Fallout Equestria: A Fan Fiction with its Own Fandom
Because somehow a post apocalyptic My Little Pony dystopian hellscape works
Of all the TV shows, movies, and books I have enjoyed, one of the most engrossing fictional universes and passionate fandoms I have encountered comes in the form of a fan fiction- not just any fanfiction, but one combining the universes of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic with the Fallout video game series known as Fallout Equestria.
I am not the only one who is enamored by this epic work of fan fiction. Hundreds of fan fictions have written about Fallout Equestria, along with thousands of pieces of fan art, a few dozen songs, and about a dozen fan-made Fallout Equestria video games are in the works. One still-in-progress derivative of the original fan fiction, Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons, is around 1.2 million words long already (many of the fan art pieces in this article are of characters from Project Horizons). To put that in perspective, the word count of the entire Lord of the Rings series is 0.473 million.
Written by the anonymous author Kkat, the 0.6 million-word tome that is Fallout Equestria takes place in the My Little Pony universe a few hundred years after a bailfire (nuclear) apocalypse that gave rise to a cruel and ruthless society. The unconventional combination of fictional universes yields surprising depth and complexity.
The “pure” nature of the My Little Pony universe augments the stark contrasts of a post-apocalyptic world. The use of a well-known and highly developed fictional universe also brings significance and context to the apocalypse that could not exist in an entirely fresh fictional realm, making it easier to build up a complicated mythology.
The 1950s-style failed and crumbling utopia presented through the Fallout universe meshes perfectly with the ultra-pure My Little Pony world, as there are strong parallels between the way we look back on our own 1950s history and see a perfectly wholesome “Leave it to Beaver” society within our own societal mythos.
As a number of the fan fictions based on the original Fallout Equestria book have since been deemed cannon, it is difficult to nail down specific themes that apply to the whole universe. However, there are a number of themes that are strongly felt within the first (original) Fallout Equestria. The first, most frequently-recurring theme emphasizes the danger of a black and white sense of morality in an ethically-vague world. The most vivid exploration of this theme (that doesn’t involve a spoiler) is a scene in which a pony established as a kind character in the show creates an indiscriminate rejuvenation bomb which revives everyone still clinging to life back to a state perfect health in the midst of a large battle. Ultimately, the revived ponies are doomed to kill each other all over again.
Another common theme throughout the work explores war from the perspective of a society that has never experienced it: how a world perfectly innocent to violent strife would approach a war and how much more brutal it becomes as a result.
The work makes common plays at subverting video game tropes included in the Fallout universe. Chief among these is the frequent use of narcotics as a way to augment “stats” or a quick health fix which leads to a struggle with hallucinogens being a core conflict.
A final theme heavily discussed in the original Fallout Equestria is that of sexual equality. The original My Little Pony universe is quite matriarchal; males are generally reserved for menial labor and excluded from leadership positions. Fallout Equestria toys with the ethics of a single sex-dominated society, evoking many a thought-provoking discussion along the way.
In truth, the series takes few chapters to get good (as is the case with many epic fan fictions, the author is still getting their footing at the beginning). Fortunately, there are multiple professional quality fan-made audio books of this fan fiction that can be played in your car.
