Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

“Yes. Celestia forgive me, I’m going to vote to continue the war.”

What a heavy decision.

I realized another good point of this story. You put out multi - layered views of the war. And each view is done with care not just cobbled up together words to fill quota. Manifest, the ordinary people, and the government. Each told in a way that is both enjoyable and reasonable.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we'll all go home free!

This line of thinking by the Griffon field Marshall is correct, to trully win the war you must demoralize your enemies people, and show them you will not be tread upon.

But there is a drawback.
Here is my own quote I came up with for my senior project in high school.

"War is Hell for war is a never ending drug!"

The nation of Unicornain is like North Korea, but only capable and dangerous its leader wants war with equestria for whatever reason it people are lied to and brainwashed and believe that the princess's are dangerous and evil.
Now does emperor of Unicornain want to kill celestia, luna, twilight sparkles or Cadence I really want to know, if this emperor took away Equestira and if this emperor did win against Equestira this emperor does not even realize that the princess's are holding back there powers and if they unleash it (which they won't) they can defeat Unicornian and destroy this emperor easily and they would do it in anger if Equestria is defeated and a large portion of it population killed or enslaved by the Unicornain nation and if that ever happens Celestia, Luna's , Twilight Sparkles and Cadnece's mercy would run out as they would unleash there wraith on Unicornina and its emperor in rage.

Also one effective tactic is instead of using chemical warfare that the griffons are offering to use against unicornian, is for equestria without killing the unicronian civilians and soldiers who give up, but would still resist and have strong hatred for equestrians and griffons is besides invading unicornian is after defeating the soldiers of unicornian, is destroying the homes, the buildings the resources, the weapons, the technology, the factory's, the farms, the cities, the equipment, on purpose and scourge the lands of unicornian enough without killing the civilians or executing any of those that resist, force and make the unicornians watch as they lose everything they could use to fight for there warmongering emperor instead of executing them like what Luna saw in there dreams.

Scourging Unicornian lands will indeed break the unicorn civilians and soldiers it won't get rid of the hate they have for equestrians, but when they see the equestrians are not taking them out of there home to be executed as they fear but to see the equestrians destroy only there homes and resources to keep fighting. This will break what morale they even have left doing so will deprive Unicornian of resources and they will have no choice but to try and fight and keep dying by the thousands or finally give up and accept defeat and let go of the anger and hatred they have had and open there eyes that the emperor lied to them.

8592947
Huh, don't recall the griffons offering to use chemical weapons. Odd.

I gotta make a blog post about different doctrines at some point, clear the waters on how countries operate.

8593591
Scratch out what I said about chemical warfare however I do think the only way Equestria can beat Unicornian without having to kill the civilians who start trying to attack them is to scorch and burn all of the buildings and resources so the the unicornain soldiers and civilains have nothing they can use to fight back with there morale getting broken in the process as well with everything being destroyed instead of there lives being destroyed.

Hmm... How to wi this war, and still look good.

Well, give this is equestria, and it has bottomless coffers when it comes to saving lives and such, why not this.

Bust in with the tanks, crush the active military. Then, as fast as possible, back that up with a humanitarian effort. We are here to not only end this war, but ease the suffering. Offer supplies for turned in weapons. Have soldiers on strict orders to do nothing to harm anyone unless 110% sure the pony is out for their lives. Switch from lethal tactics to restraining tactics. Teach riot control and detainment rather than death.

Or, you know, ask the Griffons for their best sharp shooter. A bullet is a lot cheaper than the previous plan...

Thank you for the story !

One note to this chapter:

She looked to the others, _l_una at her right, Cadence at her left, and _t_wilight sitting across the table from her.

In this sentence "Luna" and "Twilight" are written as "luna" and "twilight" (starting with lowercase).
I think it was trick of some kind of auto spell checker since there are 3 more instances of incorrect capitalization of Twilight and one more of Luna.

Dead?

9787315
Ugh, pretty friggen close. We'll see

9797150
That would imply they actually fought back.

Came back after like five years. Glad to see there’s some new chapters. Hopefully the next ones won’t take as long.