Is Equestria Easy To Conquer? · 5:28pm Oct 28th, 2017
Introduction
Equestria seems to be easy to conquer. In at least four cases (Chrysalis, twice; Tirek and Discord; and the Storm King), an enemy seizes control of Canterlot and/or the Alicorns and stands triumphant, to be defeated only by the heroism of the Mane Six. Why is this?
I. The Doylian Reason
The Show tends to overdo this to give Twilight Sparkle and her friends chances to save the day. The Movie sins especially in this regard. This usually takes the form of (1) Nerfing everypony but the Mane Six (by forgetting their canon abilities) and (2) forgetting about the existence of other Ponies, even sometimes groups of Ponies, who logically might intervene against the attacker (in the Movie, nopony mentioned the Crystal Empire, nor any part of Equestria other than Canterlot, even once).
II. The Difference Between Decapitation and Conquest
This gets into my larger point, that it's questionable just when Equestria (as opposed to merely "Canterlot") has been "conquered." To carry out a decapitation strike is one thing; to conquer and rule in the long run is far more difficult.
The difference between the two is that decpitation merely means neutralizing (capturing or killing) the enemy leadership. But given time, a large and internally-stable culture will generate new leadership. For instance, if one took out Canterlot and the Princesses, the provincial and municipal leadership, both civilian and military, would probably keep on fighting, at first forming a national alliance and (if they couldn't rescue the former national leaders) a new national government.
This can lead to a situation in which the "conqueror" finds himself in possession of the capital and perhaps a few other cities, while the rest of the nation is arming, mobilizing and marching upon him to end his reign of infamy. Indeed, it can lead to a situation in which the tables turn completely, and the victorious armies of the former victim not only drive the conqueror from their homeland, but pursue him to his homeland with the aim of ending the threat he poses once and for all. And, by this time, the former victims aren't feeling merciful at all.
II. Chrysalis
It is far from obvious, for example, that Chrysalis successfully conquered Equestria either time that she captured the Princesses and Elements -- yes, she took them into her (insecure) physical custody, but this is not the same thing as "conquering" a sprawling continental empire of tens of millions of Ponies. Even had she popped all the Princesses and Elements into her pods, or even killed them, the Equestrians would have eventually reorganized and risen against her. (Yes, even the second time, as her Infiltrators were not doing all that great a job of pretending to be the Ponies they were mimicking).
The Changelings have a particular problem functioning as conquerors because their biggest threat to any society is their ability to infiltrate, spy upon, duplicate and replace one's own leaders. But this ability is far from unlimited, and a society aware of their existence can take various steps to guard against such infiltration.
Once a security system against them is in place, the Changelings are fairly weak. As A Canterlot Wedding demonstrated, their standard Warriors aren't all that formidable in a fight, and while their Royals are much more dangerous, there aren't that many of them. In particular, they don't seem to have very many magical and technological assets -- the most impressive devices shown have been their capture pods and their anti-magic generator.
III. The Storm King
The Storm King's conquest was even less credible. He was able (with his weather manipulation capabilities) to mask his air fleet until they appeared to overwhelm the defenses at Canterlot in a concentrated strike; and he had the Obsidian Orbs, which were specifically designed to penetrate magical shielding, to petrify the Alicorns. He had enough forces to hold down Canterlot -- but would he have been able to secure the submission of, and hold down, the rest of the country?
I'm not even sure that he physically had enough airships to dispatch a division, or even a single one, to every Equestrian province. Yes, he was a classic nomad-barbarian Mobility Conqueror, like Genghis Khan, but the problem there is that even a Mobility Conqueror has to ensure the submission of one city before moving on to the next. And the Equestrians have airships and airmobile forces of their own, so he would not be moving unopposed.
In the long run, of course, if he could have secured the submission of enough cities, he could have begun diverting their production to supply his own military machine, recruiting more troops and building more airships. But that level of conquest takes a while. (And is vulnerable to rebellion: note that the Mongols operated in a cultural world where only aristocratic and military elites were important in civilized warfare -- they did not, generally, have to face national risings).
How did the Storm King succeed in building his empire before? The evidence is that he operated against cultures loosely composed of city-states, with each city-state having very little sympathy for any other one and no tradition of unified defense. Even within each city-state, there was often political disunity which he could exploit. Graduating from this to attacking Equestria means trying to war on a whole new scale, more than one order of magnitude greater than anything he'd ever done before.
Mind you, Alexander the Great succeeded in doing something similar, when he moved from the former Macedonian conquest of Greece to his campaigns against the Persian Empire. But Alexander the Great was fighting what was essentially a competing military empire -- he didn't have to worry about pro-Persian nationalistic sentiments resulting in his enemies being able to field army after army against him, and raising rebellion in his rear. Where there was nationalism, the Macedonian king was often able to raise it in his favor, promising better and fairer and more rational imperial rule in order to get cities to submit to him (this turned out to be a false promise, but in part because he died young, hence never had to deal with any demands to come through on it).
IV. Lord Tirek
He came closest to actually succeeding, of any of the conquerors named. But Tirek had one huge advantage -- he had Discord on his side, long enough for Discord to warp space and time for him to enable Tirek to personally drain the magic of not only the Princesses but also the populations of all the major Equestrian conurbations. He also was cunning and treacherous enough to turn on Discord before Discord could turn on him -- which Discord probably would have done in time, if only because of Discord's sympathies for Fluttershy, and perhaps Celestia.
Tirek also had the advantage of being a pure raider. He didn't really want to rule Equestria -- he didn't care what happened to the Ponies, though he probably wanted them to survive in some form so that he could come by every now and then and drain more magical energy. The issue of leaving behind garrisons to control cities was irrelevant, as he didn't care whether the Ponies submitted to him.
By draining their magic, he made himself sufficiently strong that he could physically overpower any attempt the Ponies could make against him. As a Godzilla-sized monster, there was nothing the Ponies could do to harm him short of heavy artillery, and his own magical shielding and energy bolts enabled him to overcome any such opposition.
The lesson of Tirek here is that an enemy who just wants to plunder and destroy can be more difficult to defeat than one who wants to conquer and rule. Most of the vulnerabilities faced by a conquering force vanish when the conquering force has no objective other than to kill Ponies, break things, and take treasures. This is what the Western Europeans found out whenn they faced the Vikings.
In the end, Tirek failed precisely because a continental empire may have hidden resources -- and allies. He was unaware of the existence of the Tree of Harmony, which intervened against him through its Element Bearers. Had that not worked, it is possible that Cadance might have found a way to use the Crystal Heart against him. Had that failed, somepony else might have found some other hidden or overlooked resources.
V. A Simplified World
My Little Pony very much simplifies questions like this for a number of reasons. First, it's a fantasy whose target audience is composed of preteen girls -- it's not even a military fantasy, like G.I. Joe. Most of the target audience would be very bored by scenes where characters bend over maps or examine production reports. They want everything resolved in dramatic personal battles or emotionally-stirring speeches.
Secondly, many of the reasons why the conquests shown probably wouldn't succeed past the initial decapitation strikes are subtle, long-term ones -- in some cases, matters of diplomacy, politics, or even logistics (in American animation, the only show I've ever noticed to even try to realistically handle such issues is Exo Squad, though Beast Machines also took a stab at it with the problems Megatron kept having due to his obsession with maintaining centralized control over all his forces). Some of this is stuff which even American adults don't understand very well, unless they're in the military.
Thirdly, the Show (and Movie) have to present their ideas in limited running times -- these are show episodes or short to medium-length movies, not novels or novel series. A lot has to be implied or at best mentioned very briefly in passing. One of the good things about fanfics is that they can examine such issues in greater detail.
Conclusion
So, no. I don't think that Equestria is actually as easy to conquer as a cursory glance might indicate.
I do have an idea I plan on exploring with regards to the movie's... let's call it "streamlining" of the situation. I should really get on that.
But yeah, laying siege to a city and conquering a nation are two very different things.
You forget that all of those - Tirek, Chrysalys and Storm King, intended to steal the princesses magic. And as we've seen in Tirek episode, magic of the Four Princesses is more than a match for magic of everyone else combined. That (plus the actual military, if they posses some, unlike Tirek), would be more than enough to decimate any army fielded.
Sure, they're still one person (plus minions) but that gives them quite enough power to push their demands through in questions that matter, and in times to have the culture shift enough to change the whole country to accept the new status quo.
Chrysalis could and did in one timeline succeed out of all of the bunch is because Changelings have another strong advantage if pressed. And that I think is one of numbers. If she Zerg rushed the major population centers, using fake leaders to open wholes in the defenses and disrupted communications she could pod enough ponies to force a surge of Changelings to overwhelm the other places in the country though sheer mass of numbers. Of course this only would have worked with her first strike.
Otherwise I agree with with your assessment that it's not a easy place to hold. And don't forgot that if pressed, ponies do know where many artifacts of doom are located and if hopped up on enough dark magic could make any conqueror pay a steep price for their aggression.
Maybe *that's* what the princesses do? They're big obvious targets for people to kidnap so that they don't accomplish anything useful during their sneak attack.
4710369
I'm quite aware that the three conquerors I mentioned intended to steal the magic of the Princesses. I, however, dispute your contention that the magic of the Princesses is more powerful than all the capabilities of the rest of the land of Equestria put together.
Proof of which comes in the actual episodes. Chrysalis was beaten the first time by the magic of Cadance plus Shining Armor (who is not a Princess); the second time by a group of heroes none of whom were Princesses (most notably, by her own rebel son Thorax) despite the fact that she had prepared a defense which actually worked against Discord, the most powerful of those heroes. Tirek is defeated by the Element Bearers (whom he had already drained of power) and the Tree of Harmony, at a time when he had concentrated the magical power of all four Princesses, plus Discord, plus millions of other Equestrians, within himself.
Even the Storm King -- and the Movie was much more egregious in its deliberate omitting of the existence of the rest of Equestria beyond Canterlot than were any of the openers or finales -- was defeated by Twilight Sparkle and his own lieutenant, Storm Shadow, who turned on him because of his inexplicable and pointless betrayal of her.
???!!!
Equestria has a population which must be in the tens of millions, based on the fact that they have at least one large city (Manehattan) with a population in the low millions and numerous smaller cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands. This means that Equestria has the capacity to field a military in the long term of tens to hundreds of thousands and in the short term of millions.
I see no sign that Chrysalis or the Storm King command military might of that magnitude. What's more, both of them lack reserve military might of that magnitude. By which I mean that Equestria probably has an active service military in the tens of thousands (0.1% of population) but can expand it in a crisis to the low millions (around 5-7% of population).
What this means to a conqueror is that he might very well overcome the initial active-service military, possibly because he outnumbered the Equestrian forces 5:1 or so -- only to then succumb to tremendous new armies arising from the Equestrian soil. This has, historically, happened to more than one real-world conqueror on our Earth.
You're assuming that Equestria surrenders in the first place, or is even willing to compromise.
4710377
Chrysalis is the most dangerous of the conquerors I named precisely because she's actually competent at carrying out first strikes, and her forces are naturally well suited to them. But the Changelings don't have overwhelming numbers compared to Equestria as a whole; they can merely use their supernal disguise abilities to covertly assemble large attacks and overcome the defenders on the site.
They have only limited ability to resist counterattacks, though. A cunning Changeling general would carry out a campaign of hit-and-run, thus avoiding having to hold ground. The problem is that an army needs some heavy forces that can hold ground, if it's going to conquer rather than merely raid.
4710369
That's not logical, by the way. Discord is stronger than any of the princesses, certainly much stronger than Celestia and Luna put together. Tirek with all the regular Ponies' power was stronger than Discord. That would mean Cadance and Twilight need to have more magical power between the two of them than all of Equestria plus whatever leg up Discord has over the Diarchs. The numbers don't add up; if you ask me, Tirek could use just a fraction of what he stole.
As for the Storm King, he hadn't really conquered the other nations, from what I gather. He crushed them, stole whatever riches and magic he could, and left.
4710415
Barring the Magic of Friendship of course. Or Magic of True Love, I guess, with Cadence and Shining Armor.
As to all else - I refer you to the Tirek episode again. Tirek had the magic of most of Equestria's populace (all of its military, definitely and at least a very sizable chunk of the civilian population) PLUS some of Discord's magic, but Twilight with the princesses' magic held her own and even was close to winning before he started using hostages. One could try to make an argument that Twilight is a more capable sorceress or something to that tune, but that still implies that the power of the princesses and the power of literally everypony else are within the same order of magnitude.
I also refer you to the Starlight Glimmer episode, where Equestria weakened by a lack of single friendship (or, at the very least, THE friendship capable of wielding the elements), is easily conquered and held by the Nightmare Night, for multiple years with neither war nor revolution anywhere in sight. Or Queen Chrysalis, who seems to be rather capable of hunting down the last remains of the guerillas in her timeline.
Somepony with the power of all four princesses (given that he's not blindsided like Storm King), would be entirely capable of dispatching an entire army of average ponies all by themselves. Throw in their own not inconsiderable militaries and personal powers (of, say Queen Chrysalys, who is more powerful than Celestia when properly fed), and you can be pretty sure that no fielded and mobilized force would be able to dethrone such villain.
Equestria is very much a land of personal (or, small unit-friendship-based) powers, not of Napoleonic armies.
4710428
My theory to that is that Discord is pretty much pure magic (kinda like Alladin's Genie). We saw that without chaos he simply disappears. So since he was still alive in Tirek eposide, Tirek was only able to take some portion of his abilities, not all of them. And he wasn't stronger - he kinda stabbed Discord in the back with the rock-paper-scissors thing.
Even if it is a lossy process, still, the fielding army (even if we ignore the logistics challenge of it), would comprise the 5-7% of all the Equestrians, and even then only a tiny fraction of them would be able to engage the villain directly at any one moment.
4710425
True the Changelings don't have the numbers, at first. However in the Changelings triumphant and the Crystal war timeline both have the same stratagem to offset that. It's my head cannon that Changelings are masters at biomancy, with their limits are love and energy supplies. So like Sombra's crystal helmets, they take ponies and use the pods to speed gestation using the love energy harvested. This way each captive city becomes both a power plant and farm, powering the war machine.
4710451
That's another theory. Like I said, mine is that he only could use a tiny fraction of the magic he stole from his victims. Some of it was channeled into his physical growth and to restore his youth, most of it was simply stored away.
I've been thinking a whole lot on this topic lately because I just designed all the initial conditions and motivations having to do with the zebra war in my story.
A big factor I'm playing off is the idea that Equestria has grown "soft" over the last millennia of relatively low conflict. Low meaning nothing really large scale. All the threats are dealt with by individuals, not by the nation as a whole as is the case with wars.
The reason for Equestria growing soft was due to Luna's banishment. I've got it where the dynamic between the co-regents Celestia and Luna is such that they counterbalance one another's qualities to create a healthy nation. Luna's traits tend to make her better suited for defense (as one of many traits), and in her absence, Celestia's Equestria was largely diplomatic and commercial. This set the stage for an early war which began at a very primitive level due to the nation being almost entirely unfamiliar with the concept with extremely poor defenses apart from the alicorn sisters themselves and the Wonderbolts.
Anyway, the show is growing increasingly inconsistent with its lore and metaphysics. I'm becoming more and more dissatisfied with the direction they are taking things. Repeatedly pulling out the villain reformation trope is extremely old and stale. The overly-sanitized conflicts which are always easy to resolve have become trite. The premise and overall universal structure of MLP, along with much of its characterization is still fantastic. But it's times like this when MLP insists on reminding me that it is, in fact, just a kid's show.
Nevertheless, I will continue to make a grown-up's version of these characters and their universe. And if that means drawing a line in the sand and abandoning new content, then so be it. I was thinking of making some formal write-ups regarding certain mistakes, idiot balls, etc. that the show has given us, and provide an alternate version of things like Tirek, Sombra, and even the events from the movie. Versions of these things which would be very serious. Honestly, does anyone ever actually die in canon MLP? Oh noes! We can't depict the idea of death to the kiddies. Unless it's AJ's parents, who are all but confirmed as dead. But I'm thinking that attack by Tirek probably killed a few thousand. It might be worth rewriting a few things for the adult audience who enjoys more serious and well-thought-out stories.
4710495
would it make anything better?
Edginess does not automatically improve your story.
4710521
Oh I'm not referring to edginess. Death and risk are very real parts of life and also most fiction. I'm referring to refraining from artificially sanitizing things. The last thing I'd want to write is deliberately edgy stuff.
4710523
I'm just saying that you don't have to sanitize your fiction (though faithfulness to the canon genre and themes is something to be valued). I'm just saying that a good story is good regardless of the level of violence, whereas you're implying that adding some brutality (tm) to the MLP storylines would somehow improve them simply by dint of them being brutal
4710525
Absolutely. Stories do not require death, violence, and permanent consequences to be good stories. I never made that argument. But MLP goes out of its way to depict scenarios which would be this level of serious, but without the serious consequences. The aforementioned Tirek example is a good one. Tirek's attack profile is of the type that would most certainly result in quite a few deaths.
And of course yes, I agree that being loyal to MLP's themes is great if you can pull it off. I've put a lotof energy into maintaining MLP's core themes within a more serious set of scenarios. Other [cough] stories just stomp all over MLP's themes. I find that rather disappointing.
4710525 I think what they meant was that death represents permanent repercussions and its absence removes the weight from certain decisions. Things can be rebuilt, lives lost are lost forever, barring some seriously dubious magic.
4710523
Although I will say that for one, last I checked Sombra was pretty much unambiguously dead and that the permanent repercussions don't necessarily have to be death, it's just the most common and classic option: An injury would work equally well as long as it wasn't immediately healed with little to no ceremony.
Edit: Linked the wrong comment
4710533
I agree that Tirek is a good example. What would have been achieved had the story explicitly said that a lot of ponies died? Tirek was already established as a threat and as a villain that brooks no negotiations with. Having the murders mentioned would add nothing to the story.
4710541
It kinda gives the impression that there were no consequences to his attack and only a possible outcome "Twilight and her friends get a castle etc.". On the other hand that episode was pretty much about 'loss' (Golden Oaks, The Elements...) which might offset that.
4710539
Correct. Like how the movie ends. It really reduces the stakes when you can just toss out a full reversion like that.
And yes, Sombra is dead. Though it's arguable he wasn't actually alive in the first place. He seemed depicted more as a zombie-like life essence that was obsessed with like two things. Crystals and power. Yet another quintessential one-dimensional villain.
But no, I was more talking about death of innocents in my comment about consequences. Tragedies in fiction have a uniquely powerful impact on an audience that gets thought processes going which are absolutely essential in life.
4710541
It adds audience empathy, which is a very valuable phenomenon. It stirs the emotions. It precipitates introspection.
4710543
For this exact reason I still cannot watch episodes with Starlight Glimmer.
However, I think that might be what the show is trying to say "only the absolute scum of the earth are not worth saving" which is an admirable message but I still feel that their actions should have weight and therefore consequences; FFS Starlight committed genocide several times over because she forgot what letters were and she gets hug and a "there there"!
4710545
4710541
This, exactly this.
You wouldn't even have to show an unambiguous death, just show us them struggling or suffering ill-effects, not just a few throwaway shots of the villain briefly menacing them.
4710543
Yeah, and that is called "cheap thrills". When redshirts die in Star Trek it adds nothing of substance.
Death only adds substance when it's the death of someone who the audience has an emotional connection to... but then it becomes a very expensive tool to use.
I feel like you're kinda-sorta missing the whole point of the show here...
4710583
Nope, just wish they'd treated it slightly more seriously. Rather than "oh it doesn't matter that you've shown an insane lack of care for others and a clear disconnect from reality in how childishly you acted, I'm a princess and I forgive you so everything's fine!" I'd like to see her punished in some way, put her under supervision, take away her magic just do something! Showing remorse at the consequences of your actions and understanding why what you did was wrong are different things and choosing to console her over her Freudian Excuse instead of making her understand that her reaction was wildly disproportionate sets a terrible precedent. She could've gone on to feel that she was entirely justified instead of in the wrong, setting the rehabilitation process way back; a problem they handily skipped by just declaring her "totally a good guy now".
And that's what bothers me the most, the lack of a character arc, Starlight is just forgiven because "a princess said so" and they end the episode friends, no hint of any future consequences or tensions just a return to status quo with Twi's new replacement. If they ever revisit the idea that Starlight is supposed to be punished for her actions then I've not seen it because every time I watch an episode I have to forget that our new protagonist recently destroyed Equestria several times and got away scot free and that is no easy task to accomplish.
To summarise: I'd be fine with Starlight Glimmer's reformation if it had a clear arc instead of just being announced "completed" because she had a little cry, heck I might even like her but the way it was handled just reaally puts me off.
4710677
other than missing the whole point, what would punishing her actually achieve?
She's clearly into the whole changing her ways thing, and she was hardly malevolent to begin with. So... satisfy some sort of eye-for-an-eye twitch? See above about the point of the whole darn series, then.
4710430
There is a difference between winning a one-on-one duel and conquering a nation. The power of numerous individuals concentrated in one Pony is harder to overcome, because it is concentrated; on the other hand, if that duel be won, its results are more decisive than any encounter against a portion of that power, because it is concentrated.
Discord's help was very important to Tirek's victories, because he allowed Tirek to rapidly steal a lot of power: to do it so rapidly that there was no way for Equestria to deploy any meaningful defense against him. (Discord also, rather obviously, caused this to happen in a manner which ensured less actual death and injury to the Equestrian victims, see AlaraJRogers' Traitor, which I hold mostly canonical to the SWSV, on this -- which is part of why he was relatively Easily Forgiven afterward).
Suppose Tirek had not had Discord's help at the beginning. Then, he would have been forced to steal power slowly, working his way up the ladder one or two or a few Ponies at a time, because if the weaker, earlier Tirek had faced an Alicorn Princess, he would have simply been defeated by her. What's more, because he would have been weaker and moving more slowly, there would have been time for Equestrian military, security, police and even private combatant forces to organize defenses against him, to which he might have succumbed long before he got anywhere near an Alicorn Princess, assuming that said Princesses couldn't have found him.
Discord did more for Tirek than simply provide him amusing patter.
Nightmare Moon carries out a coup -- and, as Celestia's sister, she's actually by an arguable point of view the legitimate ruler if she succeeds in putting Celestia out of the picture. (This is one of the big weaknesses of absolute hereditary monarchy -- it makes the monarch's closest kin potentially the most deadly political threat to that monarch). She also probably had supporters and sympathizers when she took over. (In my SWSV, this includes most of the Pegasi Nocturnae).
We have no idea what sort of rebellions Nightmare Moon is combating away from her own capital. In the Moonlight Nights alternate worldline of the SWSV, large sections of Equestria refuse to acknowledge her authority. These include (but are not limited to) an active rebellion centered on the returned Crystal Empire and led by Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in the name of Celestia; a general rising of the Unicorn nobility led by Prince Blueblood; and a mysterious rebel cell operating out of Canterlot itself led by one known only as "Captain Smarty-Pants of the Loyal Night Watch," about whose true identity Cadance, Shining and the Twilight family have terrible suspicions.
In the case of Queen Chrysalis' tyranny, we don't know how far her writ runs. The fact that she has to deal with rebels in the Everfree implies that her rule may not actually run any farther than the Vale of Avalon, though she probably also controls other cities and towns throughout Equestria. It's quite possible that there are large sections of the country she does not control (but almost certainly menaces).
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Zecora's rebel band is the last one, though in SWSV terms, Chrysalis has obvious reasons to want to capture Fluttershy, as Fluttershy is her own rebel daughter. This is actually implied in the episode by the fact that Chrysalis is personally leading the attack: in SWSV, she might be worried that if she didn't, "Princess Whisper" (Fluttershy) might unlock her Changeling Royal powers against whichever leader Chrysalis sent to capture her, and thus become a threat to Chrysalis herself (the Changeling political system is even weaker when it comes to single point-sources of failure in the head Royal than is the Equestrian one; Fluttershy could overthrow Chrysalis by Challenge).
All the conflicts shown so far in the main worldline have been like this, but that has been a deliberate Doyleian decision on the part of the Writers, because they're not trying to write Macross or even G. I. Joe. They are choosing to have the foes get defeated before matters get that far. In Starlight Glimmer's splinter worldlines, we know of it least one war that definitely became a massive industrial conflict, and at least two others that may have been long, festering civil wars or rebellions.
4710457
That makes a lot of sense. What I assumed that Chrysalis and her subordinate Royals were doing in the Great Changeling War was pretty much oozing out fertilized eggs that were being plopped into magical incubators using the Love of large number of captives to turn them into Worker and Warrior nymphs in increasingly shorter and shorter times, thus bypassing even the relatively swift normal Changeling processes of gestation. Likewise, these nymphs then had their development biomantically accelerated, being given very brief and sktechy training programs before being deployed into battle.
The downside of this, of course, was that while Chrysalis started the war in 1513-1514 with a well-born and well-trained military, as that prewar military took losses against the increasingly-advanced and well-organized Equestrian forces, the gaps in its Swarms were increasingly filled by hastily-grown and poorly-trained Warriors-in-name-only. In the last year of the war (1514-15), a few of Chrysalis' veterans were acting as a cadre, hopelessly trying to train the new recruits and stem the tide of Equestrian counterattack -- now reinforced by new armies raised after the initial Changeling attacks.
In the Chrysalis Triumphant timeline, of course, it's her decapitation attack of 1503 which succeeds. This of course means that Chrysalis starts the war weaker and with more optimistic assumptions about her ability to win a quick victory; it also means that she attacks a less prepared Equestria than the Equestria of 1513.
What I assume happened in the Chrysalis Triumphant timeline is that Chrysalis was about as successful at the Canterlot Wedding as possible, meaning she successfully decapitated the national and some of the provincial leadership. She has spent the next couple of years trying to cement her control over the provinces, and put down the closest and most dangerous rebel groups. I would imagine it almost a certainty that there are millions and millions of Equestrian Ponies not under Chrysalis' rule -- but that the (justifiable) fear of infiltrators and assassins makes it difficult for the various generals, cities and provinces to coordinate their war effort against her.
4710742
If I steal something, whether or not I feel bad or never held any malice to the victims I will still be fined at the very least and we're talking about someone who caused the deaths of millions through her actions across several universes, just because Twilight saved the day doesn't make the fact that Starlight caused that destruction go away.
Even if we take the whole "she killed people over a childish temper-tantrum" thing out of the equation, she still made several attempts to fundamentally alter the timeline to the detriment of all because she never took the time to research something as simple as the importance of her main adversary in equestrian history or 'the butterfly effect': you may recognise these as being the kind of thing that any competent or responsible person would do when considering using eldritch power to play with the fabric of time and space.
So to conclude, why should she be punished? Because that is how the law works, we apply it to everyone equally so that it remains just and fair. Because not doing so would be immoral and unfair to all those who are punished for their far, far inferior crimes. Because Starlight Glimmer is supposed to be learning a lesson and lessons are learned through consequences and yet she has never seen the consequences for the majority of her actions, she only saw the last timeline when Twilight dragged her through and she immediately went into denial.
Because whether or not Starlight is genuinely remorseful that does not change the fact that, ironically, what has been done cannot be undone. She chose to take the actions through her own free will and other people suffered from those actions, if nothing else then from a meta perspective it sets a bad example for the show's primary audience. This is why I feel so strongly about Starlight's lack of punishment, more than the suspension of disbelief, more than the haphazard and lazy writing and more than the fact it robs us of character development, it sets a morally wrong and unrealistic example for children, or anyone else that watches the show.
4711124
You would be fined, or perhaps imprisoned indeed. But the question is - is that a good thing?
Punishment can serve four goals, as I wrote in another of Jordan's post: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.
If you committed a crime, and we're pretty sure you're not gonna do it again, then we have no need to incapacitate you (e.g. via imprisonment) so that you would not have the chance to do it again.
If we don't expect others to follow your example unless we punish you to instill fear in them, then we have no need for deterrence. Likewise, since by assumption, we know you wont repeat your crime, we dont need to scare you straight either.
The punishment is rarely conducive to rehabilitation, unless it is somehow tailored to the needs of the criminal - if we take away money from you're more likely to have to steal again, not less, and prison actually increases the recidivism rate, so a rehabilitation punishment would be something like making you attend classes and learn a trade. Or, say, learn about friendship and getting some friends.
So that leaves retribution for the sake of retribution -- punishment intended just to make the criminal hurt in service of some abstract justice and to make us feel better because we'd enjoy seeing them hurt. Is that really a good thing?
I would argue that it is not.
Same applies to any reformed villain - if they're not likely to commit the crime again if we live in the society where villainy is not an inevitable fact but a unique thing, then often punishment would not only be pointless, it'd be counterproductive.
This is why Starlight was ultimately doomed to failure: she might have attracted an army of malleable misfits but pointing brain-washed cultists whose strengths have been removed by a high-functioning moral idiot at anything more threatening than a Cub Scout troup is just going to result in one of History's more regrettable bloodbaths.
4711084
That's not the point. The point was that even when the power was concentrated into a single individual, it was still weaker (or at best, comparable) to the power of Princesses.
Thus when the villain of the day executes a a quick coup, captures the Princesses, steals their magic and crowns himself a dictator, no fielded army consisting of everypony else will be able to forcibly remove them. All of the million-pony Equestrian armies, even assuming one somehow magically coordinates and precipitates out of the thin air in the field of battle would be dispatched by the Princess-powered villain himself, should he so wish.
First of all, that presupposes that Equestria is a hereditary monarchy. Given that it has been always ruled by a single monarch with no succession, there is no actual precedence, and one assumes no law towards that. It could just as equally be a chain of inheritance decreed by Celestia herself, seeing how she probably did not want to have Blueblood inherit the kingdom should she suddenly be stricken by a stray nuclear bomb or something.
Also, nobody knew who the heck Nightmare Moon was, and nobody knew she was Celestia's sister. It was a huge surprise for Twilight that Nightmare Moon was, in fact, Princess Luna - Celestia's sister. It's not like she was banished with her birth papers and a photo ID.
Queen Chrysalis could just as easily declare herself Celestia's long-lost cousin, and have just as much if not more proof.
We know that she has no trouble going on a sortie by herself at her whim, and that she controls the sun and the moon, and that ponies shown seem to have accepted her rule. She does not even grasp at sudden arrival and the sudden promise of magics with any sort of desperation or visible need, but rather curiosity and amusement. There is definitely no indication of any troubles that haunt her as a ruler of Equestria.
Sure. But then again, we do not see the million-pony army looking to swiftly dispatch the invaders either. Even if she only holds Canterlot and surrounding areas, she still seems rather confident, and the implication is that those resistances are either entirely cut off from whatever main forces may exist (if they do), or a typical example of remaining opponents after several years of war.
And interestingly enough, Sombra js the only villain that did not start with a Princess-grab sneak attack.
And we can be certainly fairly sure that all the conflicts that will be shown in the future of the show would be such as well. We can also see the indication that that is not, in fact, an exception to the world, but an expected outcome and that when it does not happen Equestria is indeed conquered, at least in rather large parts and at least for rather long periods of time.
Thus, I see no reason to conclude otherwise, if we're to go by the facts show, rather than a pre-conceived conclusion, and relying on evidence rather than the absence of contrary facts.
4711229
Your outlook is interesting and think I understand where you're coming from but I get the feeling that we'll have to agree to disagree before we fill the comments section. I believe that a punishment would help reinforce the lesson whereas you believe that it would be mindless sadism, that is perhaps a gap too far to bridge with words don't you think?
Nevertheless, I enjoyed this little debate and sorry I took so long to respond, I was asleep until 30-40 minutes ago.
4710415
4710369 The whole idea that the magic of the 4 Princesses equals the entire population plus Discord is based on Twilight's Kingdom, but it suffers from the assumption that Tirek and Twilight are using their magic at the same level of efficiency. Twilight is one alicorn willingly gifted the magic of 3 other alicorns, who was shown able to operate the entire ability range of the other alicorns once she received their magic (i.e. raising the sun and moon). Tirek forcibly absorbed magic from completely different species and used a significant amount of it to turn himself into a young invulnerable giant. He had Discord's reality warping magic, but all he could do were basic blasts and shields. I think it's pretty clear Tirek was not getting anywhere near a 1:1 magical gain for all magic stolen.
Also, it's a really good point about the population size and other population centers. Based on what we've seen, Manehatten seems to have at ten times the population of Canterlot and many times the industrial capacity. An army from the eastern seaboard with all the weapons and food they need could easily be raised there, and if there needs to be conscription or even wartime volunteers it would probably be much larger than the small peacetime guard that hangs around Canterlot. The S5 Finale showed us what Equestria on an actual war footing looks like, and it is very different from Equestria during peacetime.
Oh, and based on the comics I believe the Storm King was a "raider" like Tirek, he actually explains to the Abyssinians he doesn't want to rule them, just loot their resources and fly off. I suspect that was the same plan he had for Equestria once he got his staff powered up.
4711232
4711084
Therein lies the problem, no war in the entirety of human history has been decided by forming the biggest 'doomstack' of an army you can and then rushing to meet the enemies' army, especially if that army held a significant numerical advantage. Just because I can knock out anyone with one punch does not mean that I instantly against an army of a-hundred either, leaving an opposing army two options: swarm the singular powerful being with as many troops as possible, as quickly as possible, from as many angles as possible or simply avoid the single enemy capable of dealing with you. In either case a numbers advantage is massively powerful on its own, both giving you more striking ability and more distractions to ensure that those strikes land where you want them to.
This is why you don't see many wars settled by a 'trial by champion', where two powerful or prestigious individuals armed and trained to the best of their abilities have it out to decide the fate of a battle. No matter how powerful, deadly or invulnerable a knight in full-plate was by the reckoning of the time, he still loses to a mob of peasants with farm implements; it's just the same in modern warfare too, tanks are pretty much invulnerable to small-arms fire but if one finds itself swarmed by infantry units, with or without anti-armour weapons the tank will eventually succumb to the damage or the hatch will, followed by the crew.
Don't get me wrong, the casualties in this kind of engagement would be atrocious, similar to defeating a machine-gun nest by running as many guys towards it as possible until one of them gets a grenade in(except the nest is in the middle of a field and can only fire in a limited arc but might decide to teleport around a bit). However, in the end an army has the ability to sustain attrition whilst every blow they land on their enemy permanently and drastically reduces their effectiveness.
Once the bad-guy wises up and brings his own army it becomes a battle of strategy: "How can I break through to that one guy?" versus "How can I keep all of them away from me?". I'm not the best strategist so I'll just say that it'll mostly come down to the intelligence of the people leading the troops and the number of mooks the 'OP pls nerf' guy manages to bring, along with the training, equipment and discipline of all of the above. Such a battle could be decided by an overconfident big-bad as easily as it could by routing troops.
To summarise: Power isn't everything, history shows us this, numbers are a huge force-multiplier, armies are more robust than people and strategy is complicated so I'm not getting into it. I'm not saying that numerically superior force will always win against one with a clear power advantage, just that being powerful alone is not enough to win a battle.
4711409
You cant draw from human histroy. At no point has there ever been a singular human capable of fightingg an entire army.
And numbers acually begin to become a dusadvantage - a single kaiju need not care about things like friendly fire or reaching front lines.
I guess you could liken it to crew in an Abrams tank fighting a Roman Legion, but even then, its not a great comparison for the sheer scale of the difference between what we've seen from the various powerful individuals of the world.
4711408
Even if one assumes that tirek is horribly inefficient in his process, he still takes magic from the whole population, old and young, mares and stalions and magical monsters and dragonequii.
Whereas any army fielded would comprise of a small proportion of the population, and an even smaller proportion of said army would be capable of actually fighting that songle target at any one time.
So... Unless you pose that Tirek barely used hundredth's of a percent of the magic he gathered, that does not seem to be sufficient as a counterargument.
4711430 I do in fact pose that Tirek was getting much less than 1% efficiency based on the way he had to absorb many thousands of ponies to get even small increases in his size, but that's not the only thing: An army is more than just it's collective magic. A large number of individuals can take hundreds or thousands of action simultaneously against a single powerful magical being, they make numerous smaller targets to hit rather than one concentrated blow, and tactical skill and cunning defeat can defeat raw magical power (just like when Starlight was able to beat the snot out of an alicorn over many repeated battles).
4711542
Well, sure, but that hardly helps them to stop the 800-pound gorilla from sitting where it wishes to. Sure you can do a lot of things while you run around dodging the giant nigh-omnipotent brute who happens to be in control of celestial spheres, but at some point you will have to engage him.
Guerillas are a pretty cool thing, but it is rather hard to win wars with just that.
4711425
Where else do you suppose that I draw from? My own imagination?
Whilst there has never been a single individual capable of taking on armies there are numerous accounts of far smaller forces taking out large armies through superior tactics and strategy; there are accounts of how even a technologically superior force can be subdued through the use of superior numbers and exploitation of environmental factors (see Soviet Union vs Natzi Germany); there are even accounts of well-trained, well-equipped soldiers being defeated by little more than farmers with sticks.
4711542
This is the point I was trying to make in my previous comment. A large singular enemy can only make so many strikes at once, whereas if I bring an army I can make exponentially more strikes, defences, feints and outright subterfuges or decoys with the number of potential actions increasing almost logarithmically with the addition of more units.
As an example: If I bring a section of riflemen to a battle I can fire on eight individuals, concentrate fire on one individual, have some or all of them lay down suppressing fire or some combination of the above. If I brought a section of combat engineers I may have the ability to construct fortifications or other such actions (time permitting) in addition to the above and if I used the two together I will have the option to construct fortifications and defences that they can both make use of, further increasing the potential of both units.
But let's say that instead I bring 200 archers, 200 battle mages, 100 skirmishers, 100 heavy infantry, 50 engineers and assorted siege engines or their materials. The actions available to me are almost as numerous as the stars in the sky; archers could pour large volleys of projectiles onto the enemy from a position of advantage, break into smaller groups of pseudo-skirmishers firing off a volley then repositioning or work as light infantry; I could have the mages attack directly, support the others or actively defend them; skirmishers can harass an enemy then pull away before it can counter, act as light cavalry and draw an enemy into overextending or engage in the melee as light infantry; heavy infantry units could entangle an enemy in a melee, discourage a certain angle of assault with their positioning or act as a rear-guard to cover the retreat; the engineers could build fortifications before the battle, construct and man the siege engines or form light infantry units to shield other units; the siege engines themselves are pretty one note but few things wreak large targets as much using pre-industrial technology.
TL;dr-- I am very verbose and armies provide many opportunities that single powerful individuals do not
4711579 He can sit anywhere he wants whilst my army unleashes it's massive arse-beating because in the end I will win regardless of the casualties involved. However if I were looking to reduce casualties then I would take something he desires and put it somewhere visible, either an area that gave me an inherent advantage or an area I could turn to my advantage without overt fortifications or construction, perhaps a large cave that I'd proceed to collapse atop him.
4711674
Yes. Abstract thinking is a better help than inapt analogies.
4711733
You're fucking with me. Also missing the point of the show.
4711747
Don;t flatter yourself, sugah
Ever get the desire to say something but know that it'll only make things worse?
4711579
4711674 Throughout human history, almost all battles were won by the side that simply had larger numbers.
I like the essay and the shared thoughts on how and why invasions and conquests do (and don't) work. Especially the bit about the importance of logistics --isn't there some old line about 'amateurs study tactics, professionals study strategy, masters study logistics'?
And while I have yet to see the movie, isn't there a scene in it where we see Canterlot and Mount Epona in the distance, with what looks like smoke rising from Ponyville? Might be that the Storm King learned that was where the runaways came from and decided to have a couple of his ships play B-29 Over Berlin (or maybe that should be 'Zeppelins over 1915 London' here) in the hopes that would settle his little problem. And if not, massacring the first community to rise against you does wonders to convince everyone else to think twice. Provided you make it obvious that loyalty will bring rewards.
4711408
4711994
4711674
I'm heading to work now, so I'll make this relatively brief.
While no historical human soldier has been as capable compared to other human soldiers as an Alicorn or a powered-up Discord or Tirek is compared to the Ponies, individual human units have had similar disparities of power. Compare a World War II German Panzer regiment to a regiment sized force of partisan militia. Or an American M1 Abrams Tank Company compared to a typical third world infantry unit.
What is found in every case is this. The more powerful unit can reliably defeat the weaker unit in a one-on-one fight or even against heavy odds, often while taking no or few losses. However, in protracted warfare, the slow steady attrition on ammunition and repair will tell. Also, the smaller unit has great difficulty controlling anything beyond the range of its guns, while the more numerous units can spread out to seize or garrison the land.
What is more, mobility is extremely important in this sort of a match up. If the weaker units are faster or better at reconnaissance and stealth than the stronger one, they will enjoy the advantage of being able to choose their battlefields. In practice this means the stronger unit will have to face a lot of ambush engagements, where the weaker units have any effective weapons at all they may succeed in damaging or destroying elements of the stronger unit.
There is even a mathematical principle relevant to such matchups. In board wargaming this is often known as the Fuzzy Wuzzy Factor, referring to the manner in which African natives were sometimes able to defeat better equipped and trained British infantry in colonial warfare of the 19th century. What this requires above all Is that the larger force of weaker units be able to maintain its morale while taking losses to attrition the more powerful unit.
This is why Kipling used it as a term of respect. For the natives.
One last thing. It is very common for weaker unit types to include some stronger weapons as support weapons in their inventory, precisely for such attritional situations. Such weapons require courage and cunning to maneuver into place, but can be very effective used in the right manner. A good example in real warfare are anti-tank guided missiles used by infantry against tanks.
High fantasy is full of such devices, usually called banes. They almost certainly exist in Equestria as well.
A lot also depends on what you are trying to do. Raiding or predation is much easier than conquest. The Storm King might well have succeeded in a mere raid -- though I do not think he would have liked the long-term consequences to himself. As I said, he had never taken on a power as strong as Equestria before, and the story would have ended with him being hunted down and destroyed by Equestrian forces raised specifically to get him.
4711579
The problem is that the "killer stack" (that's what we called it in tabletop board wargaming when it was a stack composed of very strong units all in the same location and thus able to defeat pretty much any foe it encountered where it was) can only be in one place at a time. This means that, if it doesn't have enough support forces to guard its flanks, it can only take one or a few locations per turn (a few if the game has overrun rules), and all in the same area. It is also, if severely outnumbered (as it usually happens to be) going to be fighting constantly surrounded, which means that if it loses even a single battle, it gets destroyed.
This mirrors real history very well. When you get a "killer stack" winning, it usually wins by having a lot of weaker allies, with the "killer stack" fighting the key battles to break the enemy's strength, and the weaker allies cover its flanks and garrison its conquests. It keeps on doing this until the enemy's morale (if the game has general morale rules, as real life definitely does) breaks and the enemy surrenders en masse -- or, until the side with "killer stack" makes a mistake. And it takes only one mistake for the smaller but stronger-unit side to lose.
This doesn't mean the killer stack can't win. Only that it's a matter of strategy and tactics on both sides.
As it definitely was with the premier historical examples -- Cortez in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru.
4712464
Syre, but here the killer stack has superior mobility (since otherwise he'd not be able to implement the coup in the first place)/and has nothing to defend since it's on offensive. On the other hand, the army is slow, disorganized (since most of the chain of command would fall with the capital), and have cities-fulls of civilians to defend, and unlike a single magical individual, it is reliant on infrastructure and support.
Not saying its a surefire victory, but it is not the odds that are easy to beat.
So in conclusion - the instant coup tactic has excellent chances to permanenetly conquer Equestria, provided that there is a follow-up to root out the guerillas, and while incapacitating the princesses and stealing their magic is not an easy feat, Equestria is pretty much _exactly_ as easy to conquer as it may seem at a first glance.