Some interesting things about Fallout: Equestria (spoilers, kind of):
The reason for combining Fallout with My Little Pony was to show that it doesn’t take terrible people to do terrible things. The point was to take the sweetest, most innocent creatures, and show how they could be changed, and end up murdering and raping each other, without it being anyone’s fault.
One of the side-stories is that the main character gradually discovers the causes of the war. At various times, you place blame on Pinkie, on Fluttershy, on the zebras, and on others. Eventually you find out that it wasn’t anypony’s fault. Everybody acted as you would expect them to act, and it was mostly dumb bad luck that brought the apocalypse. There was no villain whose assassination would have prevented it; one character even attempts a royal assassination, which fails; and another character later points out that it wouldn’t have made any difference had it succeeded. There were just a number of minor stupidities that snowballed.
In other fiction, the protagonist is in a situation that grows more and more desperate until the climax and resolution, when everything is resolved. In FoE, after the initial disasters on leaving the Stable, the heroine’s status, love, power, friendships, and wealth gradually increase, making her more and more comfortable and providing more and more temptation to just stop and let somepony else worry about saving the world. At the story’s climax (which is executed poorly, but the concept is brilliant), the last temptation is that the heroine’s own goddess, whom she has looked to for the strength to continue on, confronts her and tells her to turn back because she has done enough and the ponies she is trying to save aren’t worthy of her sacrifice.
The capacity for violence is necessary, but also very dangerous, and things can spin rapidly out of control—and not in a ham-handed “he went over to the dark side” way.
Characters are not conveniently faced only with morally-clear situations. There are many situations where the characters argue with each other about what is the moral thing to do, and in many cases the question is never answered, such as when Calamity guns down a child who’s shooting at them.
There are, I think, six major factions throughout the story, most of which initially appear to be evil, all of which turn out to be internally divided or to have understandable goals.
One of the main villains, Red Eye, is a straw-vulcan consequentialist. But you can’t help but notice that he’s the only one with a workable plan to save Equestria, and the only one whose plans go anywhere. The heroine survives only through repeated dumb luck in her favor and Red Eye’s desire to turn his operation over to her; Red Eye’s plan advances despite his continuous disastrous luck.
The story sets you up for a heroic confrontation with Red Eye and a battle against Red Eye’s army. Instead, Red Eye wins and lets the heroine go because he recognizes they have the same objectives, and the heroine must ally herself with Red Eye to maintain the balance of power.
The story has a lot of faults, but coming from a geek culture that idolizes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, it makes me look back at them and think, “Why did I ever waste my time with those puerile stories and the dangerous, destructive narratives they tell about conflict and its causes?”
I have read all of the original. It is a very well written work, but as befits Fallout, it is grimdark.
There were many parts which seemed like they wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable without strong familiarity with the Fallout universe. They cross it with MLP very well- some of the combinations are eh, but several of them make perfect sense, and are very tragic.
I’m not quite sure I would describe it as “rationalist”- the protagonist is clever, the enemies are often clever, and there’s a little bit in the way of plotting and puzzle solving. It seems much more like a standard post-apocalyptic adventure than rationalist fiction, but I’m not quite sure where I would draw the line around rationalist fiction.
Rationalist fiction: There’s explicit epistemic or instrumental methods which you see the characters using, described in sufficient detail to convey the general principle as well as the particular case, which you are meant to pick up and use in real life.
What word would you use to describe fiction that presents the world realistically, spurning the comfortable lies that make up most popular fiction, yet without any of the characters necessarily being rationalists? That’s the kind of fiction I’m more interested in. What’s interesting about Fallout: Equestria is that it sometimes does that, even if by accident. That’s what’s interesting about fan-fiction: You’re allowed to write truthfully about the world, in a way that a professional editor probably wouldn’t let you.
Fallout: Equestria struck me as philosophically deep compared to books you can buy in the bookstore. But I don’t think that was due to careful thought by the author, because it was too inconsistent and incompletely worked-out. I think that the books in the bookstore have had any accidental wisdom systematically edited out, especially adventure, fantasy, and romance.
SPOILER
For instance, it’s not as interesting that Red Eyes is a rationalist and a consequentialist (he is more of a straw vulcan), as that the hero who has set out to destroy Red Eyes’ evil organization ends up having to defend it because it’s so damn useful, and then allying with it to maintain the balance of power.
I’m interested on the strength of Goetz’s comments, but when I searched, I encountered an endless maze of twisty links each alike. (I was hopeful when I ran into a PDF link—and it turned out to be broken.)
Well its supposed to be quite rationalist and quite awesome. Im only about 12-15 chapters in and my brothers Fallout :equestria boardgame already fascinates me
Have you guys heard of Fallout:Equestria?
Some interesting things about Fallout: Equestria (spoilers, kind of):
The reason for combining Fallout with My Little Pony was to show that it doesn’t take terrible people to do terrible things. The point was to take the sweetest, most innocent creatures, and show how they could be changed, and end up murdering and raping each other, without it being anyone’s fault.
One of the side-stories is that the main character gradually discovers the causes of the war. At various times, you place blame on Pinkie, on Fluttershy, on the zebras, and on others. Eventually you find out that it wasn’t anypony’s fault. Everybody acted as you would expect them to act, and it was mostly dumb bad luck that brought the apocalypse. There was no villain whose assassination would have prevented it; one character even attempts a royal assassination, which fails; and another character later points out that it wouldn’t have made any difference had it succeeded. There were just a number of minor stupidities that snowballed.
In other fiction, the protagonist is in a situation that grows more and more desperate until the climax and resolution, when everything is resolved. In FoE, after the initial disasters on leaving the Stable, the heroine’s status, love, power, friendships, and wealth gradually increase, making her more and more comfortable and providing more and more temptation to just stop and let somepony else worry about saving the world. At the story’s climax (which is executed poorly, but the concept is brilliant), the last temptation is that the heroine’s own goddess, whom she has looked to for the strength to continue on, confronts her and tells her to turn back because she has done enough and the ponies she is trying to save aren’t worthy of her sacrifice.
The capacity for violence is necessary, but also very dangerous, and things can spin rapidly out of control—and not in a ham-handed “he went over to the dark side” way.
Characters are not conveniently faced only with morally-clear situations. There are many situations where the characters argue with each other about what is the moral thing to do, and in many cases the question is never answered, such as when Calamity guns down a child who’s shooting at them.
There are, I think, six major factions throughout the story, most of which initially appear to be evil, all of which turn out to be internally divided or to have understandable goals.
One of the main villains, Red Eye, is a straw-vulcan consequentialist. But you can’t help but notice that he’s the only one with a workable plan to save Equestria, and the only one whose plans go anywhere. The heroine survives only through repeated dumb luck in her favor and Red Eye’s desire to turn his operation over to her; Red Eye’s plan advances despite his continuous disastrous luck.
The story sets you up for a heroic confrontation with Red Eye and a battle against Red Eye’s army. Instead, Red Eye wins and lets the heroine go because he recognizes they have the same objectives, and the heroine must ally herself with Red Eye to maintain the balance of power.
The story has a lot of faults, but coming from a geek culture that idolizes Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, it makes me look back at them and think, “Why did I ever waste my time with those puerile stories and the dangerous, destructive narratives they tell about conflict and its causes?”
This comment made me want to read it, but I can’t find a way to do so that doesn’t involve interacting with Google Docs, which I hate intensely. Rar.
PDF (6.5MB), ePub (1.7MB)
Thank you so much, you may not believe it but you have just made my day
Thanks!
I have read all of the original. It is a very well written work, but as befits Fallout, it is grimdark.
There were many parts which seemed like they wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable without strong familiarity with the Fallout universe. They cross it with MLP very well- some of the combinations are eh, but several of them make perfect sense, and are very tragic.
I’m not quite sure I would describe it as “rationalist”- the protagonist is clever, the enemies are often clever, and there’s a little bit in the way of plotting and puzzle solving. It seems much more like a standard post-apocalyptic adventure than rationalist fiction, but I’m not quite sure where I would draw the line around rationalist fiction.
Rationalist fiction: There’s explicit epistemic or instrumental methods which you see the characters using, described in sufficient detail to convey the general principle as well as the particular case, which you are meant to pick up and use in real life.
What word would you use to describe fiction that presents the world realistically, spurning the comfortable lies that make up most popular fiction, yet without any of the characters necessarily being rationalists? That’s the kind of fiction I’m more interested in. What’s interesting about Fallout: Equestria is that it sometimes does that, even if by accident. That’s what’s interesting about fan-fiction: You’re allowed to write truthfully about the world, in a way that a professional editor probably wouldn’t let you.
Fallout: Equestria struck me as philosophically deep compared to books you can buy in the bookstore. But I don’t think that was due to careful thought by the author, because it was too inconsistent and incompletely worked-out. I think that the books in the bookstore have had any accidental wisdom systematically edited out, especially adventure, fantasy, and romance.
SPOILER
For instance, it’s not as interesting that Red Eyes is a rationalist and a consequentialist (he is more of a straw vulcan), as that the hero who has set out to destroy Red Eyes’ evil organization ends up having to defend it because it’s so damn useful, and then allying with it to maintain the balance of power.
That’s exactly what I’m trying for.
Whether I’m succeeding at it—well, that’s what I wrote the post here to try to find out.
I’m interested on the strength of Goetz’s comments, but when I searched, I encountered an endless maze of twisty links each alike. (I was hopeful when I ran into a PDF link—and it turned out to be broken.)
EDIT: Finished reading the PDF; excellent.
I’ve heard of it, at least; but I haven’t read any of it, yet.
Well its supposed to be quite rationalist and quite awesome. Im only about 12-15 chapters in and my brothers Fallout :equestria boardgame already fascinates me