Equestrian Common Defence Doctrine · 11:36am Nov 18th, 2019
Authorisation
The Royal Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (RDCDC) is responsible for publishing strategic trends, joint concepts and doctrine. This documentation has been provided for you by the Equestrian military council for internal use and study. If you wish to quote our publications as reference material in other work, you should confirm with our editors whether the particular publication and amendment state remains authoritative.
If you do not have operational or academic clearance please return this document to your local Equestrian authority or if one is impossible to reach, destroy this document. Failure to comply shall render you guilty of treason or espionage.
Distribution
Distributing Equestrian Doctrine Publication (EDP) 0-6 (11th Edition) is managed by the Griffon Knightly order of the Icon, the Royal Solar Guard, the Royal Luna Guard, the Equestrian Constitutional Militia and the Cloud Cities Royal Legions. All of our other publications, including a regularly updated RDCDC Publications console, can also be demanded from the Cloudsdale Royal Operations Centre.
Foreword
The purpose of the Equestrian Common Defence Doctrine (ECDD) is to explain the military instrument of power and its utility both in and beyond warfare. While ECDD is authoritative, it requires judgement in its application. Doctrine draws on the lessons of history, upon original thinking and from experiences gained from training and joint operations with the Covenant Legion. It sets out the fundamental principles by which military force is employed. The level of military doctrine covered in this publication is, for the most part, intended to be enduring. This edition of ECDD refreshes Equestrian Defence Doctrine (10th Edition) and, without losing the importance of the three landscapes of war written by her most serene majesty Princess Luna Crown of the Solemn Night. Whoever reads this doctrine should, however, remember that it can never replace individual initiative. Doctrine is a guide to commanders and subordinates on how to think, not what to think.
Grand Commander of the Royal Guard and first advisor to the Royal Crowns Prince Shining Armour.
Abstract
Purpose
1. Equestrian Common Defence Doctrine (ECDD) 0-6 (11th Edition) outlines the broad philosophy and principles underpinning how Defence is employed across our Empire and her colonies. ECDD is the basis from which all other subordinate Empire doctrine is derived.
Context
2. This eleventh edition of ECDD reflects and reinforces:
• The traditional employment of assets on an Equestrian battlefield
• The employment and use of modern ship designs and void warfare.
• The employment of Covenant weapons and doctrine to overcome weaknesses in the Equestrian doctrine.
Audience
3. ECDD should be essential reading for all members of the Major and Minor Knightly orders and Guard divisions, both in regular and reserve service. Initial training should introduce the doctrine and all stages of subsequent training and education should revisit it to extend our understanding and competence.
Structure
4. ECDD is divided into three chapters.
• Chapter 1 – Examination of Tradition.
Chapter 1 provides in abstract the traditional doctrine devised by her most serene majesty Princess Luna Crown of the Solemn Night, the Great War of Union over one thousand years ago and of the Doctrine that preceded this war. (8th Edition)
• Chapter 2 – Characteristics of Void Warfare.
Chapter 2 outlines the characteristics of Void Warfare. The chapter describes Civilian, Holy, Privateer, Pirate and Military organizations and craft as well as the legal and ethical considerations pertaining to warfare and civil defence.
• Chapter 3 – The Next War.
Chapter 3 describes the reality of future conflicts and the forms they may take as well as the current military consensus on how The Next War is to be fought. This chapter in no way promotes the idea of fighting against our sworn allies or interceding in the ongoing holy war.
Chapter 1
“The first time I bore witness to the Bombard my ribs were caved in and my legs were broken. All lessons are painful and this one taught me the value of dodging.”
-Princess Luna, Warmistress, Quote from the Seventh Era referencing her campaigns of the Third Era.
Thousands of years ago her most serene majesty Princess Luna Crown of the Solemn Night had created the first example of military documentation as the twin sisters began our empire by the conquest of the Kingdoms and Republics that would refuse the Mantle of Harmony. The Original documentation was lost but the work was written several times over the course of centuries as Princess Luna perfected her craft as then Warchief under the Moon. The work we use today was printed three years into the fourth era by the then Princess Luna and Field Marshal Nightshade.
The work was focused upon the three landscapes of war. Herois, Numquid Avis Tincta and Oppugnationis. That is the Demigodess, Birds of Prey and Siege. Luna considered all other aspects of war to be mere distraction or beneath the notice of a nation state, it is to be noted however that Luna revised this thinking in the centuries following the final publication of this work.
Demigodess as defined by Luna is any persons or small group of persons with power or ability great enough to overcome a well equipped and disciplined army of one thousand persons. This definition of course is very loose but outlines a reality of wars of the time. An army was very often a mob used to screen powerful entities or sorcerers while the battle was decided by said “Demigodess’” and the battle that would ensue when two persons or parties of this classification would meet.
Birds of Prey Luna placed a great emphasis on the battle for the sky and the value of a dedicated and large force of Lancers (A force categorized by the use of lances and wing mounted cutting implements, a tradition that continues with the commision of Plasma Lances from the Royal Hoofington Weaponsmiths) to overcome the enemies aerial superiority and thus use the command gained over the skies to maneuver formations, identify the enemy and gather intelligence, attack supplies or soft targets and employ sky based magic to influence the outcome of a battle.
Siege the story of the three generations of Unicornia was likely the impetus for this landscape as the sacking of the last city of Unicornia was the most devastating victory Luna would experience for another thousand years. However Luna would define Siege as not only the tactics used to overcome fortifications and cities conventional and magical defences but the use of any earthworks, engines of war and even the use of ground based terrain features to influence the outcome of a battle, interestingly the term would also encompass the deployment of Dragons and Sirens rather then considering such beings as Demigodess. Having been subject to a mock war dirge by a battery of Sirens I can attest to the battle against such beings being a strategic work rather than tactical.
Princess Luna seems to in general prefer that things be ordered in a poetic manor, that her landscapes each contain dozens of considerations that have unique problems is endemic as to the push for generalization that has cripped Equestria’s military thinking for thousands of years.
A battery of Sirens is not the same as a battery of guns and neither are comparable to a brigade of engineers yet almost all schools of thought would consider all of them to be under the leadership of a Siege Marshall. I have long argued that the forces we deploy should be granted specialist commanders. Thinking that received widespread support when I attended the War Collage on Sanghelios but has found me with few friends within Equestrian Colleges.
The 8th Edition of the ECDD was characterised by its response to the threat at the time and later, its failure to meet expected standards of excellence. As we first ventured into the stars we expanded rapidly and found habitable worlds to colonise. This gave way to the commision of merchant shipping that created grand trade lanes with our first colonies. This is not a history of our early steps among the stars but simply to give context to the early conflicts against the Kig Yar and Sanghili Pirates and Privateers.
First contact with the Covenant was mixed, trade came as readily as a broadside of plasma torpedoes and contact with the Covenant councils or higherachs was unproductive. It was only when Midnight Spear received a privateer commision from Princess Luna and began to engage Covenant shipping that anything resembling a war footing could be described.
Midnight Spear began her career with a converted colony ship she would use to attack and capture merchant and transport shipping along the periphery of Covenant space. Her actions drew the ire of the Covenant council and a diplomatic mission was sent to Canterlot with demands to stop Midnight Spear’s activities. Such demands were refused on the grounds that there was no effort to prevent Equestrian shipping from being the target of Sangheili and Kig Yar pirates or privateers.
Incensed by the brazen attacks of Midnight Spear the Covenant rented a large portion of the warships they fielded at the time to private persons and issued a bounty for the head of the Unicorn Privateer, this marked the beginning of the Undeclared War. This state of state sponsored war though private persons would go on for over a decade and would only grow more out of control with Knightly and Holy orders being created, corporate military branches being established and notorious Privateer fleets being fielded that would dwarf the militaries of both Equestria and the Covenant combined.
The Undeclared War came to an end over Saepon’kal, (Translated to roughly Joyous Exultation in Equestrian) a Covenant colony world and a rally point for a great many enterprises and industry dedicated to the Undeclared War. Here one hundred and sixty Covenant ships met a fleet of over three hundred Equestrian ships the greatest battle in Equestrian history a coalition of PMCs, Privateers and Knightly orders led by Midnight Spear. The Equestrian forces managed to destroy the Covenant fleet and land armies upon Saepon’kal hundreds of thousands of persons meeting the Covenant ground forces.
Despite great successes in space and on the ground the Covenant legion itself would amass a force and enter the system. In a second battle Midnight Spear found herself outmatched by the additional ninety ships that attacked her fleet and called for a general retreat after extracting what forces they could from the planet. Nearly two hundred thousand Equestrians would remain on Saepon’kal after the Coalition fleet fled the Covenant legion would begin an operation to destroy the Equestrian presence on the planet.
In the end most of Saepon’kal would be rendered uninhabitable by actions taken by both sides. Despite hundreds of years of attempted restoration by Equestria some parts of the world remain malestrums of terrible magics or simply refuse to ever again allow the presence of the living.
After Saepon’kal the Covenant Legion would attack Equestria itself, a single terrible strike to end the Equestrian threat once and for all. The Covenant assembled all the ships they could and incorporated all of the ships granted to private persons though the Undeclared war. This was a formidable fleet of roughly one hundred and ten ships. This fleet would enter the home system and begin skirmishes with Midnight Spears decimated force.
Equestria combined its own national fleets with Midnight Spears coalition and met the Covenant task force as an attack was made at the inner belt shipyards. This battle marks the first and only use of a dragon equipped with void rated armour. Who would fly from asteroid to asteroid and leap onto ships to destroy them. Aandovahko’Aanbii (was known by the name Anker, the reason for this nickname was never recorded) was killed when one of the Destroyers he boarded self destructed.
The battle resulted in the shipyards being utterly destroyed and the remaining Equestrian ships retreating to Equestrias orbital defences. The Covenant forces were deemed insufficient to launch an attack against Equestria and retreated to High Charity. A diplomatic ship was sent to High Charity with an official declaration of war, the ship successfully transmitted its message before it was fired upon and destroyed.
The Great War of Union would never see battles as large as the Undeclared War but would see a more concerted use of grand forces and the deployment of special operation units to destroy or capture assets. The war was characterised by scientific development and the expansion of shipyards across the known galaxy with hundreds of capital ships created in just seven years. Many historians agree that should the war have lasted just one more month then a battle of over three thousand ships would have been inevitable but diplomatic endeavors allowed a ceasefire before the massive Equestrian and Covenant rebuilt fleets could meet.
The years following the ceasefire would be marked by incredible tension and continued violence at the periphery of the empire, it was only through the actions of the Prophet Respect that such activities were reduced as he would personally declare piracy and privateering as heresy. This is why Respect is considered the patron saint of merchants to all who follow the Great Journey (While he is commonly regarded as a Saint to all Equestrian temples and temples of our Covenant in general the Higherarcs have never acknowledged his sainthood.) you can find out more about the peace process at the Canterlot Temple to Saint Respect as they offer an incredibly insightful and talented historian wing that anyone can enjoy.
Here is something I was writing for fun, it's not finished as I have two more chapters to write but I thought you guys might get a kick out of it, It's not something I would ever directly include in my story but has been incredibly helpful for me to understand the mindset of the groups I am creating for this story. Tell me what you think!
Fascinating. This is the kind of world building that I love to hear about. It sounds to me like neither Windigos nor Hearth's Warming fire had anything to do with the founding of this Equestria.
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Thank you, I only wish I could write faster I have so much in my head.
This is awesome, need more of it.
I would love to know the units, vehicles and formations that make up the Eqeuestrian military. Their weapons, equipment and abilities.
Also waiting for the void warfare section. How are Equestrian ships different from Covenant ships? Aesthetics, weapons, technology, magic? This would build a comprehensive image of a militarized Eqeuestria that I would love to read, just as much as the main story.