Sparky (Confessions of a Wasteland Pony)

Sparky is a side character in the audio drama Confessions of a Wasteland Pony.

His story is told by his daughter Amber Horn in the fourth episode, The Engineer.

Biography

Childhood

Sparky is a blue unicorn that was born in a nameless farming village in the Five Highways Wasteland.

"Sparky" was originally just a nickname, but his parents used it so often he had forgotten what his full name was. The reason for this is that when he was roughly 7 or 8 years old, a group of slavers led by Fast Whip assaulted the village and captured most of the settlers. Many were killed in the process, including both of Sparky's parents.

They were taken to Fast Whip's Oasis Slaver Settlement. Most of the slaves in the area are used to gather salvage from the surrounding ruins and sort through the parts at the camp for what could be re-purposed or sold. Sparky was tasked with sorting electronics and soon became very capable at using arcane technology.

As he got older, Sparky was industrializing the Oasis settlement as much as he could to minimize the harder back-breaking labor the others had been tasked with. Terminals, servers, and an entire intranet ran throughout the camp. He was having to teach the slaves how to use technology so they could run all the assembly lines. This greatly raised the technical competency of all those involved. This had the dual effect of Sparky becoming a leader among the slaves, while Fast Whip became more powerful with a more industrialized operation.

Exodus

When Sparky was 19, Fast Whip brought a new batch of slaves into the camp which were led by two sisters, an aqua colored earth pony mare named Abalone and a orange colored unicorn named Amber Glow. This group were the survivors of the Stable 80 experiment.

Amber Glow was the technical one among them, so when Fast Whip ordered them to deconstruct the PipBucks to be re-purposed into bomb collars, she was the one Sparky would be working with. They grew close over their mutual affinities for technology, but were both afraid of what this project could mean. Bomb collars with controlling PipBucks, would give the slavers a wider reach and control to exert their influence over the Five Highways Wasteland. They knew they that this was a line. They had to stop it here. Together with Abalone, they formed a plan for the break out.

By using the plastic explosives Fast Whip gave them to be put into the collars, they were able to remotely detonate the collars in the main Oasis building and launch an escape attempt. They left Fast Whip and the others for dead while they all escaped to the West, hoping to leave the area for good.

During the exodus, Sparky and Amber Glow grew closer and the three of them became the de facto leaders of the combined group.

Eventually they would uncover the mysterious Mare Island. Sparky and Amber Glow, with their combined technical capabilities were able to open the doors of the island and take over its main systems. This was not without difficulty as the EAST Corp Sentineldroids had killed the previous inhabitants of the island, and almost killed them.

They were able to shut down the security system for every part of the island except the main tower, which controlled the defensive guns as well as all the Sentineldroids inside the main tower.

Two years, Amber Glow was pregnant with their first child when a mysterious wastelander named Silver Step shot her in the stomach. He was another slave, as they had been, forced to scour the wasteland looking for the escaped group while his own family was threatened.

Amber Glow would survive the wound, but not the childbirth. She died bringing Amber Horn into the world.

Fatherhood

Sparky felt immense guilt, as it was his idea to let Silver Step into the island in the first place. Him and Abalone would transfer most of their leadership to a new bureaucracy to run the day-to-day affairs of their society.

The Sentinels, as they now called themselves, would exist in relative harmony for 17 years. Amber Horn was as bright as her parents and would come close to cracking the Executive Level Encryption which kept them locked out of the main building and all the island's most important controls. Sparky however never let her try this, fearing for her life and being very protective.

Only when a new army of slavers arrived at the gates of Mare Island did things reach a breaking point. The slavers, led by Lockjaw, were able to take control of their own sprite-bot army. The island was under assault, and Lockjaw was claiming many lives while leading the slavers from a large battle tank.

Sparky was about to make the decision to abandon the island via the R.E.S. Blue Moon when Amber Horn took matters into her own hooves. With Ultramarine, her main Sentineldroid companion, Amber Horn successfully broke through the encryption to gain access to the main tower building. She was on her way down to the main computer when Sparky realized what she had done and went after her.

On the bottom level, Amber Horn was stopped by two final guards protecting the doors of the System Command Center. Sparky reached the basement with some of his fighters to see the large machines attacking Amber. While fearing so many years for her safety, Sparky had confidence that Amber could do it. He distracted the machines with their group, while she took control of the main console and all of the defensive controls of the island.

The Sentineldroids were too powerful however and killed the entire group, including Sparky, before Amber could stop them.

Amber still considers herself responsible for his death, for her headstrong infiltration of the building.

Quotes

• "It was later on that mom told her how Sparky had saved her from Fast Whip, and how he came up with the plan to rig the bomb collars.  She told Abalone about the night they spent looking at the PipBucks and terminals.  She went on and on about Sparky and the things he’d shown her. It became obvious to both of them that Amber Glow had fallen for him. This is how Sparky gained Abalone’s respect.  Even when she couldn’t protect my mom, my dad proved that he would be there... and for that she gave their relationship her blessing." - Amber Horn (describing how her family met)
• "My parents were both really smart but they had different specialties that complimented each other.  My mom grew up in a Stable playing around with the programming of the terminals and learning how they tick on the inside.  Working on the actual Spell Matrix itself came afterwards. On the other hand, my dad grew up toying around with the physical components… soldering wires and circuits together to get things working again.  The programming came later. Basically, my mom and dad were the perfect marriage of software and hardware." - Amber Horn
• "Beforehand, in those first couple of years, Sparky, Amber Glow, and Abalone led their tribe together as a sort of council of three ponies.  But with my mother dead, and my dad feeling guilty for it, he completely abdicated his official role, and declared Abalone the Chief Sentinel of Mare Island. My Aunt Abalone did not want to end up being a dictator, so she set up a series of “Departments” to organize all of the work and functions on the island." - Amber Horn
• "He was looking me right in the eye, and tried to say something. I moved my ear down by his mouth. But no words came out… His breath was too shallow.  So he slowly turned his head… and kissed me on my horn… Then he closed his eyes, and was gone. After all the fighting, all the battling, the slavers, the monsters, the robots… the reason he died… was because of me…" - Amber Horn (on her father's death)

Behind The Scenes

• Sparky is in many ways the main character of "The Engineer." The episode revolves around his life from early childhood to death. The title name can be applied as much to him and Amber Glow as it does their daughter.
• Given that much of the story was inspired by the Mad Max franchise, and Fury Road in particular, Sparky & most of the other slaves were intended to have an "Australian" accent.