So how would you write an HaS story set in the Crystal War timeline from the episode "The Cutie Re-Mark".

As in this war:

The Idea here is that since the Crystal was is a clear allusion to World War 2, Equestria being the Western Front, This attack on the Human World is an allusion to the Eastern Front. Sombra's Operation Barbarossa. If you know the History as well as the memes, you already have an idea how "successful" that mistake went. . .

"Not one STEP BACKWARDS!"

What Sombra now finds himself with is a Two-front war he has no hope of winning. Humanity on one side, Equestria on the other.

This is both a "Humans allied Ponies" and a "Ponies protected/saved by Humans" As they enter the War and take the heat off of Equestria as it was clearly struggling in that timeline. As Applejack put it....

"And even with Princess Celestia leadin' the charge, it still takes every last pony in Equestria doin' their part, workin' day and night, to keep up the fight."

Meanwhile the Human forces are breezing through, carving a path of destruction across enemy territory and knocking at the front gates of the Imperial Capital.

To set the stage, the entrance into Equus would have been of King Sombra's doing as he would inevitably learn of the existence of the Human world and set his sights on conquering Earth and enslaving Humanity to bloat his army's numbers. Instead of using the mirror, he builds a gigantic portal to the Human World and launches an invasion into that world.

He got lucky as said portal opened up smack dab in the Middle of Washington DC. For a while he was able to take the city and with the heads of state dead or mind controlled, believed he won by cutting the head off the proverbial snake and expected the rest of the American people to submit. Completely unaware of how far the chain of command goes (if he's even aware of such a concept), how powerful the US military is compared to his and the fact that red-blooded Americans, many of which own guns will not take this attack on their nation lying down.

Whatever your protagonist does in Equestria is up to the writer but the story would consistently start amidst a battle to retake the capital:

As well as recurring flashbacks of the preceding campaigns leading up to that offensive.

The retaking would not be immediate and Sombra would hold out for about two months and rapidly conquers the Northeastern Megalopolis (BosWash) before the Military would be able to gather enough of their forces to push back against the forces of the King of shadows. If Sombra were to get his hooves on a Map of the US, He would be most attracted to the Major Cities and population centers and would set his sights conquering the largest patches of light on this map.

As for why the Military would take that long to regroup and launch a counterattack? Much of our military is stationed outside our country and some of the ones in our country are still a distance away from that specific region of our country, and it would take a while for them to withdraw them back to US soil for this kind of offensive, but once they do gather them, there is no contest between both forces as the Military stomps Sombras Army of both Human and Pony mind-slaves back to DC and eventually does force him back to Equus.

Upon seizing the Portal, the Human forces would launch a massive counteroffensive on the Crystal Empire and carry out an expedition into Equus and eventually make contact with the Equestrians. They would ally as they share a common enemy but it would be a shaky alliance as an air of distrust and suspicion permeates between the two sides. Especially since their way of dealing with the mind controlled ponies are conflicting. One side wants to merely subdue them and free them later on, but the other side has no qualms mowing them down with a hail of bullets. Although the Equestrians would be appalled and horrified as those enslaved ponies are friends and family, The human's justification is that Sombra left them with no choice but to shoot to kill as the situation in that world was the equivalent to fighting against a Zombie Apocalypse.

7930708
So how strong are these guys compared to the modern military

7930722
The correct answer is as strong as they need to be for the story to be interesting

a one-sided victory is cool and all but it only takes 2 or 3 one sided battles before the losing side starts fighting with cunning instead of might

And of course, in a war, all sorts of advancements are made, and it’d be silly to think magic couldn’t be forced to rapidly advance to combat modern military might, and vice versa for human scientiststo start trying to incorporate magic into itself

7930739
we also have to take into account, other races being part of his army of Mind-slaves as he was already encroaching into foreign lands such as shown on this map:

So human forces would have to face off against creatures such as dragons.

I actually like this concept.

7930890
Imagine the US sending in what are basically action movie heroes into the Crystal Empire:

And then going in gung ho and gun blazing against legions upon legions of Mind controlled Ponies.

"You're Dead Meat for threatening America Sombra. Now Here's a Taste of Freedom and Democracy you shadow bastard!"

7930708
Hm... This is a more sound proposal than the previous ones, but I'm not totally convinced that Sombra could conquer that much territory.

I mean, if he did manage it, that would be an absolutely devastating blow to the US. He would gain a horde of millions of human slaves, and there would millions more made into refugees fleeing to other parts of the country. America would never forget this, it would be a permanent scar in the American psyche.

But, in order for him to pull it off, his army would need to be orders of magnitude more capable and better armed than what we see in canon. Not that it's impossible for a fanfiction to buff one side for the sake of the story, but well...

If your entire story premise hinges on giving only one side of your conflict non-canonical and extremely large power buffs, that's an indication that your premise doesn't really work.

Yes, the majority of the US military would be deployed outside of the country to begin with, but that's not to say that there's no military presence on US soil. Not to mention, the whole-ass National Guard is standing at-ready for this exact sort of situation. Also, even though the Northeastern Seaboard is very... Blue, let's say, and there's very strict gun-control out there, that doesn't mean that there aren't still hella guns all over the place. So Sombra would still have to contend with the fact that the populace he's trying to enslave is heavily armed.

In order to combat those odds, Sombra would either need uncountable hordes of soldiers, highly efficient and well-trained specialists, or extremely heavily-armored troops. And the problem there is that he doesn't have any of those things.

The large majority of his army will be needed to hold off Equestria, so he doesn't have enough troops to just zerg-rush everything.

His troops are neither highly efficient, nor well-trained. They're all mindless drones that follow his will perfectly. They have no self-agency, and no creative thought.

And although it can be argued that his army could have better armor than what the show had, it's impossible to make bullet-resistant armor without modern manufacturing technology. At least, not without making it way too heavy to be usable. Even if (BIG if) magic could make it possible to manufacture bullet-resistant armor, there's no reason that Sombra would have his troops outfitted with that sort of thing when he started his invasion.

Now, none of that is to say that Sombra couldn't even get his foot in the door. I think he could easily take over at least one city. He could probably even capture two. Maaaybe three, if he's really smart with how he does it. Like, unusually smart. Smarter than canon Sombra would actually act.

But even if you gave Sombra every reasonable advantage, that's as far as he could get before the military pushes his shit back in.

If you want him to get further, you'd have to start giving him unreasonable advantages. And that's where readers start to lose their grip on their suspension of disbelief.

7931051

I wonder how the Americans would view the Equestrian side after experiencing a negative first contact scenario, courtesy of King Sombra. Whether they could distinguish them from his forces or just attack them regardless as they now have a chronic fear of Horses.

I did say that some of his numbers would also be other mind controlled races he conquered and enslaved. Especially if you look at the map,

I also did acknowledge that civilian resistance would occur as i mentioned that many of them have guns. Fighting his forces would be the closest thing to a Zombie Apocalypse.

As for cities taken, he'd primarily focus on taking Major cities, He would be able to conquer 4 out of the 5 major cities of the BosWash megalopolis but fails to take Boston as his forces were halted in New York once the Military got it's resources together.

Sombra can't win but whatever. Write the story already, this is one of many, many treads you've made of the subject.

7931098

I wonder how the Americans would view the Equestrian side after experiencing a negative first contact scenario, courtesy of King Sombra. Whether they could distinguish them from his forces or just attack them regardless as they now have a chronic fear of Horses.

That's a good question. I think there would definitely be a lot of tension to begin with. Both sides met each other in combat, so they wouldn't really trust each other. But the humans would also definitely notice that Equestria was also fighting against Sombra, so there would be an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation as well.

The first time humanity dealt with a nation of tiny horses, millions of people were forced to kill each other. And Equestria would have to face the undeniable truth that humans vastly out-power them, militaristically, and possibly scientifically. So both sides would be exceptionally wary of the other.

But tensions would ease over time, as both sides eventually realized that they don't have any genocidal intentions.

7931193
not to mention, they're not wearing those mind control helmets.

Second part, yeah, after they witness the Crystal Castle tipping over and collapsing to the ground after being shelled and bombed by artillery and air strikes. like that scene from Modern Warfare 3 with the Eiffel Tower.

Even with Sombra out of the picture in that timeline, other threats posed by other villains still remain. I can see both races and nations working together to neutralize the other villains.