: Discussed and Invoked. 'Lacunae' typically refers to something that is missing or omitted. Lacunae herself is a living repository for all the regretful memories that the rest of the Hive Mind would rather not dwell on.
• Mind over Matter: As an Alicorn, she has powerful telekinetic abilities.
• Only Sane Man: Lacunae is the only member of the party not to suffer from long term physical, psychological or sexual trauma. Naturally, this is often lampshaded.
• Red-Headed Stepchild: Fulfills this role among alicorns, as in addition to being disconnected from their Hive Mind and her being sent to Hoofington (a place where the Goddess can't send any alicorns due to the constant psychic screaming that the city emits being harmful to them), she's also used as the dumping ground for all of the memories that the Goddess doesn't want to think about, whether they're Trixie's or Twilight's.
• The Smart Guy: While P-21 and Glory are also contenders for this one, Lacunae has by far the greatest magical ability.
• Telepathy: She largely communicates through direct mental communion, which makes sense as she's an extension of a Hive Mind.
• Token Evil Teammate: While Lacunae herself isn't evil, per se, she's part of something that most certainly is.
• Villain Override: Occasionally, though it's often Played for Laughs.
  Lacunae: But perhaps you possess a means to obtain [a copy of the Black Book] from the O.I.A. Hub, yes?
  Blackjack: Funny. What kind of Goddess wouldn’t know?
  Lacunae: WE DO NOT NEED TO DIVULGE EVERY–
  Blackjack: Gotcha.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Lacunae is left speechless when Paladin Stronghoof displays affection for her.
• Winged Unicorn: Like all Alicorns, she appears as an unusually tall unicorn mare with pegasus-like wings. This gives her the ability to simultaneously fly and work magic.

Scotch Tape

Scotch Tape

A filly who lives in Stable 99 and fixes the Stable's plumbing. She is taken outside by Blackjack and P-21 following the events in their home, and makes it her mission to find her talent to avoiding getting a toilet Cutie Mark.

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• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Thanks to Blackjack, who has her painful memories of near-death wiped to try and help her. She's not happy when she finds out.
• Morality Pet: Serves as this for most of the protagonists, particularly Rampage and Lacunae.
• Parental Abandonment: In part. While they travel and work together, P-21 resents the idea of developing an emotional bond with Scotch and remains distant.
• The Quest: Goes on one in the Epilogue to the Zebra Homelands along with Majina, Pythia and Precious. It is more detailed in the sequel Fallout Equestria: Homelands.
• Sixth Ranger: She was the last pony to join the party prior to Boo, and initially was the least skilled and combat-capable of the team.
• Sole Survivor: Of Stable 99 (Not counting BJ and P-21, as they left voluntarily some time beforehand).
• Took a Level in Badass: During the melee in Chapter 31, Blackjack asks her for help rebooting some Steel Rangers' disabled power armor. All Scotch can do is cower in fear inside a wagon. Shortly afterwards, just as Blackjack and Lacunae are about to be overwhelmed, the Rangers come to their rescue. Turns out that Scotch^note Who, notably, is a relatively small child with almost no combat experience managed to overcome her fear of the Rangers and assist them - right in the middle of a chaotic and bloody battlefield.
• Wrench Wench: Her initial weapon of choice is the wrench she used as a plumber.

Boo

Boo

A pale white artificial pony that Blackjack befriends when searching for Sanguine. She is a mute Blank Slate, being very animal in nature, but grows attached to Blackjack and her friends.

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• Artificial Human: She is a Blank, a product of Project Chimera to create clones of ponies and harvest organs from them for wounded soldiers. But unlike other Blanks, Boo is able to evolve into her own person.
• Baby Talk: As of chapter 62b, she can say "Bwackjack".
• Blank Slate: A rather extreme example, having no ability to do anything except eat food that's offered to her, sleep when she's tired, and hide from danger. She may be smarter than she appears, however, as she briefly manages to use a gun to protect (and shoot) Blackjack during a battle.
• Character Blog: Boo has her own unofficial character blog here.
• Cute Mute: She never speaks, but her antics make her incredibly adorable.
• Manchild: An extreme and justified example. Despite having the body of a full-grown mare, Boo behaves more like a dog (or real pony) because she was never raised or socialised.
• Sharing a Body: Chapters 64 and 65 reveals that Discord got inside Boo during the escape of Hippocratic.
• Spider-Sense: Apparently. She hides from danger before Blackjack can perceive it, but didn't show any qualms about walking right up to Blackjack and her friends.
• Sweet Tooth: So much so that it's about the only thing guaranteed to get her attention.
• The Speechless: Remains mute for most of the time but eventually learns to speak.
• Younger Than They Look: Boo is weeks old at most.

Antagonists

Deus Ex Machina

Deus Ex Machina

"CUNT!!"

The first major antagonist and the primary villain of the first story arc. One of the top ten Reapers of Hoofington, Deus is a huge psychotic cyborg with a penchant for rape. He was responsible for the first attack on Stable 99 in search of EC- 1101, which led to Blackjack escaping with it to lure him away from the Stable.

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• Berserk Button: Deus hates being called a "doofus", or being outwitted by any mares. Mares outwitting him reminds him of how his life was destroyed by a malicious mare who manipulated him into committing rape, whilst "doofus" is an insult he had to put up with his entire pre-War life.
• BFG: He has twin anti-tank cannons welded to him.
• Climax Boss: Of Project Horizons Book One, alongside Gemini & Taurus Zodiac. He returns with his mind programmed into a tank, though thanks to Blackjack seeing him as a pony, he has a Heel–Face Turn.
• Crippling Castration: Blackjack delivers a nasty one to him using her magic bullet spell. Considering his member was the sole remaining real part of his body within his cybernetics, he goes completely berserk.
• Fate Worse than Death: Was in constant pain and had to use very powerful painkillers to subdue the agony.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: After he's destroyed by Blackjack, his brain and what remains of his mechanical body are wired into a war-era Zebra tank.
• Heel–Face Turn: Sides with Blackjack after she identifies him as Doof rather than Deus and sympathises with him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Dies after being blown apart by his own cannons, though his brain survives, and body parts used to turn Blackjack into a cyborg.
• Pet the Dog: He never once touched Rampage, and was a bit protective of her. This is because he was her father.
• Sapient Tank: * Following his death at Blackjack's hands, he has his brain extracted and reprogrammed into an intelligent tank. After a second fight with Blackjack, he goes through a Heel–Face Turn and ends up dying a heroic death during the Chapel battle.
• Tank Goodness: His brain is placed into a tank controlled by the Harbingers.
• Verbal Tic: Refers to all mares as "cunts", particularly Blackjack. Sadly, he has a reason.
• Villainous Friendship: With Gorgon. Because they were both Marauders once.
• Was Once a Man: He's the failed prototype for Operation SteelPony, the Pre-War project to create cyborg troopers. His nerve interlinks are glitched to hell, resulting in an unremitting pain feedback; even doping himself up on enough super-charged Med-X to kill a dozen ponies still leaves him in intense pain.

Gorgon

Gorgon

A monsterpony in charge of operations at Brimstone's Fall who has the power to petrify living beings. He is another of the top ten and a friend of Deus.

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• Cruel and Unusual Death: Blackjack forces him through a rock grinder. Tail first. She later finds a farewell letter from Stonewing thanking whoever killed him.
• Dumb Muscle: He's incredibly strong, but not very bright. It turns out he was brain-damaged when a sniper shot him in the head over 200 years ago.
• Immune to Bullets: His hide is solid rock, which makes it impossible to kill him with most guns.
• No Kill Like Over Kill: His death by rock grinder.
• The Speechless: Never speaks. Only roars. It turns out his vocal chords were damaged over 200 years ago, and being fused with a cockatrice didn't help.
• Villainous Friendship: With Deus. In fact, they were friends before they became villains.

Sanguine

Sanguine/Doctor Trueblood

Sanguine(left) with Psychoshy

A primary antagonist in the story, Sanguine is a Canterlot Ghoul who seeks to use EC-1101 for unknown reasons and will do whatever it takes to get it.

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• Affably Evil: Dresses smartly, conducts himself politely. When he's not sending monsterponies to harass Blackjack, of course. Or flipping out and feeding entire settlements to industrial equipment.
• Deal with the Devil: Repeatedly offered, always denied. He doesn't take rejection well.
• Despair Event Horizon: Has a slow burn version of the trope as he grows increasingly desperate to obtain EC-1101. Eventually has a proper one when his family die.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Strongly implied. It's an act to hide his true motivation, which he's ashamed to admit to.
• I Have a Family: Everything he has done was for to save his family. It doesn't justify his actions, but it still makes Blackjack understand his reasons.
• Kick the Dog: His actions at the Boneyard and Brimstone's Fall, as well as wounding Charity and murdering Priest. Also, he clones Blackjack for tissue to replace her skin damaged by pink cloud after his deal with her, he doesn't even bother to euthanise or (implicitly) sedate the clone first - essentially, he flays 'Blackjack' alive.
• Hope Spot: He was within inches of fulfilling his goal after two hundred years, and lost it all just as he was almost finished.
• Laser-Guided Karma: It seemed he would avert this by becoming a Karma Houdini and getting what he wanted, that being saving his family and getting a new body for himself to start a new life despite all the harm he had done. It's averted at the last minute when his family gets killed in front of him. It's also subverted as he was genuinely sorry and thought he could be better after he succeeded.
• Mad Scientist: As the head of Project Chimera. Revealed to be deliberately Invoking this trope post-war, but he may have Become the Mask.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Sanguine is a Canterlot ghoul, a unique strain created by the Pink Cloud that swallowed Canterlot (and a Shout-Out to the Ghost People of Fallout: New Vegas). It gives him a Healing Factor and causes him to expel a constant stream of pink vapors.
• Pet the Dog: According to Psychoshy, Sanguine is her adoptive father and the only pony to ever treat her well. Cruelly subverted when he reveals that he was simply using her to gain access to Project Chimera.
• Sanity Slippage: The death of his family sends him over the edge and finally turns feral.
• Smug Snake: At first.
• Villainous Breakdown: Degenerates into a ranting, desperate mess as his attempts to get EC-1101 are foiled. He finally snaps and wipes out several towns just to get Blackjack's attention, then kills Priest when the negotiations turn ugly.
  • When Blackjack finally confronts him, she notes that he looks to be on the verge of going feral. The death of his family pushes him over the edge.
• Would Hurt a Child: Holds the town of Chapel hostage and shoots Charity in the gut to speed up negotiations.

Psychoshy

Psychoshy / Whisper

A pegasus who bears a striking resemblance to Fluttershy. She is a cruel and sarcastic Combat Pragmatist who has a thing for Sanguine. She is actually the child of Fluttershy and Goldenblood, believed to have died in premature childbirth, but was saved by Sanguine for his own plans.

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• Combat Pragmatist: Psychoshy fights dirty by default.
• Expy: Of Fluttershy's malicious side. Justified.
• Happily Married: Hooks up with the batpony prince Stygius and is extremely happy with him.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Sanguine's death and realizing she was used, she joins Blackjack.
• I Love the Dead: Towards Sanguine. It's unclear whether or not he reciprocates. Her love turns out to be genuine, but not in the way Blackjack and co. expect. Psychoshy is Sanguine's adopted daughter.
  • Considering the amount of tongue she slipped him in Ch. 25, it may very well be exactly what they thought anyway.
• Love Redeems: Her relationship with Stygius is what truly changes her for the better.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Calls herself Fluttershy since she looks like her (Justified, of course.) and her fans call her that as well. Known as Psychoshy among the other Reapers and her enemies. Blackjack eventually learns from a memory orb that Fluttershy wanted to name her Whisper. After telling Psychoshy this, she calls herself Whisper from then on.
• Secret Legacy: It turns out she is actually the biological daughter of Fluttershy and Goldenblood, who was placed in stasis to save her from dying when she was born prematurely.
• Spin-Offspring: Of Fluttershy and Goldenblood.
• Token Evil Teammate: She briefly joins Blackjack's crew, but remains the most malicious, bloodthirsty and brutal of their numbers... even with Rampage there!
• Villainous BSoD: Psychoshy breaks down in tears during P-21 and Scotch Tape's father-daughter moment in Chapter 40, and gets a hug from Rampage.
• Walking Spoiler: Anything relating to her past and lineage is this.
• Wartime Wedding: During the final battles against the Brood, she and Stygius exchange marriage vows.
• Widowed at the Wedding: Her beloved Stygius is killed shortly after they exchange wedding vows.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: After exchanging marriage vows with Stygius and expressing her joy through singing, he ends up getting killed soon afterward
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: For Sanguine, after [[spoiler: she is unable to unlock Project Chimera with EC-1101..

Warden Hobble

Warden Hobble

The ghoulish warden of Hightower Prison. Despite the Great War being finished over 200 years ago, he still controls the penitentiary as his own personal playground, even if all its prisoners are either dead or ghouls themselves. Blackjack needs to enter his prison in order to activate the next point in the relay of EC-1101.

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• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Once Blackjack's team enters his office, he reveals himself to be a gigantic wall-to-wall monstrosity.
• Blind Obedience: Despite being the self-proclaimed ruler of the prison, he still obeys orders from the now-defunct Ministry of Morale as Silver Spoon proves. Subverted, however, when he decides to kill her as well as everyone else in Blackjack's team to prevent them from reporting what he believes to be his corruption in running the prison.
• Climax Boss: Of Project Horizons Book Three.
• Near-Villain Victory: He would have easily killed Blackjack and the rest if it wasn't for Cognitum pulling a last-minute save to stop him from killing her future body to possess.
• Sanity Slippage: As all ghouls, his mind has clearly deteriorated through the centuries and still believes he is running a fully-functional prison, despite it being in flaming ruins and topped with an undetonated balefire megaspell missile crashed through the center of the complex.
• Wardens Are Evil: Even when he was still alive, he was a nasty piece of work, running the prison as his own personal kingdom. Undeath has simply made him worse.

Lancer

Lancer

A zebra assassin and member of the Remnant, Lancer is a very religious zebra who believes Blackjack is the Apocalypse Maiden.

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• Cold Sniper: Lancer is apparently emotionless, even when gunning down harmless zebra slaves and shooting his allies (ie. Blackjack) In the Back.
• Enemy Mine: Becomes an ally to Blackjack's group in later chapters.
• Heel–Face Turn: After realizing his mistakes, he leaves the Remnant altogether.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he realizes that all his life he was a coward who couldn't stand up to his father.
• Spanner in the Works: He becomes this for the Goddess when he eavesdrops on her Villain Override of Blackjack, and later reveals it to her friends.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: The reason he refuses to kill Blackjack despite many opportunities; only the Legate can kill Blackjack.

Operative Lighthooves

Operative Lighthooves

An Enclave member who represents the pegasi community known as Thunderhead. A well-intentioned soldier, he wants to ensure Thunderhead survives against all odds, going to extreme lengths to achieve his goal.

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• Affably Evil: Lighthooves remains polite and well-composed most of the time and is quite willing to negotiate when convenient.
• Cyborg: He becomes one in the later arcs, having stolen the schematics from Blackjack. However, due to the abrupt operation and the full body nature of the implants, this does not end well.
• Despair Event Horizon: What put him on his path. Specifically, discovering that his ancestor Mephitis, a lauded hero among the Enclave, was nothing more that a greedy, self-obsessed murderer who stopped Dash's attempts to help the surface to cover his own crimes and got away with it.
• Enemy Mine: He rescues Blackjack and Glory from Chapter 29's Literal Cliffhanger and establishes a mutually beneficial arrangement to preserve Thunderhead against the Enclave proper.
• Faux Affably Evil: As time goes on, he becomes more and more unhinged.
• Go Out with a Smile: As he is dying he learns Blackjack's solution to stop his final plan, which is to destroy Shadowbolt Tower. As this will effectively end the Enclave government, it gives him peace.
• I've Come Too Far: His reason for why he just doesn't stop, even as his plans are are shot to hell.
• Motive Rant: Lampshaded in Chapter 30.
  May I rant a little? I think that, since you've seen fit to give me the role of a villain, I’m entitled to give a little explanation?
  • Played straight 30 chapters later, when he starts screaming his motives to Blackjack as all his plans fall apart.
• Playing with Syringes: Afraid that the Enclave military at large is planning to attack Thunderhead, his goal is to adapt the raider virus to infect pegasi, presenting a more direct threat for them to focus their attention on. Chapter 42 reveals that he has succeeded, and that his agents used Neighvarro pegasi as test subjects.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: His final plan when all else fails, as he hates everything about the Enclave and the people in it.
• Villainous Breakdown: When his plans go south, he turns into a screaming murderous wreck. Combined with his recent full body cybernetics, it causes his mental state to unravel completely.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In Chapter 30, he explains that everything he's done has been to protect Thunderhead in hopes of sustainable surface contact in the future. Granted, the details include a fair amount of genocide, but still, it's enough to convince Blackjack to call a truce.
  • Its subverted whens it's revealed that in reality he cares nothing about all that and is doing it all for his own belief that the Enclave doesn't deserve to exist. He will do anything for it, including causing massive casualties in Thunderhead.

Steel Rain

Star Paladin Steel Rain

A cruel Steel Ranger who is a high-ranking officer in the Hoofington branch of the Rangers. He later starts working for Cognitum and the Harbingers. A very powerful opponent, he becomes a recurring enemy for Blackjack.

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• BFG: Carries a pair of anti-dragon autocannons on his armor. Apparently they can vaporize a pony from two miles with near-perfect accuracy.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He goes out in the worst way out of all of the villains. His body falls apart, his organs liquefy, and the flesh melts off his skeleton. All while he is still alive.
• The Dreaded: To everyone, but mostly to Blackjack.
• Entitled Bastard: He tries using Blackjack's forgiving nature to make her spare him. It works. When he tries to kill her again just seconds later though, he pays for it dearly.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: When Blackjack sees his face, she notes that he looks "surprisingly gentle". It's the last thing she ever sees without prosthetic eyes.
• Gun Porn: Goes into exquisite detail explaining the capabilities of his BFGs.
  Steel Rain: Do you really think a gun like this should be left in a weapons locker to collect dust?
• Hate Sink: He has no redeemable qualities and no excuses. He does what he does for two things, his ego and power.
• Hero Killer: From his first appearance, Blackjack is noticeably intimidated by him. After cornering her on the HMS Celestia, he cripples her with a single shot and comes very close to killing her outright; she pulls a Taking You with Me, which he survives.
• Implacable Man: In their first encounter, BJ blows off his helmet and barely slows him down. In the second, he shrugs off anti-material rounds and proves a match for Rampage in close combat. Eventually meets his end at the hooves of Blackjack, dying from exposure to Enervation after she snatches a charm that protects him from it.
• It's All About Me: Oh, and how! Basically, his thought process consists of, "I should be the one on top and everyone else can go to hell."
• Karmic Death: Blackjack spares him , then he tries to kill her one last time. Expecting this, she counters and snags his protection charm. He promptly succumbs to the full effects of extreme Enervation, pathetically begging her to save him as his body literally falls apart.
• Power Armor: One of the best models too. He later enhances it with star metal, which ends badly for him when Blackjack uses its explosive reaction to moonstone to blow the armor off piece by piece.
• Smug Super: He is an utter asshole, but he has the armor, guns and skill to back it.
• The Starscream: Will betray anyone if it suits him. In fact, he's repeatedly called out on this. Blackjack asks him if there's anyone he wouldn't stab in the back. His response is a glib "myself", and that's only because he isn't flexible enough to manage it.
• Villainous Breakdown: After being used by Cognitum and verbally trounced by Amadi, he basically throws a tantrum, ranting all the while how he will be the one in charge.
• Would Hit a Girl: Steel Rain will hurt anyone in his way, and he doesn't care if they're male or female.
• Would Hurt a Child: He would indeed, as Charm found out. He would also threaten an unborn baby to gain what he wants.

Stable 99 Antagonists

Stable 99 Antagonists

Blackjack's home Stable 99 is ruled by mares, with the forty males used as breeding tools. When Blackjack returns, she finds the Raider Virus has turned many of the residents into cannibals.

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• Face–Heel Turn: Rivets and Midnight are well on their way to one of these by the time Blackjack gasses Stable 99, thanks to The Virus.
• For the Evulz: Daisy is a blatant sadist, and admits as much in the first chapter.
• Freudian Excuse: Daisy and the Overmare both had awful childhoods.
• From Bad to Worse: Stable 99 is an unpleasant place to begin with, as are many of the residents. Much more so when the raider virus infects the stable.
• Kick the Dog: Daisy breaks P-21's leg for no particular reason in the first chapter. Later, Daisy makes Blackjack eat Rampage's heart to maintain her raider disguise despite knowing who she is, and the Overmare rapes P-21.
• Rasputinian Death: Daisy gets shot by Glory and Lacunae, has her back legs shredded by a grenade, wrestles with Rampage long enough to get shot several more times, and has enough life left in her for a Dying as Yourself moment.

The Legate

The Legate/Amadi

The leader of the Zebra Remnant and the father of Lancer. Reported to be one of the last Achu zebra and the strongest hoof-to-hoof fighter in the world, having killed a dragon without any weapons. He believes he is destined to fight the Maiden of The Stars (apparently Blackjack) to the death in a great final battle. In truth, all of the above is an act that he utilizes to keep the zebras under his control. His true name is Amadi, a Starkatteri zebra who has been alive for thousands of years and is a servant of the Eater Of Souls and the Dead Stars.

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• Abusive Parents: Both emotional and physical variety. He shows no affection for his son, even ordering him to kill his mother and sister.
• Animalistic Abomination: Arguably all the time, but definitely one in his penultimate form - a humongous grotesque monster, vaguely resembling a zebra.
• Based on a Great Big Lie: He spread the entire story of the Maiden to make sure that the zebras would never accept Luna as Celestia's successor and would keep fighting. Subverted in that the prophecy of the Maiden really does exist. He just twisted it.
• Because Destiny Says So: His reason for why he must kill Blackjack, as she appears to be the Maiden. Though when Lancer gives him the chance to fight her, he tries at first to avoid it stating that is "too early". Since he needs Blackjack in his plans involving Cognitum, and he is just using the story to further his ends.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He and Cognitum are the two biggest threats in the story. As of Chapter 74, Cognitum is dead, leaving him the sole Big Bad.
• The Chessmaster: The biggest in the story, even outranking Cognitum. His schemes go back centuries. In fact, he was the one who caused the Littlehorn Massacre to to ruin any chance of peace between the ponies and zebras. He also posed as a scientist in Horse's employ, encouraging him to use the Tokomare (which really was the Eater) and to oust Goldenblood as director.
• Cool Helmet: The skull of the dragon he killed. He also wears its bones as armor.
• Chrome Champion: His ultimate form is a zebra made entirely of indestructible star metal. Well, almost indestructible (see below).
• The Dragon: To the Eater Of Souls as well as the Dead Stars. He has fulfilled this role for centuries, making sure that the Eater is fed the souls of millions and planning to turn all of Equestria into their slaves. In fact, he is one of the original Starkatteri, who built the ancient zebra city in what would eventually become Hoofington.
• Healing Factor: Due his various modifications through zebra alchemy, he is quite hard to kill. Which is another lie. His ability really comes from a talisman similar to Rampage's one and is the source of his immortality.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Amadi finally meets his end in the last chapter, bragging about how the Eater of Souls needs him. The Eater promptly melts him to death for insulting its own pride.
• Implacable Man: He is extremely strong and resilient as well as a very skilled fighter. Combine that with his phoenix talisman and knowledge of Starkatteri magic, and you have one hell of an opponent.
• Just Toying with Them: Blackjack realizes that he was doing this in their fight and is completely confused as to why. The reason is simple, he needs her alive for the time being.
• Mark of Shame: He has the glyphs of the Starkatteri branded on his face, which is why he never removes his helmet. It was why he ordered Sekashi killed, as she saw them accidentally and then ran away because of it.
• Noble Demon: He appears to be one at first, showing quite an amount of honor and respect, especially when compared to his son. Subverted when it's revealed to be an act.
• The Long Game: He has been influencing and arranging events throughout history to cause as much destruction as possible to feed the Eater in order to resurrect it.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives a very well-deserved one to Steel Rain.
• Villain Team-Up: With Cognitum and Steel Rain. Though he's just using them to further his own ends.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Blackjack returns to stop him despite all his machinations, he completely loses his calm veneer, shouting that she is nothing and that the Maiden doesn't exist.
• Walking Spoiler: A big one. His real identity turns the entire story on its head.

The Harbingers

The Harbingers

A new group which emerges in Hoofington in the later arcs. Their goal is to gain every other group's loyalty (willing or not) and more importantly, find EC-1101.

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• Catchphrase: Hoofington Rises.
• Tank Goodness: The Harbingers have access to a fully-functional pre-war tank capable of self-repair. Turns out the tank is in fact the revived Deus.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The Harbingers have access to pristine, top-of-the-line weapons and armor, but consist mostly of untrained recruits.

The Prophet

The Prophet

The enigmatic leader of the Harbingers who wishes to change Equestria and Hoofington via extreme measures.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Out of all the villains she gets this the worst, and it's hard not to pity her. In her quest, she ends up hurting her husband and daughter, critically wounding the former, loses all feeling as her body is replaced with more cyber parts, and ends up being discarded by Cognitum despite her promise to make her the savior she so desperately wants to be.
• Cyborg: It turns out that Cognitum has intensely upgraded her with cybernetics to make her a more useful vassal.
• The Dragon: To Cognitum. Though not unquestionably loyal, as she repeatedly distorts Cogtinum's commands to kill Blackjack, rather than capture her as Cognitum wants.
• Evil Matriarch: She's a mother of five; Morning Glory is her middle child.
• Eyes Always Shut: When first met by Blackjack she is always seen with her eyes closed to denote a friendly wise personality. When she finally opens them, though...
• Fallen Hero: Once she wanted nothing but to help the wasteland. Now, she is... well, the Prophet.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Towards Blackjack for having been chosen as Cognitums's vessel. She was promised that by Cognitum first.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Is actually Dawn, Glory's missing mother.
• Mouth of Sauron: She says that she is this to Cognitum. But she's not a very honest one.
• The Man Behind the Man: Sanguine is revealed to have been sent by her to retrieve EC-1101.
• Redemption Equals Death: She finally dies making sure that Blackjack's soul would be returned to her body in order to stop Cognitum.
• Villain Override: It's implied that Cognitum has some level of control over her.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: How she sees herself. Her goals are noble enough — save the world from Project Horizons and rebuild Equestria — but her methods are brutal and it's unclear just how much say she has in her own decisions, or even if what she believes is correct.

The Brood

The Brood of Coyotl

A mysterious faction of zebras with cybernetic implants used as the elite of the Remnants. Not much is known about their origins. They are actually clones made from the same technology used to make Blanks in Hippocratic Research and implanted with cybernetics from Project Steelpony. They become the last major antagonist force in the story as of Book V.

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• Clone Army: They're a mass-produced army of cybernetically augmented clones.
• Cyborg: They all have various cybernetic attachments implanted in their clone bodies from Project Steelpony thanks to Prof. Zodiac. Among these are cybernetic wings which allows them to fight in the sky.
• The Dreaded: The other Remnants, Lancer included, fear them.
• Elite Mooks: The most powerful forces from the Remnants. After the Remnants learn the truth about Amadi/the Brood's origins and defect, they become Amadi's main conquering force.
• False Flag Operation: Cognitum and Amadi intend to use the Brood as a makeshift enemy to fight against the Harbingers and lose to them in order for the Harbingers to be seen as the future heroes of the Wasteland. Once Cognitum is out of the picture, though, Amadi uses them to completely destroy the Wasteland.
• Hero Killer: They are responsible for killing many named characters during the climax war in Book V. Among them: Stygius, Big Daddy Reaper, Deus (in tank form), Rainbow Dash, Goldenblood.
• The Horde: An endless army that seek nothing but the total destruction of everyone in the Wasteland. The "endless" part is mentioned for a good reason.
• Meaningful Name: Coyotl. It is the Zebra language word for Discord which hints at their origin being clones made from flux.
• Mook Maker: The "Trees of Life" from Hippocratic Research creates as many Brood as possible. It soon leads everyone to target the installations where the Trees are located to finally stop the flow of enemies.
• We Have Reserves: Their modus operandi. Since they are cloned, there will always be more soldiers being made. All the Brood has to do is outlast their opponents until they are all dead and there's no one left alive to oppose them.

Cognitum

Cognitum

Cognitum possessing Blackjack in cyberunicorn form

The Big Bad of Project Horizons, and founder of the Harbingers, who dwells in the Hoofington Core. She wants to obtain EC-1101 to restore Equestria, and then rule it as a goddess. The mastermind behind Deus, Sanguine, and the Harbingers coming after Blackjack.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Cogntium is a copy of Princess Luna's mind, accidentally created by Mr. Horse while attempting to copy Goldenblood's brain using his mind-copying ripoff of the Crusader Maneframe.
• Anti-Villain: Appears to be this, as well as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. She can also be very generous, giving Blackjack a copy of her original body after stealing her cybernetic one. But it's subverted, as her gifts always come with a price. Blackjack puts it best.
  Blackjack: You offer slavery and call it salvation.
• Berserk Button: She really doesn't like being denied what she wants or her authority being questioned.
• Big Bad: Established in the fourth volume, watching and occasionally aiding Blackjack from afar. She was responsible for sending Deus to Stable #99 to retrieve EC-1101 and most other events thereafter.
• Big Bad Ensemble: She shares this position with the Legate though. Her death in Chapter 74 leaves him as the story's final Big Bad.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Cognitum tries to act like Luna, but is more like Nightmare Moon, insane, vengeful, and destructive.
• Brain Uploading:
  • Subverted. Horse's ripoff of the Crusader Maneframe copies minds, which is how Cognitum is created from Luna's mind.
  • Played straight when she hijacks Blackjack's body.
• Catchphrase: EC-1101! GIVE IT TO ME!!! or some variation.
• The Chessmaster: Revealed to have been pulling the strings of the bad guys since the start of the story, but even directing Blackjack to dangerous places as a Secret Test of Character as part of her ploy to steal her cybernetically augmented body. As the story progresses, it is revealed that Cognitum formed a new world order through the O.I.A. and was likely responsible for kicking off the megaspell armageddon on Equestria to remove all oppositions of leadership.
• The Collector: Keeps a number of ponies in jars as trophies, who are alive and aware.
• Dark Messiah: Wishes to restore Equestria through evil means, and praised as this by the Harbingers.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Steel Rain suggests harming Blackjack's unborn infant to make her co-operate, Cognitum instantly shuts him down.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: She knows about the Eater and intends to use Project Horizons to either destroy or subdue it to her will. She was being played like a cheap fiddle by Amadi and the Eater all along.
• Faux Affably Evil: She tries to present herself as a reasonable, well-meaning ruler. Her mask slips a number of times, revealing the absolutely vicious and cruel tyrant underneath.
• A God Am I: Believes she is considering she is a copy of Luna's mind, albeit being the worst aspects of her.
• Magic Versus Science: Being a computer program, she firmly believes in science over the supernatural. This involves thinking that the Eater Of Souls is just an alien power source which she can control.
• The Man Behind the Man: Behind Deus, Sanguine, Steel Rain, and the Harbingers. Also orchestrated the events of the Last Day, and the rearranged plans for the various O.I.A. projects for her new world order. However, it turns out she is just a pawn herself for the Legate and the Eater of Souls, hoping she fires Project Horizons so the Eater can devour Tom and be reborn anew.
• Mechanical Monster: Doesn't have a physical body for most of the story, til she hijacks Blackjack's. Beforehand, she can control robots, machinery, and attacks Blackjack's group in the city tunnels with a giant monster made from a factory floor. She become one again after being ejected, possessing a giant swarm of mechasprites and using them to devour everything she can.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Decides to murder a few thousand or so ponies to motivate Blackjack.
• Sanity Slippage: Suffers from this after Discord stuffs Princess Luna's soul into her.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Cognitum, having lost Blackjack's body and then materialising in mechasprites, gets sucked out into space and dies.
• Unwitting Pawn: All her actions were manipulated by Amadi with the purpose to release and empower the Eater.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: A textbook example. Cognitum wants to restore Equestria but at any cost, even if it means utilising an alien soul-sucking abomination or a superweapon to achieve it. With no thought of the consequences or the fact that said abomination will kill everything if she continues to use it.
• Villain Override: Can do this to other machines and robots, including cybernetic ponies like Dawn and Blackjack.
• Villainous Breakdown: After being ejected from her physical form and going back into her original state, her speech simply dissolves into HATEHATEHATE KILLKILLKILL DIEDIEDIE, over and over.
• Visionary Villain: She has quite the vision of how she will rebuild Equestria. Too bad her absolute belief in this means that she's willing to do any atrocity and ignore any risks.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A number of times. She does it to Sanguine, Dawn, Horse and many others. But she doesn't simply discard her tools, storing them forever instead.

SPOILER CHARACTER

The Eater of Souls

An alien entity that crashed into the Hoofington region in the form of an asteroid long ago, laying waste to the native species that dwelled there. Its asteroid, later renamed the Tokomare, was eventually dug up and, through the machinations of Amadi, used to power the area and for wartime purposes. Centuries later, it remains inside the Core manipulating Cognitum and guiding Amadi towards releasing it so it can devour all life from the planet and move on to other worlds to consume.

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• Ancient Evil: A throwaway conversation in Chapter 63 implies that it crash-landed on planet Equus eighty million years ago, and has been influencing its history ever since.
• And I Must Scream: The source of Enervation. All souls of those who have perished in the vicinity of Hoofington are trapped around the Eater within the Core. Unable to move on to the afterlife, they are in constant pain and torture. Their energy corrodes all lifeforce around it as a result. Also played literally straight in that the tortured souls can only scream which can only be heard by magically empowered beings like the alicorns and the Goddess.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Blackjack has her first glimpse of the Eater at the start of Book II during her first death.
• Eldritch Abomination: It is a rogue star that only longs for destruction, so much so that it was cast down to earth by the other stars. Its past and actions over the centuries are pretty much a Cosmic Horror Story.
• Godzilla Threshold: Project Horizons serves as this to stop the Eater. However, it has a large chance of causing an Apocalypse How (Continental at best; Planetary at worst) if it goes through. Averted utterly in that the Eater knows about it and instead plans to absorb the energy to be released.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Every great tragedy in the story can be traced back to it. From the Zebra Schism to the Great War, it has engineered death and destruction on an unbelievable scale. It's even the reason why Hoofington even exists.
• Living Battery: The Tokomare, the asteroid the Eater is encased in, is used as a reactor to power Hoofington and used during the War.
• Omnicidal Maniac: According to Tom, the Eater is a rogue star that only longs for destruction.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: It is imprisoned within the Tokomare asteroid/reactor. It relies on Amadi to feed it souls until it is powerful enough to be released.
• The Man Behind the Man: To the story's two big bads, Cognitum and Amadi.

Other Characters

Goldenblood

Goldenblood

An enigmatic figure from the war, Goldenblood was director of the Office of Interministry Affairs (or O.I.A.) and aided joint projects between the Ministries. He was a survivor of the Littlehorn Massacre, but was infected with Pink Cloud and spoke in a raspy voice and was deathly ill. Had a doomed relationship with Fluttershy. He was a master of manipulation and very secretive.

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• Anti-Villain: He believed everything he did was for Equestria's and Luna's sake, thinking he would eventually pay for what he had to do. When he realized the full consequences of his actions, he became a Death Seeker.
• Bastard Bastard: Both a literal bastard and a Manipulative Bastard. Later evolves into a Heroic Bastard.
• Break the Haughty: At least twice. His messy breakup with Fluttershy and his eventual arrest are the clearest examples so far. Finding out about the Eater was the biggest, as it made him realize that all that he had done made it stronger than ever.
• Death Seeker: His self-imposed imprisonment within Project Redoubt is to wait for someone strong enough to finally execute him for his crimes. Even after Blackjack releases him and spares his life, he still feels unworthy after all his sins and wishes to be put out of his misery.
• Freak Out: According to Sanguine, Goldenblood completely lost it after being arrested for treason. The real reason was finding out that Amadi, whom he had last seen triggering the bomb in Littlehorn, was in Horse's employ and realizing his true nature.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Over the course of the war, Goldenblood changed from the obscure bastard son of Prince Blueblood, to a geology and history professor, to one of the most influential and subversive government officials in Equestria.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: When he discovered the true nature of the Tokomare as the Eater of Souls and that he had been feeding it by keeping the war going, he lost it. It was what led to his arrest.
• Incurable Cough of Death: His near-death at Littlehorn left him with extreme damage to his lungs, leaving him coughing for the rest of his life.
• Insufferable Genius: Whilst undoubtedly a brilliant pony, he was very hard to like.
• It's All My Fault: He came to believe this, regarding the War. The reason is twofold, his attempt to explain what had happened at Littlehorn to his rescuer ended up implicating the zebras (he was trying to say Starkatteri zebra, but was misunderstood), and letting the war escalate when he had the power to stop it.
• The Man Behind the Man: Goldenblood pretty much was behind every major event of the Great War. He survived Littlehorn, helped Luna form her new war ministry, founded the Ministries, set up the Ministry of Awesome's facade as a pointless government branch, set Pinkie on her path of addiction (which comes to bite him in the ass), helps out with Stable-Tec's projects, designed most of the Hoofington Projects, and even inspired Twilight Sparkle to create the Gardens of Equestria and the alicorn formula.
• Manipulative Bastard: Oh yes. Goldenblood had a significant influence on Luna's government reforms and the formation of the ministries. He is also known to have wiped Twilight's memories of creating the Gardens of Equestria, and blackmailed Rarity over her possession of the Black Book. He then built Horizons as the ultimate failsafe against the zebras and the Eater. The truth was he did it all under the influence of the Eater..
• My Country, Right or Wrong/My Master, Right or Wrong: He had this towards Equestria and Luna in equal amounts. Luna used his affection for her to stop him from quitting and his loyalty to his country was his other reason for why he would not let the war end in anything but Equestria's favor.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Invoked numerous times. Particularly when he causes Fluttershy to have a miscarriage, and when Pinkie reveals he has been manipulated by the Eater of Souls.
• Offing the Offspring: Subverted. Calling out Luna's name while intimate with a pregnant Fluttershy caused her to go into premature labor. Both Goldenblood and Fluttershy were lead to believe that the resulting birth was a miscarriage, and mourned as such. In fact, Trueblood (later Sanguine) actually kept the infant Whisper (later Psychoshy) in secret to further his own ends. Father and daughter meet two-hundred years later.
• Posthumous Character: He lived during the war and died near its end. He was revealed to be alive all along, imprisoned in Project Redoubt waiting for the right person to open it and execute him.
• Spin-Offspring: The bastard son of Prince Blueblood.
• Unwitting Pawn: Ironically, despite being one of the greatest manipulators of all time he was little more than a puppet in the the hands of the Eater.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist Chancellor: Appears to have been this to Luna. He actually wanted to stop but his loyalty to Luna didn't allow him to do so.

The Dealer

The Dealer

A mysterious skeletal pony who wears a battered hat and coat, the Dealer materialises shortly after Blackjack downloads EC-1101 into her PipBuck and has a flipflopping view on her efforts to do good. Blackjack assumes he is death incarnate but learns he is a pre-wasteland spirit attached to EC-1101 to ensure it reaches its proper destinations.

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• The Atoner: As Echo, he believes he stood by and did nothing as his team disintegrated around him, and he had a very miserable life.
• Eaten Alive: By mechasprites possesed by Cognitum after he ejects her from Blackjack's body.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: He betrays Blackjack to Cognitum to get back his body. Or so it seems. What he really wants is to see the world ended, as he believes that his race deserves it. He switches back when Blackjack convinces him otherwise and helps her get her body back from Cognitum, then dies for real in the same chapter.
• The Gambling Addict: Always accompanied by a deck of cards.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives these to Blackjack whenever she's in high spirits...
• Rousing Speech: ... and gives these to Blackjack whenever she's in low spirits. His flip-flopping between the two confounds Blackjack to no end.
• Soul Jar: Blackjack believes the Dealer is a hallucination or the embodiment of death. Turns out he is actually the ghost of Echo, a member of Macintosh's Marauders, whose soul was bound to EC-1101.

The Zodiac Family

The Zodiac Family

A group of various individuals who work for Professor Zodiac of the Collegiate. While they are introduced as antagonists targeting Blackjack, they are good people at heart. Each member is named after a star sign of the western zodiac.

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• Bounty Hunter: A whole group of them under the Collegiate's command.
• Code Name: Befitting a squadron of bounty hunting operatives. Their real cutie marks have been magically altered to fit the zodiac sign they're assigned to, as well. The only members whose real names are learned are Silver Stripe (Prof. Zodiac) and Bulldozer (Taurus).
• Evil All Along: Prof. Zodiac herself is revealed to be on Cognitum & Amadi's side all along, hating ponies for crippling her in the past. She is promptly blown away by a timely Calamity with a machine rifle.
• Forced Transformation: Pisces and Capri were transformed into seaponies by Killing Joke.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sort of. Professor Zodiac sacrifices her cybernetic organs, and any chance of being mobile in the near future, in order to save Blackjack's life. However, being in league with the Big Bad Ensemble, she has Blackjack's cybernetic eyes be cameras that beam directly everything she sees to Cognitum.
• Intangible Man: Gem and Mini, at will. Unless they get telefragged, that is.
• Kill It with Fire: Aries' power armor is equipped with a flamer and napalm grenades.
• Number Two: Sagittarius, being the oldest and longest-lived of the Zodiacs under Prof. Zodiac is her second-in-command. Promoted to leader after the Prof. is killed after her allegiance to the Big Bad Ensemble is found out.
• Punch-Clock Villain: They are only targeting Blackjack due to her enormous bounty Deus set on her. Then it's due to Prof. Zodiac wanting EC-1101 in order to use some old OIA projects. They are all pleasant individuals when not targeting her. Then it turns out the Professor isn't so noble after all when she uses Project Steelpony to create the Brood.
• Rank Up: After Prof. Zodiac's true allegiance and death at the hooves of Calamity, Sagittarius becomes the new leader of the Zodiacs.
• Shot in the Ass: Blackjack scares Virgo off by grazing her rump.
• Token Robot: Cancer is a mechanical automaton similar to the Securiponies but is programmed to work with the Zodiacs.

Priest

Priest

The kindly leader of the small settlement named Chapel, Priest created a safe haven town for refugees and others who he refers to as "Pilgrims". He works as a priest for Princess Celestia and Luna, restoring the town's chapel to its pre-war state. He tries to dissuade Pilgrims from taking "The Journey" but will not stop them if they decide to do it.

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• Big Fancy House: Priest gives his old house, Star House, to Blackjack to live in. Twilight Sparkle's cousin Marigold once lived in the house.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Priest tried to fight Sanguine to protect his friends, only to receive a face full of Pink Cloud, melting his face and fusing it to the floor.
• Driven to Suicide: Priest tries to convince Pilgrims from not partaking in the Journey, but will not force them to stop if they decide to go through with it. The Journey itself involves the Pilgrims walking across the bridge leading to Hoofington's Core, where the deadly disintegration weapons will instantly kill the Pilgrims.
• Due to the Dead: Built a graveyard in Chapel for those who take the Journey. Earns this himself after his death.
• Founder of the Kingdom: Founded Chapel.
• Good Shepherd: Very much so. Founded Chapel to allow pilgrims or wanderers a place to live and founded the Crusaders to give orphaned children a family/home.
• Happily Married: Used to have a relationship with Rampage and they had a foal together. However, it fell apart when one of Rampage's alternate personalities killed their child, and they split up.
• Murder by Inaction: Priest's morals behind letting the Pilgrims take the Journey, believing they deserve better. He gets a What the Hell, Hero? from Blackjack when she witnesses this.
• Parental Substitute: He acts as a surrogate father figure to the Crusaders, who are made up in large part of foals orphaned when their Pilgrim parents partook in the Journey.
• Queer Establishing Moment: He's initially presented as being straight, even revealing he had a daughter with Rampage. Then Blackjack stumbles across him cuddling and kissing with P-21, and learns through eavesdropping that he's actually gay — what he and Rampage, then known as Arlost, had was a very literal "one time thing".
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's the leader of the settlement of Chapel, and is a rational, reasonable, friendly fellow.
• The Vicar: Fills this role in the Fallout: Equestria world. He is a priest of Celestia and Luna, founded the town and built it around the chapel that it is named after, has the colours of a vicar's uniform, and his Cutie Mark is a silhouette of Celestia raising the sun.

Charity

Charity

A filly Crusader who runs the shop in Chapel. She is very business-minded and cares only for getting profits.

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• Evil Debt Collector: Never get into a debt with her or else she will have a whole swarm of Crusaders dogpile you and force you to pay your debt.
• Ironic Name: She is anything but charitable...at least towards Blackjack.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even though all she cares about is profits, she is willing to overlook it for any emergencies. She starts to cut Blackjack some slack after she gives up EC-1101 to Sanguine in exchange for her life.
• Miser Advisor: She enjoys getting every last bottlecap she can from Blackjack. She does it slightly less and less after her encounter with Sanguine.
• Secret Legacy: It's hinted she's related to Finders Keepers, making her one of the Finders.
• Treasure Room: Deep inside her shop is a vault with all her accumulated treasures. Later on, she hires Precious to act as its guard, turning it into a literal Dragon Hoard.

Sekashi

Sekashi

A zebra Blackjack and her team meet at Brimstone Falls. She later settles down in Chapel where she tells her tales to anyone willing.

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• Handicapped Badass: She is deaf, but that doesn't stop her from communicating with others and telling her different stories. She is also a skilled fighter and a master using a staff in combat as she was one of the Legate's/Amadi's wives.
• He Knows Too Much: She learns that her husband, the Legate, is an outcast Starkatteri zebra, which causes her to run away with their youngest child Majina.
• Hidden Depths: She is deaf and tends to describe the actions of others as "silly", but she is a lore keeper with different tales of Zebra culture and a potion brewer. She is also a master staff fighter and knows the secret of the Legate being a cursed Starkatteri.
• Reading Lips: Naturally has this ability due to her deafness.
• The Storyteller: Her specialty is telling stories of Zebra Folklore.
• Unusual Euphemism: Tends to use the word "silly" loosely when talking, whether describing others or using it in her stories.

The Reapers

The Reapers

A large group of raiders who dominate Hoofington, the Reapers were designed to fight off against other gangs in the wasteland and make it a better place. The Reapers are led by Big Daddy. They operate out the Hoofington Dome and often have gladiator battles. Rampage, Deus and Gorgon are all members of the Reapers.

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• Affably Evil: Whilst the Reapers are violence-loving thugs and morally ambiguous at best, many of them are actually quite pleasant, such as Big Daddy himself.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Only the biggest badasses are allowed to join the Reapers, whose numbers are set strictly at 100. You want in? You gotta either prove yourself tougher than an existing Reaper, or just kill one and take their place.
• The Brute: Deus and Gorgon both take this role, being amongst Big Daddy's most elite fighters due to their distinctly unnatural physiques and abilities.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Gorgon is pulped by an industrial rock-crusher, tail-first.
• Cyborg: Deus is a towering mountain of Pre-War combat-grade cybernetics, essentially a pony's brain wired into a pony-shaped tank.
• Eyepatch of Power: Big Daddy Reaper apparently gets hold of Blackjack's eyepatch, following the events of Chapter 32.
• Fallen Hero: Both Deus and Gorgon were originally revered Equestrian war heroes as members of Macintosh's Marauders. But, by the time of the present, they have become literal and figurative monsters. See "Doof" and "Stonewing" for more details..
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Deus is blown in half when his guns backfire, setting off their ammo reserves.
• Immune to Bullets: Gorgon. Immune to lasers and explosives as well. But not rock crushers.
• Really 700 Years Old: Deus and Gorgon were alive during the war.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Deus, to the point where it's practically a Verbal Tic.
• The Speechless: Gorgon never speaks, though it's unclear whether or not he can. Speechless or not, he can certainly scream.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The fastest way to become a Reaper is to kill one and take their place.

The Society

The Society

A civilized faction living in Hoofington, the Society believe themselves to be the rightful and future leaders of Equestria. They are led by the elderly King Awesome and most are descendants of pre-war Equestria's aristocracy. Awesome has three (acknowledged) children: Prince Splendid and Princesses Grace and Charm.

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• Affably Evil: Beyond the slavery, the Society are probably one of the nicer factions that Blackjack meets. They want to restore Equestria, share the Fluttershy Medical Centre with the Collegiate, and grow fresh fruit to trade with other factions including the Enclave.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Princess Charm. A bratty self-centered filly who believes she should be King Awesome's successor because she just should. She even kidnaps Scotch in an attempt to make Blackjack pick her, but Blackjack easily defeats her and lets Rampage and Scotch torture her.
• Break the Haughty: After getting captured by the Harbingers and tortured in the Core, she loses a lot of her attitude and intends to help Blackjack escape.
• Cool Airship: The Fleur. Blackjack and co. are allowed to use it to reach Thunderhead.
• Fair Cop: Princess Grace is the most sensible and idealistic of King Awesome's children. Which is why Blackjack chooses her as King Awesome's successor.
• Legacy Character: Most of the members are descendants of Equestria's aristocracy, including Shining Armor... at least, they claim to be, with other ponies suggesting many are actually descendants of raiders or common ponies who falsely claim aristocratic lineage as part of their image.
• Really Gets Around: It's mentioned by Prince Splendid and his sisters that they are just King Awesome's children that he acknowledged, with the implication that there are many bastard siblings out there. It's possible that Charity may actually be one of Awesome's byblows, but she herself has no interest in investigating.
• Servant Race: The Society started off as slavers, but thanks to King Awesome, their methods were altered so the slaves would be known as serfs. They had better privileges but were still slaves, and wore bomb collars.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Subverted. Most members of the Society are well aware of the harsh conditions of the Wasteland but do their best to just live out their lives normally.
• Unexpected Inheritance: After King Awesome dies, he deliberately makes Blackjack queen of the Society, so she can sort out the troubles of the faction and to fairly decide which of his children should ascend the throne. She picks Grace.

The Collegiate

The Collegiate

One of the factions within Hoofington. They're a group of medical experts and doctors working out of Hoofington University, their base of operations. They have access to more medical technology and techniques than many regular Wasteland doctors, allowing them to treat numerous severe conditions. They earn profits by either healing others or by sending the Zodiac Family out to capture bounties.

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• Doctor's Orders: Dr. Triage's patience, as well as any doctor's, gets tested continuously over Blackjack blatantly ignoring these to avoid injuries to her body.
• Smoking Is Cool: Dr. Triage is always seen with a cigarette in her mouth.

The Finders

The Finders

Another faction operating within Hoofington. They're a commerce-oriented group which run the major trade hubs around Hoofington. All the leaders of the hubs are the daughters of Keeper/Finders Keepers, one of the original Hoofington Six alongside Big Daddy Reaper, Silver Stripe/Prof. Zodiac, King Awesome, Crunchy Carrots and Dawn.

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• Black Market: Caprice and Usury's hubs are more like these. The former sells drugs and sexual services while the latter runs a slave trade.
• Intrepid Merchant: Keeper roams around the Wasteland selling goods where most needed.
• Ironic Name: The name of Usury's slave trading hub? Paradise. Rumored to be the ancient location of the original Paradise Estate.
• King Incognito: Caprice, the leader of Flank, works as the bartender for Stable 69. Blackjack doesn't realize the bartender and Caprice are the same pony until Book 2.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The two trade leaders who rely on Black Market deals rather than actual commerce trading? Both are eventually run out of their hubs with one ending up working as assistant to a filly shopkeep (Caprice) and the other reduced to shoveling Brahmin dung for her father (Usury).
• What the Hell, Hero?: Blackjack chews out Caprice after finding out she let Deus, the Zodiacs and other bounty hunters know of her presence in Flank since she was afraid Blackjack was going to take over Flank's leadership from her.

Followers

Just like in the series the story is based from, not everypony Blackjack meets stay with her from the beginning of her journey. Those who joined momentarily are described below.

Scoodle's Crusaders

Scoodle's Crusaders

The first group Blackjack and P-21 encounter after leaving Stable 99. A group of Crusaders held by raiders until Blackjack saves them. The most significant members of this groups are Scoodle and Boing.

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• Half the Man He Used to Be: Scoodle is torn in two by ghouls.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Blackjack constantly kicks herself down for being the one responsible for Scoodle's death.
  • She later gets another after realizing she nearly beat Boing to death while still in her Unstoppable Rage and sleep-deprived mindset after Yellow River.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Scoodle's death is the catalyst of the beginning of Blackjack's self-loathing.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: All Crusaders are this given the nature of their world, but Scoodle is the one who teaches Blackjack how to build better weapons from junk and teaches her some of the basic rules of commerce and survival in Hoofington.

Neighvarro Trio

The Neighvarro Enclave Trio

A trio of Enclave pegasi (Twister, Sunset, Boomer) from Neighvaro monitored to Watcher's Cave. Their leader was later "hijacked" by Blackjack after leaving the cave and flown to Hoofington. They later allied with Blackjack after an attack by Brass and her manticores.

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• The Big Guy: Boomer, by virtue of being the only male in the team, and their explosives expert.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Blackjack places Twister in such a predicament. If she lets BJ go, she'll lose an intelligence asset; If she kills her, she'll still have no asset. Her only choice was following and trusting BJ.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently Boomer earned his nickname during hs flight school days after a "chili night" incident according to Twister and Sunset.

Bluebelle

Bluebelle

A member of the Highlanders Blackjack encounters alongside three different gang members in an industrial complex to Hoofington's east while fleeing the Harbingers in Book III. She momentarily joins Blackjack during the assault at Yellow River.

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• The Big Gal: Bluebelle is an enormous mare who relies on her own strength rather than weapons.
• Bystander Syndrome: The Highlanders are known for this.
• Deep South: The Highlanders are all a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of rednecks.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Blackjack ends up fighting her when they first meet and eventually earns her respect by proving her strength to her.
• Fantastic Racism: All Highlanders shun zebras. She tolerates Xanthe due to Blackjack.
• Fluffy the Terrible: A large strong mare with a cutesy name and a cutie mark of blue flowers.
• I Owe You My Life: Bluebelle follows Blackjack through Yellow River and make sure she gets out alive, despite Blackjack's warnings to just go back home, because she helped apply some healing potions when she was shot and giving her Taurus's rifle.
• One Degree of Separation: She is the sister of the Zodiac Family member Taurus.

Xanthe

Xanthe

A young zebra mare of the Propoli tribe, she works as a technician for the Zebra Remnants. An encounter with Blackjack at Yellow River caused her to believe she is cursed by Blackjack. She reluctantly follows her through Yellow River and later on to Hightower.

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• Proud Scholar Race Guy: Propoli zebras are known for their affinity towards city life and scholarly pursuits.
• The Quest: Accompanies Silver Spoon alongside Snails and Carrion to find Diamond Tiara.
• Soul Jar: Not herself, but she gains one in the form of a zebra cloaking device that was infused with the soul of a zebra left behind as part of Project Eternity in Hightower Prison.
• Wrench Wench: She's a technician and engineer by trade. Her glyphs (zebra cutie mark) also resemble a pair of wrenches
• You Can't Go Home Again: Due being "cursed", she knows she can never be accepted in the Remnants or zebra society again. Enforced by Lancer who immediately tries to shoot her.

Stygius

Stygius

A bat pony stallion Blackjack meets near Black Pony Mountain.

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• Bat Out of Hell: Inverted. He may look evil with his dark coat, slit-eyed pupils and bat wings, but he's a nice guy.
• Hidden Elf Village: The batpony realm is hidden inside a shadow dimension around Black Pony Mountain. As expected, they stay on the sidelines from all troubles in the Wasteland.
• Ironic Death: Dies just after officially exchanging marriage vows with Psychoshy in the middle of a battle.
• Killed Off for Real: Is slain in the final fight against the Brood.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Tries to be this for Blackjack and, later on, Psychoshy.
• Love at First Punch: Stygius kisses Blackjack when they first meet. Unable to think clearly over what to do, she punches him with her metal forehoof.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Like all bats, he is able to harness sonar screeches which prove very helpful against the Smooze in Hightower Prison.
• Royal Inbreeding: A product of inbreeding and was expected to breed with his sister until Blackjack came along and chose him to have sex with. Then he and Psychoshy fell in love.
• Sex for Solace: Blackjack uses him as a way to finally get over her fears of sex with males after her gang rape before her first death.
• The Speechless: Played with. He is able to speak but it comes out as inaudible squeaks due to being a batpony.
• Talking with Signs: So he usually communicates with a small chalkboard.
• Wartime Wedding: Exchanges marriage vows with Psychoshy as they fight the Brood.

Cerberus

Cerberus

A Mister Gusty-class robot that resides within Meatlocker. He was reprogrammed by the ghoul population as a sentry and is later sent along with Blackjack to infiltrate Hightower Prison.

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• Expy: He's basically the same Cerberus from Fallout 3 in the ponyverse. Unlike the version from the game, this Cerberus does join the character's party, albeit momentarily.
• Restraining Bolt: Just like his game counterpart, he too is fitted with an inhibitor that prevents him from damaging the native Meatlocker ghoul population.
• Semper Fi: His attitude and personality is equal to a Marine.

Mr. Shears

Mr. Shears

A mysterious short-statured pony that joins the assault on Hightower Prison.

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• Big Damn Heroes: In the Core, he helps Princess Charm in placing Blackjack's consciousness into the clone body.
• Facial Horror: Get a face full of flame during the assault on Hightower. Followed shortly by the rest of his body.
• Glowing Eyes: Has these as a result of having died only to be brought back to life by his necromancy.
• Kill It with Fire: Gets immolated by the inferno within Hightower after having his face burned off.
• Necromancer: Due to the infuence of the Black Book and its soul-ripping experiments, he has turned into this.
• Shear Menace: He fights with a giant pair of these and uses it to great effect against ghouls.
• Took a Level in Badass: The former chubby inept colt from Ponyville went on to do experiments on immortality and survived for two centuries becoming a necromancer in the process.
• Walking Spoiler: Everything about Mr. Shears's past and his real identity as Snips.

Nurse Graves

Nurse Graves

A ghoul pony nurse who resides in Meatlocker. As one of the few staff members who worked in Hightower Prison when still alive, she joins the group to help infiltrate the facility.

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• Heroic Sacrifice: Pushes Blackjack out of the way from a blue flame ghoul's attack and takes the hit fully.
• The Medic: It's in her name. She also helps direct the infiltration team to Hightower's medical supply storage as well.
• What the Hell, Hero?: She was very upset at Blackjack lying to Silver Spoon as the revelation she wasn't Diamond Tiara would have broken what little remained of her mind and probably cause her to go feral.

Carrion

Carrion

A ghoul griffin working as a bouncer for Ahuizotl of Meatlocker. He joins the Hightower infiltration group at Ahuizotl's behest.

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• Creepy Crows: His avian side resembles a crow. Being a ghoul raises the creepiness factor up to eleven.
• Facial Horror: Gets his face crushed by both a Soul Jar teddy bear and Rampage's attempts to remove it from him. Being a ghoul however, he was able to regenerate it.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: As soon as he's free of Ahuizotl's service, he kills him right on the spot.
• Magically-Binding Contract: His Contract forces him to pledge allegiance to whomever held it. He worked for Ahuizotl because he held it. Once Blackjack becomes the new holder, he kills Ahuizotl without mercy.
• Powered Armor: Wears a set of these, befitting a griffin soldier/mercenary.
• The Quest: Accompanies Silver Spoon alongside Snails and Xanthe to find Diamond Tiara.

Silver Spoon

Silver Spoon

A former resident of Ponyville, she was working around the vicinity of Hoofington when the megaspells fell. She became a ghoul who has her destroyed glasses fused to her face and her mind degenerated. She saves Blackjack at first around the Boneyard and later joined the Hightower Infiltration group.

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• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Blackjack, P-21 and the Crusaders from being eaten by feral ghouls in the Boneyard after mistaking the unicorn for Diamond Tiara. Later at Hightower Prison, she was able to get Warden Hobble to stand down using her Ministry of Morale authority before he could kill the infiltration group once they entered.
• Compelling Voice: Despite being a Glowing One, she has the uncany ability to boss around lesser ferals into submission. Ferals with stronger powers like the blue flamers are immune.
• Eye Scream: Her glasses are fused to her face, having melted from balefire radiation.
• Fate Worse than Death: She is apparently unaware of her condition, and wanders Boneyard pining for her best friend. Readers of Fallout: Equestria will realise that Diamond Tiara was Driven to Suicide shortly after the megaspell exchange.
• Glowing Eyes: Magnified by radiation and the lenses of her glasses.
• Posthumous Character: Played with. She is "dead" but still with unlife as a Glowing One.
• The Quest: After Hightower, she goes off in one to find Diamond Tiara alongside Snails, Xanthe and Carrion
• Secret Police: She was a member of the Ministry of Morale, although she never participated in any clandestine operations.
• Taking It Well: After Blackjack finally confessed to her that she isn't Diamond Tiara, instead of feral-inducing trauma as Nurse Graves feared, she instead opts for this. She still sometimes calls BJ Tiara at times though.

Macintosh's Marauders

As a group

A special squad consisting of all three species of pony, designed for the purpose of special ops and combat. Led by Big Macintosh, the group formed a family-like unit over the course of the war. However, tragedy ended up destroying the squad following Big Macintosh's death at Shattered Hoof Ridge. The rest of the squad either died or suffered horrible fates, some appearing two-hundred years later in the Equestrian Wasteland.

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Tropes shared by the characters include:

• Badass Crew: The most famous squad in the war.
• Breaking the Fellowship: It is revealed by Echo that the nine Marauders all made a magically bound pact to never break their bonds until the war's end, cursed by a zebra fortune teller. The zebra warned them that if anypony broke the promise, the culprit would die a peaceful death while the others would suffer fates worse than death. When Stonewing "dies", the group suspect he broke the bond. Turns out it is Big Macintosh who did, falling in love and planning to leave military service to start a family. It all goes wrong when Big Mac dies a hero and the others all suffer horrible fates as a result.
• Doomed by Canon: Like most of the pre-Wasteland cast, the Marauders all suffer terrible fates that leave them either dead, insane, emotionally broken or are mutated into alternate forms. See Posthumous Character below.
• Posthumous Character: As Macintosh's Marauders existed during the Great War, all of Blackjack's encounters with them are through memory orbs and apocalyptic logs. Though many of them are actually still alive, the intervening time has changed them to a point where they are no longer recognizable.
  • By the start of the story, Big Macintosh (took a bullet for Princess Celestia) and Vanity (stabbed by his brother Blueblood) are both dead; Jetstream went nuts and sent off by Garnet to bomb the zebra capital as part of a "rescue mission"; and those who were still alive in numerous forms, Applesnack (Fallout Equestria's Steelhooves), Doof (Deus), Twist (part of Rampage), Psalm (Lacunae), Stonewing (Gorgon), and Echo (The Dealer).
• Strapped to an Operating Table: The fate of Doof and Stonewing. After disgracing himself by raping Twist, Doof was 'volunteered' for Project Steelpony and used as a guinea pig for cybernetic enhancement technology. Stonewing, after being paralyzed in combat, was used as a test subject in Project Chimera and merged with a cockatrice.
• We Were Your Team: The squad rapidly fell apart after Big Macintosh's Heroic Sacrifice.

Big Macintosh

Big Macintosh

The Leader of the Macintosh's Marauders, Big Macintosh is an intelligent, strong and respected sergeant of little words. He is the big brother of Applejack and Apple Bloom. He was the heart of the squad and the others idolized him. However, he infamously died defending Princess Celestia at the botched Shattered Hoof Ridge peace talks, leading to the destruction of the squad.

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• Achilles in His Tent: Big Macintosh intended on retiring from military service after learning Maripony was pregnant with his child. This caused problems among the squad, but Big Macintosh wished to live a happy life and not die in battle. Then came the Shattered Hoof Ridge peace talks.
• A Father to His Men: Very much so to all of them, even the older ones. Without him, the squad falls apart.
• Ascended Extra: Had a relatively minor role in Fallout Equestria as a posthumous war hero. Here, he is a recurring character in memory orbs.
• BFG: The prototype IF-88 assault pistol that Blackjack gains, calling it "Sexy".
• The Big Guy: Nicknamed this by his squad members.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Echo reveals to Blackjack that the Marauders visited a zebra fortune teller at a fair who told them they would become heroes as long as they stayed true to their fellowship. However, when Big Macintosh decides to leave the army to raise a family, he inadvertently breaks the fellowship and dies, leading to the terrible fates of his comrades.
• Bruiser with a Soft Centre: A heavyweight on the battlefield, but a Gentle Giant at heart.
• Catchphrase: "Eeyep" or "Nope".
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Possesses great physical strength thanks to years working on Sweet Apple Acres.
• Cool Big Bro: To not only his sisters but to the younger members of the squad like Twist, Echo and Jetstream.
• Genius Bruiser: His brains and brawn made him the ideal leader for the squad.
• The Heart: Keeps the Marauders together.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Said to have died like this during the battle at Shattered Hoof. Turns out this is actually half-true. Big Macintosh defended Princess Celestia from zebra assassins, only to end up taking a bullet fired by Psalm, who thought a dead Celestia was better than a captured Celestia.
• Large and in Charge: The biggest of the Marauders.
• Legacy Character: Blackjack is a direct descendant of him and Twilight Sparkle.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Very courteous to others, particularly mares.
• Posthumous Character: Died a hero defending Princess Celestia.
• Secret Relationship: He dated a mare named Maripony during the war, actually Twilight Sparkle in disguise, using Maripony to be herself. They were going to have a child together but Twilight had to transfer her child to her cousin Marigold. This child is Blackjack's ancestor.
• Small Steps Hero: Protects Princess Celestia against all odds to save her alone, even though it costs him his life.
• Taking the Bullet: Infamously took a bullet for Celestia. Turns out he was shot dead by Psalm in an attempt to mercy kill the Princess.
• The Quiet One: Not much of a talker.

Applesnack

Applesnack

Big Macintosh's lieutenant, Applesnack is a cynical, gruff and moody earth pony who is openly racist towards zebras. He dated Applejack during the war. Would later become the first Steel Ranger and used the alias Steelhooves. For more info, see Fallout Equestria's character page.

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• BFG: Owns a few, before and after becoming Steelhooves.
• The Cynic: Not the most upbeat of ponies.
• Demoted to Extra: Has a relatively minor role in Project Horizons.
• Heroic BSoD: Has one when Big Macintosh dies.
• Knight Templar: His racist bigotry against zebras leads to his more darker moments in Fallout Equestria.
• Put on a Bus: Reassigned to be a cop in Zebratown, leading to meeting Applejack.
• Sergeant Rock: Appeared to be second-in-command to Big Macintosh, though Jetstream got the leader role after Applesnack is reassigned.
• Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Racist against zebras, cursed to be a ghoul for two centuries.

Twist

Twist

The youngest member of the Marauders, Twist is an old friend of Apple Bloom and had a lifelong crush on her. She spoke with a speech impediment and wore glasses, but got rid of both to not be a liability to her team. Dated a Proditor zebra named Shuuja.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Twist spent most of her life pining for Apple Bloom.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Twist is adept at zebra martial arts.
• Cheerful Child: Was a very happy-go-lucky filly when she was with Apple Bloom, but that was until they were split apart by Twist earning her Cutie Mark.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Had a crush on Apple Bloom and believes her biggest mistake in life was getting her Cutie Mark before Apple Bloom.
• Innocent Bystander: Was a victim of the zebras' bombing of Hoofington shortly after the Littlehorn massacre, her candy shop being burnt down by the attack.
• Legacy Character: Became this as the final active member of the Marauders using the title.
• Nerd Glasses: Wore large, purple specs but removed them to perform better in battle.
• New Meat: She was the youngest member of the team.
• Posthumous Character: Shuuja was killed by a racist mare during a mission to meet a tribe of zebras hoping to allegedly join Equestria's forces. Twist was also shot and close to death, only for Shuuja to rip out the regenerative Phoenix Talisman and give it to Twist, dying herself. Twist later died at Miramare Air Station on the Last Day, and her soul along with the talisman, ended up in Rampage, actually her daughter Peppermint.
• Rape as Drama: Thanks to Doof's own stupidity and Brass' manipulation, Twist was unintentionally raped by Doof, leading to Doof's incarceration and Twist's fear of her former best friend. Twist later gave birth to Peppermint.
• Speech Impediment: Has one as a filly but eventually gets rid of it.
• Sweet Tooth: Often munched on peppermint sticks and mint-als. She owned a candy store in Hoofington with Doof before it was burnt down.

Doof

Doof]]

A large, simple-minded stallion who was friends with Twist and Psalm. He acted as the Dumb Muscle of the team, and had a crush on Twist. Following Big Macintosh's death, he did a number of terrible things that led to being turned into the cyborg Deus Ex Machina. He invades Stable #99 two-hundred years later to obtain EC-1101.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Doof loved Twist, even though she only saw him as a friend and repeatedly rejected his feelings. Unfortunately, Doof's limited intelligence led him into being manipulated by Brass into raping Twist.
• And I Must Scream: Rather than dying after he is blown apart by his own weaponry, his brain is shoved into a war tank to be used by the Harbingers.
• The Atoner: Becomes this following his transformation into a tank. Turns out he always wished to be this ever since raping Twist. Rampage ends up finding it hilarious when she realizes Deus plans to follow Blackjack around until he finds new meaning in life.
• BFG: Used a huge machine gun on the battlefield. Had a pair of giant cannons as Deus.
• Big Eater: His Cutie Mark is a knife and fork. He co-ran Twist's candy store with her.
• Cyborg: Transformed into Deus as per Project Steelpony. However, the fusion of flesh and metal was not perfect, leaving him in agony for years.
• Determinator: Stops at nothing to hunt down Blackjack.
• The Dreaded: One of the most feared Reapers in Hoofington. Blackjack spends sixteen chapters running from Deus until they finally face off in Flank.
• Dumb Muscle: Doof wasn't the brightest guy in the world and it cost him dearly.
• Establishing Character Moment: Enters Stable #99 armed to the teeth and addresses all the mares as "cunts".
• Fat Idiot: A Big Eater with more of a stomach and sex drive than a brain.
• Formerly Fat: Traded his gut for muscles.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: After raping Twist, Doof was imprisoned in Hightower Prison to rot. He pleaded with Vanity to let him see Twist to beg for forgiveness, but was denied. This led to him becoming a monster, believing all mare were "cunts" including Twist, and he was put in solitary confinement to prevent him from harming anyone. He was then selected for Project Steelpony, becoming the deadly Reaper known as Deus.
• Functional Addict: Addicted to painkillers to avert the pain he feels due to his dodgy cybernetic parts.
• Heel–Face Turn: Becomes Blackjack's travelling companion and mode of transport after he becomes a tank.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Becomes this overtime, though it is partially his own fault. He comes to refer to all mares as "cunts".
• Hero Killer: Kills the Zodiac member Taurus.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Finally dies protecting Chapel from the Legate zebras.
• Karmic Death: Blown apart by his own cannons. Though he survives.
• Momma's Boy: Implied to be. His lock password is "Mama".
• Room Full of Crazy: His cramped prison cell in Hightower Prison has the names of every mare he hates carved into the walls. Blackjack deliberately hides it from Rampage so she doesn't have to see.
• The Reveal: His identity as Deus, as well as being Rampage's father.
  • Also his Back from the Dead return as a tank.
• Too Dumb to Live: His sex drive was bigger than his brain, leading to his Start of Darkness.
• Tragic Monster: Starts off as the biggest scumbag in the Wasteland, but evolves into a more sympathetic character as Blackjack learns more about him.
• Verbal Tic: "CUNT!"
• We Can Rebuild Him: Following Deus' apparent destruction, some of his parts are salvaged by Glory to turn Blackjack into a cyborg. The rest is used by Dawn to fuse Deus into a tank.
• Would Hit a Girl: Sees all mares as evil and liars due to his past and would both kill and rape them without mercy.

Psalm

Psalm

A quiet unicorn who acts as a sniper for the Marauders. Psalm is old friends with Twist, and is a very religious mare, worshipping Princess Luna mostly and always begs for forgiveness whenever she kills or harms someone.

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• Apologetic Attacker: Psalm prays to Celestia and Luna for forgiveness whenever she takes a life.
• The Atoner: Really wants to become this but believes Luna will never forgive her.
• Cold Sniper: Becomes an emotionally broken, remorseless sniper who carries out Project Partypooper, only apologising to Luna as usual. She gets better. Sort of.
• Crisis of Faith: Believes Luna will never forgive her what her sins.
• Faith–Heel Turn: Psalm has a Despair Event Horizon and breaks emotionally after killing Big Macintosh. The day after, she abandons the rest of her team and becomes an emotionless sniper following the orders of Luna, carrying out Project Partypooper.
• Hero Killer: Killed Big Macintosh and then tried to kill the Ministry Mares as part of Project: Partypooper, although she failed on those targets.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Her reasoning for her actions, though she hates herself for it.
• Karmic Transformation: Psalm is forced into Unity by the Goddess, earning her "forgiveness", and becomes the building blocks for what would become Lacunae. Becomes an alicorn after Lacunae's death.
• My Greatest Failure: Killing Macintosh and being manipulated into carrying out Project: Partypooper.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Project Horizons canon, Macintosh wasn't shot saving Celestia from a zebra sniper. Psalm killed Macintosh because he refused to let her Mercy Kill Celestia when it seemed like she would be abducted by zebras. And then the Shadowbolts showed up and saved them all as she was preparing to shoot Celestia, so it was all for nothing.
  • She obediently followed orders when she was given the directive to enact Project: Partypooper — supposedly a Luna-decreed series of political assassinations to prevent Luna from being overthrown by a Ministry-led coup. Then she learned that it was actually to assist a coup by the Office of Interministry Affairs, and specifically had been ordered by an O.I.A mediator named Garnet to get rid of anypony who could have seen the O.I.A brought up on charges of warcrimes. The end result was that she threw massive monkey wrenches into Equestria's ability to respond to the Last Day, and the death toll might have been lower if it weren't for her.
• Sanity Slippage: The guilt of being a sniper, combined with her great failures, drove her utterly mad.
• Shrinking Violet: Very quiet and unconfident in her abilities.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Has a very close relationship with her teacher Goldenblood.

Stonewing

Stonewing

One of the Marauders' two pegasus members, Stonewing and Jetstream acted as aerial support and were a perfect tag team. He lost his voice when he took a bullet to the throat, and then his life when blindsided in a later battle. He actually survived and was used by Sanguine as the first test subject in Project Chimera, fused with a cockatrice and became Gorgon.

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• Big Damn Heroes: Pulled this multiple times during the war, saving Hoofington Memorial Hospital from destruction at one point.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Blackjack pushes him through a rock crusher.
• Cute Mute: Loses his ability to speak after being shot in the throat.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Earns his Cutie Mark (a pair of granite wings) by saving two ponies in midflight, in the middle of a storm, whilst flying up a mountainside.
• Flying Brick: Not the most talented at landing.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: Transformed into a pony/cockatrice hybrid as part of Project Chimera.
• Oblivious to Love: Stonewing idolised Rainbow Dash, and remained oblivious to Jetstream's love for a long time. However, he realised when she started resting her head on his shoulder. When she confesses, he rejects her as gently as possible. A farewell letter found by Blackjack indicates he may have eventually returned Jetstream's feelings.
• Taken for Granite: Can turn his victims to stone by staring at them with his cockatrice eyes.
• The Speechless: Thanks to a throat injury he received from a gryphon sniper.

Jetstream

Jetstream

The second pegasus in the Marauders, Jetstream is a fast, high flying pegasus and has a lifelong crush on Stonewing.

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• The Ace: The fastest of the Marauders in the air.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Jetstream loved Stonewing since she first met him, but he was oblivious to her affections since he was focused on Rainbow Dash.
• Broken Bird: Loses her true love and has her memories erased of him, Big Macintosh dies, and she has a mental and emotional breakdown.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Jetstream was so distraught by Stonewing's death that she asked Vanity to remove the memories of him. Vanity reluctantly agreed, but this only led to Jetstream's mental breakdown.
• Love Triangle: Jetstream loves Stonewing who loves Rainbow Dash, while Vanity loves Jetstream. Jetstream is the only one who confesses.
• Sanity Slippage: She slowly went insane following Stonewing's and Big Macintosh's deaths. Much to Vanity and Echo's regret, she was eventually put in the Happyhorn Gardens mental hospital where she believed she was still on duty with all of her teammates alive.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While in Happyhorn Gardens, Jetstream is told by Garnet to go on a "rescue mission" to the zebra capital Roam to save Big Macintosh and Stonewing. Jetstream flies off, armed with a detonator that she thinks is a teleportation megaspell, but it's actually a balefire bomb that kicks off the events of the Last Day.
• Up, Up and Away!: Flies like a bullet.

Vanity Blueblood

Vanity Blueblood

Goldenblood's uncle and Prince Blueblood's brother. Vanity is a royal aristocrat who becomes the moral officer of the Marauders. While proud, he is a very kind and generous unicorn in comparison to his snobbish brother.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Developed feelings for Jetstream but never played on them for her sake.
• In the Back: Vanity's fate, thanks to his brother.
• Blue Blood: Doesn't stop him from fighting alongside ponies who are not part of his social class.
• Cain and Abel: He became the Abel to Blueblood's Cain after sleeping with Rarity.
• Combat Medic: A real badass on the battlefield despite his title.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: It was said in a conversation between him and Rarity that Goldenblood used to look pretty dorky compared to his brother.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Provides this to Jetstream to deal with Stonewing's death, erasing her memories of their relationship. This ends up backfiring when she has a mental breakdown.
• The Mole: Worked for Pinkie Pie and the Ministry of Morale to possibly keep an eye on Goldenblood's activities. He helped build Project Redoubt as a result.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Incredibly courteous, polite and kind. He defends his friends against Blueblood's pompous insults, and defends his servants and a group of fillies from an angry mob during the Last Day.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Joins the Marauders to fight for Equestria unlike his stuck-up brother Blueblood.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Big Macintosh's death, Jetstream's breakdown, and Twist being raped by Doof, Vanity just quit the team out of emotional exhaustion, though he kept in contact with his teammates.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Wrote an unsent resignation letter to Mr. Horse, telling him to go to hell for screwing over tons of ponies with Project Redoubt.
• The Social Expert: Helps the team stay together.
• Team Dad: A shared role with Big Macintosh, as their medic and morale officer, Vanity helps his friends through hard times.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Vanity says this word for word when defending Harpica and some foals from an angry mob who were aware of the aristocrats' Project Redoubt and wanted in.

Echo

Echo

The Communications Officer of the group, Echo is a small stallion who is able to carry huge amounts of equipment on his back.

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• A Friend in Need: Wanted to keep his friends together forever, but because he did nothing to help them, he ended up alone.
• Becoming the Mask: In his spare time, Echo played a roleplaying game as "Smiling Jack", whom he considered better to be. This trope came into effect when he became the Dealer.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Ultimately gets eaten by nanomites on the Moon. Blackjack doesn't even have time to mourn his death.
• Dirty Coward: Considers himself this for just standing by and watching his teammates fall apart.
• Face–Heel Turn: Betrays Blackjack to Cognitum to get his body back. Switches sides again out of guilt.
• Lonely Together: Echo and Goldenblood. Also shared with Psalm due to their similarities.
• My Greatest Failure: His inability to help his friends.
• Secret-Keeper: Claims to know most of the Marauders' darkest secrets but did nothing to bring them to light to help his friends. Eventually he was hired by Goldenblood as his assistant, learning many of the O.I.A.'s secret projects including that Stonewing was alive.
• Soul Jar: His spirit was attached to EC-1101 by Cognitum to ensure it was protected, and so it could be returned to her.

Pre-War Characters

Pre-War Characters

• And I Must Scream: Discord is at the heart of Project Chimera, being used as the source for the Bio-Magical Flux.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: While in Lacunae's mind, Blackjack encounters personified representations of Trixie's self-loathing and Twilight Sparkle's remorse. Trixie is an Extreme Doormat prostitute, while Twilight drinks heavily and rants about her mistakes in the ruins of Ponyville Library.
• Break the Cutie: Fluttershy. A moment of indiscretion from Goldenblood destroyed their relationship and cost them their unborn daughter.
• Cyborg: Rover, the red-vested diamond dog leader who once kidnapped Rarity, has survived the apocalypse and two centuries in the wasteland thanks to his augments. He's pretty much the only surviving Friendship is Magic character seen in either the main story or Project Horizons to be more or less still himself, instead of becoming a ghoul, alicorn drone, computer program, tree, or Rampage.
  • Turns out he's also become a skilled augmentation surgeon.
• Eye Scream: Pokey Pierce gets a knife to the eye from Psalm.
• Facial Horror: Silver Spoon and Prince Blueblood have both become ghouls. Silver Spoon is a Glowing One whose glasses have been melted onto her face. Blueblood's facial decay has left him with a permanent, ear-to-ear Glasgow Grin.
• Family of Choice: Rainbow Dash admits bluntly that whilst she had plenty of relationships with the "sexy soldiers" in her tower, she never had time for kids, so instead she adopted her best fliers as surrogate offspring. Operative Lighthooves, descending from one of those adoptees — Fleetfoot — calls her "grandmother" as a result.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Fluttershy apparently had a close relationship with Goldenblood, to the point of bearing his child. It ended badly.
• The Mole: Garnet, the O.I.A. liasion to the Ministry of Peace, was secretly a member of Cognitum's prewar circle and was responsible for kickstarting the events of the Last Day by forcing Jetstream to send a bomb to the zebra capital of Roam, and tricking Psalm into commencing Project Partypooper with the intent to get rid of all government opposition to Cognitum.
• Not Quite Dead: Octavia. While Blackjack finds her skeleton, her contrabass is actually her Soul Jar. After realising this, Blackjack gives the instrument to the Crusaders so that Octavia will always have someone to look after her.
• Posthumous Character: As in Fallout: Equestria, most appearances of FiM characters are either through memory orbs or as monsters.
  • Adding to list of the deceased characters from the original story are Silver Spoon and Prince Blueblood who are both now ghouls, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Octavia, Nurse Redheart, and the Flim Flam Brothers.
  • Subverted with Rainbow Dash, who survives as a ghoul and took up the mantle of the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Garnet betrayed everypony thinking she would be part of Cognitum's new world order, but instead she gets banished and when she tries to enter the Project Redoubt mega-stable, it's already locked. Psalm eventually finds her, learns she was responsible for issuing Project: Partypooper, and shoots her dead on the spot.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Big Macintosh.
  • Twist, of all ponies, was a member of Macintosh's Marauders before the bombs fell. Her body and at least some vestige of her soul live on as Rampage.
  • Prince Blueblood - now a ghoul - has had two hundred years to practice his swordplay and stew over his psychopathic obsession with Rarity.
  • Snips, likely thanks to the Black Book, has managed to cheat death, and picked up not only a pair of huge shears that do exactly what you think they would do to flesh, but also a repertoire of Black Magic.

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