WMG / Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons

Project Horizons is a project to develop a colony ship.

All of Goldenblood's secret Projects seem both useful on their own and critical to reaching and adapting to another world. This may have been Goldenblood's version of Gardens — a way to save ponykind, but by abandoning Equestria rather than healing it.

• Furthermore, the Core is the Starship Horizons. All the buildings lack windows — because the need to be airtight. Shadowbolt Tower is the tallest structure because it's the main bridge. The entire core was built in a huge pit so that it can lift out easily but no one can tell it's a rocket once the surface is paved over. After all... Hoofington rises!
• Project Horizon was the name of a 1959 study to determine the feasibility of constructing a scientific / military base on the Moon. Just saying.
• In Chapter 50, it's mentioned that the OIA were launching missiles from the Luna Space Center. Missiles. Sure...
• Jossed, as of Chapter 65.

Goldenblood is Somber.

And he knows everything that is going to happen to every character in the story. That's how he's on top of so many things at once.

The Dealer isn't just a hallucination.

He may have started as one, but now he is a manifestation of the stars cursing Blackjack.

• Alternatively, he is a ghouled Goldenblood communicating with Blackjack telepathically.
• Or he's the avatar of EC-1101, projected via Blackjack's EFS.
• Partly confirmed in Chapter 38. The Dealer is connected to EC-1101 and Blackjack's PipBuck, but his exact nature is still a mystery.
• Chapter 39 confirms he's external, yellow, and somepony who, in his own words, wasn't important. I guess it's Echo, the Marauders' comm officer.
  • Confirmed in Chapter 53.

Discord is the reason for all of the chaos in Hoofington.

He replaces all the random junk found in lockers, lured ponies to drive everypony into mutually hostile and powerful factions and ensured that any attempt to help or unite Hoofington will fail.* When Rampage mutates in Horizon Labs, she seems to take on a rather Discord-esque appearance - scales, a wing, a horn from the side of her head - perhaps a hint that Rampage, taint, or both, are connected to Discord in some way?

• Partly confirmed: Discord is the source of Flux, the core component of IMP.

Taint is, wholly or in part, some product of Discord's body.

The chorus in Horizon Labs called Taint "the ichor of the meddler", and only two chapters later, during Blackjack's vision of the stars, she sees "trickster spirits" that "mold and meddle and inspire." Ichor is the greek word for the substance gods use for blood.

• Confirmed, as of Chapter 38.

Discord needs to be freed to duke it out with the Eater of Souls.

Suppose Flux was used in Folly not merely as a buffer, but as the payload; maybe it hurts the Eater because that's precisely what trickster spirits exist to do. They come into a nice, orderly world where everyone hums the same note, and they introduce freedom and spontaneity.

The blue star that became the Eater of Souls wanted to fill the whole universe with his song, to create eternal monotony. The Eater is therefore a powerful force for order and control. Perhaps its presence is what attracted such a mighty entity of chaos to Equestria in the first place. But the Eater was dormant, so Discord's chaos was too much; it destroyed the order necessary to live happily in Equestria, and he had to be rendered dormant as well. Once the Eater of Souls crosses the Godzilla Threshold, releasing Discord to fight it may become a viable option!

• Interesting. Discord's dislike for the whole one-note magical frequency would put them at odds, wouldn't it? Blackjack releasing Discord might have been a good idea indeed.

The reason Psycoshy can't access EC-1101 is that she is Goldenblood's daughter.

While Sanguine assumed Psycoshy would be able to access EC-1101 due to her mother being Fluttershy. Because of Goldenblood's treason, his descendants may have been actively been banned from accessing EC-1101. Sanguine may even know of this ban, however he is unaware that Goldenblood is her father.

Blackjack becomes the Bearer of Generosity

The origional Fallout: Equestria has assigned each other Element, and at this point Blackjack has completely devoted herself to 'doing better' as well as suffering massive injuries. She still cannot stop helping ponys.

• Or maybe Magic, given that she has expressed a great talent at learning new spells since the start of Book 3.

Or maybe her virtue is forgiveness. She even forgave Sanguine, after all he's done. It seems like if Blackjack was the Bearer of Generosity, Little-pip should have been too.

• This would make sense, given that her biggest hurdle seems to be forgiving herself.

Lacunae will be the alicorn that helps save Littlepip after Maripony.

This one's really just a hunch, I don't have any evidence for it. Although it would help Lacunae ( or at least the piece of Twilight inside her) to get a little closure.

• As per Chapter 58, the conclusion of the Goddess story arc, most definetely confirmed.

Octavia's contrabass is a soul jar.

Blackjack got it after she delivered the letter to Octavia's body. She's the only one that can play it, and it's always perfectly in tune. It occasionally moves on its own. And last, but not least, it blocked bullets without a scratch.

• Confirmed in Chapter 48; Octavia was part of Project Eternity, used as a test subject for an early version of the process that Rarity would eventually use to create the Ministry Mare figurines.

Blackjack's real talent is Winning Against the Odds.

Not only in games. In real life. The best bet for her is always risk everything. And, when she finds out? Game-Breaker...

• Confirmed in Chapter 65.
• Not really: it's a conjecture by an antagonist whose sanity and competence are suspect.

Blackjacks MM blood comes not from Twilight, Rarity, or Fluttershy, but from...

Pinkie Pie. Morale has barly been mentioned at all, and considering her ability to ignore horrible, horrible things and her ability to make friends easly, it makes more sense than the other options.

• Blackjack's mane does seem to itch a lot.
• On the other hand, there's no evidence that Pinkie was ever romantically involved, and an early memory orb informs us that 'Maripony', later revealed to be Twilight, was secretly pregnant.
  • The events at Tenpony Tower seem to back this up, what with the letter saying Twilight and Marigold are cousins.
• Invalidated as of chapter 52 Blackjack is, in fact, Twilight's descendant; her friends and Life Bloom had decided that the Twilight Society would react badly and that Blackjack was not in the right frame of mind to deal with her heritage.

The Angel of Death isn't like the other souls in Rampage.

Here's another wild theory. After capturing the AoD, MoM officials (read: Pinkie) declared that, "she’s an evil, wicked, no good, very baaaaaad pony, and we’re going to make sure that she can’t do it any more!"Suppose that Officer Softheart was dying from her injuries and not even the MoP could do anything to stop it. So instead, they decide to rip out all the Angel's memories and install Softheart's in their place, giving Softheart a new lease on life in the body of the killer she apprehended. They do reconstructive surgery to give the ex-Angel Softheart's face, and send her home with a clean bill of health.

And then the dreams begin.

• The history of the phoenix talisman inside Rampage seems to imply that the Angel was the first soul put into the talisman. It was then put into the mortally injured Softheart, who killed herself after the Angel began to influence her. The talisman absorbed her soul, before being moved on to someone else and repeating the process, and eventually wound up inside Shujaa, who cut it out of her chest to save Twist.

Mr. Horse made a pact with the Eater of Souls.

The Eater of Souls is the ideology that drives the Harbingers (with their one-note song). However, I find it hard to believe that the Eater of Souls can directly influence magic and technology without a pony as it's agent (there's no precedent in FoE canon, IMO). Since Mr. Horse is based off of Mr. House, it isn't much of a stretch to think that he plugged himself into some sort of computer (it's even hinted that he may have tried to duplicate a Crusader Maneframe). Who better to run the factories that supply the Harbingers? Mr. Horse gets to live, and the Eater of Souls spreads its malevolent song across Equestria. Hoofington Rises!

• Also, Goldenblood didn't like Mr. Horse. It kinda creeps me out that the only interaction we saw with Horse and the Ministry Mares was his mechasprite test (which the OIA sabotaged). There really isn't much dirt on him yet.
• Perhaps Horse is the Cyberdemon.
  • Or perhaps not, as Cybie (now revealed to be named Cognitum) is referred to as female.

The first stallion Blackjack took for retirement was her father.

BJ often thinks back to the first stallion she took to Medical for retirement, particularly noting his red-and-white-striped mane and how polite he was with her.

Project Horizons is Goldenblood's plan to Colony Drop the moon onto Hoofington

In chapter 53 he asked Trottenheimer what would happen if they combined 10,000 tonnes of moonstone with the optimal ratio of starmetal. Answer: nothing lives. I'll admit the why has me stumped.

• Hoofington was mentioned to be right on the border with the zebra lands.
• Alternatively, he could be planning to launch the Eater of Souls into the moon for slightly less catastrophic results.
• Partly confirmed in Chapter 65. Horizons is a big spire of moonrock constructed on the moon - named Tom - with the intent of being dropped onto the Tokomare.

Goldenblood survived his execution and might even still be alive

In chapter 55 we get photographic evidence of his death. He was burned to death with dragonfire. Spike's dragonfire, to be exact.

The attack used in chapter 26 was an offensive use of Alien Geometries

"Two more floated into view, and from the horn of the first a line of distortion wavered through the air and swept across the passage. It had absolutely no effect on the walls, my barding, or my flesh.

It did, however, shatter every bone in my legs as it passed through me."

If you make space non-euclidean, it will distort the light that passes through it, since the space itself is distorted. Anything flexible will be fine, but anything inflexible will break under the fact that it was built on the principle that the angles on a triangle no longer add up to 180 degrees, and this principle no longer applies. This is analogous to how you could (sort of) flatten a disk of cloth onto a sphere, but trying it with something rigid isn't going work. That does raise the question of why it didn't destroy the walls. My guess is that it just didn't have enough power, and the spell fizzled out rather than shatter the walls as it should have.

Blackjack is pregnant

Which is why Pinkie said "congratulations" in the memory orb.

• As of Chapter 62, this one has been confirmed. And seeing as the last stallion Blackjack had sex with was P-21...

Most of the characters have low luck stats

I mean, just look at what happens to them, and the frequency of said "what"s.

• On the contrary, Blackjack often contributes her suvival to her absurd luck. Though that can go both ways. And Boo's luck is explained as Discord gathering strength inside her body while keeping her and Blackjack safe.