Key Characters of the Soldier Series (The Commander and The Major) · 8:18pm Apr 16th, 2016
This blog will cover key characters in the Soldier Series, in this case The Commander and The Major
Commander Twilight Sparkle: Commander Twilight Sparkle is the founder and leader of the Equestrian Defense Force. Once an ordinary unicorn who was easily describe as a bookworm an event took place that changed her. One day the librarian known as Twilight had been conducting an experiment when she vanished without a trace.
After two months the mare returned drastically changed, whether for the better or worse all depends on who you ask. The mare does not talk about what happened to her except in a brief story that goes into little detail though what is known is the mare was tortured for an extended period of time and rescued by a group of aliens who she eventually joined with to fight in the war they were waging against their corrupt government. It was these events that lead to the creation of the mare who many simply call The Commander, who eventually returned to her homeland ready to defend it by any means necessary.
There is only one person who knows exactly what happened to the mare while she was away and to what extent it has affected her, that being her second in command. At first the mare was wary of the fact her second in command was aware of what she was but because her second came to her and confessed everything the mare took a chance and let her live.
Letting her second live turned out to be a small blessing as it gave someone the Commander could vent to as well as be herself around instead of hiding it all and it has led to her being able to deal with some of the psychological damage she suffered while away as well as lead to her getting her closest friend.
The Commander is a highly trained soldier and does not desire to be anything but a soldier. She enjoys her work and loves leading troops into battle. She is highly loyal to her homeland and will do whatever it takes to defend it even going as far as to employ actions that many would deem “morally questionable” or call downright evil. The Commander is a born leader and is highly intelligent and cares deeply for the soldiers under her command and will come up with plans that put them at as little risk as possible while still completing the mission. She is also known to memorize the names, ranks and details of the deaths of the soldiers who fall on missions she is personally leader so that they are never forgotten and she will personally meet with their families to express her apologies that they will not be coming back.
Commander Sparkle has seen every type of reaction to the news of another soldiers death from ponies collapsing into sobbing messes to them acting like she hadn’t just told them they would never see their family member again to the ponies just shutting down completely and sitting there not moving, not speaking. She had also seen them angry, at her at the EDF and the Princesses and everything, she had been yelled at, screamed at, cursed at and even struck. The Commander never raises a hoof to defend herself or says a word, just letting them grieve. She stays with them sometime for a few minutes, sometimes for hours depending on how the ponies react, she stays because it is the only way she can help them.
The Commander is also know to enjoy a good drink at least once a day, usually the Whiskey she created known as Nightfall though the mare rarely gets drunk. It is also known that one of the few things to truly anger the mare are those who are racist against anyone and she usually reacts violently towards these types of people.
The second known way to anger her is to assault EDF personnel, such as the known event of when three changeling workers were brutally beaten by a group of ponies in the early days of the Hive’s integration into Equestrian society, this is a trait that the EDF as a whole shares and the EDF wastes no time in tracking down those who dare to attack their own and come down on them with their full might.
Another fact about the Commander is that she is cyberneticly augmented, meaning that all four of her legs and both eyes as well as her inner ear have been replaced by cybernetics do to her losing them in combat, it has been suggested that some of her mental instability is caused by the fact her cybernetics were never designed to be used by ponies and do to the implants in her brain to allow her to use them all has had side effects. At one point during the conflict the mare was involved with she built custom cybernetics, effectively turning herself into a living weapon.
She has increased strength
The Ability to walk as a biped (something does often, especially when on duty)
She has increase speed
Her legs can absorb impacts with the ground up to a certain degree without any effect
Her from hooves produce fingers when she is in biped mode, allowing her to pick up items as the innate magic in pony hooves that allows them to pick up items did not carry over to her cybernetics.
She has two 12 inch blades that can deploy rapidly from her for hooves and she can use them as close quarters weapons as well as the fact they cannot be detected nor removed from her as they are hidden within her pocket dimension, the device that deploys them is enchanted to be able to pull them from the pocket dimension.
As a unicorn the mare was unable to feel anything from her legs and they were heavily armored as they were made of high grade steel, after her ascension to Alicornhood they became something stronger then steel, however all attempts to identify what have failed but she did gain the ability to feel through them though she only feels pain up to a certain point so even if her legs are shot she will feel the bullet ricochet but will feel no pain from the shot.
As a unicorn her legs were painted a slight different color purple then her fur but after she became an Alicorn the color now matches
It has been confirmed that her eyes have the ability to switch into a night vision mode so she can see in low light easily. She is also immune to flashbangs as both her eyes and ears automatically counter the effects.
She is able to turn up or turn down her hearing at will and has a small transceiver in her brain that allows her to communicate with her two sentrybots over short distances.
The Commander also carries with her a Datapad at all times that she uses to take notes, look over maps and organizes objectives among many other things as the Datapad is as powerful as a desktop computer, also of note is the Datapad contains a vast selection of music that the Commander enjoys listing to at every opportunity that is mostly metal or hip-hop/rap.
If one wants to gleam a hint at what she went through while away one would just need to look at the many scars that cover her body do to her not having time to do full heals and just stop the bleeding and hastily close the wounds to protect against infection. Also of note is the Commander is a fully certified field medic who has studied the medical practices of all the races on Equus and actually knows enough about medicine to be considered a full-fledged doctor, though she is not licensed.
Also of note is she is a skilled engineer as it is one of the only sciences she can still study without having issues do to certain things that happened to her while she was away leading to a fear of most types of labs and a profound fear of biology labs in particular, reaction range from extreme violence to the mare freezing up completely, it should be noted she is able to control this fear to an extent if others are around to which she will react by being extremely uncomfortable and desire to leave as soon as possible.
If alone in a biology lab the mare will either completely destroy the lab till there is nothing left or will curl into a ball and whimper while repeating the word “no” over and over for various amounts of time or till she is removed from the lab and reminded of where she is and that she is safe.
It is extremely ill advices to refer to anything as P438-29T or 438 within the presence of the Commander as well as mentioning the name “Frisk” unless she brings up the name first.
One fact that is known about what happened to the Commander was at one point in time she had a shock collar on her that was used to both make her behave and interrogate her, according to her at one point the collar was activated for over an hour resulting in 2500 volts of electricity being pumped through her body non-stop, a side effect of this has made the Commander immune to all forms of stun-spells as well as anything that uses electricity to try and subdue someone in a non-lethal manner and the mare usually reacts with either mild anger or annoyance towards the one who tried to “taz” her, usually asking the caster “Did you just try to fucking taz me?” before either rolling her eyes or attacking the caster.
It should be noted that The Commander hates playing The Game of Houses but has become very skilled at it in order to get what she needs for the EDF and is not above using the Princesses as pawns in her own agendas.
Another fact that few realize as they have to be a powerful magic user to be able to sense the magic of another and actively be looking for it is that when the Commander returned she was as powerful in magic as a young Alicorn despite being a unicorn, this effect was amplified when the Commander became an actual Alicorn in that she is now equal in magical strength to Princess Luna.
When speaking the Commander does not use pony version or words and instead uses human version such as ssying “Everybody” instead of “Anypony” or refer to her hooves at feet and such, this is due to the fact she was around humans when her mind began to fracture and in an attempt to stay sane her mind latched onto what was wrounf her, in this case it was the military training she was going through and human speech. For this reason she also uses many human swears when speaking and it is possible to gauge her anger level by how creative her swearing gets and how often she swears.
Do to her being the one to train the first batch of EDF she inadvertently passed off human swearing to the EDF and it is common to hear soldiers use them rather than pony version which are seen as far more polite compared to the standard swears of the EDF. Another thing that was adopted by the EDF was referring to their own soldiers as “Men” regardless of the fact there are mare’s in the army, this is seen as very appropriate do to the fact there are changelings within their ranks and referring to them all as men puts them all on equal ground.
Queen Chrysalis: More commonly known as Major Chrysalis or simply Major (or Queeny but only from Twilight), she is the leader of the Changeling Hive and use to be an enemy of Equestria. Before she joined up she was extremely Arrogant and believed everyone was beneath, she was cured of this by Twilight Sparkle.
Shortly after the EDF gained enough soldiers to be an effective army the Commander sent scouts into the Badland to locate the Hive. Once it had been located she requested permission to lead a force to capture the Hive, a request that was partly denied by Princess Celestia who wanted to try a peaceful approach before she tried a military one.
The Commander did not protest for she knew how the arrogant Queen would respond and the day the ambassador approached the hive along with two EDF escorts he was promptly attacked, the ambassador and his two escorts managed to escape to safety and the attack on the virtually unarmed envoy gave the Commander, who had been hidden a few hundred yards away from the hive with a force of five dozen of the newly created Flame Trooper army unit. All the excused she needed to move on the Hive.
Once the ambassador was clear the Commander ordered the leader of the Flame Troopers to “burn them” and that is exactly what they did. The EDF Flame Troopers swept through The Hive like water burning any Changelings they came across. Once the Queen had been located the Lieutenant in charge radioed the Commander to inform her that the Queen had been located and was being held. The Commander lead two rifle teams into the hive and arrived in the Queen’s throne room where she calmly explained that the deaths in the hive were her own fault for attacking the ambassador. She then calmly waited for the Queen to surrender and once she did she waited 10 minutes before calling off the Flame Troopers, stating she needed to be sure the Queen was telling the truth, the Queen learned later that this was only half the reason.
Once the Flame Troopers were called off the remaining half of the Hive was rounded up and the Queen was escorted back to Canterlot broken as it was due to her arrogance that half her hive lay as charged husks.
The Queen had sat in her cell waiting whatever punishment the nobility of Canterlot decided for her for she felt she deserved it as she failed as a queen. She had been surprised to find the Commander was the one who came and explained she had convinced Princess Celestia to turn both the hive and the Queen over to EDF custody to decide the fate of, it was here the Commander’s true goal for hunting for the Changelings was reveled when she offered the Queen the position as her second in command and a place within the EDF for the entire Hive.
After the Commander explained her reasons, spelling out the Queen’s entire plan during the Royal Wedding Incident as if it were an open book and giving the Queen the ultimatum of join up or let the nobility execute the entire hive. Having not much choice and wanting to make up for her failures as a Queen she accepted.
Now bearing the rank of Major and the Changeling Workers being put to work digging bunkers while the Changeling Soldier were put though EDF training at Camp Mendez the Queen began to learn the ways of the Equestrian Defense Force, being personally taught by the Commander how to fight and use the standard weapons of the EDF as well as how the army was organized and run, the Queen gained a preference for using the standard issue LMGs over most other weapons she could have chosen.
It was during this time that the Queen figured out that the Commander was a psychotic soldier and sadistic as she took both joy and pleasure from hurting others. Seeing the danger to her Hive the Major met with the Commander in her office under Golden Oaks Library and confessed to being aware of what the Commander was, explaining she was more powerful at sensing emotions then the drones were so it hadn’t been hard for her to sense the emotions her superior officer kept hidden, something the Commander had not thought of.
Explaining she came to the Commander as she knew the Commander would not hesitate to kill her or the rest of the hive to keep her secret the Major swore she would never tell anyone what she knew, this forever bound her to the Commander as the Commander kept a close eye on the Major to ensure she did not try to tell someone.
It was due to this that the Commander started to allow herself to talk openly to the Major about her thoughts and past and slowly the Major had begun to talk with the mare rather than just listen and learned more about her. Slowly the two went from the Commander just venting to the Changeling Queen to talking about other topics and bouncing ideas off of her second in command as trust between them grew.
The Major learned that though the Commander was insane she would not stand for anyone attacking her soldiers just because they were changelings and was surprised to learn the Commander personally led a raid to round up a group of ponies who had assaulted three Changeling Workers just for being Changelings that called for their execution when one of the three died and the surviving two were left crippled and for the arrest of the Canterlot hospital staff who refused to treat the workers because they were Changelings on murder charges.
The Queen began to learn more about the Commander and realized she was much more than just a psychopath as she firmly believed in her duty as a soldier and desired nothing more than to protect her nation.
Over the few months leading up to the EDF’s first major engagement with Tirek the two had grown to trust each other and be completely comfortable around each other to the point of becoming close friends do to the fact the Queen was the one person the Commander could be herself around.
During the four day war with Tirek it was The Queen who lead the EDF as Twilight was out of radio contact deep in the Everfree Forest aiding in the survival test of some recruits from Camp Mendez.
She was present at the Battle of Canterlot and did her best to coordinate the defenses even though it was clear there was no stopping Tirek. It was during the height of the battle that the Queen delivered her now famous speech via radio to all surviving EDF personnel in the city and rallied the soldier to fight on and gave the EDF its motto of “To the Last”
The Queen had then abandoned the radio room and made her way to the Throne room to evacuate the Princesses. When the Princesses refused to leave as it would lead Tirek to the ponies the EDF had managed to get to safety the Queen had no choice but to remain in the throne room to defend them, this was party out of her duty as an EDF officer but mostly out of fear of what the Commander would do if she didn’t try her best.
She found a young changeling soldier still fresh from Camp Mendez and chose to have him carry a message to the Commander both because they needed her and to save at least one soldier form the coming slaughter for by this point it was clear Tirek was showing no mercy to any EDF personnel.
When Tirek had entered the throne room the Queen fought with the soldiers present and when they fell she fought alongside the Princesses in a battle that level a fourth of the castle till she was captured and drained of her magic along with the Princesses. She was then forced to watch as Tirek rounded up what remained of the EDF forces in the city and took his time killing them, something that still haunts her to this day, before being banished to Tartarus.
When she regained her magic she knew the Commander had succeeded in defeating Tirek and she escaped from Tartarus along with the Princesses ready to face what she knew would be an enraged Commander as the Queen had order the soldier to not tell the mare that they had lost many soldiers as she knew the Commander needed to be as sane as possible to defeat Tirek.
She had been right about the commander being enraged but luckily the Commander’s rational mind had agreed with the Queens decisions and she was able to avoid being injured further. The Commander had then ordered her to go on medical leave do to the injuries she had sustained while fighting Tirek however she was present at the memorial service for the Fallen and it was there that her friendship with the Commander was cemented as she was given permission to called the Commander by her first name when it was just them.
The Queen also aided the Commander in learning how to Play the Game of Houses as she was far more used to the scheming and manipulation that was common for the game as well as had more power than the unicorn mare do to how her Hive worked, the thought of using her power to her advantage against the Commander never once crossed her mind both out of fear and out of respect for the mare who gave her a chance to make up for her past arrogance as well as took care of her Hive.
Throughout her military career the Queen has served as an excellent counter point for her insane superior and serves with distinguish as she enjoy the sense of accomplishment and pride she feels helping to lead the army and after a few years she feels she has more than made up for her failures years ago as the Hive is now safer and stocked with more food then it has ever been in her entire time as Queen.
Over the years the Queen helped the Commander get through the grief of her friends passing away as well was the loss of her brother and parents. She acted as an anchor for the Commander during the hunt for Colonel Razorwing and kept the Commander from allowing her rage to cloud her judgment.
The Commander relied heavily on the Queen through the years and to deal with ponies while she grieved do to the fact the Commander did not want to risk her voice shifting as it did sometime do to her insanity.
At some point over the years both the Commander and the Major entered into a platonic sexual relationship as the Commander couldn’t peruse a relationship do to the risk of her insanity being discovered but also being a young mare, the Commander appreciated the Queen Shapeshifting ability quite a lot.
The Queen was present when the Commander ascended to Alicornhood and it was her that snapped her out of her bout of insanity by slapping her across the face, much to the gratitude of the new Alicorn.
The two have been best friends for many years and are able to read each other like a book at this point as well joking with each other regularly such as the Queen teasing the Commander about being a Princess by calling her by her title rather than her rank, much to the annoyance of the Commander but she knows it is all in harmless fun so does nothing about it beside glare.
Reaper: Reaper is by far one of the most dangerous being to ever set foot on Equus or anywhere she is. Reaper is a being that is rarely seen and those who have actually seen her, did not live long afterwards in most occasions.
Reaper is the Commander’s insanity, her psychotic and sadistic tenacities fully manifested without her sane mind to keep it in check, she only gets loose when the Commander’s is under extreme stress or emotional trauma beyond what she is able to deal with, forcing her sane mind to retreat in on itself allowing Reaper to take control of the body.
Despite the two sharing the body both the Commander and Reaper are not aware of each other, at least not fully as Reaper has accessed to the Commander’s memories and is influenced by the mare though she does not recognize the Commander in any of the memories.
Reaper can best be described as an emotionless killing machine for she will kill anything that gets between her and her goal without exception and does not distinction between friend and foe as she sees everything that is not herself as a simple creature in her way. She does not see details of the Creatures she faces beyond the bare minimum to distinguish them from others.
Reaper is a master of light magic, dark magic as well as necromancy and will commonly raise those she has killed to be an undead army to deal with other creatures in her way though she if fully capable of dealing with them all.
Reaper is extremely goal oriented and will relentlessly move towards her goal, which is influenced by whatever drove the Commander away, till she reaches it. Her goals always consist of delivering what she refers to as “punishments” towards her prey and sees any deaths she causes as punishments for getting in her way. She very rarely will kill creatures instantly and choses to deliver fatal injuries that will take a bit of time to kill the creature, though she is fully able to turn large group of creature into red mist with just a thought.
Do to Reaper’s skill level in magic as well as her power level, she is always 5x more powerful than the Commander in magic, she is able to instantly cast spells no matter how complex the spell is and though her horn is the focal point of these spells it will not be wrapped in a glow like normal ponies but if she picks something up it will have glow that is noticeable darker then the Commander’s own magic.
Despite the fact over all Reapers is death incarnate there is one thing she will not kill, those she views as captives. If she comes across a creature that is being held against its will by physical or magical means Reaper will not hesitate to free them and ensure their safety and will kill the ones who held them.
She is also able to see when someone is under the influence of magic or has suffered severe psychological trauma, what she refers to as “Taint” and no matter what that person has done she will be able to tell if the actions were due to the magic they were under or the trauma and will see them as Captives as well though held within their own mind.
She will then use her abilities to rescue them as well by either destroying the Taint or extracting it, it should be noted that both these actions are extremely painful to the captive but will leave no lasting effects short of a headache that lasts several hours. If the taint is particularly strong then the captive may fall into a coma for a few days after they have been cleansed but will still have no lasting effects.
Reaper is purely logical as she does not feel emotions nor understand them, save fear. Reaper is very well aware of what fear is though she is unable to experience it she is fully able to make other experience it.
When not in control of the body Reaper exists within the Commander’s mind acting as a sort of sentry for the mare’s mind though she is unaware of this fact. She is able to tell the intentions of those who enter the Commander’s mind and if it is idle curiosity then she will punish the creates by inflicting pain on them before warning them to never return and cast them out of the mare’s mind, if they mean harm then she will introduce them to the true meaning of fear as Reaper has complete control of her surroundings when inside the Commander’s mind and can either forcible remove someone, or prevent them from leaving no matter how hard they try.
There has been a single instant where Reaper came close to experience an emotion and that was when she found a creature dressed in yellow with in the Commander’s dream when she dreamt of the Memorial to the Fallen. Reaper sees the memorial as hallowed ground and for a creature to be there was unacceptable to her and learning the creature meant harm only fueled her reaction, though she did no actually experience emotion she spoke slightly quicker than she normal does with a slightly raised voice for a few moments.
She ensured the creature suffered for daring to set foot in that place with the desire to do harm, while it is unknown what she did the result were clear as the creature’s body in the waking world suffered increasingly severe seizers while bleeding from the nose, eyes, ears and mouth while foam also sprayed from the creatures mouth till it finally died after minutes of this.
While Reaper is able to speak she rarely does but those who have lived after speaking to her can recognize her voice do to its distinct lack of emotion in any amount. Also of note is that when Reaper is out she is always on two legs and has a shield around herself at all times that is unable to be broken. Also when moving towards her goal she will calmly walk no matter what is happening around her, if she needs to travel long distance she will teleport close by then walk.
Also of note is the fact Reaper can hold other magic uses with her magical grasp and use their own power to augment her own for the duration of the time she hold them if she so desires, she will only do this on rare occasions when she has a lot to do.
Wow dude, you really thought this out! I'm impressed beyond belief!
Did not expect to see Reaper on this blog page. I love blogs like this with all info what makes someone someone written down and archived. It reads like some kind of intelligence report or something.
Nice!
Good to see Reaper at least spares those she sees as prisoners.
3875110 I have so many details about characters I will probably never use and no one but me will probably ever see its not even funny.
and yet all those aspects influence the characters.
3876099
is that surprising in a heavily military themed story?
3878855 like it said Reaper is influenced by Twilight and as well all know Twilight was held captive and tortured for over a month, its a key aspect of her character to despise anyone who does that to innocent and is such a strong feeling it also became part of Reaper.
3880760
Now question is who or what organization would have intelligence report with this kind of detail and secrets inside.