//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The History Of The Human War // by Scorched Earth //------------------------------// Human March To The Sea Unable to push forward, Canterlot opted to dig in and try to contain the enemy force. Luckily for Equestria, human choice of location was good for a defensive war, but bad for offensive. Ghastly Gorge created natural obstacle to limit human advance. San Palomino Desert to the west created an another obstacle, preventing humans from simply marching to Los Pegasus. Humans attempted to push through Everfree forest, however, the fate of this unit is unknown as it disappeared soon after entering the forest. Human Archives: 35th Expedition Force attempted to bypass pony defenses by taking route through Everfree Forest. Last communication from the unit was the following message: “Oh my God here they come again! This is Commander Langey to Ground Base Echo! We need help! Trees are fucking attackin... REICH UND GOTT WHAT IS THAT!? SHOOT IT! FUCKING KILL-” *Static* After losing the entire Expedition Force to Everfree Forest, humans were left with only two directions to move: Through the pony defense line on the other side of the Ghastly Gorge or attempt to push east towards Baltimare. Human forces started to move on the 3rd month of the war, after being reinforced by the second wave of troops. Human March To The Sea, as the Baltimare Campaign would later be called, set the countryside in fire like never seen before. Humanity, unwilling to lose it's troops to different types of monsters that lived in the forest areas, destroyed everything that they considered “a vital enemy asset” or “a dangerous natural occurrence”. This, however, gave Royal Guard much needed time to evacuate Baltimare and set up the defense position around it. Both Princesses, as well as the Elements of Harmony, were at the site when human forces finally arrived. Human soldier describes the arrival in his journal: “I can see the city from here. Those creatures are setting up defense lines. Whole place has been made hard as fuck to reach. They got this weird pink/purple barrier around themselves and the city. The command is adamant that we breach them here. Mike saw one them weird thingies, the winged unicorns. Said it was the same one that lead the assault on the Forward Base 3. “ Dunno about that. I got my orders. Me and rest of the ACES pilots are going to be on the front of the assault. May God watch us all and may He grant mercy to our enemies. We can spare none.” Battle of Baltimare was bloody to both sides. Ponies, unable to counter human firepower, were forced to attempt to cross no-pony's land to get into hoof-to-hand combat. Humans, on the other hand, had hard time trying to push through magical barriers set by Princesses as well as Elements of Harmony. To this day, there is no consensus on the casualties of the battle, with pony casualties ranging from 6 000 to 15 000 and human casualties ranging between 1 500 to 2 500. However, despite holding the line initially, ponies were eventually forced retreat as a lucky human shot hit Princess Luna. Although non-fatal, shock of pain caused Princess Luna to lose her concentration. Princess Celestia, alarmed of what had happened, lost her concentration as well. Humans, seeing a path ahead of them, concentrated their attack on the now weakened point of the defenses, eventually overwhelming the defenders and breaking through. As human forces pushed closer to the city, General Broken Steel gave order to retreat. He explains his decisions as follows: “We had lost, no doubt about it. Some say we should have just created an another barrier, but how? Princess Luna was hurt. Princess Celestia was in a distress. Elements of the Harmony were tired. Unicorns couldn't create large or strong enough barrier to protect us. Humans were advancing on all fronts. “It was better to retreat and fight another day than die for a lost cause. I am not proud about the fall of Baltimare, but it was a necessary sacrifice. What if we had stayed there? What if we had allowed humans to reach Princesses? Or Elements of the Harmony? No. I do not even want to think about it. I was better to lose Baltimare, than lose everything”. The battle was still, despite ending in human victory, the first time ponies were able to mount significant fight against the human forces. This would slow human advance just enough for Rainbow Dash, the Bearer of Element of Loyalty, to come up with the plans for “Operation Weather Storm”. Operation Weather Storm Operation Weather Storm was the first major pony offensive of the war. It involved nearly all the pegasis of the Equestria in an attempt to stop human advance. Plan involved closing the skies in a thick cloud curtain and sending every single storm, hurricane and whatever pegasis could find against human forces. It also allowed the first human captives to be caught. 3 weeks after Battle of Baltimare southern parts of the Equestria, minus Los Pegasus, were covered in impenetrable cloud curtain. Human forces in Baltimare found out that area was suddenly prime target of hurricanes, cyclones and thunderstorms. To make matters worse for them, Ponies had adopted “hit-and-run” tactics, striking human supply centers. This success did not come without a price, however, as the weather of the Equesteria was deeply disturbed. Even after the war, pegasis are having hard time bringing the weather back under the control. This can be especially be seen in Yanhoover and Tall Tale that are near inhabitable due to constantly alternating flooding and drought. However, the greatest success of the Operation Weather Storm was the capture of human transport. One transport attempted to breach the cloud curtain, instead of taking the long and dangerous route of going around the curtain and flying under it. The transport was stuck in the curtain and quickly swarmed by Royal Guard. 20 humans were taken as prisoners as well as the transport. They were quickly taken to Canterlot for interrogation. I managed to gain access to “Interrogation #3” transcript. *Transcript: Interrogation #3, unknown species, subject P3* Interrogator #1: Right, let's hope you are more willing to speak to us. Let us start. What are you? Prisoner: *remains silent* Interrogator #2: Look, I know you don't like us and I sure as Luna don't like you. However, sooner you speak to us sooner we can get over this. Maybe we can make it worthwhile for you? Prisoner: *remains silent and attempts to break his chains* Interrogator #1: Looks like another failure...Two earlier weren't any more talkative. Interrogator #2: Maybe it's those masks? Interrogator #1: Hmmm... Okay, hey, assistant, could you try to remove that mask? *Assistant uses his magic to remove prisoners mask* Prisoner: *Screams incoherently* Interrogator #2: BY THE CELESTIA! Interrogator #1: What is happening! Put it back! Put it back! *Prisoner keeps screaming. Assistant attempts to replace the mask, but unable due to erratic movement of the prisoner* *Prisoner dies* Interrogator #1: Goddesses... Interrogator #2: Assistant. Make note. Under any circumstances do not remove prisoners masks. Better yet, do not attempt to remove their suits. At all. Send it to everyone. Interrogator #1: And... and get someone to...clean this... get some to take care of... just... I need to take a break. When I return... please make sure that the... remains... are not here. *Transcript ends* Furthermore, I was able to convince Twilight Sparkle to speak about the first time she saw a human prisoner. “It was... kinda weird. Here it was, the threat we all fought against, chained to a wall from it's limbs and what did it do? Just sit there. Sit and watch us. It was first time I really could look at them, well, their suits to be more specific. They really liked black. Black helmet that had that weird T-shaped red visor on it. “Two breathing tubes from either side moving to backsides, that had this small backpack that was apparently an air purifier. Five fingers. Black suit worn under the armor. Shoulder pads, as well as pads on the knees and elbows. They had this interesting red rim on them. “On the right shoulder, they had this symbol. I thought it was their cutie mark back then. A planet, with a shield behind it and a sword in front of it. Since they all shared the same mark, I had this idea that they might be clones or something. Of course, looking back now, that was a quite silly idea. “On it's chest it, back then they were ‘it’, it had an another symbol, an arrow pointing up. This one was white with blue rim. Underneath it was some text I couldn't read. Can't even remember what it said. Of course now I know that the arrow was his rank insignia and text beneath was his name.” Loss of transport ship and constant storms made humans to launch, even in their history, an unprecedented plan: to launch ground offensive on Fillydelphia and make a planetfall on Ponyville, hoping to tie up main Royal Guard army in Fillydelphia while rest of the Equestria would be cut off from Canterlot. Miracle of Ponyville At this point ponies had figured out where the humans came from. By following transports and their paths ponies were able to determine that only place that the human vessels could reach was the moon. Thus extensive network of observatories were setup to detect any possible approach by the humans. When transports were detected heading towards Ponyville and reports came in about human advance towards Fillydelphia, Princesses made hard choice: to abandon Fillydelphia and surrender it to humans, while concentrating all their forces on Ponyville to repel the assault. Human Achieves: Attack on Ponyville and Fillydephia was called “Operation Thunderstruck”. It was hoped that while the main pony force would tied up defending City 5 (Designated name of Fillydelphia), City 2 (Ponyville) would be largely undefended. This way, the pony army would be surrounded and their capital would be cut off from the rest of the nation. The plan to defend Ponyville was ambitious: to allow humans to land just before closing the skies, denying humans their air superiority and way to retreat. Royal Guard would surround the enemy and unicorns would engage the enemy from distance. Once a large enough gap would be created, Royal Guard would swarm in and engage in close range combat. The plan worked nearly perfectly. Although casualties were, once again, lopsided against ponies, the human assault was repelled. However, human transports were armed too, thus instead of been taken out of the fight as planned, they entered battle as a sort of floating combat stations. In the end, however, pegasis were able to breach these vehicles and take them out, often at cost of their own lives. Several transports were able to escape by flying low and then speeding above the clouds when the curtain ended. It is also the first battle in which Captain Trixie Lulamoon participated, although she had not enlisted yet. Humans fought to near total destruction, surrendering only after they ran out of ammunition to fight with. Still, humans destroyed much of their equipment to prevent it from falling into ponies hand. Out of total 20 000 human soldier who landed, only 231 surrendered. From those 231, only 122 would live to see end of the war. I attempted to interview them, but unfortunately they are very reluctant to share their experiences. Numbers may seem high, but it should be contrasted with pony casualties: total of 40 350 ponies dead, 4 200 wounded and thousands more displaced due to destruction from the battle. To this day, Ponyville still bears the scars from the battle. This victory came also with the price of Fillydelphia. Royal Guard, having pulled out, left the city and surrounding countryside to the mercy of the humans. Humans, still using same approach as during their March To The Sea, burned the most of Fillydelphia down in. Many have cried the Burning of Fillydelphia and ensuing massacre as a war crime, yet, Human Refuge to comment on matter and Equestria has not yet pushed the matter. At this point, humanity started to have a problem with the amount of prisoners they had. Reluctant to employ any sort of "final solution" without definite proof that it would be beneficial to humanity as a species, humans simply herded survivors in to large camps where they were guarded. Still, conditions on these camps were usually extreme, with humans having little to no knowledge on pony physiology. It is estimated 500 000 to 1 000 000 ponies died on the camps. Fall of Los Pegasus With the defeat at the Ponyville, humans were pushed back for a short time. Royal Guard once again attempted to break human lines, only to be once again beaten back. Humans, on the other hand, opted to wait little longer before gaining reinforcements. Operation Lowlands started with humans seemingly falling back, with massive amounts of equipment loaded on to their surviving transports. After this, they started to take the standard route out of the Cloud Curtain and the planet. Instead of heading to upper atmosphere, transports took a different turn: straight over San Palomino Desert towards Los Pegasus. Royal Guard Sentries tried to reach Canterlot to warn the Princesses of this new surprising assault. Unfortunately, humans transports attacked them. Only one pegasus survived and was only able to reach Canterlot a four days later. By that time, it was too late. Humans landed on Los Pegasus and proceeded to occupy the town. Local militia attempted to put up a fight, but was soon overrun by humans. Humans, being used to fighting much more trained and experienced Royal Guard, simply used their superior firepower to defeat local defenders. One survivor describes the events: “We had been trained in case of this. Monsters were coming. We could see the black shapes of their vessels on the distance, approaching us. Several pegasis tried to engage them on the air, only to be gunned down. When they landed, they spared no-one. I survived because I was a coward. I hid myself from them. Only later they found me, but at that point they had already won.” Fall of Los Pegasus was bitter defeat for Princesses and Royal Guard. Humans had in effect occupied entire southern Equestria, with Royal Guard or Royal Princesses having little to nothing to fight with. It seemed as humans would simply steamroll over Equestria.