Fallout: Equestria - Occupational Hazards

Occupational Hazards is a side-story co-written by the-furry-railfan and MintyCandy. It follows the tales of a pair of former Stable residents in the far frozen northern latitudes of postwar Equestria, Twintails and Minty Candy, and their discoveries in this wide, brave new world. However, not everything is ever what it appears to be upon the surface...

The story is written in single-page installments, accompanied by a related picture depicting a scene from the various relatively short chapters.

Setting[]

Occupational Hazards is placed in a timeframe approximately one decade before the events of Fallout: Equestria, in the far desolate north of the Equestrian continent. The region suffers from noticeably higher background radiation levels than the rest of Equestria due to northernly winds carrying significant amounts of fallout, as well as permanent winterlike-contitions and rolling massive blizzards, which causes permanent settlements to be sparse and far between.

Characters[]

Twintails - A former reactor maintainence pony and lone Pegasus within his Stable, his infatuation with really, really, REALLY big explosions and their effects upon living things has made him quite brilliant, if at the same time gullible. Twintails is in no way shy of resorting to the big guns whenever the opportunity presents itself, resulting in a rather hardly stealthy approach.
Gamma Ray - Twintails' motherly figure, a light-blue unicorn with thinning and greying lime-green mane, the head reactor maintainence pony of Stable 34. Prolonged exposure to the radiation that comes with working in a Stable reactor has left her weak, though she still acts strong for Twintails' sake.
Minty Candy - a specially augmented Unicorn, Minty is more than capable of dismantling and reassembling nearly anything that beeps or flashes. More methodical and precise in his motions, Minty finds himself better accustomed with having himself further away from the action when he can help it.
Bloodbeak - A female Griffon, the head gatekeeper of Mooscow. Though some say the discoloration of her beak and feathers is natural, others believe that she may have broader tastes in her food intake than she lets on. Younger sister to Razorwing.
Razorwing - Older brother of Bloodbeak, Razorwing is the owner and operator of Shop on the Square, the local goods store in Mooscow. Though he rarely leaves his shop, he never seems to remove the razor-sharp metallic covers on the leading edge of his wings.
Old Colt Johnson - Formerly known as 'Long-Dick Johnson' or 'Trouser Snake', the Earth Pony was, for a long time, the go-to town breeding station. Following an unfortunate accident involving a 40 millimeter grenade launcher and a vaccuum pump on a particularly lonely night, however, he has since fallen to be better known as just one of the older members of Mooscow. He finds home in a massive brass bell situated outside of the Mooscow inner fortress walls.
Jumper Cables - A red earth pony with an electric-blue mane, she is part of the Sparkplug gang, a roving band of ponies obsessed with restoring and selling pre-war security robots. Often works herself to near-death, or at least often concusses herself from passing out.
White Thunder - A ground Leiutenant of the 23rd Equestrian Armed Forces, he is the last surviving member of his squadron, having been turned into a ghoul due to prolonged exposure to the radiation and fallout while on patrol outside of NEAMO. A unicorn specializing in dealing death with a long-barreled magnum, and hardened by his military training, he's readily at hand when needed to assist in dispatching intruders on facility grounds.
The Doc - A scientist from before the war and lead operator of NEAMO, the prolonged exposure to magical radiation has taken it's toll upon the unfortunate earth pony, who has been working diligently for the past two centuries trying to bring his dream to a functioning reality - at any cost.
Tom Neighrer - a unicorn, mathematician, and satirical pianist from before the war, his witty demeanor and way of approaching problems logically, and the robotic turrets outside, made him hole up in the venue he was preforming at when the bombs fell. Supposedly the only sane ghoul in all of Quebuck.
Hi-Fi - the local disc jockey of the CONELRAD radio station of the North Equestrian Wasteland, going by the on-air name Bert the Turtle.
Featherweight - a relatively massive and strong surface-born pegasus living on the outskirts of Turnpike with his little sister, Buzzy. Gentle and kind, as long as you don't hurt his friends - then by all means anticipate being in the crossfire of 20mm autocannons.
Buzzy - little sister to Featherweight, rarely seen without him. Snarky and blunt, but mostly harmless and otherwise childish.
Paladin Nova - part of the Steel Rangers holed up in the Steel Creek Bunkers/Equestrian Aerospace Defense Complex. A little sexually depraved. Second Cousin to Minty.
Lead Paladin Quasar - Leader of the Steel Rangers group operating out of EQUAD, mother to Nova. Cold, calculating, and otherwise not easily amused.
Cross Stitch - Minty Candy's coltfriend from Stable 76. Highly proficient seamster. Very kinky.
Sugar Rush - sweets courier, energy weapons repair mare, rule 63 doppleganger to Minty Candy. Often found in the Plasma Spaz, the energy weapons shop in Trotisk. Former Enclave.
Firing Pin - owner and head operator of the conventional powder weapons shop operating with the Gun Runners in Trotisk. Shortsighted.
Greasy Gears - owner of R&G Manufacturing, ghoulified due to faulty seals around the heavy shelter door. Still has a chronic fear of Zebras.
KB - alien earth(?) pony, supposedly had been in cryogenic stasis for much of the past two centuries. Curious, non-threatening, helpful in nature.
'Leftenant' Flash-Bang - general weapons courier, proficient with large guns, rule 63 doppleganger to Twintails. Works mainly for Firing Pin in Gun Runner's. Former Enclave.
Knight/Captain Moral Fringe - A Steel Ranger proficient with an Anti-Machine sniper rifle and with a taste for cigars and soft hats. Very down-to-earth and calculating. Former Enclave.
Nikolai - Zebra proficient with both large energy weapons and melee. Does not appreciate Minty's company or attitude. Knows how not to be seen.
Wildfire - Twintails' biological mother. Former Enclave; dashite. Deceased.
Sweetie Bot - robotic filly resembling Sweetie Belle. Dangerous if unsupervised. Unaffected by gore, affected by radiation.
Rolling Tracks - Ghoul earth pony, owner of the tank named 'War Mare'. Lost husband at the battle of Shattered Hoof Ridge, prompting her to fund the construction of War Mare and partake in the fighting.

Locations[]

The North Equestrian wasteland is a vastly different place than the rest of Equestria, with any pockets of civilization surviving in the cold wastes being sparsely placed and separated from each other.

Stable 34 - The home Stable of Twintails, run on an experimental conventional nuclear reactor. The mentality of the Stable promoted creative pursuits and a sense of equality.
Stable 76 - The home Stable of Minty Candy, in which the entire population recieved special augmentations. The Stable was practically overflowing with anti-zebra propaganda, not part of the Stable-Tec designs, for a change - they just didn't have anywhere else to drop the stuff.
Emerald Ridge - The remains of a pre-war small town located near both Stables.
Mooscow - One of the few locales of civilization in the North Equestrian wastes, formerly a major pre-war city, now reduced to an area consisting of a grand interior fortress and some outlying structures. Due to the inaccuracy of zebra missile technology and low strategic value of the far-northern city, it was greatly untouched by the balefire bombs that destroyed much of former Equestria.
RobronCo Factory - Largest one of it's kind in the North Equestrian wasteland, it escaped total destruction during the Last Day and remained mostly intact structurally, preserved by the frigid climate.
NEAMO - The North Equestrian Artillery Megaspell Outpost, it was an experimental pre-war facility designed to house a truly massive-bore cannon capable of firing megaspell-yield warheads unprecedented distances with the rapidity needed to maintain a barrage against even the most hardened of targets. Unfortunately, the bombs fell before the massive gun, affectionately known as Megaspell Mary, was completely finished, leaving the facility and its inhabitants left to maintain the cannon and its multiple racks of unfired ordinance in ready-to-attack condition.
Quebuck - a massive city from before the war, unlucky enough to have been dealt a near-miss by a high-yield Balefire Bomb. Former temporarily permanent home of the satire pianist preformer Tom Neighrer.
Quebuck Ballistic Defense Base - A military installation just outside of Quebuck, previously home to a total of 30 medium-range and Intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying megaspell warheads. It was able to launch all of it's megaspell payloads before the end of the war, and has since fallen into a state of decay and disrepair
Moonlight Crater - an old, highly radioactive bomb crater left from before the war, home to several feral ghoul ponies.
Moonlight Ravine - a massive canyon located west of NEAMO, home to several raiders and other less than reputable ponies.
Snowdrop Megaspell Test Site - a vast expanse of subsidence and explosion craters in the northern desert along the Mooscow/Trotisk highway. Site of hundreds of weaponized Megaspell effects tests.
Turnpike - a small wasteland town constructed mainly of repurposed railway cars, built up around an overpass connecting Pripytrot to the other major cities.
Trotisk - formerly a major pre-war manufacturing city, now degraded into a small town built up around the city limits.
Horseshoe Basin - a large resivor in the northwestern wasteland, frozen over for centuries following the war.
Equestrian Aerospace Defense Complex - shortened to EQUAD or Steel Creek Bunkers, it is the current residence of the Steel Rangers chapter of the North Equestrian Wasteland. Based upon NORAD in design and pre-war function.
R&G Manufacturing - A large robotics factory before the war, located inside Trotisk. It weathered the bombs surprisingly well, despite soon being infested by hellhounds and left decaying alongside the rest of the city. Former temporarily permanent residence of Co-owner Greasy Gears.
Crashed alien spaceship - exactly what it says on the tin. Assumedly landed during the war, the lone resident onboard preserved in cryogenic stasis for the multiple centuries.
Topatow - Ghoul town, several kilometers north of NEAMO surrounding the planet's magnetic north pole. Zebra and pony populace coexist peacefully.
The Numbers Station/Nikolai's Transmitter - a pre-war numbers station broadcasting upon multiple different frequences, designed to deactivate and interfere with zebra balefire missiles. Residence of Nikolai.
Sunrise Castle Air Base - Royal Equestrian armed forces base located in the arctic circle. Formerly another ghoul town known as the SCAB. Advanced weapons and other heavy military ordinance storage were primary uses of the base, as well as a deployment point for weaponized self-contained megaspells.
Royal Equestrian Navy Shipyard - Naval base located on the edge of the northern sea. Apparently struck by a balefire warhead detonating offshore.
Pripytrot - A former city located to the south of Turnpike. Home to a power plant utilizing an arcane reactor for energy production, it is now currently an irradiated warzone.
Pripytrot Missile Silo - A ballistic defense silo system located to the south of Pripytrot. Unlike the Quebuck Silos, there was still one megaspell-tipped ICBM inside the silos.

Behind the Scenes[]

Many of the locations within the North Equestrian wasteland, with the exception of the Stables, are based upon real-world cities and towns; Emerald Ridge, Alaska, Quebec, Canada, Pripiyat, Ukraine, and Moscow, Russia, for example. The postwar extent of Mooscow very closely resembles the Kremlin, Red Square, and some of the outlying areas, going so far as to even mirror landmarks such as the Tsar Bell and Saint Basil's Cathedral.
Twintails' Stable 34 Riot Armor is based in design off of the Elite Riot Gear from the Fallout: New Vegas DLC Lonesome Road, a less armored and more agile version.
Minty Candy's gifted Combat Armor is directly based off of the Winterized Combat Armor from the Fallout 3 DLC Operation: Anchorage.
The Radiation Family Pistol owned by Twintails is based off of the 6-inch-barreled German P08 Luger in appearance, though chambered in .45 caliber rounds.
Twintails owns an Applejack Statuette. It is not made clear how his mother supposedly obtained it.
NEAMO and Megaspell Mary are both based off of Nuclear Nellie from the cancelled Fallout 3 videogame Van Buren, which was in turn based off of the M65 Atomic Cannon, Atomic Annie.
Tom Neighrer is based off of Tom Lehrer in character and this video in appearance.
Twintails' automatic rifles are directly based off of the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, sans bipods.
The eighth chapter, Decay, is named so for the natural process of unstable atoms shedding off energy in the form of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Radiation.
Subsidence craters are a real phenomenon associated with large conventional or nuclear-scale underground explosives tests.
Featherweight's 20mm autocannons are based around the Oerlikon 20mm cannon.
Minty's Tesla Cannon is based off of the game-standard Tesla Cannon, whereas Twintails' grenade rifle is based upon the M79 Grenade Rifle. Likewise, the Ferromagnetic Rifle, Kinetic Sledgehammer, and Balefire Egg Launcher are based upon the Gauss Rifle, Super Sledge, and Fat Man, respectively.
"Who Dares Wins" is the motto of the British SAS.
The Royal Equestrian Navy cruise missiles are loosely based off of both the MiG-15 and Me-163 in design.
The weapon used to destroy Stable 76 is a kinetic bombardment satellite.
CONELRAD was a real radio-based Civil Defense measure, designed to prevent soviet bombers from following radio signals to target cities.
Moral Fringe is heavily based off of SAS Captain John Price of the Modern Warfare series. His preferred sniper rifle is directly based off of the Anti-Materiel Rifle.
The tank that is retrieved from Sunrise Castle is directly based off of the TOG II*, save for the addition of a coaxial-mounted 20mm autocannon in the turret and forward-mounted autocannon beside the driver, and the replacement of the diesel engine with a more efficient nuclear reactor.
Rolling Tracks' backstory is based in no small part around Soviet Sergeant Mariya Oktyabrskaya, including her tank named 'War Mare' bearing resemblance to the T-34, mounting a 76.2mm main gun.
Major General Mosquito and her Raptor the 'Tsetse' are named for variants of a WWII fighter-bomber used extensively by the RAF; the standard DeHavilland Mosquito, and the anti-shipping Tsetse armed with a 57mm cannon, respectively.
The NORAD facility which EQUAD is based off of is home to the fictional television series Stargate, and in joking respect to the television series contains a doorway which is labeled 'Stargate Command', which leads into a broom closet. This is kept with EQUAD as well - though the presence of such a television show of that nature in pre-war Equestria is up for debate.

External Links[]

Minty's beginning arc on FurAffinity
Twintails' beginning arc on FurAffinity
Entire story on FiMFiction