The History Of The Human War

by Scorched Earth

Chapter 3

Griffin Kingdom had remained neutral in the conflict so far, but after the Fall of Los Pegasus, formally declared that they would join Equesteria in it's fight. Griffins brought much needed ponypower against the humans. When humans made their attempt to push through Ghastly Gorge Defense Line, it was thanks to griffins that the line held. However, griffins were inexperienced in battles against humans and made several mistakes that Royal guard has committed during the early days of the war, mainly ignoring human projectile weaponry and attempting to rush them.

These mistakes were soon corrected. Counterattack to retake lost positions was success and humans were beaten back, earning ponies much needed victory. Griffin claws were particularly effective. Ponies had to either cause massive bodily harm or aim at the weaker mask to cause the suits to rupture, whereas simple claw strike allowed griffins to tear human suits open much faster.

Bolstered by new victories and allies, Royal Guard attempted, with assistance from Elements of the Harmony, to liberate Los Pegasus. Assault was a joint Pony-Griffin assault, one of the few on history. In retrospect, had Royal Guard launched the attack earlier it might have succeeded. As it was, poor timing caused it to fail to achieve it’s objective.

Liberation force launched an attack on the Los Pegasus, hoping to dislodge human forces entrenched there. With aid of the Elements of the Harmony, joint pony-griffin force was able to push through first line of defense. For 4 days, battle raged with neither side gaining definite advantage. On the fifth day, human reinforcements arrived.

As mentioned earlier, plan failed mainly due to poor timing. Canterlot was still unaware of time it took to travel between the planet and the moon. Unfortunately for the Royal Guard, human transports had been approaching the planet when the assault was carried out. They arrived on the 5th day of the battle, dropping entire new regiment of humans to the battlefield, reinforced with a battalion of ACES. Furthermore, humans dropped numerous units behind the lines causing the army to be surrounded. One human survivor describes the event:

“It was like a gift from the heavens. These ponies, they had been pushing towards us for last 4 days and we were nearly out of ammunition. We feared we would need to get into close combat where you ponies held definite advantage. You could take cuts. We couldn't.

So you can imagine how glad we were when those ships arrived. We were saved. The cavalry had arrived to save us. Just in nick the time, like in the movies. We wouldn't die here. We would be able to see our families again. This was not the end.

We had won.”

Human dominance of Los Pegasus continued and most the army was lost. After a long and stressful process, I managed to convince Bearer of Element of Loyalty, Rainbow Dash, to speak about those final moments.

“So we had been pushing towards them, you see? We were sure that this time, this time we would win! And it would be awesome victory for us! But... then those ships arrived... and ruined everything! All the suddenly humans were everywhere, in front of us, behind us, around us, constantly shooting us. The army crumpled. I wanted to fight, but Applejack and Twilight Sparkle convinced me to retreat. Me and Fluttershy flew up to inform our air forces.

One of the griffins flew to us, asking for orders. She got shot, right through her head. It exploded in gore and blood... That image still appears in my nightmares... Then I saw one of them human machines trying to aim at me. Me! I heard the characteristics 'BRAKA' sound those things made. I pulled myself around and up, thinking how awesome I was for avoiding those bullets... only to forget who was behind me...

I heard a sickening crunch. Then Fluttershy screamed in pain. I saw how her left hind leg dangled on a small piece of flesh, before snapping and dropping down. I saw blood pour out. Then she started to fall. I managed to catch her and bring her back to Twilight. Thank Celestia Twilight knows so many spells. Without her... I don't want to think about it. Twilight teleported us out after that. Still.. to this day... whenever I see Fluttershy and her prosthetic leg... despite what she says... I can't but think one thing.

My fault”.

After pony/griffin army was defeated during Battle of Los Pegasus, a 4 month time of peace settled over Equestria. Ponies, not able to control arrival of winter due to Operation Weather Storm, were forced to dig in and wait for human action. Fortunately for ponies, humans were reluctant to take offensive actions during the winter. This lead to so called “Winter Armistice”. Humanity reinforced it's positions and brought more soldiers, as well as giving veterans some well needed vacation time.

Winter proved to be a quite different experience to humans, who had not experience one for over thousand years. One describes the experience as follows:

“I want you imagine you had never seen winter. Never seen autumn. We thought the world was dying. Trees lost their color, air became cold. It was... unnatural. How are you supposed to just sit by and watch the world die around you?

Then came the snow. By the Sun, that thing was weird. Sure, I have seen ice before. How do you think we got our water all these years? Recycling gets you only so far, there is always waste product. Stuff you can’t recycle. Anyway, I am rambling. Now, I knew what ice was. Still, ice from the sky? Not only ice, but this weird, white stuff? It was freaky. I swear, several guys totally freaked out the first day it snowed.

Good thing our machines were designed to operate in the space. If they hadn’t, I bet our entire army would have been bogged down due to stuff freezing up. I know my gun did, several times in fact.”

Human Archives: “Winter Armistice” was mainly due to uncertainty of weather. Thanks to ponies closing skies above the human controlled areas, as well as events during Battle of Ponyville, High Command was reluctant to sends troops into unknown area, even by orbital drops, only to be caught in „unexpected“ snow storm.

Near the end of the Winter Armistice, humanity made contact with a race they weren't familiar with: Diamond Dogs. Despite initial hostility, both sides quickly found somewhat unexpected cooperation: Diamond Dogs could easily dig out resources humans were in bad need, such as metals. In return, humanity was able to supply them with advanced medicine and equipment, as well as large stockpiles of captured diamonds.

With Diamond Dogs already possessing degree is resentment towards ponies, they found unexpected friend and ally in humanity. Humanity, being mostly confused how diamond dogs natural magic didn't seem harmful to them. This became most prominent when during one the trade events, when one human got into a fight with a diamond dig and ruptured his suit. Trying to clamp the suit down before suffering painful death, he was unable to do so due to the size of the rupture. However, diamond dog that he had gotten into the fight did manage to close the rupture with his hand causing the human to stop suffering from magic. This created confusion among humans, especially the human whose suit was ruptured. I wanted to interview him for this event, but unfortunately, he, like many others, died during the war. However, I managed to speak one of the diamond dogs who witnessed the event:

“It was weird. This human, Alec they called him, started an argument with Ruffer. I think it was whenever Ruffer looked like an ape or not. Anyway, Ruffer tried to punch him, he avoided it and punched back. Then Ruffer clawed him. Got him by the arm. So then this humans starts to scream and tries to clamp down on that rupture. Other humans start to panic. I realized it was the rupture that was causing it. So I ordered Ruffer to cover it. So then this human started to calm down and rest of them had this weird thing going on. They kept looking down to the human, then to the hand, then to Ruffer, back to hand, back to human... repeat few times and you get the idea.”

Humanity was starting it's offensives again, thanks to winter starting to pass. Unable to maneuver like they wanted due to still on-going Operation Weather Storm, they sought new type of approach: underground. Negotiations were started with the diamond dogs on prospect on an alliance.

Meanwhile, Royal Guard was preparing for an assault to rescue prisoners of Fillydelphia. Operation Freedom was different to previous actions in that it's goal was not capture of lost territories and it relied more on the shock and awe than defeating the enemy conventionally. At this point, new “hoofclaws” had been introduced to Royal Guards based on griffin talons.

Assault on Prisoner Camp of Fillydelphia, or Camp August as humans called, was carried on 5th month of the second year. By the standards of the war, it was a great success. Human company stationed at the Camp August was caught by surprise and overrun before they could call of reinforcements. By the time humans learned about the attack, prisoners had been evacuated and camp was found empty.

Success of the operation was a good morale booster to Equestria and with several smaller raids, convinced many that Equestria had not been beaten yet

Negations eventually reached their conclusion with the diamond dogs and a military alliance was signed between humanity and diamond dogs, referred officially as “Diamond Dog Protectorate”, a newly formed state. With the “Diamond Treaty”, humanity gained access to numerous mineral deposits under Equestria, as well as unparalleled underground network that allowed humans to reach any part of Equestria without having to push through pony defense lines. Interestingly enough, this opportunity was never fully realized, most likely due to inexperience of diamond dogs in war and human focus on air superiority.

Ponies learned of this alliance the hard way. “Operation Snakes Head”, as it was unflatteringly called, was first Human-Dog offensive. It involved diamond dogs tunneling beneath the Castle Canterlot and then breaching the ground, allowing humans and dogs, now armed with human weapons and armors, attack the seat of Equestrian government. Attack was devastating to Equestria. Main reason why it failed in it's main goal, to kill Princesses, was that they were not at Canterlot during the assault. Princess Luna was at the time at Ponyville, helping locals to wrap up the winter. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia had taken route trough Griffin Kingdoms down to south to Zebra Union. Humanity however, was unaware of this and thought that both Princesses would be at Canterlot.

Castle Canterlot was destroyed as the result of the assault, with deaths of General Shining Armor and Wonderbolt members Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Open Skies, Cloud Buster and Thundercloud. Death of General Shining Armor stuck Twilight Sparkle especially hard, causing her to fall into depression. Attack also saw several human prisoners escaping. Only one of diamond dogs who participated on the assault has lived to this, other having either died during the assault or during the war. It took quite amount of convincing to have human ambassador to even reveal his name and then even more convincing to meet him and then even more convincing to have him talk about the assault. He wished to remain anonymous, but here is what he told me:

“So... Battle of Canterlot, huh? Our first foray into the war. I remember it. That modified human weapon in my hand. Armor made from decommissioned ACES suits. I felt I could take on Ursa Major and win! I felt invincible! The power rush was awesome. Anyway, the assault. We had dug our way under Canterlot, humans were with us. I was in team Gamma, that was 5 dogs, 5 humans and one of them ACES suits. I always wanted one of them, but their interior was not designed for dogs.

We broke through the ground. Caught everyone unprepared. I remember our job was to kill the command staff, generals and captains. We and teams Omega and Epsilon. The first pony I killed, it was a gray pegasus guard. He tried to attack me, I managed to raise my gun, aim at him and pull the trigger. Now, weapons humans gave us were much more bigger than they used, they called us 'living heavy weapons platforms' for our strength. Sure, weapons were more crude than what they had, they had to work as clubs in close range. Didn't matter to us. Humans treated us with respect. They knew we weren't on the same level as them, but still, they also saw how much we could help each others. Pegasus just exploded in shower of gore and blood.

Back to the matter at hand... so... we fought our way through the castle. We eventually reached the command post, there were these four generals. Guards tried to stop us while the generals ran. Well, except the one. Shining Armor stayed behind to coordinate the defense. Didn't help him much, Ruffles got him. That ACES suit guy from Epsilon team finished the job with grenade. Rest of the command staff escaped. We tried to give pursuit, but they collapsed the way in front of us. So we moved to second objective: planting bombs. We put our bombs in their position and started raising hell.

Worked pretty well, after all. We got message over the radio to activate the bombs and pull back. That's what we did. A guy from Alpha team saw the explosions and said it was pretty cool looking. Have to take his word for it.

Hehe... why are you looking so shocked, little pony? The casual way I talk? I see you weren't in the front lines. It gets easier more you do it. Or, better to say, it gets either easier or you go mad from the guilt. Few dogs and humans did. Went mad from all the killing they had to do. Committed suicides. Poor bastards”.

Destruction of the Canterlot Castle forced Royal Princesses to move the seat of government. First location was Ponyville, where Princess Luna was when news of the attack arrived.

News of diamond dogs alliance with humans greatly disturbed ponykind, especially after “official” declaration of war was brought by one of the diamond dogs. Sudden appearance of Diamond Dog Protectorate and human assault of Canterlot also lead to failure to negotiate alliance with Zebra Union. Zebra Union didn't believe it could fight against threat such as humanity and diamond dogs represented and feared of similar attacks. Furthermore, unable to employ cloud curtains and lack of magical abilities of unicorns and pegasis further made Zebra Union reluctant to enter war that waged north of them.

Human Archives: Humanity originally had plans to expand into Zebra Union territory. However, when it was realized that two states were separate, it was hoped that sufficient first victories would be enough to deter the other from joining the war. During the war, there were power blocks that demanded assaults against zebras. However, military command was reluctant to fight two-front war and believed the zebra nation to be non-hostile, at least for the current time.

As it turned out, this assumption was true and continued human victories during the first year, with lack of assaults against zebras, lead Zebra Union to stay out of the war. Underground support and volunteer troops however, continued throughout the war.

Ghastly Gorge has become a symbol of constant struggle between ponies and humans during the war. It became de facto border, with neither side unable to push through. However, Fifth Battle of Ghastly Gorge finally broke the stalemate that had began since the war. Humans, with assistance of diamond dogs, used underground paths to surround the pony defenders. With diamond dog troops attacking from the rear and humans assaulting from the front, pony defenses of Ghastly Gorge fell.