Equestrian Common Defence Doctrine part 2 · 11:04pm Jan 10th, 2020
A continuation of the first part.
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/879244/equestrian-common-defence-doctrine
Midnight Spear built the fundamentals of void warfare that the Equestrian Royal navy now holds itself to. While she never produced a written work her officers and subordinates did outline her considerations within the new landscape of war that had been thrust upon Equestria. I do not expect you to be fully versed in Midnight Spears’ mindset and doctrine as to fully understand the mare one would have to read upwards of a dozen books written about her at the time and after she passed on.
The focus of the Equestrian Royal Navy is simply to defend our homeworld, Colonies and Shipping while also maintaining a task force or forces that can project power beyond our borders. To do this we need to understand the hostile elements we may face, the demands our ships must meet and the scale of a force we should field.
Given that you are reading this it is assumed you have not only purchased your commision to become an officer within the Royal Navy but you have completed your evaluation. As such this doctrine will not seek to explain the very technical details of every duty expected of you nor of the mares under your command.
“The fleet one commands is more important than the enemy one faces.”
-Midnight Spear.
You will never have the tools you want or need, you will only have what fate allows. If you need a battleship you will have a cruiser, if you need a logistical support ship you will have an old freighter. The only thing you can count upon is the Mantle of Harmony that binds your crews together. You must often use what you have to its fullest effectiveness, that means you must become familiar with a wide range of ship classes and designs as well as develop tactics to make use of what assets you have at your disposal to deal with a superior force.
If you know what you are capable of then you can determine what missions to perform within a conflict. Equestrian doctrine has never allowed itself to become reactionary, we don’t build our ships on the whim of our foes but to perform roles we deem valuable.
While Equestria has many ship designs and specifications it is rare for any modern design to be manufactured outside of a commission from a private force. Should we be forced to enter a war fitting the ships we would likely field capital class ships of the following classes.
Midnight Class Dreadnaught
Length: 5240m
Width: 700m
Hight: 950m
Engine Units: Empire Superheavy Propulsion Model I (Crown of the Crystal Heart
Commission)
Slipspace Drive: Clever Drive Model MX
Power plant: 4 Pinch fusion reactors first rate
Shielding:
Solar Class invincible spell matrix (phased warding)
Manehattan CM commission inter compartment shielding (reactionary warding)
Muse of Yevon Corvex-pattern dispersal field generators.
Hull:
150 inch nanolaminate belt
10-100 inch general nanolaminate hull.
Armament:
1 Harmonizer Lance
120 25 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
92 15 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
916 5 inch point defence guns
250 Manehattan-pattern Pulse Lasers
160 Sono-pattern plasma cannons.
Compliment:
9000 combat personnel
200 Cloudsdale lancer strike craft.
2 Dragon combat personnel
Crew: 7000 Naval personnel
Grover Class Battlecrusier
Length: 1400m
Width: 230m
Hight: 330m
Engine Units: Moonlight Clan heavy propulsion drive.
Slipspace Drive: Clever Drive Model MX
Power plant: 1 pinch fusion reactor second rate
Shielding:
Everfree patent spell matrix 17 (phased warding)
Manehattan CM commission inter compartment shielding (reactionary warding)
Muse of Yevon Corvex-pattern dispersal field generators.
Hull:
90 inch nanolaminate belt
10-70 inch general nanolaminate hull.
Armament:
1 micro harmonizer Lance
12 25 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
14 15 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
84 5 inch point defence guns
30 Manehattan-pattern Pulse Lasers
22 Sono-pattern plasma cannons
Compliment:
2300 combat personnel
40 Cloudsdale lancer strike craft.
Crew: 4100 Naval personnel
Flower Class Cruiser
Length: 700m
Width: 190m
Hight: 220m
Engine Units: Moonlight Clan propulsion drive.
Slipspace Drive: Clever Drive Model MX
Power plant: 1 Pinch fusion reactor fourth rate
Shielding:
Everfree Patent spell matrix 17 (phased warding)
Manehattan CM commission inter compartment shielding (reactionary warding)
Muse of Yevon Corvex-pattern dispersal field generators.
Hull:
70 inch nanolaminate belt
5-60 inch general nanolaminate hull.
Armament:
12 13 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
14 5 inch point defence guns
14 Manehattan-pattern Pulse Lasers
18 Sono-pattern plasma cannons
Compliment:
230 Combat Personnel
8 Cloudsdale lancer strike craft.
Crew: 400 Naval Personnel.
Cloudsdale Class Frigate
Length: 420m
Width: 110m
Hight: 140m
Engine Units: Moonlight Clan propulsion drive.
Slipspace Drive: Clever Drive Model MIV
Power plant: 1 pinch fusion reactor fourth rate
Shielding:
Everfree Patent spell matrix 17 (phased warding)
Lulamoon illusionary spell matrix (phased warding)
Muse of Yevon Corvex-pattern dispersal field generators.
Hull:
40 inch nanolaminate belt
2-60 inch general nanolaminate hull.
Armament:
5 13 inch Moondancer Slipspace guns
8 5 inch point defence guns
6 Manehattan-pattern Pulse Lasers
8 Sono-pattern plasma cannons
Compliment:
15 combat personnel (accommodation for 150)
2 Cloudsdale lancer strike craft.
Crew:300 Naval Personnel.
Typically a fleet will consist of the following Formations or will be made up of several formations.
Formation Alpha:
1 Dreadnaught
1 Cruisers
4 Frigates
Formation Beta
1 Battlecruiser
1 Cruisers
4 Frigates
Formation Gamma
2 Cruisers
4 Frigates
Formation Delta
6 Frigates
Fleets can of course make use of formations outside of this so it is highly recommended that you familiarise yourself with simulations that give you unconventional forces to command.
“Within orbit a fixed defence platform may move and turn as it desires, it has whatever firing arc its thrusters allow.”
-Midnight Spear.
Equestrian doctrine makes extensive use of fixed orbital defence platforms (ODPs) because they are cheap to maintain and and be reconfigured to meet a wide range of tasks including the addition of propulsion and slipspace systems to turn an ODP into a warship.
Most ODPs can also be used for civilian services that can allow the structure to pay for its own maintenance. A planet or any similar celestial object can be defended with a very small amount of ODPs as with minimal thrust you can move them to any point within the orbit to meet an attack.
You may also make use of planet or fixed energy sources to power weapons that would be impossible to field on a regular warship (such as the Ethereal Lance orbiting luna’s celestial bond.)
“A Fleet without a capital ship is destroyed, a Fleet without any screen ships may still operate.”
-Midnight Spear.
We must remember that for most of her career Midnight Spear did not operate with a Naval support structure or the demands a national force faces. We can safely interpret this to mean that a navy without any capital ships is destroyed rather than a fleet without any capital ships as all navies make extensive use of task forces and fleets without any ships they would consider capital class.
The distinction between a capital and screening ship within Equestrian doctrine is explicitly not defined despite several fleet officers and naval documentation doing a poor and ill advised attempt to define it anyway. The reason for this is that a capital ship while very often a large combat capable vessel can be defined as any mission critical ship or a large ship in relation to what it is possible for you to field. I will admit that the idea of a boarding missile being considered a capital ship is more amusing than useful no matter how vital the role it plays to a wide range of missions.
I have also found that junior captains and fleet officers consider the biggest ship in the fleet to be the flagship in typical Sangheili fashion, despite the flagship simply being the ship that holds the admiral. When you are considering commanding a fleet in battle the flagship should be the ship with the highest survivability so that you have the best chance of providing orders to your fleet though and beyond the battle.
I have often argued that a cruiser makes for a better flagship than any of the larger and more armoured ships, this has often led to officers targeting all of my cruisers in simulations in an effort to knock me out of the fight rather than secure a conventional victory. When your opponent expects you to do something don’t do it, if that means they expect you to be in the biggest ship in the fleet or the smallest it makes no difference.
It is also vital that if you are commanding a fleet you do not stay in a single ship throughout your campaign, you are not a captain you are not meant to get attached to a ship, you are there to command not get comfortable. If you become predictable, if you follow a routine that becomes known to your enemy, you will die and be unable to serve your nation.
“Do not confuse the expanse of space for a large battlefield.”
-Midnight Spear.
It has been proven time and time again that a battle will rarely be fought at a range greater than three hundred thousand kilometers and will often begin at one hundred thousand kilometers and devolve into battles much closer than that, the exception of course is chasing a retreating force.
Space is full of terrain. Gravity wells, celestial bodies, asteroid fields or astrological phenomena that can be exploited to force the enemy to fight on your terms. Maneuvering your opponent to a battlefield that benefits you is not only possible but actually the norm, battles that involve two forces engaging in ‘empty’ space are almost unheard of.
Most battles happen when one force exits slipspace into an ambush set by another force, predicting that a force will exit slipspace in a particular area as more of an art form than a science but it is a skill that can be perfected with frightening accuracy.
“Every shell is a potential kill, do not withhold them from the fight in some misguided attempt to conserve ammunition. I expect your magazines to be empty once this week is though.”
-Midnight Spear.
Here we find ourselves suffering under a convention that time has rendered obsolete. This does not apply to modern engagements due to developments in shielding and armouring technology, hitting your target in general can be almost useless if your shot does not find a vital compartment. If you ever quote this to explain why you wasted your ammunition you will be discharged. It is an excellent piece of advice if you are on your own without the potential for resupply and every fight shall be your last (retreat would be a more effective tactic for staying alive in that situation then engaging a better supplied enemy anyway). Your plasma batteries are limited only by your capacity to generate power of course but conventional Equestrian munitions are incredibly expensive and time consuming to replace. You are not a privateer rushing from one desperate battle to the next, you are an officer of the Equestrian Royal Navy, you do not waste the assets we provide you.
Given the size of our Empire and the necessities outlined in this chapter it has been requested by this first advisor and every advisor previously that the Equestrian Royal Navy should be expanded. At this time there is a necessity for Nine Dreadnaughts, Forty Battlecrusiers, one hundred and fifty cruisers and thousands of smaller screening and patrol ships all ships should be in a classification in line with the Sangheili council of Naval Affairs.
At present there is a single battlecruiser and twenty nine loned Covenant frigates within the Equestrian Royal Navy. It should be noted that there are a number of Merchant ships that could be refitted into capital class warships within orbit of Equestria at all times as well as an abundance of small craft that could be conscripted to act as screens, such ships would face a lack of trained crew given the current size of the Equestrian Royal Navy however.
I would like to end this chapter with a story from my houses history. Just a scant few months before the ceasefire that would mark the end to the Great war of Union a freighter ran by the Apple Clan was rushing a shipment of food to a colony that was suffering from war inflicted starvation. The crew were set upon by three capital class cruisers and a destroyer.
The Apple Clan freighter was unarmed and quickly surrendered but the Covenant fleet was not interested in accepting any surrender. They attacked the freighter, shattering its outer layer of crystal armour and killing a Unicorn that attempted to raise a shield over the ship. The Apple Clan sent out a desperate distress message.
Fate dictated that Midnight Spear, at the age of fifty six was in range of the distress message, she was in a cruiser being transported back to Equestria to command the grand fleet. She turned her ship about and entered the system the Apple Clan was desperately trying to flee.
It was then that the Dauntless commanded by Midnight Spear engaged the enemy fleet outnumbered and alone, the cruiser was not a match for one of the enemies number but by the records of the Apple Clan she set upon them regardless. The Apple Clan matriarch sent one last message thanking Midnight Spear for saving her and her line and managed to escape from the system to slipspace as the Dauntless fought on.
It was almost a week later when a task force was sent to the system to recover Midnight Spear’s remains when the fleet discovered the impossible. Three cruisers and a destroyer all of the covenant design ran though and utterly destroyed but no sign of the Dauntless or her crew. I expect that survivors tried to enter slipspace but died in the attempt.
Without Midnight Spear to lead the Equestrian fleet King Grover became grand admiral and it was his choice to disregard Midnight Spear’s standing order to fire upon all Covenant ships that allowed a ceasefire to save billions of lives.
We come from a long line, all of us. Thousands of years live in all of you, history demands that we match and overcome the achievements of our ancestors. If we do not have the courage to stand firm and defend the people of Equestria then we do not deserve to command another soul, we do not have the right to right to put on our uniform. Our lot is to leap dauntless to the defence of our Empire and its people. But that does not mean we leap blindly, we must be thoughtful and pragmatic, learn the lessons of both Midnight Spear and King Grover to ensure that we serve Equestria well.
I don't like this sentence...
So how much of this is pure sim-theory based on a single war that happened thousands of years ago? Tactical flexibility is a wonderful thing, but if they've been drilling using ships that don't even exist...
5184116
Roughly all of it :)
5184118
Well @$&%#.
5184119
Yes even if he is a maverick, a force for reform and a talented officer Shining Armour is still very much an Equestrian Officer and suffers from weaknesses that presents. He did study at Covenant collages and has commanded ships his military experience amounts to a single quelled riot. For all the good he can do and his raw potential he did gain his position from a royal marriage. Of course if you asked him he would not understand why a person would balk at that.
Love this. It is great to see how both history and the nature of Equestria created their own version of Naval doctrine and how that in turn has shaped their thinking.
Very different from UNSC and Covenant, but that is as it should be.
A few nitpicks.
What is a Slipspace gun exactly? More detail on this would help, as well as on the Harmony lance. Would like to know what type of weapons they are and how they behave in combat.
You gave the Equestrians a magical defense in the spell shield matrices, but stopped short on the power core, which is the pinch fusion used in Covenant vessels. I do not remember where, but Cortana explained that UNSC fusion reactors are much more efficient than Covenant ones, for pinch Fusion is a serviceable form of generating Fusion power, but it is not as efficient as the Tokamaks used by the UNSC.
It would be nice to know the rationale for choosing the Covenant Fusion technology over a magical energy generation device that can equal or rival Covenant technology.
With the Equestrians being closer to the Forerunners than either the UNSC or the Covenant on behalf of their use of magic it stands to reason that they would pursue this technology path as well.
Same deal on the armor. The nanolaminate construction of the Covenant is a result of their growth methodology towards ship production. Equestrian magic can be used to imbue enhanced properties to any material they so choose, so a magically created alloy is not out of the realm of possibility.
Finally I would love it if someone could make sketches of the Equestrian ships to compare ship design philosophies with the UNSC, the Covenant and the Forerunner.
Something that Halo desperately needs is a new faction, to diversify its existing style and universe beyond the ones they currently posses.
5184185
Slipspace guns are weapons that have an enchantment placed upon them that when activated shunts the projectile into slipspace with a preset exit point, accuracy of the projectile depends upon the mind calculating the spell, a person or team of persons managing the battery.
A Harmony Lance is a large scale weapon used to denature magic it comes into contact with, this normally results in the conversion of the matter around the magic to energy but can have stranger results should there be a high enough concentration of magic at its target.
Equestrians never relied upon fusion or conventional energy generation for space travel, several electronics that are used to replace ponypower or magical enchantments require conventional energy generation, there are ways of turning magical power into energy but its not an efficient means, so Equestria just buys electronics and fusion cores from the Covenant.
Forerunners had an understanding of neural physics (Magic) but would not be as capable at it as the Equestrians even if they had access to some magical artifacts that Equestria would take thousands of years to replicate. You will notice that throughout the story Twilight is unable to teleport through Forerunner structures despite teleporting through a covenant bulkhead.
Yes Equestria can produce stronger alloys or other materials but they cannot produce the same quality of material for the same price as the covenant. Its a matter of cost, of course a Nanolaminate hull can be reinforced with magic later on.
I am hardly an artist but I do have a vision for Equestrian ships, both pre and post covenant. Please continue to nitpick :D what I enjoy the most about this story is the worldbuilding.
5184199
Those slipspace guns sound interesting, a fine application of magical theory. But your note on "mind calculating the spell, a person or team of persons managing the battery" tells me that they don't have AIs, who would really be able to bring such a concept to it's full potential. I think that would be a real danger, if the UNSC managed to salvage an Equestrian ship armed with those guns and was able to reverse-engineer them to any degree, that would be a huge boost to their arsenal. Imagine if they were able to marry that tech to their orbital stations and AI networks.
On the topic of Harmony lances, what happens if the target is entirely mundane? Say, an angry flying brick of UNSC titanium?
I suppose at the root my issue with the Equestrian's situation is two-fold. They are completely un-blooded as an military organization, and they have no experience with logistics on a scale necessary to support their theorized operations.
Green recruits are an inevitability, you can't expect newly-enlisted personnel to be as effective as veterans. Thus, the presence of said veterans in the military is essential in order to train the next generation in practical and effective methodology. But Equestria has been at peace for so very long that they have no veterans at all, save the princesses or any other immortals than might be hanging around. Thus they run a very real risk of suffering a degradation of operational effectiveness as they forget those hard-earned practical lessons.
They've only been conducting wargames against fellow academy alumni, and perhaps Sangheili shipmasters. (Though I highly doubt the second) This means that they have likely habituated themselves to particular tactical paradigms, and have over-specialized their doctrines to sparring against each other.
As I noted before, this sentence scares me. I already know that Equestrian culture is not martial in nature, and thus they would always suffer comparatively lower enlistment rates. But the fact that the officer's corps is apparently solely the domain of the upper-class (as why else would there be a price to enter other than to root out the "undeserving"?) heavily suggests rampant corruption and patronization of the worst kind.
An even more damning problem is a lack of logistical experience.
What does this even mean? Is he seriously admitting that private corporations and noble houses are more willing to invest in fleet-building than the crown itself? Supplying a battlegroup is a significant undertaking, arguably more complex than planning the battle itself. You can't just "switch on" the supply lines for the kind of forces this treatise so blithely suggests, they need to be established months or even years in advance.
They don't even have the manpower available to crew a dreadnaught, let alone it's supporting flotilla, and most of their practical operational experience isn't even on Equestrian systems! What in the name of Sun and Moon is the admiralty even doing? And what substances are the princesses so vigorously smoking that they've allowed matters to so deteriorate?
5184248
Your evaluation of the Equestrian military is on point and trickles down to everything they do, even the most veterin and experienced units within Equestrias armed force (Griffon Knights and Honor Guard) don resplendent armour and carry beautiful guns with archaic mechanisms.
AI was outlawed well before Equestria even dreamed of going into space, magically produced AI would quickly deteriorate and become unstable and potentially dangerous. Especially when considering the power required to create it in the first place, after Equestria joined the Covenant such a probation became a religious and cultural touchstone. With the introduction of Covenant electronics into Equestrian ships and equipment a Human AI might make some interesting discoveries on an Equestrian Warship.
Humans and human materials are not entirely mundane, a Forerunner ships bulkhead is engineered to act as a magical dead space and resist magic in general but for a human its a blindspot they never considered magic when designing weapons and equipment until they had access to changelings. Not only that but a Human being does have magic within them, some could even rival a unicorn in power but they would never know it without a means to use that power. Alicorns are an example of magical evolution in the same way a Spartan is a form of technological evolution, they are not mutually exclusive.
Yes.
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No honestly you are correct.
Sanghili in general view the Equestrians as respectable but needing protection and guidance, the way they see it the Prophets lead and guide the covenant and are the first, the Elletes protect the covenant and are the second and the Equestrians do all the other stuff that needs to get done and are the third. They are happy to humor Equestrian officers in simulations and in the war colleges because once an Equestrian is done at a Covenant military college they go home and the Sanghili keep being the sword arm of the Union.
A commission to the officers corps is not so expensive that someone in the lower middle class could never get one and you can’t buy your way in if you are incompatent. Other then that you are on point.
Midnight spear did it a thousand years ago so how could it be so hard? Besides if a war did happen we would have thousands of Covenant ships to defend us while we built up our own forces...... right?
Equestria at its core is a civilisation dedicated to civilian interests, its worlds are the jewels of the joint Equestrian Covenant, every colony is coated in shining cities dedicated to trade and commerce, the many billions of goods and services required to keep the two bloated empires running comes from the constant work of Equestria and its colonies.
Even the people at the lowest rung of Equestrian society live at about the upper middle class of the Covenant, the few Unggoy to acquire anything strive to move to Equestrian worlds and civilian ships where they live a much better quality of life.
This comes at a cost, the money spent on social services and grand projects is money not spent on the armed forces. This is not a small lapse in the military capabilities the Covenant has been the sword and the shield of the union for hundreds of years. Not only that but Equestria has been slowly converting to a more moderate form of the great journey besides a few isolated religious groups within Equestria (for example the Griffons) for as long as the union has existed.
The Covenant council is made up of the San Shyuum, the Sangheili and the Equestrians, both branches of the Covenant faith (Reformist and Traditionalist) recognise the Alicorns as simply powerful individuals, not gods, and the Princesses explicitly support this notion. The goal of the Union is to make the Covenant so dependent upon Equestria that the idea of another war would be unthinkable.
Think about it, the idea of the Union is so that the two nations were so economically invested in each other that war was impossible. For the last one thousand years it has worked, what changed?
I am sure this can only end well.
5184268
So much to digest here, but it is in line with my thoughts since this fic began.
The Humans have changed the balance of power and the lies of the Hierarchs will unravel this union just as they did in the original setting.
At the moment we only know that Twilight acting as Celestias representative is attempting to gather the true facts of the war. This implies that Celestia suspects something is not right, but has no proof of what that might be.
We also know that Twilight now in posession of factual information on the war has a very clear grasp of the lies of the Prophets and has had a change of heart because of that knowledge.
This was always going to end with the Equestrians ditching the Covenant. While this Equestria is not as perfect as the one in the show, there are clear indications that it is very similar and has similar values, though they are skewed because of the Covenant. The appearance of the Humans and the subsequent war without end against them clearly does not sit well with Celestia, but she cannot act without clear proof.
This lapse in military capabilities will eventually become a point of contention for the Equestrians, who will have to quickly transform their economical superiority for military superiority quickly once the great schism is well underway and the lies of the Peopelhets are laid bare.
Fortunately the Equestrians are in an infinitely superior position to the Shangheili.
The Equestrians posses a well established economy and industry that is not dependent on the Covenant. In fact the opposite is true, the Covenant have become unknowingly dependent on the Equestrians for many things.
This creates a division in the Covenant and effectively 2 axis of power. One is High Charity, which more or less single handedly provides everything the Covenant require. From basic home items all the way to gigantic mobile space stations thanks to its insanely huge forges.
The second axis is Equestria, which as the author stated outperform High Charity in terms of industrial output, though it is far more dispersed.
Once the Schism is well underway the question is how will the Equestrians act.
Will they aid the Shangheili against the Prophets or will they go on their own? The answer to this will dictate the way the entire conflict unfolds as the Equestrians can quickly change to war production with not only redundancies, but also strategic depth not afforded to the loss of High Charity.
In the original universe, once the great schism was mostly finished, the Shangheili, the Brutes, the Grunts and the Kig Yar quickly realized that they had almost nothing left. They had factories that no one worked in, no food supply at all and an almost complete loss of all technology.
In this universe the Elites, Brutes, Grunts and Kig Yar will face a similar situation, but not Equestria.
Equestria will emerge as a full fledged power, with near intact infrastructure and society, perfectly poised to become the dominant force in the galaxy for the foreseeable future.
The UNSC would be a close second, but they have a long reconstruction ahead of them.
This is not an issue for the Equestrians, who could force the other factions under its authority by sheer economical might without having to build a single warship.
5184291
This all assumes that the Prophets and their Jiralhanae enforcers don't make an attempt to size Equus at the same time they attack the Elites. Equestria has a powerful economy 'tis true, but unlike the last time they have precious little in the way of a navy, and no Admiral Midnight Spear. I'm not saying the ponies would just fall apart, but they're far less psychologically prepared for a sneak attack than the Shangheili.
Hmm, in the primary timeline High Charity arrived at installation 05 and got itself infested during and after the chaos of the schism. But of course, the schism was hardly a spur-of-the-moment thing, rather 'twas quite deliberate and planned. Perhaps in this case, as a way to decisively subjugate a prospective rival to the Prophets, High Charity instead appears in orbit over Equus as a part of an overwhelming show of strength.
Needs a good justification though, say perhaps, the Princess's own student secretly colluding with the Terran heretics in in utter betrayal of the Great Journey? Twilight could very easily create an indescribable political problem for Celestia here.
5184326
Good points.
We know currently very little of Equestrias disposition and the details of the interactions between the Prophets and the Princesses, outside of the fact that the Princesses and the Hierarchs are equal in standing in the social pyramid of the Covenant.
If this story ends up similar to the original Halo, then installation 4 will be destroyed and Thel Vadam will be charged with its destruction. However we dont know what will happen to Twilight.
My guess is that since she has had a revelation and is now one with Captain Keyes, when the Halo installation finally goes down, she will end up with the Humans, making her a traitor in the eyes of the Covenant.
The question is what will Celestias reaction be to this turn of events. We know something of the war and the Prophets bothers her enough to send her prized student to find the truth, but otherwise we dont know how different she is from the original Celestia. How Celestia reacts to Twilights apparent betrayal will dictate Equestrias response to the Humans and their standing during the events of the schism. Both important positions in what is basically the end game of the war.
I guess time will tell and hopefully we can soon learn more of Equestrias stand on current events and how that will play out in the events of Halo 2.
This does a pretty good job painting the Equestrian military as shiny and impressive, but also the kind of pathetic you expect from a nation that has managed peace for a truly impressive length of time.
Yet from what we've seen of the story, Equestrians are incredibly powerful on a personal level. Obviously the named characters are a cut above most, but it seems like those that survive a bit of combat experience tend to be a force to be reckoned with; even Fluttershy demonstrates that a civilian can offer pretty significant utility at will. And Twilight was a force of nature even before her, uh, upgrade.
They're definitely not ready for a sudden war, but Equestria certainly does a good job of being someone you REALLY want as a friend, whether in war or in peace. Pretty appropriate for the kind of civilization Celestia would forge. Makes me wonder where Luna fits in, though?