Project Horizons is a Recursive Fanfiction for Fallout: Equestria by Somber, and is currently a work in progress.Stable 99 is an okay place to live. Sure, the place has seen better days, but the poor mares down in maintenance can't be blamed for the lack of upkeep. After all, the stable's been running on recycled parts for two hundred years, and a lot of important stuff got broken in the Incident. And the bucks might complain about the lack of freedom compared to the mares, but why bother? All they have to dois get laid all day. Until they get retired, that is, but don't think about that. And yeah, the mares might not have much freedom either, but you can't take any chances, especially after what happened last time...Okay, maybe it's not the best place to live, but at least it's better than being outside. After all, with the door broken, there's no chance that somepony might get in and cause problems. It would take somepony with knowledge of how the stable works to get that thing open. Even then, how would they know it's safe? There was a war, remember? Better to just wait for the Overmare to say it's okay than take chances, even if she does have an ego problem. Just don't think about it, okay?Of course, it pretty much goes without saying that things go horribly wrong. The door gets opened and a band of murderous, cannibalistic raiders immediately swarms in. Before the death count can get too high though, Blackjack, worst security mare in the stable, lures them out with a mysterious data file stashed on her PipBuck. With a cybernetic monster on her heels and a reluctant companion at her side, she sets out into the Equestrian Wasteland, determined to discover exactly what those raiders wanted so badly. After some hard lessons, it isn't long before the troubled mare finds herself delving through the dark secrets of wartime Equestria, and engulfed in a plot that threatens far more than just Stable 99...Character sheet is here.
Project Horizons contains the following tropes:
Abandoned Hospital: The Fluttershy Medical Center - location of one of the most iconic scenes in the story.
Action Bomb: Fury, who can even regenerate from it thanks to being part phoenix. Blackjack becomes one temporarily thanks to the Killing Joke.
Actually, I Am Him: A variation: Watcher bursts out laughing when Blackjack refers to "Littlepip" and "The Stable Dweller" as separate ponies. She doesn't catch on.
Played for Laughs. Blackjack picks up the Foal At Heart perk at the end of Chapter 6, and occasionally lapses into childish behavior.
Rampage in reverse whenever she regenerates from being disintegrated.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: Zigzagged by the therapy simulation in Chapter 43. Its attempts to recreate Blackjack's homes, family and friends end in disaster. As does the simulation where Blackjack is an actual mental patient with characters she's known taking the place of the asylum staff. The program eventually takes the form of BJ's friends once again and helps her tackle her own subconscious, but in the end she's forced to kill 'Scotch Tape' to leave the simulation.
Played with. The source of the life-sapping Enervation seems to be the souls of the ponies that died in Hoofington when the bombs hit its shield. They are constantly screaming, but unless you're close to the source, only the telepathic alicorns can actually hear it.
Played straight in the case of the foals in the medical center.
Played straight once again with the ponies fused to Horizon Labs' cryo room. They literally feel compelled to scream, and are incapable of doing much else. Blackjack narrowly avoids joining them.
How Blackjack describes viewing Deus' memory orb.
Apparently Discord's fate, trapped at the heart of Project Chimera.
P-21: Hey, Scotch. Are you pondering what I'm pondering? Scotch: I think so, P-21, but where are we going to find a dozen rockets out here?
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to Lacunae, Blackjack doesn't qualify for Unity because she's unpredictable, unstable, irrational, self-destructive, and whiny.
Artistic License - Linguistics: The author refers to male ponies as bucks. 'Buck' is the term for a male deer or goat, but serves as a neater 'man' analogue than 'stallion'.
Artistic License - Music: When delivering a letter to Octavia's home, Blackjack finds a contrabass and learns to play it with some sheet music from Roses. The contrabass is not typically a solo instrument and few songs are suited to be played with the contrabass alone. When Roses provides the sheet music for songs like Winter Wrap Up, Hush Now, Quiet Now and Art of the Dress, the music played probably wouldn't have been recognizable without another instrument like a violin or a piano to round it out.
Well... this is only true if you assume she only plays the bass part.
There's also the strong possibility that the contrabass is Octavia's Soul Jar, meaning that the instrument itself may have assisted BJ in playing the songs.
Ascended To Carnivorism: Played differently from the main story: Among Hoofington's many dangers is a virus that induces this in anypony infected with it. The compulsion is strong enough that, if there's nothing else to eat, the victims will eat themselves. Pegasi are immune, but Lighthooves is attempting to change that. Chapter 42 reveals that he's succeeded.
Ass Shove: P-21 occasionally conceals items 'under his tail'. First a screwdriver, then later a grenade.
Badass: A nescessary trait for Reapers, such as Deus and Rampage.
Badass Boast: 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!
Beware My Stinger Tail: As in the main story, the power armor of Enclave soldiers is equipped with a bladed tail for melee combat. Radscorpions and manticores, naturally, have poisoned variants.
]] artillery cannons built into him. Steel Rain also has a pair, mounted on his Power Armor.
Megamart is protected by an enormous Sentry Gun aptly named "Gun". Blackjack jokingly wonders if it fires I-beams, and the answer is uncomfortably close to "yes."
Big "NO!": Blackjack is not happy when Lacunae spoils the sacrifice portion of her Heroic Sacrifice in Chapter 22.
Big Red Button: Whenever Blackjack encounters one, she wants to push it. It rarely ends well.
Deus' cybernetic implants make him nigh-invulnerable and extremely powerful. They also cause him constant agony, forcing him to rely on custom-tailored painkillers.
Rampage is practically impossible to kill. Pity that she's a Tortured Abomination who wants to die.
Blood from the Mouth: Occasionally. Blackjack literally vomits blood at one point due to Enervation exposure, and an unfortunate prospector in Tenpony Tower does this because she's about to violently explode.
Turns out when you're exposed to too much Enervation, you vomit blood and your appendages drop off; eventually, you melt. Harshly illustrated at the end of Chapter 26. Blackjack and co. are forced to pass through a field of concentrated enervation. Everyone gets a solid dose of internal bleeding and/or Mind Rape, Blackjack's leg bones are reduced to the consistency of rubber, Glory's injured wing melts off and Lacunae is reduced to an Empty Shell.
Blackjack experiences Stonewing's transformation into Gorgon 'first-hand' through a memory orb.
Professor Zodiac, heavily injured by Enervation, is kept alive by machines in a state much like Mr. House. The sight of her 'true form' is enough to traumatise Scotch Tape.
Horizon Labs. The cryogenics lab is a mass of taint-dribbling, pulsating flesh with many mouths 'singing' in a choir of screams. Blackjack's tainted insides respond to the sound by squirming inside her. Eventually, they join in the song. Meanwhile, Rampage is being monstrously mutated by the taint saturating the room.
'Future' Glory, as seen in one of Blackjack's nightmares, is described as a 'hulk of flesh and feathers', with eyes down the side of her neck and at least five wings.
The Sand Dog Lair in Chapter 21 is packed with traps specifically designed to attract scavenging ponies.
Break the Cutie: Happens to Morning Glory frequently, most notably when she is betrayed by the Enclave and branded a Dashite. And again later, when she loses a wing.
And yet again when the killing joke turns her into Rainbow Dash—possibly even including a bit of her personality—the one thing the Enclave hates more than a Dashite.
When a cancerous growth takes over Blackjack's empty eye socket in Chapter 30, she jokes about finally growing an eye tentacle penis, in a call back to Chapter 15.
In Chapter 33, Blackjack's line, “I’m not a monster. I’m not… even if I look like one,” calls back to Gorgon's goodbye note in Chapter 25.
Call Forward: In Chapter 30, Watcher compliments Blackjack on her eyepatch. Yeah, about that...
The Cameo: Littlepip, Velvet Remedy, Calamity, Xenith and a number of minor characters from the main story appear in Chapters 34 and 35.
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.
Cast Calculus: The cast undergoes a series of transformations as new members are added.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: When they first leave Stable 99, Blackjack acts as Red Oni against P-21's Blue.
Beauty, Brains and Brawn: The addition of Glory shifts the group to a Freudian Trio. 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. Lancer briefly features as a Sixth Ranger Traitor, and the party is scattered after Brimstone's Fall.
Five-Man Band: Blackjack quickly finds Glory at Miramare, then picks up Rampage as a Sixth Ranger shortly before recovering P-21. The Power Trio defeats Deus without Rampage's direct assistance, but the adventures between Flank and Chapel serve to show off Rampage's capabilities and personality, and help cement her to the group. On return to Chapel, they finally pick up the fifth team member: Lacunae. The Power Trio is augmented not by a Red Oni, Blue Oni pair, but by two color-coded individuals who embody the monstrous extremes of savagery and transcendence.
The Smart Guy: Lacunae serves this role with her wisdom and magical skill rather than technical expertise, since the stoic, intellectual P-21 is playing foil to Blackjack's Idiot Hero.
Blackjack's taint infection, introduced in Chapter 15, remains largely unimportant until the late twenties, where it takes a sharp turn for the worse.
The slave collar that P-21 puts on Blackjack in Chapter 15 is used to cripple Deus a chapter later.
In Chapter 23, Lacunae attempts to calm Blackjack down by linking minds and sharing her memories. Later, Blackjack does the same in reverse to break Lacunae out of her Empty Shell state.
The hymn sung by the ponies of Chapel during Blackjack's first visit saves her from a horrific fate in Horizon Labs.
Circling Birdies: "Little Glories" circle Blackjack's head after Big Daddy throws her at a wall.
Complete Monster: Brass, the manticore-hybrid pony, much to Blackjack's glee.invoked
Blackjack: Finally! I finally have an enemy to fight that I don’t have to feel sorry for! [...] Do you eat foals? Tell me you eat foals and rape helpless little ponies. That’ll be the icing on the cake!
Project Horizons takes place at the same time as Fallout Equestria, so there are frequent references to events in the main story, and many minor characters such as Watcher, Ditzy Doo and Homage make appearances. Borders on Continuity Porn when Blackjack meets LittlePip.
During a memory orb sequence, the Marauders are playing a tabletop RPG. Applesnack rolls two critical failures in a row, and grumbles about the possibility of his character Steelhooves becoming undead and trapped in his armor.
Cool Big Sis: Blackjack and Rampage to Scotch Tape. When Rampage leaves the party for a while, Lacunae takes on this role as well.
Cosmic Horror Story: Appears to be heading this way, if Blackjack's out-of-body experience in Chapter 34 is any indication.
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.
Cult: The Harbingers towards whatever's inside Hoofington's Core.
Prince Blueblood, despite being a crazed ghoul, practically wipes the floor with Blackjack and co. Only some quick thinking from P-21 turns things around.
Deadly Gas: Blackjack floods Stable 99 with chlorine gas. Later, Killing Joke causes Scotch Tape's lungs to fill with chlorine. Pink cloud also makes an appearance in the lower levels of Hippocratic Research, and as Sanguine's Breath Weapon.
Hoofington itself was designed as one for the zebra army, and apparently served its purpose right up until the megaspell exchange. Apparently, it's still working. The promise of salvage and wartime technology attracts scavengers and small communities, which are gradually whittled away by Enervation and other dangers of the Hoof.
Silverstar Sporting Supplies.
The tainted forest surrounding Hippocratic Research.
Decapitation Presentation: The head of Gin Rummy, Blackjack's mother, is impaled on a spike in the atrium of Stable 99, making it the first thing BJ sees upon returning home.
Blackjack is emotionally crushed by the events of Chapter 22. Only luck and timely intervention save her from comitting suicide as a result. Blackjack's suicide attempts, in turn, push P-21 over the horizon.
Glory briefly crosses this when she loses her wing, to the point of sitting down in an Enervation field and begging for death.
Sanguine crosses the horizon when his family is killed.
Door Stopper: As of Chapter 35, Project Horizons' word count has surpassed that of Fallout: Equestria. Chapter 42 puts the total word count at around 780,000 words.
According to Word of Somber, Chapter 33 is the halfway point, putting the final word count somewhere in the region of a million words.
Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Deconstructed. This trope is the status quo in Stable 99, due to males being viewed as little more than breeding equipment. Much of Blackjack and P-21's early Character Development stems from their attempts to get over it. Blackjack has a minor epiphany when she realises that she raped P-21 at least once, and they eventually reconcile after Blackjack is raped herself.
Rampage is mentioned to have attempted suicide multiple times.
Blackjack attempts to gas herself in Chapter 22, 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.
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.
P-21 is a lifelong Med-X addict. Running out contributes to his suicide attempt in Chapter 25, and almost kills Scotch Tape in Chapter 40.
Typically averted, but Roses recieves a formal burial in Chapel and her daughter is later buried with her.
Blackjack and P-21 bury Hoss with Granny Smith shortly after they stumble upon his farm.
Following a battle, Lacunae cremates the corpses left behind by levitating them towards the Core's defense lasers.
Priest in Chapter 36.
Notably averted with Shujaa.
Dysfunction Junction: BJ and her band start out this way and get worse with each new member.
P-21: Blackjack, are you trying to turn us into the deadliest band of angsty whiny ponies to wander the Wasteland?
Easily Forgiven: In Chapter 33, Blackjack saves the ponies that injured Oilcan, killed Tarboots, nailed her to the floor, raped her and cut off her horn, from her friends, because she wanted to save somepony before she died. She admits to have hurt them in the past and believes that killing them would not give them the chance to Do Better.
Her forgiveness pays off in Chapter 43, but she doesn't realise it at the time.
Elaborate Under Ground Base: Hoofington's underground is an enormous warren of pre-war train tunnels and underground facilities, including at least one partly-functional megaspell center.
Enemies With Death: Blackjack argues with a hallucination of ponified Death.
Enemy Mine: Lancer apparently considers his brief period of cooperation with Blackjack and co. to be an example of this.
Blackjack takes down a mutated dragon by blasting its eye out with a grenade, climbing into the socket and unloading poisoned shotgun rounds into its optic nerve.
Glory has a mine go off in her face in Chapter 21.
Blackjack herself 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.
P-21 ends one of Rampage's 'Angel of Death' moments by stabbing her through the eye with Blackjack's sword and twisting it until she calms down.
Eyes Do Not Belong There: During one of Blackjack's nightmares, the monstrous 'future' version of Glory has a fully expressive row of eyes down the side of her neck.
Face Heel Turn: P-21, briefly. Blackjack talks him down.
Fire-Forged Friends: P-21 and Blackjack, although the strength of their friendship fluctuates.
Footnote Fever: Following the trend set by Fallout: Equestria, each chapter ends with a footnote detailing Blackjack's perk and skill advancements.
Played for Drama at the end of Chapter 32, where the footnote text is inexplicably corrupted.
Played even more so at the end of Chapter 33, when she dies.
Returns to normal in a triumphant fashion in Chapter 34. Blackjack is cured of taint and is Back from the Dead. The footnote? "Level Up: Maximum Level"
The revised Chapter 1 is laced with foreshadowing, particularly of Chapter 22.
During her Journey to the Center of the Mind , Blackjack encounters a mirror that shows her various reflections of herself. The final reflection is monstrously mutated, prompting Blackjack to exclaim that she'd rather die than become something like that. She also notes, in passing, that her reflected self is incapable of looking back at her. Then, at the climax of Chapter 32, she loses her remaining eye and exposes herself to a large dose of taint...
Blackjack frequently notes that her heart beats irregularly.
Frickin' Laser Beams: Standard for robots, turret defenses and Enclave pegasi. The Flash Fillies gang specialises in these.
Friend or Foe: The E.F.S system on the PipBuck somehow determines the status of all living beings and marks them as either hostile or friendly. Blackjack keeps wondering how it knows, and somewhat distrusts the system, especially after nearly killing a frightened scavenger who got marked as 'hostile' for using the basic Crapsack World survival rule of 'shoot first, ask questions later'.
Gondor Calls for Aid: As Blackjack lies dying, Glory uses the Delta PipBuck to contact several of Hoofington's factions, who band together to save Blackjack's life.
Sanguine's family suffered the same fate, and are extremely traumatized by the time he revives them.
Psycoshy suffered this and believes that Sanguine rescued her, when in reality he was responsible for her imprisonment in the first place, planning to use her to unlock Project Chimera once he had EC-1101.
Good Is Not Nice: Played dead straight for most of the protagonists. Glory is a possible exception, but even she has her moments.
Gorn: InvokedIn-Universe by raiders, who take a perverse glee in mutilating their victims.
Grey and Gray Morality: The conflicts between most Hoofington gangs, as Blackjack later learns.
Most ponies who join the Burner Boys were horribly maimed by the Wasteland, and wouldn't survive on their own.
The Flash Fillies take in victims of rape and other abuse to keep each other safe.
Every member of the Halfhearts lost someone dear to them. They stay together to hold off suicidal depression.
The stated goal of the Reapers is to unite the most dangerous fighters in the region, so they spend their time working together and fighting one another for sport instead of terrorizing Hoofington.
Taken Up to Eleven by Vanity of the Marauders; he simultaneously wields dual assault rifles on a battle saddle and a pair of levitated revolvers. On one occasion, he levitates enough weapons to single-handedly hold a hallway against an attacking mob.
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.
Subverted and then Averted when Blackjack gasses Stable 99. While Blackjack's actions are heroic, it's less a sacrifice and more a suicide attempt, so when Lacunae teleports to the rescue, BJ is dismayed.
Played straight when Silver Stripe sacrifices her synthetic organs to save Blackjack, reducing herself to a Brain in a Jar.
He Who Fights Monsters: Blackjack's greatest fear is being corrupted into a Complete Monster 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.
Eventually revealed to be Sanguine's core motivation. He wants to reactivate Project Chimera to save his sick family, who have been in stasis since the bombs fell. This, and the possibility that Chimera could also be used to save Scotch Tape, is enough to convince Blackjack to call a tentative truce.
I Love the Dead: Psychoshy wants to be the lover of Sanguine, a Canterlot ghoul.
I'm Melting: Type A is the end result of enervation exposure. Partially invoked in Chapter 26 when Enervation rapidly worsens a deep wound on Glory's wing.
I stared as the skin holding the wing slowly stretched like taffy and then broke, the wing splashing softly into the water beside her.
She does age, but only up to about the late 30s. And if her body is destroyed (for example, by disintegration) she reconstitutes herself as a small filly who then grows rapidly to adulthood if fed enough protein. Nopony knows why either age is special.
Immortality Hurts: Rampage has suffered horrifically in her long life, and apparently feels pain despite her Healing Factor. For Deus, this trope is quite literal. His augmentations leave him in a constant state of agonising pain.
Immortal Life Is Cheap: Rampage has been beheaded, chewed on and then thrown out of a window by a hydra, shot to pieces, blown up, vaporized, poisoned, carved up and eaten, shot in the head repeatedly, burned alive, stabbed through the eye with a sword, blasted into giblets by artillery and has had her throat crushed. And that's only listing "on-screen" examples.List of \"off-screen\" incidents
Repeated drowning, repeated disintegration, dismemberment, eating a balefire egg, shooting herself in the head to make a point, and being fed into a wood chipper on a dare.
Bullets pass straight through Gem and Mini when they turn intangible.
Immune to Drugs: Rampage, thanks to her healing factor, is blasé about addictions and side effects. She eats Mint-als like candy, and in one memorable incident encounters a drug selling robot and orders a dose of "everything".
Implacable Mare: Rampage. To a lesser extent, Deus and Gorgon. Later, Blackjack.
Justified since it almost constantly rains around Hoofington.
It Got Worse: This trope is in play almost constantly.
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.
In Chapter 43, Blackjack faces down her own self-destructive subconscious.
Karma Houdini: Invoked with Director Mephitis, the pony in charge of the Yellow River Internment Camp. He overloaded the camp with zebra POWs in order to request additional supplies from the Ministry of Peace, fenced said supplies for his own profit, and refused to set the prisoners free when the bombs fell, backstabbing a subordinate in the process. He then took his ill-gotten profits with him and fled to Thunderhead, and apparently never answered for his crimes.
Kill It with Fire: The Burner Boys gang specialises in flamethrowers and incendiary bombs.
Klingon Promotion: The fastest way to become a reaper is to kill a reaper and take their place. Rampage earned her position and armor this way, and after killing Gorgon and Deus, Blackjack is offered a position as well.
You Kill It, You Bought It: Zigzagged. Initally downplayed when Blackjack earns the right to become a Reaper. She's annoyed at her newly-increased notoriety but offically taking the role, while encouraged, is voluntary. Her refusal causes her to once again become a target for gangs, which were being held off by the presence of a Reaper in her group and the protection of Big Daddy Reaper. After destroying the HMS Celestia, BJ is granted an honorary place in the Reapers whether she wants it or not.
Large Ham: THE GODDESS WISHES TO REMIND YOU THAT THIS TROPE IS IN FULL EFFECT.
Blackjack has a number of traumatic memories removed from Scotch Tape's mind, much to Rampage's dismay. This ends up backfiring, as Scotch's trauma remains despite the memories of its cause being gone.
Literal Cliff Hanger: Chapter 29 ends with one of these, where Morning Glory (apparently) falls to her death.
Ludicrous Gibs: While we don't see it happen, Blackjack's drug-assisted Unstoppable Rage caused by Glory's branding results in this. Apparently she tore several Enclave pegasi limb from limb with her hooves and teeth.
Luke, I Am Your Father: Inverted. P-21 is Scotch Tape's father, but doesn't want her to find out. Blackjack winds up blurting it out during a strategy discussion.
Magic Missile: 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.
The enormous mechanical abomination that attacks near the end of the same chapter. Blackjack blasts it with Trottenheimer's Folly, but it survives to return later.
Blackjack performs a series of these at the end of Chapter 6. She suffers frequent flashbacks to the event, and often worries it was her Start of Darkness.
Rampage took her name from the reaper she killed to earn her position. Her real name is unknown. The closest she has to one is "Arloste," which Scalpel gave her.
Operation Blank: Several. Specifically the various secret research and development projects undertaken by Goldenblood's OIA during the war, including Project Chimera, Project Steelpony, Project Eternity, Project Redoubt and the titular Project Horizons.
Pass the Popcorn: Glory and a group of Crusaders when P-21 first calls Blackjack his friend. Complete with actual (200 year old stale) popcorn!
Phlebotinum Rebel: Gorgon's first action upon being given the powers of a cockatrice by a shady OIA (Office of Interministry Affairs) lab is to petrify and shatter a nurse.
Potty Failure: Taken seriously. Blackjack suffered this as a result of radiation poisoning, and again in Horizon Labs. Scotch Tape and various other characters occasionally wet themselves out of fear.
Power Shoe/Armed Legs: Psychoshy's weapon of choice. Rampage uses a bladed variant.
Read the Freaking Manual: Blackjack aquires the Wasteland Survival Guide early on, but despite considering it a good idea she rarely consults it. Scotch Tape however does, and occasionally points out chapters relevant to the current matter on hand.
Red Herring: Up until Chapter 32, all evidence seems to point to repeated used of Hydra as the main source of Blackjack's worsening taint problems. During the encounter in Horizon Labs, she learns that it's actually Trottenheimer's Folly.
Rule of Symbolism: Some readers have drawn parallels between the crucifixion of Jesus and the scene where Blackjack is raped. Blackjack already has several of the standard messianic character traits. Both are nailed down by all four limbs and stabbed in the side, the horn amputation can be seen as a variant on the crown of thorns, and the scene itself carries strong overtones of self-sacrifice, forgiveness and redemption. Following her subsequent death, Blackjack is revived three days later.
Just before his death, Deus leaves a memory orb for Blackjack. The contents make her feel for him, just a little bit. Following her own augmentation, BJ mentions that, in a sense, she is beginning to understand him.
Blackjack also finds a 'Thank you for killing me' letter in Gorgon's room.
Take My Hoof: Blackjack to Glory, as a building collapses beneath them. Despite BJ's best efforts, Glory falls, but is saved by Operative Lighthooves and his entourage. The roles are reversed in the next chapter, where Blackjack grabs hold of Glory's wing to avoid being sucked into a sewer pump.
Taken for Granite: Gorgon's preferred method of dealing with his enemies.
No Ontological Inertia: His victims (including P-21, Glory and Lancer) return to normal when he dies.
This Is Gonna Suck: Narrated word for word by Blackjack, just before she gets raped.
Title Drop: Almost. In chapter 5, we have a log from Dr. Trottenheimer writing about his extremely controversial project named "P.H.", which seems to make pretty clear what "Project Horizons" is about...
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.
Trauma Conga Line: Blackjack suffers an excessive number of injuries, ailments and psychological traumas over the course of the story, many of which come very close to killing her. Glory suffers awfully as well.
Ponibooru comment: ALL ABOARD THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERIORATION TRAIN, NOW DEPARTING BLACKJACK STATION. AGAIN.
Truth in Television: That virus that ravages the wasteland through cannibalism is more or less a pony version of vCJD.
Blackjack, when the Enclave brand Glory. She deliberately helps this trope along by injecting herself with a cocktail of chems.
Other characters have been seen to use chems for the same purpose. Notably, the Burner Boys' suicide bomber raiders in Chapter 31 and Flank's militia in Chapter 36.
Rampage is strongly implied to be a conglomeration of the souls of (at least) Twist, Officer Softheart, the 'Angel of Death', a nameless foal, a drug dealer named Razorwire, Shujaa, and Doctor Octopus (No, not that one).
Lacunae is implied to have originally been Psalm.
All the monsterponies created by Project Chimera, including...
Gorgon, a.k.a. Stonewing, fused with a cockatrice.
Cora, the manticore pony, who was once Brass, the mare that goaded Doof into raping Twist.
Fury, who was fused with a phoenix.
Precious, a foal fused with a baby dragon.
Blackjack herself, following her mutations and cybernetic augmentation.
Chapter 33. Dying, Blackjack has a nightmare of the future that giving EC-1101 to Sanguine would bring about, and begs Glory not to exchange EC-1101 for her life. Memory orbs reveal the circumstances of Vanity's death and conclusively unmask 'Maripony' as Twilight Sparkle. When Blackjack's friends leave to find a way of healing her, the Seahorse is attacked by bandits who brutally rape and mutilate her. After a long-overdue reconciliation with P-21, Blackjack is taken onto the deck and finally dies in Glory's embrace, under the stars.
Chapter 36. Sanguine, desperate to get EC-1101, uses Red Eye's forces to completely wipe out several towns where Blackjack has been, including Brimstone's Fall. In the end, he gets the file, having also killed Priest. We also learn that Blackjack's firing of Folly has awakened something terrible within the Core, and meet a group of ponies who hum the disturbing tune from Blackjack's Bad Future nightmare.
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 sympathising with Deus.
Sanguine admits to these thoughts, though it's not enough to stop him from doing the unspeakable.
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 leaves the party as a consequence.
In Chapter 40 Blackjack delivers one of these to Twilight Sparkle's consciousness via Lacunae, after witnessing firsthoof all crimes against equinity she committed to create the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: Rampage doesn't. Apparently, several other Reapers (and many of the former Marauders) have this problem.
Due to her Stable upbringing, Blackjack is terrified of air travel. When she has to do it, she prefers to spend the trip in a memory orb. Just looking up at the sky makes her nauseous.
Wretched Hive: Flank is a town built on prostitution and drug abuse.
You Know Too Much: Goldenblood invokes this, dropping an unfortunate eavesdropper down an elevator shaft.
Goldenblood: Do you know what the three most precious things in Equestria are, Dewdrop? Dewdrop: Family, sir? Friends? Um… money? Goldenblood: Family is a dime a dozen. Friends are articles of convenience. And money is trash. No, the three most precious things are loyalty, love... and secrets.
You Monster!: Subverted when Blackjack decides to look into the memory orb Deus left for her.
"So…" I muttered as I stared at the orb, its light casting my features in its ghostly glow, "One monster to another… what's on your mind, Deus?"
is a Recursive Fanfiction for Fallout: Equestria by Somber, and is currently a work in progress.Stable 99 is an okay place to live. Sure, the place has seen better days, but the poor mares down in maintenance can't be blamed for the lack of upkeep. After all, the stable's been running on recycled parts for two hundred years, and a lot of important stuff got broken in the Incident. And the bucks might complain about the lack of freedom compared to the mares, but why bother? All they have to do is get laid all day. Until they get retired, that is, but don't think about that. And yeah, the mares might not have much freedom either, but you can't take any chances, especially after what happened last time...Okay, maybe it's not the best place to live, but at least it's better than being outside. After all, with the door broken, there's no chance that somepony might get in and cause problems. It would take somepony with knowledge of how the stable works to get that thing open. Even then, how would they know it's safe? There was a war, remember? Better to just wait for the Overmare to say it's okay than take chances, even if she does have an ego problem. Just don't think about it, okay?Of course, it pretty much goes without saying that things go horribly wrong. The door gets opened and a band of murderous, cannibalistic raiders immediately swarms in. Before the death count can get too high though, Blackjack, worst security mare in the stable, lures them out with a mysterious data file stashed on her PipBuck. With a cybernetic monster on her heels and a reluctant companion at her side, she sets out into the Equestrian Wasteland, determined to discover exactly what those raiders wanted so badly. After some hard lessons, it isn't long before the troubled mare finds herself delving through the dark secrets of wartime Equestria, and engulfed in a plot that threatens far more than just Stable 99...Character sheet is here.
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