Twilight Struggle

by Twiface

Turn 10: The Great and Powerful

--Turn 10: The Great and Powerful--

“Tactical assessment; Red Chinese Victory: Impossible!”

“Come one, come all, prepare to be astounded, amazed, and otherwise stupefieid!” bellowed a grandiose voice from the radio. “I am The Great and Powerful Tree Dog, your master of ceremonies! And you are listening to radio free soon-to-be wasteland! That was ‘Maybe’ by the Ink Spots, and you’re listening to Universe News Radio!”

“It’s that time again, time for…. The news!” Tree Dog began. “Yeah, yeah, I know you guys are all sick and tired of my increasingly long and unnecessarily detailed reports of world events, but cheer up, ‘cause this may be the last time you’ll ever hear a report about a foreign country! Yes, it’s true, the end of the Cold War just might be in sight! It’s the tenth year already and both sides are at a near-stalemate. It appears as though both sides are preparing to make massive pushes in an effort to tip the scales in their favor.”

“Now let’s start with everypony’s favorite enemies, the zebras. What have they been up to? Lately, they’ve poured heavy amounts of aid into death squads, revolutionaries, and other guerilla movements all over Prekt and Solace, thus destabilizing the region and making it easier for them to launch coup attempts against the governments there. Unfortunately, this means that Equestria might have a harder time doing the same since there are so many zebra funded guerilla movements waiting to screw everything up. Maybe it would be best for our foreign policy minister to just simply avoid that region for the time being.”

“Meanwhile, our foreign ministry refuses to say anything yet, which means they’ve got some secret plans ahead of them. Things are looking up for us in Northern Primus, however, because they’ve just discovered huge offshore reserves of oil! What does this oil mean for us? Even though we won’t be getting a cut, it means that our Primian allies will no longer be dependent upon oil imports, thus shoving a giant ‘NOPE’ in the face of NOPEC! Ha ha, I just had to make that pun. Seriously, though, with a weaker NOPEC, the zebras won’t be able to leverage the free world’s oil dependency against it…. At least, for now….”

“Wellllll, thanks for listennnnnnniiiiinnnnnggggg, cccchhhhiiiiiiiiilllllddddrrrrreeeennnn! This is Tree Dog, awoooo! And now, some music….”

Twilight telekinetically turned off the radio, then turned to Spike to discuss strategy.

“Half of my cards are opponent-associated events,” she began, “And I have a scoring card for Solace. I wanted to focus on dominating Primus, but I don’t think I’ll be able to this turn.”

“Don’t worry about Solace, Twilight,” reassured Spike. “It’s only worth six victory points. I recommend making a bee line for Primus.”

“But how is that going to help me in the long run?” asked Twilight. “I mean, the Primian scoring card is probably in the discard pile, and in a time like this I should really be focusing on building and protecting my influence over the rest of the world. Otherwise I’ll lose the game!”

“But how else can you win?” asked Spike. “Look, going after the rest of the world might be the safest way, but in times like this, it’s the crazy stupid dangerous plan that will propel you to victory. Take a look at the board, there’s no other way you could win!”

Twilight looked at the board. Solace was already deeply under zebra control. Prekt was currently under pony domination, but a few zebra-backed coups in the region could quickly change that. Centralia and Kadur were zebra dominated, but it would take some work to get them to change. Emerelda… well… nobody cared about them!

“Alright, we’ll go with your strategy,” said Twilight. “But if the zebras win, I’ll have you be the first one they put in their pot.”

“Great!” said Spike. “Now how are we going to do this with the cards we have now?”

“Somehow we’ll have to trick the zebras into thinking that Primus isn’t our main focus,” said Twilight. “Otherwise they’ll actually try to stop us.”

“Try bluffing,” said Spike. “That’s how you beat Trixie in ‘Magic Duel.’”

“Okay,” said Twilight. “I’ll bluff. I don’t think Applejack would approve of it, though.”

“Seriously?” asked Spike. “You’re still worried about what your friends will think? She’s gonna support you no matter what you do here… unless you surrender, of course, or cheat, or lie, or… no, wait a minute… she agreed to have her whole family painted like her just so you could pretend you actually knew how to do age spells. Huh. I guess the element of honesty does approve of lying.”

“It’s not lying, Spike,” corrected Twilight, “It’s bluffing. It’s completely different, and Applejack does it all the time whenever she plays poker. She’s kind of bad at it, though, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m still doing it, because telling one small lie is way better than letting the bad guys win.”

Twilight levitated a card from her hoof into the air, and then across the table.

“Ohhh phantom!” she called seductively. “I’ve got a ‘Solace’ Scoring card right here! Better plan your next moves ac-cor-ding-ly!

The phantom thought about this for a moment, then played ‘Impeccable Planning’ for three ops points. It spent two to take over El Saltador and one to buffer its position in Mexicolt.

Twilight then played 'Twilight and Trixie Twirl a Bunch of Animals Around in the Air While Launching Rockets at Them to Entertain Saddle Arabian Royalty While Fluttershy Cries' as an event, which gave Twilight two influence points (and control) in Saddle Arabia and caused ‘Mooslim Revolution’ to become unplayable as an event. The card would have really helped Twilight earlier in the game, but whatever. It was the final turn, so it didn’t really matter that much anyway.

“Oh, maybe I didn’t have a scoring card for Solace,” she called to the phantom. “Maybe it’s for some other continent!”

The phantom wrinkled its phantom eyebrows and gave a snort of disgust, then quickly looked through its cards to re-evaluate its strategy. It played ‘The Voice of Equestria’ for two ops points, which it used to take back control of Saddle Arabia.

Then Twilight played ‘Canal Crisis’ for three ops points. The opponent-associated event of the card caused the removal of four pony influence from Prance, Caledonia, or Suindael, with no more than two influence removed per country. Because there was no pony influence in Prance at the time, the phantom just removed two influence from Caledonia and two from Suindael. Twilight put two points in the Changeling Kingdom and one in Yugoatslavia, turning both form zebra-controlled to contested territories.

“Oh, maybe I don’t have a scoring card at all!” Twilight taunted. “Maybe I’m just BLUFFING!”
The phantom, enraged, played ‘Legacy of Nightmare Moon’ as an event, which allowed it to remove three pony influence points from Western Primus. It removed two from the Roman Empire and one from Reiterland.

Feeling lucky, Twilight played ‘Brushie War’ against the Roaman Empire. She rolled a six, modified by the zebras’ control of neighboring Prance to a five. With this smashing success, Twilight added three to her ‘Friendship Ops’ track, gained one victory point, and replaced all four of the zebra influence in the country with four pony influence, effectively taking control.

“Actually, I told the truth about the scoring card the first time,” said Twilight, revealing her Solace Scoring card. “You might want to reconsider your strategy…”

The phantom squinted at the card, verifying that it was indeed a Solace Scoring card. Then the zebra looked at the situation in Solace. Getting wise, the zebra ignored Twilight’s taunt and played ‘You’ve Got to Share, You’ve Got to Care’ for three ops points, along with ‘League of Nations Intervention’ to cancel the opponent=related event. It placed these three points in the Roaman Empire.

“The League of Nations interfering with a speech about world peace?” asked Spike. “Isn’t that kind of hypocritical?”

“The League of Nations is always hypocritical, Spike,” informed Twilight. “They always talk about world peace, but never do anything to actually achieve it.”

“Seems like a pretty pointless organization,” said Spike. “Why do we even pay for it in the first place?”

“For world peace,” said Twilight.

“But—” said Spike, but he was cut off by Twilight.

“Quiet!” she barked. “I’m trying to be brilliant here.”

Twilight played the Three Kingdoms Card for four ops points. She put three into the Three Kingdoms themselves and one in the Fillyppines, taking control of both countries. Because she spent all of her points in Kadur, the card gave her one extra point to spend in Kadur, which she used to wreset Markhoristan away from zebra control. Then, as the card directed, Twilight slid it face-down over to her phantom opponent.

“How was that brilliant?” asked Spike. “Your opponent gains an extra victory point just for holding that card.”

“Because I just took over two countries and contested a third,” said Twilight. “Now the balance of power in Kadur is almost even.”

“Aahhh,” said Spike. “I get it.”

But Spike had little time to revel in the euphoria of his newly increased intelligence, for the phantom was about to play a card that would shave the facial foliage off all the gentlesirs.

The phantom played ‘Princess of Fun’ for three ops points, two of which it spent to take back the Roaman Empire, and one of which it spent to take back the Changeling Kingdom. The event of the card, which was Equestria-associated, gave Twilight one victory point, removed all zebra influence form Caledonia (of which there was none), added one pony influence in Alpacatina, and made ‘Legacy of Nightmare Moon’ no longer playable.

“Finally!” yelled Spike. “It took that long for everypony to forget about Nightmare Moon?”

“Ponies hate it when psycho alicorns attempt to plunge the world into everlasting darkness,” said Twilight. “And they certainly don’t like anyone who tries to take over the world. It’s a very serious thing.”

“But why are there so many Hitler jokes on the internet?” asked Spike. “It only took sixty years for the world to forgive him, and yet Princess Luna had to wait a thousand.”

“The internet makes jokes about would-be conquers all the time,” said Twilight. “The latter half of Kim Jong Il’s reign was full of jokes.”

“But Kim Jong Il wasn’t a big threat,” said Spike. “Mostly just a show-off and a bluffer. Like Trixie. Or the phantom. Or you.”

“Speaking of the phantom…” said Twilight, “Let’s see just how much it’s been bluffing.”
Twilight played ‘Grain Sales to Zebras’ as an event, which allowed her to randomly choose one card from the phantom’s hand. She played ‘Churnobyl’ for three ops points, all of which she spent to make Prance into a contested territory.

“Grain Sales?” asked Spike. “They have to import grain? Wow. That’s the mark of bad leadership right there: trying to make a major impact on the world stage when you can’t even keep your own country’s shit together. No wonder why Kim Jong Il was such a failure.”

“Precisely,” said Twilight as she played the Changeling Card for three ops points, spending it all to upset the zebras’ control in Reiterland, and then using the additional point earned from using all of the card’s points in Primus to take control of Reiterland, thus turning the tables on the world stage all while ignoring the Reaganomics-induced credit crunch and resulting economic recession which was currently going on in her own country. She casually slid the Changeling Kingdom Card to the other side of the table, completely oblivious to her own hypocrisy.

Devoid of any other cards to play, the phantom played ‘Zebras Shoot Down CAL-007’ for four ops points. It spent two points in the Three Kingdoms, one in Markhoristan, and one in Guanacunia, taking control of all three battleground countries. However, being an opponent associated card, the event also occurred, which gave Twilight two victory points and degraded the DEFCON by one level.

“The DEFCON is at one point!” shouted Spike. “Does that mean that we just started an MLP equivalent of global thermonuclear war?”

“Maybe,” replied Twilight. “It all depends on how we interpret it. It really shouldn’t have been set at a non-integer in the first place, and I have absolutely no idea how we’re supposed to interpret it. Nopony gave me directions.”

“Damnit, Twilight!” said Spike. “Always trying to follow directions. We need to think outside the box in order to get the result we want!”

“And what is the result we want?” asked Twilight. “To get the most accurate measurement? Because if we were to round the DEFCON to a whole number, it would go directly to one.”

“No, dumbass!” chided Spike. “We’re trying to prevent a nuclear war, not start one! Just…. Round it up to two, okay?”

“But I can’t,” said Twilight. “That’s impossible. You can’t round anything under five tenths upward, because that’s against the rules of mathematics. No, wait a minute. You can round anything under five tenths upward. Okay, you can’t round anything under .444444444444444444444444444444, etc. upward, given that the last digit of whatever number you have is greater than 4. One point four does not meet these conditions, so therefore it must be rounded downward to one.”

“If there was a computer in charge of this,” remarked Spike, “Then we’d all be dead right now…. Okay, how about we just keep the DEFCON where it is, don’t round it anywhere, and because we all want to stay alive, we’ll continue playing on the technicality that because it’s not exactly at one, it doesn’t trigger a nuclear war.”

“But that’s against the rules of rounding,” said Twilight. “We need to round it to one, for math’s sake.”

“No, we need to keep it where it is,” said Spike. “For the sake of the world!”

“Math is more important,” said Twilight. “Unless you can prove me wrong, the DEFCON will be set to one.”

Spike went off to search for something he could prove Twilight wrong with. After two and a half hours, he came back empty-handed.

“Didn’t find anything?” asked Twilight.

“Nope,” said Spike, “Nothing at all.”

“Then it must be set at one,” said Twilight as she moved her hoof towards the DEFCON marker. Spike grabbed the hoof and said,

“Wait! I didn’t find anything that said that the DEFCON had to be at an integer, so we don’t have to round!”
Twilight withdrew her hoof and looked puzzled.

“We don’t?” she asked. “Not a thing. I triple-checked everything that came in the box, and couldn’t find anything that said that the DEFCON had to be an integer.”

“Huh,” said Twilight. “I wonder why they didn’t make that a rule in the rulebook.”

“I don’t think they were expecting it,” said Spike. “I don’t think they were expecting divine intervention either. And besides, we’re not even playing the game right!”

“I guess you’re right, Spike,” said Twilight. “Alright. We’ll keep the DEFCON at one point four, as long as it keeps us all from being obliterated. Now, for my next turn, I’ll play—”

“Wait!” said Spike. “Read the bottom of the card that the phantom just played.”

“’Remove from play if used as an event,’” read Twilight. “So? That’s on a lot of event cards.”

“No, no, the paragraph above it!” said Spike.

“’If South Chollima is pony controlled,…’” read Twilight, “’…then the pony player may place influence or attempt realignments as if they played a 4 Ops card.’ Hey, that’s great! Thanks for catching that, Spike!”

“All in a day’s work,” said Spike. “Ya know, sometimes I wonder if Princess Celestia only sent me to Ponyville to supervise you.”

Twilight didn’t hear Spike’s comment. She was far too engrossed in placing her four ops points, which she split evenly between the Roaman Empire and the Changeling Kingdom to convert both of them to her cause.

Twilight then used her action round to play ‘Prektian Debt Crisis’ for two ops points, which she placed in Prance and Yugoatslavia.

Both countries now belonged to her.

It was now the phantom’s final action round, but it didn’t have any playable cards left, so it couldn’t do anything. Because it could not be held between turns, Twilight played her Solace scoring card, which awarded six victory points to the zebras for controlling the region, and none to the ponies since they didn’t hold a single country there.

“Welp, I guess that ends the game,” said Twilight. “Let’s tally up the points for the final scoring round.”

“No, wait!” interjected Spike. “The ‘North Primus Oil’ card lets you play eight cards this turn!”

“Oh,” said Twilight. “That’s great! For my final card play, I’ll play ‘Decolonization’ for two ops points, which I’ll place in Camelia and Jackalya.”

Twilight played the card, placed the points, and snagged two more nations into her trove. With that, the turn ended and the final scoring of the regions began.

For not completing their required ‘Friendship Operations,’ the zebras were docked one victory point. The ponies had met their required ‘Friendship Operations’ by play of the ‘Brushie War’ card, so they were docked nothing.
The score now rests at 47 to 47, an even tie between both sides. The final scoring will determine who will emerge as victor of…..Twilight Struggle.

The DEFCON rests at one point four.