I was thinking, since Equestria has a Royal Guard that means that they must have a navy, airforce (with use of chariots, airships, and pegasi of course), and probably an army.

What is Equestria's militaristic power?

Now go on, discuss!

1672311 Equestria's militaristic power is probably small due to the peaceful nature of the ponies, but regardless, this may bite them in the flank if a aggressive nation invades them.

As for the Equestria navy: Well, royal navy, of course since they have a monarchy system. Probably their ships are kinda like ours during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, expect without cannons, of course.

1672311 They don't seem that advanced in terms of military tech. The only weapon I've ever seen their guards use are spears, and the Wonderbolts tactics against Spikezilla consisted of "flying at him really fast while leaving a smoke trail." As for their navy, I'm guessing since they have trains and such that they might have Civil War-era Ironclads, circa Monitor/Merrimack. Whether or not they have artillery has yet to be seen, and if their zeppelins or chariots are armed, I haven't seen any offensive weapons on them yet. The only truly offensive magic I've seen in the show involved Chrysalis vs Celestia, and it's heavily implied that before Twilight became an alicorn that she was one of the strongest unicorns in history, which means Shining Armor and other royal guards probably aren't that much stronger or weaker than her on either side of the spectrum considering his shield is large enough to encompass both Canterlot and the Crystal Empire, but could not withstand thousands of Changlings head-butting it for a few minutes.

I'll be honest, I have no idea.

I think all they have is the royal guard. They are bound to have a few tricks up their sleeves (like shiny armour's shield spell), but not all that much.

Then again maybe what we have seen so far is just the tip of the Iceberg. Ever seen the works of Equestria Prevails?

Includes stuff like this:

1672311 1672369 1672371 1672457
Considering how Nightmare Moon, the Changelings, and King Sombra were handled; that is, by sending six young, inexperienced, untrained civilian girls without evidence of support or strategy at all, and no sign of alternate backup plans should they fail?

...There is no military. The Royal Guard are a glorified police force and ceremonial accompaniment for the princesses. I would even say that is insulting to real military organizations to liken the Royal Guard a military force. Hell, I'd even venture as far as to say that it's insulting even call them "guards" at all!

Given the evidence, they don't seem equipped or trained to deal with warfare. I mean, if six non-combatant civilians are able to beat down a host of changelings in grand melee while unarmed and unarmored while the entire Guard is unable to repel the invaders, then the Guard must be especially unprepared for combat situations. So in the end, they're pretty much just around to look good, act authoritative, and remain stone-faced.

1672526
In fairness:

The NMM scenario had to be solved by Twilight and the gang. They were the only ones that could save Luna, and they had to do it alone, because it was their journey together that allowed to form the bonds required to harness the power of the elements.

As for Sombra it was part of a test administered to Twilight for reasons that aren't quite clear yet, but likely have something to do with her Alicoronation. The presence of a military could screw that up. Plus Twi and the gang have proven they work together well. Strap them with a few royal guards and that might end up screwing up the team dynamics.

The changelings don't speak well to the hypothetical Equestrian military or the royal guards competence. It was a crass strategic mistake to make the same guy that was in charge of the shield also in charge of organizing the defence. The entire defence of the city rested on in and when he fell, so did it.

But there is a silver lining. Chrysalis might have had access to all the information she needed on Equestria's defence. Maybe even manipulate it. That information/interference might help explain why the guards were overwhelmed so quickly. And besides, we don't really know how well the battle was going. It was implying they were loosing badly, but who knows, really. Maybe the unseen sections of the city were faring better.

And finally. Equestria seems to be a fairly dangerous place. Even forgetting the Everfree forest, we have Dragons roaming around (was that swamp with the Hidra on the everfree?), the somewhat hostile diamond dogs, and if the comics are anything to go by a bunch of other stuff.

Maybe their best forces are spread all over the country and borders protecting against all kinds of stuff, and the major population centers are guarded by considerably inferior troops.

1672311>>1672369>>1672371>>1672457>>1672526 I've always thought it strange how Twilight asks if there was an epic pony war in the future. Plus considering how they train woderbolts to be able to fly past things to cut them I get the feeling there is more than has met our eyes. Muskets are beyond them. Understandable as it was luck that we found them.

I see air ships and wooden tanks. I see Massive large scale conflict as pegusi would likely use weather as a means of siege (hence the city shield)

Considering the responce of the guard at the wedding I say they are poorly prepared for sudden attacks. They are ready for large scale warfare though.....I'm kinda getting into my stories future if I say any more.

1672688
In response to all of your points at once: we never even see the guard actually do anything other than stand or wander about looking like living statues. If Equestria is such a dangerous place... then why aren't they doing anything about it?

Let's face it—the guard is presented as generally being less competent than Imperial Stormtroopers. They're only around to look the part.

Their military architecture is interesting. Canterlot Castle is in an excellent defensive position, being carved into the side of a mountain. This reminds me of Burg Maus, and Burg Katz in Germany.

It also has access to a plentiful fresh water supply and has a large, swift flowing moat. Additionally, the tower to the far right of the gate house seems like it might be equipped with machicolations.

However, the gatehouse seems less than useless, with a gate far larger than it has to be, no flanking towers, or any other way to prevent an enemy from just busting the front door in should they get past the moat. There does not seem to be any provision for the castles towers to be used for defensive purpose. Additionally, there does not seem to be any depth to the defenses, with only the inadequate gate defenses showing any signs of being fortified at all. As a defensive structure it has more in common with Neuschwanstein Castle, a pretty, fairytale castle to impress the yokels and provide a space for holding balls, than the Château de Pierrefonds, the exact same thing, except with functional defenses.

Admittedly, we haven't seen any other Equestrian castles, except the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, which has even greater flaws as a defensive structure. They might have other fortifications that are more substantial, but there is no indication of this.

1672755
Because while Equestria might be a dangerous place, Canterlot is not. Almost all the instances we have seen the guards they were either patrolling the royal palace, or guarding the Princess.

It's possible they have a bunch of other troops spread throughout the country. Most of them possibly in sparsely populated areas, if not outright inhabited to make sure nothing comes crawling out of them and attack the more populated areas.

Plus border patrols.

1672766
Also: ponies, griffons, and dragons at least all have the capacity to field flight-capable infantry units. Notice how over 80% of Canterlot is completely exposed to the air.

1672794
...Both of which we don't really see them do much of, especially when it's relevant and not just fluff; and when opportunity arises for them to do their jobs properly, they get blow aside like they're nothing of consequence... like I said, they're basically the pony version of Imperial Stormtroopers.

1672836
Yes, I have often wondered how one could adapt fortifications to take into account flying infantry. Perhaps something like later fortifications that were mostly buried.

1672836
You know, Stormtroopers were actually highly capable soldiers...outside the original trilogy, were they were the designated mooks.

In the new triology they fight competently, and eventually were the ones that killed most of the Jedi (by surprise but still). In the animated series, we actually get to follow the lives of individual troopers, seeing them as more than faceless soldiers, which I think was done very well.

Kinda the same thing with the Royal Guards. There was only one situation in the entire show where they were needed and they dropped the ball. Largely because the plot needed them too. Like the stormtroopers.

Except, unlike the stormtroopers, it was only once. And there could have been extenuating circumstances, like I mentioned.

1672942
I'd imagine something similar in function to Shining Armor's bubble would be ideal, only not completely dependent on a single individual's wellbeing. It's arguably a major flaw if your main means of defense can be taken down just by incapacitating a single individual.

1673051
Makes sense.

Or perhaps they could keep conventional castle architecture with some sort of permanent hoarding to protect the wall walks and tops of the towers. They could also design the interior courtyards to be defensible, meaning that any force which lands there would be cut to pieces. I am not entirely certain what they would do with the many domestic buildings that are usually found in castle courtyard.

This style of architecture would probably be more difficult to defend, what with them being more enclosed, meaning you would probably have to move siege engines and their ammunition through the interior passages of the castle. It would also put greater strain on the architect, since, if every courtyard could be defended, there is a real possibility that if the enemy takes the outer defenses they could turn them against the inner defenses. Some clever architecture could probably help reduce the damage that such an attack does.

1672943
Clone Troopers are not the same as Imperial Stormtroopers. The big difference is that the latter, by the time of the Empire, are mainly made up of ordinary conscripts, not elite extensively-trained genetically-identical super soldiers. Why? Because it's cheaper and faster.

Also, I can think of more than just one occasion where they "dropped the ball".
1.) Nightmare Moon. Yeah, those two guards who got owned by NMM were in way over their heads, but where exactly was the rest of the guard after that happened? It's not like I'm expecting them to go take down NMM themselves, but I do expect them to mobilize to secure the area and protect civilians when there is a clear crisis going on.
2 & 3.) Sonic Rainboom and Spikezilla. I would classify the Wonderbolts to be an branch of the kingdom guard (not palace guard, mind you) that spotlights as a daredevil troupe much like the Blue Angels and Golden Knights. In both examples, they're completely ineffectual. They get knocked loopy by Rarity like complete amateurs in the former and trapped under a the equivalent of a giant coffee mug like cockroaches in the latter. Excuse me for thinking they're not as hot shit as RD makes them out to be.
4.) Grand Galloping Gala. All that shit goes down, yet not a single guard appears to get a handle on the situation?

5.) It's About Time. So the fierce guardian of the gates of Tartarus, Cerberus, just wanders off into Ponyville for some reason... and where are the kingdom's dutiful defenders while this is happening? Yeah, Celestia sends Twilight a letter immediately after the fact about it... Celestia. Still no defenders of Equestria seen, just Celestia ex machina. And how well does it speak of their competency that a half-crazed and lost Twilight Sparkle can sneak right past them into the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the archives, which she said was supposed to be the "most secure"? And the guard just lets her in, despite her looking like a legitimate madpony revolutionist sneaking around like she's up to no good?!

6.) Changelings. Completely overrunning Canterlot. Celestia blasted in the face like a bitch. Almost no real guard presence that isn't completely for show. Enough said.

7.) The entire fiasco with King Sombra...although this one is more Celestia's doing than the failure of the guard... still, no defenders to be found.
• Celestia is informed that entire lost city that had been under the rule of a dark tyrant has reappeared. She decides to make this a test for her student.
• She sends her student to deal with the problem with no backup at all. Because the test is more important than the hundreds/thousands of innocent lives at stake, right?
• Entire thing almost falls apart completely, but they are saved at the last moment by plot armor. Student actually fails test, and seems to find it more important than the safety of the civilians.
• Trollestia passes her anyway because of bullshit contrived moral lesson she learned (AKA because she didn't want Twilight to fail because she's got a personal stake in it).
...And nobody really seems to be concerned by the fact that they all came ever so close to letting the bad guy win.

...Gambling with the fates of hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives? I would say that's justification to remove Celestia from power—that shit is not okay, you smug princess bitch.

1673209
What's clear to me is that Equestria is not prepared for hostilities, nor do the Princesses really even seem concerned with it beyond the immediate needs. It's almost as if they're confident that they can handle anything that comes their way despite all the recent evidence to the contrary—all because they have the Elements of Harmony.

...Foolish princesses, your hubris will be the agent that steals the ground from beneath your hooves and leaves you hanging on nothing.

1673498
Yep.

1673303
1.) There was hardly the need. But it is quite possible that they may have done something off-screen, then again the contingent of Royal Guards was probably limited and they could have been busy not only sending word, but also beginning to prepare some form of offensive.

2 & 3.) I disagree. I think you have to consider the time issue. Spike wasn't rampaging for long. It takes time to mount a proper defence. Yet in that short period, they did manage to come up with a small response, that I would assume was just an initial response. And they didn't do that badly considering they were up against a Dragon.

4.) That "shit" went down in a few seconds. Twi and the gang vacated the premisses immediately, before security had a chance to show up. Remember when Celestia told Twi to run? Probably to spare her friends from having to explain what the hell happened to the guards

5.) Ok, the Cerberus part is fair. Other than finding out that he was missing, authorities did nothing. If they couldn't stop him, they should have at least been able to sent out an advance warning. If they can't even do that, what the hell is the point?

And the sneak in part. Obviously the library contains some pretty dangerous information. The security seems to be pretty lax. I mean, there is an open window that can be easily accessed from the ground right in front of the damned library.

6.) Like I said, attenuating circumstances may apply.

7.) You don't know why Celestia decided to make the whole thing a test. If you don't know the reasons that compelled her to do so, then how can you judge whether or not it was the right call?

You can't.

Also, it really doesn't make a difference. If she hadn't made it a test and sent a bunch of Royal Guards what difference would that have made? None. And it's not because they aren't competent. It is simply not the type of situation that requires military force, kinda like NMM.

In fact, by strapping them together with a bunch of Royal Guards, Celestia could end up dragging the elements down. They have proven they can work together to fight villains before. You add a few others to the mix and you risk compromising that tight bond. Differences of opinion on how to deal with issues would cause tension in the group, stuff like that. As the saying goes: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"

PS. But yes, with the addition of the events on Out of Time, I concur that the show has portrayed Equestrias forces as being rather inadequate

1673592
I think you're missing the point. In the show we hardly see the "guards" doing anything productive for Equestria; and when we do get the chance to see them in action, they're portrayed as ineffectual Red Shirts in order to preserve/escalate the drama of the situation. Making excuses for them doesn't change the fact that they hardly do anything useful or relevant in the show, and is merely a case of "Worf Had The Flu" or what have you.

EDIT: Okay, you didn't miss the point, but my statement still stands. They don't contribute anything useful as "guards" in the show, and making excuses for them doesn't change that fact. If they were a real military force, those excuses wouldn't fly; they'd be deemed incompetent and inadequate at defending the nation, and things would be done to fix that error.

1673963
Just out of curiosity, is there a situation where you could accept portraying the guards as competent?

1674002
...How about taking control of the situation and getting panicked civilians back to some semblance of order? Just like what real soldiers are trained to do in crises and disasters. Is that a good example?

1674014
Sure

1673963
With respect, the points I made aren't excuses. They are perfectly valid refutations.

I agreed with your conclusion, because of 3 incidents: - The Cerberus (they should have at least sent out a warning), the changeling invasion (mostly because of the crass tactical error of entrusting their defence to a single pony, who was getting married no less) and the infiltration of the library (if the time spell is anything to go by, they should have way more security measures in place, even assuming that my theory about the elite troops being away from Canterlot is true).

I do not believe any other incident you brought up illustrates incompetence on the part of the guards.

Here is the thing: Fictional stories are set in universes that are far more vast than the scope of the stories themselves. Because of this, our vision of certain elements of that universe is often limited and even biased.

I don't suppose you happen to be a fan of Stargate? There was this enemy on Stargate SG1 called the Lucian Alliance, who made a reappearance in the spin-off Stargate Universe. I have seen a number of fans complaining the Alliance was retconned from SG1 to Universe, from an infective, ridiculous bunch of space thugs into a mastermind criminal organization.

I strongly disagree. The organization didn't change, we are just looking at it from a different angle. First of all, the spin-offs deal with different factions within the organization. On Universe the role of Alliance characters is much greater, so their characterization is more developed. Furthermore, in SG1 the alliance is credited with many successes, most of which are ignored by the fans because they happen off-screen. We do see one occasion of an Alliance member pulling of a pretty good stunt. But then he ends up dying in a silly way. In fact the overall more serious tone of Universe helped matters too. Enemies seem more fearsome when the heroes aren't constantly cracking up jokes.

Anyways. The point is this: As you yourself pointed out, from a story telling perspective, a good part of the reason the guards exist, is to experience the Worf Effect. But for all we know, royal guards are constantly doing great things off-screen. Since the question posed in this thread relates to the larger MLP universe, we have to take all this factors into consideration. We cannot just assume that because we don't see something happening in the show, it doesn't happen at all.

I have two ideas. One is that equestria maintains a small standard army. They instead use the abundince of gems and diamonds (dog and a pony show, crystal caves, crystal empire) to hire mercenaries. Possably diamond dogs as they maintain large groups of armed guards, and covet jewels.

The next. Idea is that the equestrian army is baced around the border. The royal guard a police force that patrol Canterlot. As we have yet to see any form of intence cobat, i will venture to say that the changelings simply had a vast numearical advantage.

While the Equestria military may exist, it is a non-entity. regardless of their skills, they are completely outclassed by every single threat depicted in the show. Because Twilight Sparkle is the student of Celestia, it is safe to assume that there are very few major events happening off-screen. Twilight is involved in everything because she is important. Since the places shown are the only indicators of the Guard's competency, and there is no solid hint of other Guard functions, based on the evidence, the Royal Guard is completely worthless as a military force. See my post on the Equestria vs. Rome thread for some more of my arguments about the Royal Guard/Equestrian Military (if it exists.)

1672942

There was an article in Dragon magazine years and years ago about building a castle to withstand the expected forces of a fantasy army. What good does it do to have an impregnable gatehouse if a strike-force of unicorns can just teleport into the throne room?

I could dig through my back issues of Dragon magazine if this is a topic worth investing a fair amount of time into.

--admiral biscuit

I think, given the general tech level of the show, standing armies haven't been invented yet.

That having been said . . .

I think the Royal Guard's primary function is to secure the castle, and protect Celestia and the rest of the castle staff, and--to a lesser extent--maintain order in Canterlot. I think that they're kind of a specialty force, but they're not really useful for a real battle. Imagine if the Secret Service were dropped into a war zone--they'd be wiped out. They're just not trained to handle a battle; they're trained to protect a single target in a mostly non-hostile zone.

If the Wonderbolts are an elite performance squadron drawn from the Equestrian Air Force, their skills would be more in stunt flying than military action and rescue. It's possible that they don't have the training to perform an effective rescue, and were only used in Cloudsdale because there weren't any faster fliers available. If you were on a sinking ship, would you rather have the Coast Guard or the Blue Angels show up to come to your rescue?

Again, with giant-Spike, maybe the Wonderbolts were the closest available force, and were sent in desperation. Perhaps they were just supposed to observe and report. Their stunt training might not be sufficient for actual battle.

Since it happened off-screen, we don't know if Celestia sent a contingent to guard the gates of Tartarus. She may have, or she may not have.

The Starswirl wing might not be very well guarded because the level of spells is too high for most unicorns to cast. I'll admit that this seems unlikely, because one never knows . . . imagine if Snips and Snails got their hooves on a scroll for Alicorn-amuleted Trixie? Bad stuff could happen. It's probably worth noting that the guard did see Twilight, and only opened the gate because he recognized her and trusted her.

As with NMM, Sombra might have been a threat that only Twilight and the elements of harmony could neutralize. Since his powers and his hiding spot for the Crystal Heart were largely magical, it might not have been something that heavy infantry could handle. When you're having a meltdown at Three-Mile-Island, you want experts in nuclear power plants to handle it, not a battalion of tanks.

Finally, the changeling assault. The nature of the threat was unknown, and--just like terrorist attacks IRL--the military simply couldn't respond fast enough to prevent it. Perhaps, if Cadance and Shining Armor had failed, the military could have eventually restored order . . . but they'd have had to impose martial law on Canterlot and cast a changeling-detection spell on everypony, and cleared the city on a block-by-block basis. As we've seen, even the best army in the world has trouble with insurgents and urban fighting, because how do you tell the sheep from the goats?

One of the most convincing arguments I've seen on the show for lack of a standing army is the defense of Appleoosa. The sheriff employs the townspeople in defense of the town . . . and historically, that was how it was done. You simply held out until the nobles or the crown could muster enough force to come down and help you out, and that might take weeks, or months . . . or never.

For the purpose of storytelling, I think arguments can be made either way. In the canon of the show, we've never seen a strong military force under the banner of the Crown . . . yet, if the HWE play is anything to go by, the pegasi at least have a military tradition. For my own purposes, I imagine that Equestria has the Royal Guard as a Canterlot force, a small standing army for border defense and small incursions, and a large pool of trained auxiliary soldiers, ready to take up arms if the need arises. I think that the way that RD can call on every pegasus for getting-water-to-Cloudsdale detail is evidence of this mindset: ponies like Fluttershy don't normally work the weather, but they can be called up as needed.

. . . I really wish The Descendant was here to offer his insights on the US's military history . . . he's knowledgeable about the civil war, while my own expertise in the US's military really only goes back to WWII.

1675306
Magic is rather undefined. We don't get much of a sense of how powerful your average unicorn is, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Twilight is the only pony we see teleporting with any regularity. It is left fairly up in the air how magic works in the MLP universe, so there are limits on what we can definitely say are their capabilities. Perhaps there are many unicorns who could teleport and be formed into part of an assault, maybe there are not, both can be justified.

However, we can much more definitely say how a significant portion of the population being able to fly would affect military tactics.

That Dragon magazine article does sound fascinating though, I would love to see it.

1675691

Yeah, but magic bull shit can always be counteracted with other magic bull shit. Not that I'm saying that magic is stupid or has no place in a military story, but that it is rather undefined.

Quite true, which is why a good author puts reasonable limits on power; RPG game mechanics generally do the same. A wizard might be pretty cool, but if he's out of saltpeter, that fireball just isn't happening, and wizards usually suck at hand-to-hand fighting. While we haven't seen that kind of limitation (generally) in MLP, there's spells that can only be cast once, time spells that not just anypony can do, and spells that tire out the caster (Rarity's wings, Twilight fighting the Ursa).

We don't get much of a sense of how powerful your average unicorn is, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Twilight is the only pony we see teleporting with any regularity.

That's true, but Twilight is the big fish in the small pond. I've always assumed that since Twilight's special talent is magic in general, for every spell she can do there's at least one pony who can do it better. For all we know, there's a strike-force of unicorns who specalizes in teleportation magic . . . and we know Shining can make a better shield, and we've only seen Rarity summon an object from any great distance, if I remember right.

For example, in Celestia Sleeps In, I've given hints that magic is on the electromagnetic spectrum, and causes radio interference to earthly objects. While that's certainly an arbitrary choice, it suggests that a Faraday cage would be a pretty good defense against unicorn spells. I seem to remember in Arrow 18 a microwave room-measurer caused pain to unicorns only. Three Magics by Arkensaw Pinkerton had an emotional aspect to spells.

However, we can much more definitely say how a significant portion of the population being able to fly would affect military tactics.

Yeah, open-topped towers would be more of a liability than an asset. Maybe that's why Canterlot castle has gold-colored onion-domed towers: they're Faraday cages to prevent teleportation and the shape causes dropped weapons to skid off harmlessly . . . plus, they don't have a landing spot for pegasi.

That Dragon magazine article does sound fascinating though, I would love to see it.

It'll take me a while to find. I think I remember what the cover looks like, but it's probably from the late ninties . . . I've still got it, somewhere. It's just a matter of locating the right issue. . . .

1675861
Yeah, I always forget that magic exists. I designed a castle for a Pathfinder campaign, figuring it would be quite a challenge, however, when I described it to my friend the bastard thought for a moment and came up with a dozen ways he could reduce it using magic.

That being said, the idea of a teleporting unicorn assault squad sounds pretty cool, though I could see it being a bit over powered. Do you mind if I use it?

That being said, while there is no evidence in the show of some sort of anti-magic field or other defensive spells like that, I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing exists. This would limit the usefulness of any potential magic based attack. Besides, if you go designing your fortress to be resistant to magical attacks and neglect conventional defense you would feel very silly when a bunch of earth ponies with ladders bum rush you.

1676071

Yeah, I always forget that magic exists. I designed a castle for a Pathfinder campaign, figuring it would be quite a challenge, however, when I described it to my friend the bastard thought for a moment and came up with a dozen ways he could reduce it using magic.

That's always the curse of being a DM; the players can find a dozen ways to get by your insurmountable challenge. I had a sorcerer/warrior teleport in front of a diving dragon with sword held out; he had enough HP to survive the crash landing. It was so freaking epic, I didn't feel bad that they breezed through my challenge with no trouble at all. On the other hand, I kept a whole party of players on their toes with a soap bubble and a cursed candelabra, and had them fighting over a cloak that did nothing but flare dramatically.

That being said, the idea of a teleporting unicorn assault squad sounds pretty cool, though I could see it being a bit over powered. Do you mind if I use it?

Go right ahead. It's probably no more overpowered than a well-trained SWAT team, if you have reasonable limitations to magic.

That being said, while there is no evidence in the show of some sort of anti-magic field or other defensive spells like that, I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing exists.

What about Sombra's anti-teleport crystal prison? Or magic-activated door that shows you your worst fear?

Besides, if you go designing your fortress to be resistant to magical attacks and neglect conventional defense you would feel very silly when a bunch of earth ponies with ladders bum rush you.

If you haven't, read The High Crusade by Poul Anderson. It's a medieval Crusaders vs aliens sci-fi wonderfulness. Turns out radar isn't so good at finding trebuchets, and punji pits work against tanks, too, if you dig them deep enough. The Crusader's tech is so . . . medieval that futuristic tech can't cope with it. There's real-life parallels, too . . . in the Ploesti raid of WWII, for example, the B24s flew so low that small-arms fire could hit them, something that the high-command probably hadn't anticipated.

1676118
I will be perfectly honest, my knowledge of the show is less than stellar. I have completely forgoten about the crystal prison thing.

I've been meaning to read The High Crusade for a while, I just never seem to get around to it.

The Equestrian military is a hanger-on of a bygone age. It is desperately needed, but no one wants to fund it.

Let's look at their performance. During the Canterlot Wedding incident, they managed to lose to a force which had encircled the city and get agents inside their command echelons. Ok, you can't fault them for that. The problem is that they do nothing after that. There is no chain of command for them to resort to. There is no Ancillary Commander, no XO, no form of leadership. One man is taken out and they collapse. Hell, there doesn't even appear to be a form of decent squad structure. There are simply independent agents once their leader is taken out.

Tactically, they're just as inept. They, the trained soldiers, are outdone in combat, their special talent, by a bunch of essentially hicks, most of them who have zero experience in even CQC training, let alone actual OP's. At a tactical leadership level, even the Queen's Guards, a mainly inept organization at this point, could fall back and reorganize at a Pavlov's House scenario. Here, there is nothing of the sort. There is not tactical thinking as there is no chain of command, and no one attempts to take command.

Now let's look at numbers. They're dreadful. We never see more than a platoon at once. If that. End of story.

Now, equipment. They seem to have some of the gear of a traditional pike formation, with armor, pikes, and horsepower. They're just missing something vital, or rather, two vital things- one, the fucking shield. Two, and tactical sense of a pike formation. See this? This is what a pike formation is supposed to look like. These babies were the king of the battlefield for hundreds of years. The problem with the Royal Guard? When do they ever seem to assume pike formation? When do they form columns? When do they display competency?

Remember that in the Old World, Guards were the best of the best. Ever hear of the Coldstream Guards? How about the Winged Hussars? How about the Swiss Guard?

If these are the guards, why are they so inept?

1674333

I do not believe any other incident you brought up illustrates incompetence on the part of the guards.

You're mistaking the point of the argument... which I admit seems like it might be easy to do given I didn't make it entirely clear. I'm not exactly saying they're incompetent. What I'm actually saying is that they are never portrayed as being competent. Rather, what I'm saying is connected to the quote below.

The point is this: As you yourself pointed out, from a story telling perspective, a good part of the reason the guards exist, is to experience the Worf Effect.

It's not exactly the "Worf Effect" since, while they do appear to be competent tough guys at first glance, they never do anything to prove that impression. So, the guards are more along the lines of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" with their competency being a weakly implied "Informed Attribute/Ability". Anyways, the ones "dropping the ball" are the writers of the show. Any chances they had to portray the guards as proper role models and competent authority figures was squandered for petty reasons.

But for all we know, royal guards are constantly doing great things off-screen.

Yes, that' nice and all...but it still doesn't provide any evidence of guards doing anything productive. This is different from your Star Gate example because, unlike the Alliance who you have stated were "credited with many successes" within the show, the guards' hypothetical off-screen activities are neither mentioned nor relevant in the episodes. So, we don't even have exposition to support the idea that they do anything off-screen—merely.

Since the question posed in this thread relates to the larger MLP universe, we have to take all this factors into consideration.

However, we're talking about MLP canon proper, and canon is limited to that which has actually been described in the source material, so we can only establish things we have evidence to support. While I feel the concept that Equestrian guards have additional duties that happen off-screen is sound logic that I agree with in the context of writing fanfiction, there is no evidence of it in canon, so it is at best a headcanon assumption.

...In the end, baseless conjecture is still baseless, no matter how much sense it would make were it true.

We cannot just assume that because we don't see something happening in the show, it doesn't happen at all.

Conversely, we cannot just assume that because it hasn't been proven false, it must be true. Even if you cannot imagine how it could not be true, no matter how much you think it makes practical sense, it cannot be considered 'true' as long as you do not provide valid evidence to support those claims.

That was the real foundation of my argument. Not that the guards were necessarily inept, but that they were never given a chance to be portrayed as not being inept because of choices made by the writers. Thus, the only canon evidence we have of guard activities shows the overwhelming majority of them are practically useless (Shining Armor being the only notable exception... and I don't think he's in the active guard anymore as of Season 3 anyways).

1676302

They're just missing something vital, or rather, two vital things- one, the fucking shield. Two, and tactical sense of a pike formation. See this? This is what a pike formation is supposed to look like.

Ah, the syntagma unit of the pezhetairoi infantry. Combine three dozen of these units with a half dozen or more ilai of the hetairoi and prodromoi cavalry and you've got the ancient Macedonian army of the legendary world conqueror himself, Alexander III "the Great".

...Good stuff. Excellent choice of reference.

It's not just the Worf Effect, it's also that it's not "My Little Royal Guard" (or "My Little Celestia" for that matter), so it's almost axiomatic that the Mane 6 have to be the only ones capable of countering a threat.
Armies are always next to useless in stories about heroes. The most they can hope for is to provide a distraction or land a death blow on the vulnerability the hero exposed. Compounding that is that they're apparently all adult males, and authority figures, in what's in a lot of ways a Magical Girl show.

But considering how the focus and tone of the show have shifted over the seasons, and how, being an episodic comedy, coherent worldbuilding has never really been a priority, I think there's a lot of room to justify multiple interpretations.

In the beginning, they were simply there because Equestria has royalty and royalty have guards. Guards who wear spiffy polished armor and yell things like "Who goes there?" or "Hear ye, hear ye!" Their actual efficacy as a fighting force was no more in mind than with the Red Queen's card soldiers in Alice in Wonderland. They were essentially furniture, driven home by how their job was mainly to stand around acting inanimate. But they were really good at it. It doesn't speak to combat skills, but it does to training, dedication, and discipline.

Then they started adding some sincere action sequences and, more importantly, gave the leader of the guards a name and a relationship to the main character, so the potential is there now for him and his underlings to succeed at something without stealing any of the Mane 6's thunder.
And he did actually fend off Sombra on his own, at the cost of that corruption on his horn, as well as aim and launch a tactical ballistic wife at him later on.

The world of the show has become a more intense, dangerous place, and I predict Season 4 will show them being effective in some way, now that there's actually somepony the audience can point to and credit with it.
They're not Navy SEALs, sure, but judging by the sound effects used when they move and the crispness of their actions, the animators are trying to communicate that we're supposed to at least think they're professionally competent, even if conveying it literally would involve going far out of their way, given the whole spirit of the show.

1675691

A couple more thoughts struck me, re-reading that Dragon article. In one fanfic (it was the sequel to the Pony Psychology Series by Saddlesoap Opera--I think it was called Secrets and Lies--one of the characters does a number on Twilight by stringing the main room of the library with ropes. When she teleports back . . . boom, ropes through her body. This fits with rules generally in place in RPGs.

Also, if cursed items exist (and the alicorn amulet suggests that they do), a character can't always trust a magic item to do what she supposes it does. In the second D&D movie (better than the first, in my opinion), the scrying pool fails to show a wall that's actually in the room . . . they teleport in, and the mage now has her arm fused in a wall.

Just watching the spells used in the show, there's dozens of ways in which they can be mis-applied. TK can probably fling things with some force (something Jade in The Hidden Room if I remember right used it to throw weapons); rocks and such could also be tossed. Items could be flung up into the air and let fall . . . and TK's something we've seen many unicorns use. Who needs trebuchets when you've got a unicorn artillery? Fairly heavy items (like anvils and pianos) can apparently be carried by two pegasi. Cloud platforms can provide staging where you wouldn't have it otherwise, and the potential for misusing gravity spells is beyond imagination.

Arad speculates in Stardust that the bubble that flung changelings out of Canterlot probably crushed countless numbers of them against buildings as it expanded. Now that Discord's reformed, the possible ways he can make an item fail are uncountable, and even Twilight's fail-safe spell doesn't work against his powers. And how about the want-it-need-it? It's like the pony equivalent of a Lure; lob a bespelled item into the center of an enemy camp and just wait.

The come-to-life spell has all sorts of practical aspects. One imagines a variant of it was what Flim and Flam were using to power their machine. It probably could work on any innate object, and it, too, could potentially be a triggered spell. Maybe those statues are more than just pretty displays; maybe they can be activated by unicorns if needed.

Need a clone army quick? Mirror pool. Maybe that's why all the changeling drones looked alike.

Here's a handy castle defense. Get a cockatrice and put it in a small room. Drop food down to it every now and then: you could even drop political prisoners down there; now you've got a stone army ready to go. Since cockatrices paralyze by sight, you could use a blind pony to take out the statues. If you really are feeling nasty, cast a want-it-need-it on a cockatrice and lob that into the enemy camp. Rinse and repeat as needed. If you can cast a bunch of want-it-need-it spells and have access to the Mirror pool . . . now you have a stone army, just waiting for a come-to-life spell, and you've decimated your enemy's forces.

Maybe that's why dragons don't eat ponies.

1681656
@#$%^&*ing magic.

1681736

Yeah, pretty much.

Still worth noting though: in virtually all RPGs (and plausibly in MLP) a simple, earth-pony friendly way to keep out teleporters is to just hang ropes all over the place. You could fill a whole room with them, dangling from the ceiling--kind of like a bead curtain for a doorway. Unicorn comes in . . . it'll wish it hadn't.

1681806
I don't know, what happens when two sets of molecules try to occupy the same space? I would imagine that that would get very messy very quickly. I seem to remember something about this from some old science fiction stories, and essentially it ended up converting a significant amount of the mass in question into energy, not a good outcome for anyone.

In my story I intend to keep magic relatively weak for plot reasons.

1681851

Well, yeah, technically . . . still, there could be exceptions for magic, ya know? We already know that there must be inertial dampeners for teleport spells (the Princess, at least, can teleport long-range), or else the pony would go 'splat' when she landed. It no doubt utilizes similar technology to the transporters in Star Trek. It's worth noting, though, when Twilight does a four-person running teleport, all four come out the other side still running.

1679544 and I had a discussion about this, I believe. I did a fair bit of worldbuilding work with him (not that we came to 100% agreement on subjects discussed, of course); he did the math for my pony mass experiment. I also had a discussion with Humanist about how the Equestrian sky might work; with his permission I can give you a link to the gDoc.

1681851>>1681806
Depending on the nature of the teleportation, it could just as easily be the ropes that get displaced and destroyed.

In some old FPS (I think it was a version of Quake), wasn't there some infamous mechanic where you'd explode anyone standing where you respawned?

1682030

Depending on the nature of the teleportation, it could just as easily be the ropes that get displaced and destroyed.

That's true, and the case could be made that Equestrian magic tends to fail safe. Certainly the show hasn't shown anypony dying horribly from a miscast spell. Not that it would, of course. It probably wouldn't even imply it.

As for the FPS; personally, the last one I played was Castle Wolfenstein, which probably dates me.

1682105

Certainly the show hasn't shown anypony dying horribly from a miscast spell. Not that it would, of course. It probably wouldn't even imply it.

That's true, although it does indirectly imply ponies get eaten by monsters with some regularity.
IIRC in the first episode they even say ponies usually don't come back out of the Everfree. And it's not like they saw that hydra and said, "Oh, hello. What might you be?"

I think they even talk about it sometimes, don't they? What with Nightmare Moon and a few other ones I'm hoping someone else will remember for me?

That's part of why I like seriously exploring that world - As someone descended from apex predators, a civilization of prey animals is an interesting switch. Like panspermia, it probably happens in the real universe every once in a while.

1682174

IIRC in the first episode they even say ponies usually don't come back out of the Everfree.

From the wiki:
Twilight Sparkle: So, none of you have been in here before?
Rarity: Ugh, Heavens no! Just look at it - it's dreadful.
Applejack: And it ain't natural. Folk say it don't work the same as Equestria.
Twilight Sparkle: What's that supposed to mean?
Rainbow Dash: Nopony knows. You know why?
Applejack: Rainbow, quit it.
Rainbow Dash: 'cause every pony who's ever come in, has never come out!

I don't tend to give full credit to anything that RD or Pinkie says[1]--after all, not only the EoH have ventured into the Everfree, but the CMC have, too; Snips and Snails presumably lured the Ursa Minor from there, and Zecora lives there.

Don't get me wrong--I personally prefer the more realistic view, where mis-cast spells can kill the caster or poor innocent bystanders, magic effects might not be reversible, and the world is full of monsters that would sooner eat a pony than reason with her. Given the context of the quote, though, I'd assume RD was trying to make everypony else nervous.

I'd assume that mares tell their fillies that to keep them out of the Everfree, since it is dangerous, but it's certainly passable if one takes precautions.

[1] For example, both RD and Cheerilee refer to cutie marks being 'on the flank.' I only used the term 'flank' for where a cutie mark appears because Cheerilee says so. RD might be loyal, but she's not always the best source for information.

1682021
I always liked to think that the pony sky worked like the Ptolomean model, with the cosmos consisting of nestled crystal spheres with Pony earth in the center. The princesses would of course have control over the spheres.

1682265
Yeah, I mean, they dropped that bit about it being a no-mare's-zone pretty damn quickly, and Rainbow ostensibly grew up in Cloudsdale and moved to Ponyville as an adult, but presumably there are reasons those warnings are about the Everfree and not about, say, Whitetail Woods. For every Granny Smith who went in there and then escaped from Timberwolves, there was probably one other pony who wasn't fast and alert enough and ended up as a series of wooden turds. And Zecora living there is pretty much only to underscore how much of a badass she is.

But the story I'm currently writing is going to do a lot of explorations of a "realistic" Equestria, and yeah, the idea is that most places really are passable with preparation, and especially by not travelling alone, which is exactly one of the reasons Friendship is Magic.

1682362

It was necessary that it be a geocentric but otherwise normal system (no other planets) for the sake of my story; otherwise I would have used they Tychonic system (and I probably could have made that work, had I done a little more research beforehoof).

The Flat Earth Society's model is a plausible model for Equestria, too, if Equestria exists in its own universe.

I've no doubt that with a little bit of knowledge, Equestrian society could fit neatly into the Greek mythos; it's already mostly there. Sadly, I'm not really up to speed on Greek myths--not enough to pull it off.

1682449
I just really like the Ptolomean system, it has a nice mythical element to it. It is also a beautiful and well thought out system, besides being dead wrong.