How did I get here? Oh wait... Now I remember... Ponies. Amature artist and wannabe writer. Guess I had to start somewhere...
Forefront is a Royal Guard in the proud service of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. A guard who trained and studied hard to become what he is.
Then one day, his eyes are opened. On one fateful day, he comes to realize that despite all the hard training and all the studies, he failed.
They failed.
Are the Royal Guards, the proud protectors of Canterlot and the Kingdom of Equestria, destined to fail..?
Page generated in 0.137 seconds
Total duration
862 users online
1,257,101 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Interesting. I'll be watching out for updates.
Well then... I've heard a bit about the uselessness of the Royal Guard... interesting to see one starring the guard where he comes to that conclusion.
And what happens when other nations/races notice that the Equestrian Armed Forces is incompetent?
There isn't much to go on but ins an interesting premise. Eager to see where you take it.
Through given the sad and dark tags, I'm guessing its not gona be plesant.
I can't wait to see where you're going with this.
I think the Royal Guard is more like the Secret Service: they're bodyguards, not true military, and they're not oriented towards full scale combat operations, much less epic level threats.
The royal guard are like those British guards in the red uniforms with the tall furry black hats. They're purely ceremonial.
Ah, Front. Instead of quitting the guard, you should try to reform it!
6071496 Yeah, I'm not sure I understand his thinking here. The equestrian guard as a whole organization failed, not him alone. If he was a higher up then I can understand say, him blaming himself for not preparing/training the guard to deal with changelings.
If he is worried about the current state of the Guard wouldn't reform be the most useful direction to pursue?
Or is it a shame thing? Like, he doesn't want to be associated with the collective failure of the Guard?
6073110 The problem runs deeper than that I'm afraid
The Changelings were just the tip of the iceberg...
This makes me wonder: Why didn't the Changelings feed on the guards they captured? Or everyone else they captured, like the mane six, Celestia, Luna, and Cadance?
6073900 that more then a little ominous, a changeling invasion at the tip means theres gotta be some huge stuff down below.
6073964 And it is...
6073950 Who is to say they didn't..?
6074122 I suppose between Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis, he's got to be feeling pretty crappy.
On the plus side though, I admire him for being honest; out of all the guards, he seems to be the only one to fully face the fact that the have utterly failed in their charge. He's not dealing with that fact well, but at least he acknowledges it.
Such a great story!
Never even thought of the guards..
6074122 Is this story dead?
7282770 No. I'm just too slow...
Finally someone sees how bad equestria military is. The only time that elements were needed were to change Nightmare Moon back into luna and to defeat Discord. Nightmare Moon Chryalis Sombra and maybe Tirek could have been beaten with proper military might. I can't blame them too badly before all that equestria was in a era of peace their blades become dulled.
Interesting story. I agree with what LittleKhan said: he should think of or attempt to reform the royal guard first, or Shining Armor could think of it and task Forfront with doing so.
Also, why has it been nearly a year since you posted the chapter before this.
7294953 Been busy with other projects and was kinda forced put this one on hold. Sorry
7294997 Work on this more. Please.
7295146 I'll try, but I won't make any promises. I'm a slow writer and sometimes I really need a large amount of inspiration to get anything done.
Luckily for you, I may already have an idea for one or two chapters, so next update may not take a year like this one.
7295159 Good to see this again.
I hope the next chapter will involve Luna starting a combat session to get guards in shape. She's the serious one after all.
7295596 That may be a while. Right now she needs to understand what the problem is.
Okay, this story is really good! The pacing is very well done and Forefront's feelings are wonderfully detailed and clearly explained. I also love how Shining Armor has the courage to hear Forefront's point of view and actually think about it instead of just ignoring it. Funny enough, Forefront's attitude toward the Royal Guard makes him even more qualified to be a Captain. To me this means he will be determined to have the Guard do a complete 180 and go from being a joke to being a force to be reckoned with. Granted he has to work past his feelings of shame and thoughts of being a failure first.
I look forward to the continuation of this story!
Cadence, Cadence, Cadence...the guard's reputation isn't at stake; it currently still retains its undeservedly good reputation, and one stallion resigning won't change that. Rather, the guard's efficacy is in question; namely, it has none, being wholly ineffectual. This is not an issue that can be resolved quickly, or by trying to convince said stallion that the evidence of his experience is wrong. If you want the guard to be worthy of its reputation as a superb defensive fighting force, then you must find new ways to train them and good ways to test them, to prove that they can be what ponies already believe them to be. Sadly, Forefront's faith in the guard appears to be irrevocably shattered, barring extraordinary measures well beyond merely being talked at by our favorite purplecorn; if anything, HE might damage HER faith in the guard.
7320150 Points that will be brought up.
This is a problem they're only just now becoming more aware of.
I always wondered how the royal guards would feel about the whole fiasco and how it would affect them. Now I finally found a good story exploring this scenario. Thank you.
7323089 You're welcome
Just found this story.
First time I've seen someone do something like this, I've wanted to read a story like this for forever because the sailor in me just hates how lax the guard is. Thanks for taking your time to write this so I can see someone straiten the guard out.
You know this is very interesting so far, it really does bring up a lot of issues that you don't see the guard doing much in the show at least. There has to be something they do we don't normally see but this takes it that what we see is what we get. Although there had to be some things they did after all Shinning got to be Captain of the guard for a reason after all so at least he did something to earn that rank and position.
Maybe there are actually only a handful of guards that actually get to see action like Shinning or something? You know for things that don't require a Princess or the Elements to deal with.
Although how they plan on dealing with this issue is going to be a challenge if most of the guards aren't very effective.
This is such a good chapter! I like how you made it clear that Luna was not to blame for the guards' current training because she was gone for 1000 years. As for Celestia, well, it is as shame that she believed she could handle every fight better than the Guard. While she may have started doing it to keep soldiers from dying on her side, like Cadance thought, it also shows that Celestia may have slowly started, subconsciously, to lose her faith in the Guard as time went on. I also like how you showed that there are ponies in the Royal Guard that do want to better themselves once they realize that they are not as good as they could be.
I look forward to the conversation between Twilight and Forefront. Not only do I want to see Forefront start to have his self-confidence start to grow back, but I also want to see Twilight's reaction when he explains to her that she and her friends have done a lot more in a year than the Guard has in centuries.
7340432 You're welcome
7340553 Some guards like Shining do see some action and perform to the best of their abilities. But sadly they're not that many. The majority of the Royal Guard either do not take their duties seriously or have no real combat experience.
7340601
Forefront's confidence in himself and the Royal Guard may take a while. However, Twilight will discover that she and her friends have done more than the Royal Guard.
Luna can't be held responsible for the state of the Guard since she was absent a thousand years.
And Celestia obviously didn't feel comfortable having ponies fight the battles she felt she could handle herself without losing anypony. A noble cause, but one that has ultimately made her the ONLY thing standing between Equestria and destruction.
Missing a 'no' there.
7341085 Thanks
Fixed.
7340689 I was just wondering would the Wonderbolts also be part of this? They seem like originally they were a military unit but ended up being a more effective stunt team given how that thing with Spike went and then all three getting knocked out by Rarity while falling.
7342071 I might give them a mention, but ultimately this story is about the Royal Guard of Canterlot.
Given that the Wonderbolts are a military branch, they've more or less been reduced to a traveling air show, with more of a history in performing aerial stunts than military operations.
7342270 Yeah that's what I was wondering about as I could see them talking and trying to figure out how to fix things the Wonderbotls could easily be used as an example of how things have gotten with a what seems to be a special military branch pretty much turned into a stunt flyers for the most part.
Called it! I knew that Forefront wouldn't be persuaded that easily! Now, maybe Shining Armor or one of the Sisters will be able to convince him to rejoin the Guard once Luna gets a new training regimen hashed together, but short of that, nothing doing.
Yeah I think his reasons were good ones, he could have tried to reform them but given you gave him a history of defeats like that, yeah I can see why he wouldn't deserve it at the moment. I'm actually really interested in the next chapter to see how things are going with the Princesses as they try to figure out what to do now. I'm also reminded of that scene of the guard saying how he's counted the bolts in the ceiling tiles a few hundred times. Makes me wonder what else they do given that in a normal army you get relieved at least once an hour (well normally I've had to 'guard' for 4 hours straight before someone got wise to get it down to an hour)
So it makes me wonder what other things like that the guard have to put up with that would be a bit demoralizing at times to do.
Got an unneeded 'I' there.
7541004 Fixed
Poor guy, but everything he said is true.
Yeah... I've thought of things like this before, where the Royal Guard is ultimately outclassed by six ponies who, by all means they're heroic, but they don't spend any time focusing on protecting Equestria... but they up and go and succeed where the guard failed.
Must be crazy demoralizing, especially in lieu of normal successes. Maybe they can't be expected to win in a scenario that needs magical artifacts to activate, but they might be able to win in a war of defense.
7541310
I guess there are two ways to look at this:
1. The Royal Guard are tactical weapons to support the strategic weapons that are the Mane 6 and the alicorns. To steal a phrase from Terry Goodkind, they are "the steel against steel. [Princesses] are the magic against magic". They handle the "traditional" threats so the Mane 6 and Princesses can deal with magical enemies without distraction.
Or a darker possibility:
2. Princesses do not need their guards to protect them: any enemy that poses a credible threat would so outclass the Guard that going up against it with swords and spears would be tantamount to suicide. The Guard actually protects ponies from the Princesses. A deranged, diabolically cunning psychopath could strike at the all-powerful Princesses indirectly by harming family and/or loved ones. An enraged Alicorn could lash out and lay waste to vast swaths of Equestria, killing tens of thousands in blind grief and fury. The Guard's job is to protect the family and loved ones of the Processes and thus protect Equestria at large from the vengeful wrath of a grieving Alicorn...