A few weeks ago, a conversation with one of the Fallout: Equestria side story authors turned to the subject of raiders. Raiders have been utilized different in various Fallout: Equestria stories. Their depiction isn't consistent. And so the questions were asked:

What exactly are raiders? And, more importantly, are raiders irredeemable?

In order to explain what raiders are in terms of Fallout: Equestria, the first step is to understand what raiders are not. (Please bear in mind that I can only speak for what raiders are and how they were utilized in my original Fallout: Equestria. ) Raiders are not simply lawless thugs who prey on the weak. Nor are they groups criminals or hoodlums who band together for mutual protection and profit (per The Free Dictionary's definition of gangs). Such groups in Fallout: Equestria are referred to as bandits by the wasteland population. Bandits, gangs, slavers and tribes exist in the Equestrian Wasteland, and the Wasteland's inhabitants draw a clear distinction between those groups and raiders .

Velvet Remedy and Calamity, Fallout: Equestria

“Raiders?” Velvet gasped. “But… we haven’t seen those in years! Are you sure it wasn’t one of the gangs?” “Gangs don’t do t’ ponies what these monsters did,” Calamity snorted...

Elder Cottage Cheese, Fallout: Equestria:

“Educate yourself,” he replied. “Look around you, if you have the eyes and the wits to comprehend your surroundings. These tribals

have no future. What you see as progress is just brief distraction along their march to destruction. More ponies choose to be raiders and bandits and slavers than seem to flock to the dying embers of civilization..."

Littlepip, Fallout: Equestria:

The rain-soaked ponies I saw moving between the rubble, setting an ambush for the caravan, didn’t look like raider ponies. They lacked the fucked-up, “scourges of ponykind” motif. No necklaces of pony bones or cutie marks of bloodied weapons. They just looked like bandits.

Red Eye, Fallout: Equestria:

“Yes… to those of you out there who are termites… to the raiders, the Steel Rangers and the cannibals, I have this to say: “The Purge is coming!”

So what is a raider? And where do they come from?

The Fallout games have given the name of "raiders" to a variety of opponents. In the original two games, these were largely nameless groups of highwaymen -- what the Equestrian Wasteland would call bandits -- or organized gangs such as the Vipers and the Jackals. (These also included the Khans, who were the inspiration for Xenith's tribe, with the Angels becoming a homage to the Great Khans.)

Then came Fallout 3, with its completely different presentation of raiders as psychopathic, hyper-sadistic outcasts with a penchant of home decoration in the vein of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The raiders of the Capital Wasteland were depicted as one-dimensional, over-the-top, card-carrying-evil. But it is the Fallout 3 raider that I built on to create the raiders of Fallout: Equestria.

Fallout: New Vegas gave us a world with both. The game brought back the gangs like the Vipers, Scorpions and Jackals. But the game also saw the return of Capital Wasteland-style raiders (only more fleshed out) with the Fiends.

Fallout: New Vegas loading screen:

Made savage by excessive chem use, the Fiends of New Vegas are the most numerous and troublesome raiders of the Mojave Wasteland.

Actually, Velvet Remedy's assertion in that scene isn't quite true...

One of the primary themes in Fallout: Equestria is the theme of virtues. The story's core centers around virtues -- the importance of virtues, the need to find your own and to find friends whose virtues will help form a bulwark against the ravages of the Wasteland, the ability of virtues to become corrupted or twisted versions of themselves without the strength that comes with friends. And, with that, comes the need to show the result of the victory of the Wasteland over virtue. The raiders of Fallout 3 were a concept and visual familiar to Fallout gamers while existing as a conceptual blank slate that could be built upon and defined as the story needed. They served at the emblem of what a pony becomes when the Wasteland has eroded away at their souls until they have no virtues left.

Littlepip: Fallout: Equestria

Raiders are those who failed to weather the moral ravages of the Wasteland... The Wasteland is the cause to their effect.

A raider is a pony without virtue. Where do they come from? The Wasteland creates them. In Fallout: Equestria, raiders aren't a community. They are not a society. There is nothing sustainable about how raiders live. And the Wasteland doesn't get new raiders "when a mommy raider and a daddy raider love each other very much". (In fact, any pony still capable of love wouldn't truly be a raider.) Instead, the environment of the Wasteland transforms ponies into raiders. More almost every day.

The raiders of the Equestrian Wasteland are not Fallout 3 raiders any more than The Tragedy of Images by Rene Magritte is an actual pipe -- they are a more fleshed out and three-dimensional concept based on the game's raiders, tailored to the story. As such, it is only reasonable for raider in side stories with other themes to be tailored to those stories accordingly. Likewise, it is worth noting that, as cartoonish as the Fallout 3 raider seems, that doesn't make them necessarily unrealistic. Such people have existed in the real world, and do so today.

Jeffrey Gentleman, Foreign Policy , Africa's Forever Wars

I've witnessed up close -- often way too close -- how combat has morphed from soldier vs. soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier vs. civilian. Most of today's African fighters are not rebels with a cause; they're predators. That's why we see stunning atrocities like eastern Congo's rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of women, often so sadistically that the victims are left incontinent for life. What is the military or political objective of ramming an assault rifle inside a woman and pulling the trigger? Terror has become an end, not just a means... Even if you could coax these men out of their jungle lairs and get them to the negotiating table, there is very little to offer them. They don't want ministries or tracts of land to govern. Their armies are often traumatized children, with experience and skills (if you can call them that) totally unsuited for civilian life. All they want is cash, guns, and a license to rampage. And they've already got all three. How do you negotiate with that?

And that brings us to the question: can raiders be redeemed?

Redemption, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is the act of making something better or more acceptable." There are generally only two ways that a person can be genuinely (and non posthumously) redeemed. Either the person seeks out redemption and manages to somehow obtain it or spends a lifetime trying to atone, or it is forced on that person against their will.

We have examples of both of these forms of redemption in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

In order for an individual to find redemption, or seek to atone, there must be a motivation to do so. The one that good people can relate to the most is horror or regret at one's own actions, and an inner desire to do better. To be better. Or, at least, to make up for the wrongs you have done.

Blackjack, Project Horizons:

But raiders are past guilt. They no longer have the virtuous nature necessary to feel remorse. For a true Fallout: Equestria raider, the path of redemption through regret is not open to them. Instead, there needs to be another motivation. And this brings us to Discord.

There may have been other flaws in the episode, and it would definitely have benefitted from being a two-part story, but when it comes to redemption, Keep Calm and Flutter On got it right. Discord is an unrepentant villain. He doesn't want to reform because he is sorry for anything he has ever done. In order to get someone like that to pursue reform, you need to offer them something that they want and cannot get without changing. Fluttershy find that something -- friendship. And once Discord realized friendship was something he wanted -- something he wanted enough that he was willing to make sacrifices, to change, in order to keep it -- redemption became possible. Not achieved, but instigated.

Discord, Keep Calm and Flutter On:

Well played, Fluttershy.

Well played indeed.

Unfortunately, finding something a person is willing to change for is even harder with your average raider than it is with Discord. To re-quote part of the Foreign Policy article above:

All they want is cash, guns, and a license to rampage. And they've already got all three. How do you negotiate with that?

Of course, there is the other method: forcing someone to become better against their will. We have an example of this in Friendship is Magic as well with Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon isn't seeking redemption. She fights it kicking and screaming. But the power of Harmony transforms her, stripping away the part of her that made her a villain. The process in Equestria is magical. In the real world, it looks somewhat more like this:

To "redeem" someone in this fashion requires both the moral capacity and proficiency to do so, as well as the magic, drugs, technology or other paraphernalia needed. In wartime Equestria, such methods grew more acceptable and less uncommon. There were those within the Ministry of Morale employed memory magic to help "fix" ponies. (And in my headcanon, as revealed in Crystal Empire Blues, Princess Cadance used her love magic to "re-socialize" zebra prisoners of war.) However, in the Equestrian Wasteland, the capability to forcibly change ponies this way is exceedingly rare, even where the willingness to might not be. In fact, there was only one method used to "redeem" raiders on a regular basis...

So, are raiders irredeemable? They aren't going to want to change, and there is really nothing that can be offered to the average raider as an incentive. If moral objections or lack of capability prevent forcibly altering the pony, then chances are, the answer for any random raider is "yes." Is it impossible, however?

No, it is not impossible. A raider could discover something worth changing for. Something would have to radically change. A new factor would have to be introduced -- something powerful and personal. And such cases would be exceptionally rare. And rarer still would be the hero who is given the chance to introduce that factor to even one raider.

At this point, one more question must be asked: should heroes try to redeem a raider?

Is it worth the risk? Especially with so little chance of success, and with so much at stake? Kindness and mercy are virtues. So is justice. How do you balance showing mercy to someone who only might be helped with showing mercy to those that person will harm if you fail? What do you do when there is no reigning legal system, no option for incarceration, no asylums?

This moral dilemma is perhaps most strongly touched upon in Fallout: Equestria when Calamity shoots the raider child. The child was a raider -- there was no good in him, any virtue he once possessed was gone. But does that mean he already too far gone to change, even though he was still mentally and socially developing? If there is anyone who might have a chance to change through friendship, love and guidance, is it not a child, no matter how badly the child's spirit has been destroyed? Velvet Remedy would certainly have argued so.

But then, Calamity had a point too:

"Damn tragedy. But that don’t mean Ah’m gonna give ‘im a free pass t’ rape and murder till he gets his cutie mark. His would-be future victims don’t deserve that.”

Is there a right answer?

What if Calamity had shot to cripple rather than kill, and the group had taken a moment to discuss what options, if any, they had for trying to save the child? In truth, Velvet Remedy would have had the chance to offer up what was really the only other option open to them at that time: find a way to keep the raider child bound and subdued while they backtracked, attempting to deliver him to Shattered Hoof in the hopes that Gawd and her people could help him. And pray that he didn't find some way to escape and/or harm someone before that happened...

...but by then, the little raider would already have been dead. He would have been dead before any of them could reach him. Because crippling him would have left the raider helpless at the hooves of his victim, the blue mare, giving her the chance to turn that storm of hurt and rage that was eventually released on the ghoul doctor instead upon the last remaining of her tormentors.

I will add a quote from the television show Criminal Minds, attributed to the character David Rossi: