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// The Battle and Fall of the Republic 
// Story: A Guide to Recent Equestrian History 
// by mint20 
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The Reign of Discord
2050-2148 AW
The Battle and Fall of the Republic
2049-2050 AW


After the Riot of 2048, Equestria was teetering on the brink of civil war. It was clear to everypony that the Republic had been ignoring the needs of the ponies served by it by accepting bribes and living in extravagance, along with the upper classes. Soon, though, something happened that changed everything.

On a cold, snowy day in 2049, Discord showed himself for the first time near a small village located near modern-day Manehatten, the cradle of pony civilization, if one could call the Three Tribes Period “civilization.” He attacked, never directly harming his victims, but subjecting them to all forms of chaos and agony.

Word of this spread swiftly, and most ponies quickly forgot about their grievances. Despite their anger at the Republic and excessively rich, the ponies of Equestria were still very proud to be Equestrian. Reforms could be enacted later; a threat to the nation, however, had to be acted on immediately. When the call to arms came and war was declared, ponies flocked to pick up weapons. It is estimated that four hundred fifty thousand unicorns, half a million earth ponies, and six hundred twenty-five thousand pegasi answered the call, for a total of one million, five hundred seventy-five thousand combat troops. This would be the largest army mobilized by Equestria until the Second Battle of Ponyville.

They met their enemy near the site of his first encounter with his soon-to-forced-subjects. When General Wind Thistle saw her adversary, she was allegedly flabbergasted when he emerged, “chuckling like a little filly.” Seeing the enemy like this, she abandoned her complicated battle plans and instead opted for a head-on assault, hoping to overwhelm him with sheer numbers. This proved to be a great mistake.

While not even Discord takes Discord seriously, he possesses great power and, more importantly, great cunning. Even though he considers direct conflict and war beneath him, he has no issue manipulating and bending friend and foe alike to his will. Also, he often seizes control of the elements from the Tribes that control them and uses the elements against them. For instance, the army didn’t know of it, but Discord had already cast a blanket enchantment over the entire field of battle that twisted and warped spells of healing to be extremely painful or even lethal. This would prove to be confusing and demoralizing as the battle progressed and more and more ponies were wounded.

As the front lines of the army advanced, Discord reportedly, “Yawned, then checked an imaginary watch. Satisfied that he was keeping to his imagined agenda, the enemy proceed to wreck havoc within our lines.”

Now, how exactly he accomplished this not certain, as is any battle. Battle is, by definition, large-scale, confusing, and involves many ponies. All of their accounts must be taken account before a conclusion can be reached. Now, another thing to be considered is the fact that, when dealing with battle and war, both sides often hyperinflate their enemy’s forces to either excuse a defeat or make a victory seem “glorious.” The same goes for their own armies, but in reverse, lowering the numbers of their own forces.

What is clear, however, is that Discord was ruthless and efficient. When the pony army attacked him, the spirit of disharmony reportedly wrestled control of the skies from the pegasi and diverted a huge storm back at them, knocking some out of the air and forcing the others to push back. This wrecked much sorrow and confusion throughout the ranks of the land-based ponies, many of the ponies that had survived the battle claimed that by the last, most desperate phase of the combat, a F5 tornado was raging.

Meanwhile, Discord had not forgotten about the Unicorns and Earth ponies. As they advanced, he first cast a spell, trapping the Earth ponies in large soap bubbles, bringing them up high in the sky, then slowly popping them, one at a time, so they fell to their deaths. Meanwhile, he subtly played with the Unicorn’s magic, not making guaranteed changes. Rather, there was an even chance that an offensive spell cast against Discord would fail, and instead summon enormous foodstuffs, ranging from breath mints to entire wedding cakes. It was said that enough food fell from the sky that Equestria would have been well-fed, even obese, for a decade.

As innocent as this may have seemed at a brief glance, nothing was farther from the truth. While how these...interesting weapons worked is lost to history, it is clear that they were devastating. 

The Equestrian Armed Forces were out of their league. They were facing a single enemy, yes. However, this single enemy possessed great power and was cunning enough to make the million-to-one ratio irrelevant. Do not misinterpret this book to be insulting Equestria’s armies, far from it. Discord was rather badly hurt in the last few moments of the battle by a small squadron of war-hardened veterans from all Tribes. All of them perished in the backlash, but Discord was forced to rest and recover for much of 2049. Regardless, by the end of the day, one hundred thousand earth ponies, seventy thousand unicorns, and one hundred twenty-five thousand pegasi were dead. While not the worst defeat Equestria had suffered, the death toll was still appalling, both then and now.

The effect the battle had on the population is not entirely clear, however, the already waning trust ponies had in the Republic continued to collapse. By 2050, the Republic was not only fighting an external enemy, but also massive internal strife. While it did not lead to open civil war, the tensions and arguments would make it hard for the Equestrian Resistance Alliance to unite as a whole and fight Discord.

Either way, the Battle of the Republic was a turning point of Equestria’s history. When Discord took the nation’s capitol in 2050, there was little resistance. It would not be until the Celestial Years of Peace that the ponies of Equestria would have regained full trust in a large, centralized Equestria.