Fallout Equestria Update: Chapters 25-35

Hey Everyone!

This one is a little later than I expected (and by a little I mean a lot) for a lot of boring reasons but I'm happy to report this will be the second to last update and the script for the video is chugging along!

What I read:

This update will be covering Chapters 25 through to 35, and also touch on a few things I may have missed/skipped over in previous updates. 

What I thought:

I'm starting to see a full picture at this point. What is emerging from this story is a set of themes, a rough outline of each major character's arc, and a more conclusive answer to the question i've been asking the entire story so far "what is this story even about?"

The answer to that question is twofold:

First, as per my first assumptions, this is a story about the protagonist and their party. This is a story about watching these characters develop and grow. That seems to be a deep part of what is supposed to draw you in as a reader. As someone who doesn't really like any of these characters (save for Steelhooves), this motivation and purpose sort of falls flat. Maybe it's the dialogue or maybe it's the pace or the writing at large, it's likely all of the above. I don't mind xenith or calamity, but I have a strong dislike for littlepip and velvet remedy. I plan to center the video around my critique of these characters moreso than any critique of the plot, because the latter is largely subservient to the development of the former.

Speaking of Xenith, I really wish the story did more with her. She feels almost like an afterthought despite being the second most interesting character of the group. It feels like not enough care was put into the worldbuilding of zebras as stand-in for the Chinese in the fallout universe. I can't tell whether the author wants the two to be analogous or completely different. If the answer is the former, the scene where the gang paint her white stripes black feels a little problematic to say the least. If it's the latter, the world of the zebras needs more elaboration beyond "wow they do things differently isn't that weird". 

I think in previous updates I may have mentioned steelhooves, but I really can't exaggerate how much his inclusion carries so much of this story. Steelhooves is the best on all fronts: he is interesting from the perspective of the MLP world (as a prewar character who knew the original ponies), interesting from the perspective of the fallout world (as a member of the brotherhood of steel and eventual creator of this story's brotherhood exiles), and interesting from the perspective of simple dialogue and characterization. He isn't just the most interesting, he's also the most subtle and interesting, and least annoying too. It's a neat subversion that this story's brotherhood exiles are essentially the reverse of fallout 3's: the fallout 3 exiles are a more selfish, traditionalist variant of the goody-goody brotherhood in that game, but in FO:EQ this is put on its head. Steelhooves' exiles are more traditional, but also more goody-goody as apposed to the story's main brotherhood which has far more in common with the brotherhood of fallout 1 than that of 3. A lot of moments in this story repeat fallout 3's mistakes but this is a rare instance where it finds its own unique path that doesn't just subvert fallout's plot but actually improves it. Imagine if the brotherhood in 3 were just like the brotherhood in 1, and the exiles followed lyon's pride. That one change would improve so much, and it's here, in a my little pony fanfiction. 

The second answer to my question is that the story does, in fact, actually have themes and ideas! I have to give credit where it's due. Thinking in retrospect, common ideas become clearer than they were up until this point. This story, on a wide scale, follows the central theme of good intentions gone awry. This idea is present in all of its aspects. I can't fully comment on it until I read how the story ends and what conclusion is made out of this theme, but i'm at minimum impressed that it's trying something like this. More will be said on this point next update. 

On Fillydelphia

Another thing that is becoming more clear in hindsight is that the story has a "greatest hits" approach to incorporating its fallout material, which is to say that rather than pulling from entire stories or arcs in any of these games they'll have the characters do the pitt dlc, then mess with the brotherhood exiles, then the master, then sierra madre, etc. Because there's not really any sense of place when it comes to fallout stuff (this doesn't take place in the united states necessarily, this world and fallout's don't map on 1:1) the story can zig-zag in between elements from each of these games seemingly at random. Of these tangential incorporations, the brotherhood is the best, and second best is Fillydelphia, this story's version of the Pitt. This place is only interesting because, if you can believe it, it exposes a real antagonist! Finally! After twenty-something chapters we have a threat that isn't deleted after four chapters! Red Eye isn't the most well written character in the world, but he is infact a character and not merely an obstacle with a mouth. He has a moral code, and goals, and ideas. They are cliche as all hell, but this is where my standards are at. Red Eye points the crew towards the second antagonist of the story and the more interesting one, the goddess. 

On The Goddess and More Ministry Stuff

It's the master. They did the master. 

So the idea is that the ministry of arcane science headed by Twilight Sparkle was working on essentially FEV that would create more powerful ponies to win the war. Good intentions gone awry, and the story now has a massively powerful mind-reading radiationpony and what I assume will be the "end boss" of sorts. What's cute is that the protag brings up the whole lack of reproduction thing from fallout 1. Neat. Doesn't work though. will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Stuff I didn't mention

I might split the final update into two depending on how this ending plays out, because for at least half of one I want to rant about Homage. This character, and a discussion of the romance stuff at large, will probably in the final video be patreon-gated. It's just too cringe and I can't go into any detail on youtube without getting demonetized so i'll just put up that rant and if i have anything in my system left i'll put it in an extended cut of the video for patreon. Let me know what you think. This update took way too long and i expect to be finished the story by tuesday. Final update around then, and then i will grind out the rest of the script. Will keep you updated as this keeps going, it's been a wild ride.