Set roughly two years after Luna's return and redemption, Spike has begun to question whether or not non-ponies have protected rights in Equestria. When he raises his concerns to Twilight and Starlight, the Princess is offended by criticism of Celestia's system, while Starlight begins dreaming about her old ideals once more. Twilight sends their concerns to Celestia and Luna, but they soon develop very different views on how to handle the situation.

The entire time, the non-pony nations are increasingly agitated by the overwhelming influence of the pony city-states and the need for them to forsake their old cultures in favor of becoming more "civilized". An ancient prophecy foretells that a hero will emerge to unite the non-ponies and strike at their oppressors when they are at their weakest.

As the battle lines are drawn and diplomacy fails, two things are certain. The first is that no land or nation will be unscathed by the conflict; the other is that whomever succeeds will set the political precedent for the next thousand years...

Title is a reference to the MGS: Peace Walker song. This will eventually evolve into a Lunar Republic v. Solar Empire fic, but their creation will probably only be the end of this fic and the setup for a sequel. This is an AU set roughly two years after the beginning of the TV series, where the point of divergence is the Season 7 finale. There are some references to Equestria Girls and the comics, but since I haven't read very much of the comics, I'm mostly cherry-picking. There will also be a plot involving Spike as a sort of "chosen one" and the introduction of a third-party competitor in the form of an alliance between non-ponies. I'm not sure why I did it, but I thought it would be good to throw in something extra instead of just NLR fighting SE, since there's already a dozen of those out there.

I added the romance tag because the relationships of the characters have developed into important plot points.

Below are my three major warnings.

WARNING: This fic is political, though I'm trying to present each side as both an aggressor and as a defender rather than pick obvious "heroes" and "villains". That said, topics such as race form the initial crux of the fic, though in this context race means dragon/griffon/pony, etc., and the races don't have real-world racial equivalents, so please don't get worked up about it. Feel free to root for or condemn any side you want; I'll withhold my personal bias, since the point of MLP is building bridges, not walls.

WARNING 2: There will be fighting. One of my mistakes with my last NLR/SE fics was the over-the-top dramatic flare of the war, and the introduction of modern weapons. These battles will be fought using technologies shown in the show: spears, arrows, magic, and Pinkie's Party Cannon (when she wills it). I've left the casualties ambiguous because some readers prefer lots of death and some don't. Read into it however you wish.

WARNING 3: Getting sick of these, yet? There will be a lot of shipping. I tried to prevent it, but I can't help it, and now it's part of the main plot.