I just read "Rainbow Factory" and "Pegasus Device"

[TB9000 10]

I just finished reading Pegasus Device after reading Rainbow Factory last night.

 

I originally never had any interest in reading either one of these fanfics, simply because I don't really care for those kinds of stories, but after listening to the song "Pegasus Device," I became curious as to what the meaning of the Rainbow Factory was and what the concept behind it was, so I started reading "Rainbow Factory to find out.

 

The story was actually very interesting and although it was a little dark in nature, it was not nearly as dark as I imagined it to be, but was definitely dark either way.

 

For anyone who does not know yet, I will give you a brief summary of the story.

It starts by talking about how no one really knew how rainbows were made in Equestria, and tells that for 1000 years, the pegasi have held the responsibility of making rainbows by draining the spectra from other pegasi to extract their color and turn it into a rainbow.

The story then moves on to Scootaloo and her friend Orion who are taking their flight tests. The first pony to take the test falls and ends up hurting herself, thus failing her flight test. Then, Orion goes to help her in the middle of the flight test and thus also fails. As Scootaloo is flying, she looks at Aurora and Orion, and feels bad that she will lose her friend, becoming worried, and this distracts her from her goal and she also ends up failing.

The 3 are then transported to the Rainbow Factory, in stead of being sent out of Equestrian, as they thought would happen. In the factory they are greeted by Rainbow Dash, who Scootaloo says has betrayed her, but Raindow Dash says that Scootaloo has instead failed her and all of Cloudsdale, and makes it clear how happy she would be to see her die. Rainbow tells the group of fillies that they are nothing more than useless failures that are of absolutely no use to the rest of the world, and that their only use is to help them make rainbows, by dying in the pegasus device.

Well, Scootaloo is not at all happy about this and fights for her life and her friends, but soon ends up being the only one left, she slides through a vent hoping to ecape , but is sent back to where she started and is caught by Rainbow Dash.

 

In the sequel, called "Pegasus Device," the story continues where it left off, one of the factory's employees , Dr. Hide Atmosphere, complains to Rainbow that she needs more engineers to properly run the factory, so the 2, after a long conversation about it head down elevator to the Lower Factory to promote one of its workers to the Upper Factory. This new employee is called Gentle.

The story revolves around 2 young pegasi, named Cloud Clover and Corona, that fail their flight tests and get sent to the Rainbow Factory. They are convinced that something bad is happening after being knocked by a toxic chemical gas. After waking, they look for a way out, and escape through a vent which takes them to the main theater room of the old factory. They find themselves surrounded by fog, then, unable to see anything, they cautiously walk around looking for a way out, but eventually realize that there is no exit to be found.

After the escape from that room, they end up breaking stuff which causes the factory to become unstable and slowly start falling apart though out the rest of the story. After a while, they find themselves in the Power Room, where ponies/failures that did not have enough color to be used in rainbows were sacrificed in order to power the factory. The ponies in this room tell them that will help them escape, but they need them to find a ghost in the Main Theater Room because that is the only pony that can help free the prisoners.

Back in the Main Theater Room again, they find the ghost, which turns out to be Scootaloo, who has now forgotten everything about her life, and has even forgotten her own name, which they solved the problem of by giving her the name, Absentia. Absentia frees the prisoners, and then chaos breaks loose in the factory as the failures and the employees fight a long battle, which Corona, Cloud, and Absentia use as a distraction to get to the elevator, but inside the elevator, a factory employee greets them, saying that he is there to help them, but also informs them that the only way to exit the factory is to get the password from Rainbow Dash or another high employee.

The 3 then set out to find Rainbow Dash to confront her and escape from the factory. When they find her, Absentia stays behind watching, as she is afraid to see Rainbow Dash again, however after seeing Rainbow nearly killing her new friends, Absentia, who reveals, who Rainbow recognizes as Scootaloo, confronts Rainbow herself, convincing her to stop or else she will try to kill rainbow herself, but Rainbow tells her that would mean that she will never get out of the factory as she is the only who can access the Lower Factory.

Scootaloo, in an attempt to fight Rainbow Dash, ends up falling down the factory, then seeing this, Rainbow realizes that what they are doing is wrong. Then, her highest employee, knocks her unconscious and as helps Cloud and Corona escape. He then announces to all of Equestrian what the Weather Corporation had been doing, how wrong it truly was, and their new plans for turning the brutal murder of pegasi, into a much more peaceful blood drive to get the spectra they require. This results in most of the factories machinery being destroyed for safety, or at least, what was left of it after the factory nearly collapsed. The story ends there, without really saying what happened to Scootaloo or Rainbow Dash.

 

I would rate this as probably 7/10 on my scale. It has a really interesting storyline, but it could be disturbing to some people, although I was not really bothered by it to much, as I knew it was just a story.

 

I would definitely recommend someone to read this fanfic if they asked me what I thought about it.

 

Anyway, I was really just posting this to say that I have now read the entire story of the Rainbow Factory, which I tried to avoid, until recently, however after reading it, I wished I would have done so sooner as I found out it is actually a really good story.

[Venomous 18,813]

I actually disliked Rainbow Factory.

It just wasn't gory or scary enough for me.

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

So, Rainbow Factory is essentially a death camp.

[TB9000 10]

So, Rainbow Factory is essentially a death camp.

According to the story, it is the place where all pegasi that fail their flight tests are sent to make sure that they won't ruin Cloudsdale's Reputation for perfect flyers by killing them in the Pegasus Device. A very horrible and unfair fate.

[Windseeker 546]

I liked Pegasus Device, it had a very consistent storyline unlike its prequel. AuroraDawn is a very interesting and creative individual.

 

What bugged me was the very end, Celestia wouldn't be okay with that shit...

[Rushing cash 824]

I read the RF but didn't read the PD although I read about it and its alternate endings(and that many consider it much better). While the fanfic is not great, it still has more to it than cupcakes which is just gore with nothing to it(although it has some creativity), it has some plot and world building. RD is out of character but its a different universe so its understandable, although now that I think about it Lightning dust fits much better for that role(of course when the fanfic was written she did not appeared in the show at the time), she is more reckless, she doesn't care about injuring others(she might actually blame them for being incompetent and failing to save themselves!) and not too mention what happened in the washouts has parallels to the fanfic, like scootaloo admiring LD and eventually LD betrayed this trust and forced scootaloo to do something against her will which might have been fatal and LD getting roped to the rocket scootaloo was sent on. 

[I used to be a stranger 7,989]

I never read either of them, but Rainbow Factory (being first) I think was seminal in both the broadening of brony relevance and what sort of subject matter was considered valid for fan interpretation.

I wouldn't know if that subject broadening helped in the creation of something I presently like, but I do recall I greatly objected to the fact that it existed and that other people would enjoy it.

[Pastel Heart 6,463]

Im not a fan of Rainbow Factory. Maybe I just don't like dark MLP stuff unless it's done in a really believable way. Plus it was all over fanart and nobody would stop talking about it back in 2012, which made me sick of it. Not to mention I felt Dash was OOC and it didn't do service to her character. It did spark a new renaissance in fanfiction though so I give it credit for that

[Bastian 13,319]

I stopped reading the second story because god knows why. They were both good reads but it doesn't get to me, none dark or gory story has ever got to me but I liked the storyline.

I also have to say that I only read them to improve my culture of the fandom.

[ExplosionMare 18,007]

I liked those stories back in my early teen days. I also read them to prepare myself to get into all the FNAF stuff since I figured if Rainbow Factory didn’t scare me too bad then FNAF wouldn’t be so bad (well, sometimes it’s bad but I haven’t had nightmares yet).

I kinda forgot what happened in the RF & PD stories besides their main plots, so I can’t really commentate further. All I remember is what the Pegasus Device did, which was pretty crazy.

[EpicEnergy 22,074]

I haven't read those fanfics before, but I've listened to the music.

[Savygriffs 5,022]

I've listened to Rainbow Factory on YouTube.

It's really good, tbh.

[Splashee 28,537]

I might listen to it on YouTube, if it is required at one point