Has been republished ((again)) so I can submit other stories without waiting for the dreaded approval waiting time. Or I'm delusional, and that's not a thing. I was not. It really does work like that.
If you want to know why it was originally taken down, read the blog. ((Also my profile's comments. This shit is cringe))
244 likes 17 dislikes before the shameful snap I made ratings visible again 'cause ppl are still reading this for some reason.
New story of similar theme coming soon, so hold 'yer horses. But this time without the cringe. Hopefully.
Takes place in an alternate universe where princess Platinum, commander Hurricane and chancellor Puddinghead begrudgingly works together in threat of annihilation by the windigos to form Equestria without their advisor's intervention. However, not everything is sunshine and rainbows, as the desperate union continues to be plagued by ethnic strife between the three tribes, and constant border raids/skirmishes from their new neighbours begin to breed a culture of mistrust and paranoia.
One such raiders were the 'savage' eastern griffons; whose origins were hidden by the impassable eastern mountain ranges which cut the Equus continent into two. Wild tales and speculations came out of the mysterious eastern lands, as even the coasts were lined with mountains; seemingly to protect its vast riches from outsiders. Little did they know, the eastern lands did not hold vast riches nor fertile lands, but was a chaotic and violent collection of warlords, counties, dukedoms and kingdoms; all fighting for so long to the point that their original casus belli had been lost or forgotten due to time.
There was no creature in Equestria who could stabilise the isolated region; many griffons having fallen attempting to unite the vast lands. Luckily, the next ones wouldn't be Equestrian. (Yeah, you know where this is going)
Enter Bismarck and Mauser; the former having been forced into retirement by the boisterous Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the latter continuing to refine his rifle designs, and eventually witnessing his Gewehr 98 becoming the standard issued German rifle. The latter was a realist and an extremely gifted statesman; whilst the former was an inventor whose name would label the infamous "Mauser" small-arms company.
Can they unite the fractured eastern lands? Can they create a unifying identity to rally the apethtic citizenry? Can they fix the agricultural and economic strife? Can they turn their divided lands into a unified superpower? Of course they can.
Added Characters: (Permanent & Non-permanent)
* Erwin Rommel (Griffon)
* Winston Churchill (Changeling)
* Franklin D Roosevelt (Changeling)
* Queen Victoria (Changeling)
Disclaimer: First time writing. Writing on a phone. Harsh criticism is fine, just don't be unreasonable. Historical accuracy is thrown out the window to fit the narrative. Realism is also thrown out the window (goodbye immersion). Totally not a Gary Stu story with all the modern weapons (pretty much just a 'civilised' vs 'uncivilised' situation). The pony civilisation is not a fairy tale utopia. Lots of death. Research_all and add_equipment are used liberally. Victoria 2 (and hopefully soon Victoria 3) are referenced frequently (mostly in comments).
Cover art link: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Otto_von_Bismarck_by_N.Repik.jpg
(The image is free to use, and requires no permission nor request to use) (If you're a dum-dum and asking if I made the cover art, "ofc I didn't make the covert art.")
Featured 06/27/21 ("The world must've gone terribly wrong for something like this to happen...")
Excellent story
Very fast paced but satisfiying !
10798553
Ha. Ha. Yes.
10798433
Thank. You.
You could have just called it new berlin or something
10800370
Didn't cross my mind. Dang
You did say that this is an early to mid Medieval period peasant community right?
With the industrial know how, these two do look like they're in a position to benefit and capitalize on industrial improvements even if it will take some time for to gain a return on it.
A peasant community might also be best for them to start off in since they are new and don't have any connections or titles of nobility to help them in any towns or cities.
It would be interesting to see how a developed Griffin nation, one taking a few notes from the German Empire, would have on Equestria.
Maybe Bismark and Mauser help establish a militant agricultural community that can exert influence in it's neighbors (like the Prussians) and bring all Griffins together under Das Greifenreich, the Griffin Empire.
Fluttershy would be pissed if she could see this now, or at least an ancestor since this is that vague 1000+ time period where everything from Discord, to the founding of Equestria, possibly Sombra, and Nightmare Moon occurs.
It is very convenient that Bismark and Mauser turned into Griffins, one of a few species in this planet that can use their forelimb digits as fingers.
If they were ponies, they'd have to redesign the trigger and loading mechanism to account for hooves.
Given their birdlike telescopic vision and their natural affinity with the weather (recognizing wind currents) Griffins would be natural snipers. They could probably only need iron sights to achieve accurate shots over 1000 m.
Tartarus was eventually "tamed" by the Princesses and used as a prison but I wonder how it would be before this.
Tartarus is also a physical place that can be reached so it would be a new concept for the Griffins of a place where the wicked go after death for eternal torment.
10800707
It might be best just to keep it as Berlin since there isn't an "Old Berlin" to compare it to.
Though it would be a recurring theme that anyone who visits "New Berlin" would ask about what happened to "Old Berlin" and with no one knowing the answer.
Edit: Since Bismark was very much in favor of Prussia, you could go with a play on Koenigsberg like Griffinsberg or Greifenberg.
Can Griffins maintain stable flight while aiming and shooting?
If they can, then aerial patrols would be a very large advantage since they can fire from the safety of the skies while their enemies don't have guns of their own or cannons powerful enough to reach them.
Regarding the time skip, yeah a time skip definitely is needed unless you want to go into detail about every single invention, development, or tactic.
Though, you could do a "show not tell" of the developments by having Bismark oversee the various improvements in a walk to inspect various locations instead of an information dump.
I forgot about Griffins being able to stand on clouds like Pegasi.
Clouds are the perfect scouting and ambush cover. Even if they don't provide much protection, clouds are abundant enough that no one suspect that a cloud was out of place.
... Except the Pegasi, they'd probably be able to point out an artificial cloud from a natural one and raise an alarm.
Thanks for the size comparison, that Griffons are larger than Humans.
That would give Mauser more freedom in designing weapons that would be considered heavy class. I'd imagine that some crew serviced weapons can be used by a single Griffon, larger rifles would be akin to lighter assault riffles, and SMGs would be a wieldly as pistols are for humans.
Pistols would probably need to be made larger so that Griffons could hold them comfortably, as they are it would be like holding a water pistol, which would let them use higher caliber rounds.
Though tanks and any other vehicles would need to be a lot bigger to accommodate multiple Griffons at a time.
David, meet Goliath. Goliath wins.
Honestly this kind of one sided massacre is pretty morally black and white, the brave soldiers of Berlin defended their town and loved ones from being sacked by a group of murderers led by a wannabe Warlord.
You'd have the traditionalists whining about how this removes all honor in war but (a) warlords don't get to be honored and (b) this way is a lot more effective.
And here comes the war of expansion.
This is a time where "might makes right" so seeing a large army rolling in that are impervious to crossbows would have surrounding towns surrender.
If this invading army ("liberators") doesn't sack the towns they reach and if they do make improvements like when Bismark and Mauser first arrived to not-yet-Berlin, you could end up with a large state with a loyal population.
Bismark does have the power to control the government as he pleases. He could set up a system of landed gentry and military officers to serve as representatives for the peasants.
With the some small tweaks you could frame this chapter as a history lesson taught to the Griffon youth.
This would be the chapter talking about the birth of their nation, how "through the divine leadership of Bismark and Mauser the Griffons were able to defeat the Warlord bands that plagued the land and unite all Griffons into a singular empire".
I could buy that the unification of the Griffons and their worship would cause their ascention into immortality, hell a similar unification and the defeat of Discord could have caused the same to Celestia and Luna.
What would their titles be? Would they be join Princes like the two sisters, would they be joint Kings in like in Sparta, would Bismark prefer to take the title of Chancellor out of nostalgia?
Edit: Also, "German Empire"?
That would make more sense before the Unification War since there were multiple Griffon factions, but now there is only a singular Griffon nation.
I think that ponies would just refer to it as the Griffon Empire die to their casual racism of all things non-Pony and their love of puns.
Trouble in paradise eh. Griffon unification was pretty recent (16 years) so there would definitely be those that would romanticize the past and talk about their old ways.
The first generation of Griffons to be born under a unified empire are about to reach adulthood
Given the population trends when nations industrialize, food production improves massively, and infant mortality reduces to near zero, the older, German-skeptic Griffons will be massively outnumbered by the younger generation.
The Griffin population could easily double (almost tripling) within the next few generations before stabilizing.
Are you going to stagnate German development or acceleration everyone else's? Germany looks like it is approaching mid-1800s levels of development (though the countryside would be about 1700s) and who knows what 1000 years of development would look like from then on.
Figures that the German government would have a similar view on gun ownership as most European centralized states
10802821
Christ man, that's a lotta replies
10802821
But thanks for the reply, and yes, many of the griffons are still in remote, rural areas cause the lands are vast, and they love to fly.
10803711
I found your story in the Updated tab and started reading it yesterday. The story was pretty new so I decided to leave my reaction to each chapter as I read them rather than leave one very long comment on the last chapter.
Griffons are semi-avian and semi-feline rather than being primates, might as well embrace what makes them themselves and include verticality and wide open spaces when they can.
10802707
That could add to the mystery of it since no one knows where bismark and paul comes from they could be insanely cryptic. But hey It dosent really matter to me.
Oh, how wrong he is.
Nice story development, not even I could have guessed that it is possible to portray historical characters like Otto von Bismarck.
my friend broinie312 suggested this to me, Interesting
a good idea about the language
true, you can focus on equipment all you want, an army can't fight without the will, the most important thing, secured by logostics
10805947
yep
well, given both are "reborn" here, it would make sense with the grenade
never gets old
if you don't know yourself, nor your enemy, you will succumb in every battle
interesting, love the caring for little and green
A panther, very nice! Though, the Tiger is my favorite. And the caring fr 2 lost foals really honors them.
Ta chingon, 10 de 10
Do you prefer the <2k chapters
Or
The 4k> chapters?
Some herbivore species are known to be opportunistic carnivores, it's odd seeing a cow eating chicks or a deer eating squirrels but it does happen. I'm definitely curious to see how eating meat would affect Earth Ponies and how would Earth Ponies adapt to growing up within the German Empire instead of Equestria.
For a show about cartoon ponies living in harmony, their world is pretty hostile when you get to it. It's no wonder sentient life adapted to very resilient.
After the Griffon Unification Wars, and even if it manages to pacify the less enthusiastic acquisitions to the empire, Germany is definitely going to need a standing army to deal with the various monsters and rogue creatures.
Ta epico
nice to see they got their cutie marks!
10806508
Agreed.
10809339
mhm
My Retort: yes sir, guns do indeed, go brrrrrrrrr. Quite so in fact.
The best defense is a really good fence... Or massive guns.
Yes! Paint the sky red with their blood!
Moar. I require Moar.
10810037
Yes.
10810012
I got the best fence.
10809997
Nooooo! You can't hav waepon in equestrian!!!
Is this realistic, not at all, it is entertaining, absolutely
So we finally learned how you hold a gun with hooves