The world as we know it was on the brink of war fifteen years ago. Tensions were high, government officials had been assassinated, and Equestria, Griffonia, and essentially the rest of the entire Earth was teetering on the edge of global conflict. At the last second, however, an armistice was set forth, and peace showed up just in time. This consequently led to the now troublesome presence of the new wartime inventions, ranging from the deadly machine guns, to—as countless as they were—the battle-ready tanks.

The research and time spent working on such vehicles would be a waste ending up simply scrapped... so the leaders of the world all thought up one thing. A sport, you could call it, waged every year across the globe, with no boundaries, no real rules, and lots and lots of explosions.

Duck Bill never liked being born into a family of Tank Warudo warriors, and, honestly, she didn't really like the idea of Tank Warudo in the first place, but if her entrance into this year's competition meant a long overdue victory for the Ponyville Horsepowers, she could handle a crew of boneheads for awhile.

Thanks to my good pal Phoenix of Aurelius for being a consultant on all things tank! Thanks buddy! Panzer vor!

Those cute little tanks in the cover art are also shamefully lifted from the Tanks Encyclopedia! Please go and show them some love. They work really hard, and have unknowingly helped me immensely!

This story is a sequel to Before the Storm: The Rise of Firefly

Three hundred years after Luna's banishment, an uneasy peace has collapsed and war erupts between the United Tribes of Equestria and the growing Gryphon Empire, who seek to supplant Princess Celestia as ruler of the heavens and claim the rich lands of the pony nation for their own. With the border defenses shattered, Canterlot endangered and the armed forces unable to stem the onslaught, who can stop the relentless Gryphon war machine as it overruns province after province, scoring victory after victory as it closes in on the Equestrian capital city?

In this time of peril, when the entire pony nation teeters on the brink of defeat, a champion will rise to lead the resistance to the gryphon invasion, becoming not just the commander of an elite force, but a symbol of Equestrian valor and fighting spirit. A born warrior and leader, the name of Firefly will be one day revered as not just the founder of the Wonderbolts, but as Equestria's greatest hero...

Taking place seven hundred years before present and canon to both the Gentlemanverse and Turnabout Storm novelization, this is the story of Rainbow Dash's ancestor, the founding of the Wonderbolts, and their role in the bloodiest conflict of Equestrian history. It is a multistory Magnum Opus consisting of several discrete stories, as described below:

Book 1: The War Begins

The Gryphon Empire invasion of Equestria launches at dawn with an all-out assault on the Equestrian Army and Aerial Corps border bases, accompanied by deep-strike raids against Cloudsdale and the Royal Guard training base of Fort Spur.

Will Princess Celestia unleash her enormous power to end the war quickly? Can Outpost Epsilon withstand the onslaught long enough for the much-maligned Royal Navy to reach them? And can the civilian populace of Cloudsdale resist a massive and determined air attack by the Imperial elite against its all-important weather factories and storm cloud production facilities?

Book 2: Rally and Recover

With the border defenses crushed and the remains of Outpost Epsilon evacuated, both sides lick their wounds, hastily reorganizing and preparing for the next Imperial offensive aimed deeper into Equestria.

Can missing Cloudsdale be located near the borders of Thestralslovakia? Will the once-disloyal and still-distrusted bat-ponies that live there side with Equestria or the Empire? What is the Imperial invasion plan? What role will the Changelings play in the conflict? And what will happen when a sixteen-year old gryphon cub faces off with the gryphon-hating pony named Thunderbolt; one of the most lethal and bloodthirsty beings to ever live...?

Book 3: Second Offensive

While the fate of Cloudsdale is negotiated and Firefly's forces prepare for additional action, the second Imperial offensive begins with an assault against the badly outnumbered Equestrian Army at Maresk two hundred miles inside Equestria, attempting to pocket and destroy the thousands of sorely-needed soldiers based there.

Can an out-of-favor earth pony Colonel rally his regiment to save the city and an entire Army Corps? Or will the city's soldiers and civilians alike face the fate of the border bases, becoming yet another crushing defeat in the Imperial drive on Canterlot?

• Writers: Denim_Blue and Firesight with occassional writing assists from Leo Archon and AJ_Aficionado
• Prereaders: AJ_Aficionado, SilentWoodFire, TheGoldCrow, Denim_Blue
• Guest Writers: AJ_Aficionado, Denim_Blue

Maps of Equestria and Equis: https://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/1105220

Three hundred years after the fall of Princess Luna, Equestria teeters on the brink of disaster. Bitter political infighting and power-hungry nobles threaten to tear the country apart in a bloody civil war, while in the south old enemies prepare to reclaim their ancient homeland from the ponies.

As Princess Celestia desperately strives to hold together her splintered nation, she sends a young pony on a quest to the northern lands that border Equestria in order to plead for aid against the threat of Grypha. This unlikely messenger is Rye Strudel, the flightless, magicless, half-breed son of a guard and a baker. Rye must do the impossible and unite the thanes of the north... for if he cannot, there may be no home to come back to.

When Private Fleethoof recognized his dream and joined the Royal Guard, he never thought he would ever experience the might of Equestria's military firsthand. But when Equestria's safety is threatened by an old enemy, he'll find out just what sacrifices war and survival demand, what it truly means to serve for Princess and country, and just how important some friendships can be. See the war through the eye-witness account of a soldier on the front lines, all taken from one enduring journal.

Featured on FOB Equestria [08.23.13]
Reviewed and featured by Seattle's Angels [04.13.14]
Singularity Dream's Review [04.24.14]
Featured by The Royal Guard [11.28.14]
Lord Sylus of Night's Review [11.30.14]
A Reading of the Prologue by TheFirstPersonGamers

How far will you go to save your family? Your friends? Your empire? Twenty years before the events of the Hearth's Warming Eve story, long before the pegasi had even met the other two races, Commander Hurricane was a simple farmer in the great Cirran Empire. When the neighboring griffon nation declares war on Cirra and everything it stands for, the young Hurricane finds himself thrown into the middle of a conflict with the fate of his very race put into question. Will he rise to be the pegasus Cirra needs him to be, or will the mighty empire fall to the claws of the griffons?

Officially part of "The Price of Loyalty" storyverse, in collaboration with LoyalLiar.

Now with a side story! Come check out my friend Ruirik's Wind and Stone and follow along with the journey of another legionnaire who struggled through the Red Cloud War at the same time as Hurricane. (*contains references to events in the sequel to OSLF, Snow and Shadows, so be wary*)

Cover art by Ruirik

Three hundred years after Luna's banishment, Equestria is at a shaky peace, its borders protected by the Equestrian Armed Forces from several hostile races, from raiding Diamond Dogs to the increasingly aggressive Gryphons. Incidents are many, and tensions rise as the newly unified Gryphon Empire sets its sights on the lands and riches of its pony neighbors.

In this troubled time, a young pegasus orphan named Firefly comes of age. A born warrior, her name will one day be known as not just the founder of the Wonderbolts, but as one of Equestria's greatest heroes...

Set in the same universe as the Turnabout Storm novelization but taking place seven hundred years before, this is the story of Rainbow Dash's ancestor, the origin of the Wonderbolts, and the coming of the Great Pony/Gryphon War. Also referenced by multiple stories in the Gentlemanverse.

• Rated MUST READ by the Pleasant Commentator and Review Group - October 2, 2016 (8/10 stars).
• Rated RECOMMEND by the Reviewer's Cafe - April 13, 2017 (8/10 stars).
• Rated 4/5 Stars by Personal Review of xTSGx December 6, 2017.
• Rated WHY HAVEN'T YOU READ THIS YET? by Personal Review of PaulAsaran March 30, 2018.
• Rated 9.6/10 by Firefoxino of My Little Reviews and Feedback Group April 17, 2018.

Writers: Leo Archon and Firesight
Prereaders: AJ_Aficionado, SilentWoodFire, JamesCyberlink, Denim_Blue

Cover Art by Equestria Prevails, classified as creative-commons/share-alike: http://equestria-prevails.deviantart.com/art/Firefly-351657539

Eighty years after the events of The Dread Chitin, Equestria is a radically different place. The arcane science of the late Duran Thirk and the information found on the Star League library core have combined to catapult the nation's science ahead by hundreds of years.

Now, facing the possible aggression of a completely unknown alien power, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have to gather together once more, leading a crew of the best ponies they could assemble in a voyage outside their own star system. They seek to learn about their potential foe, to explore the galaxy around them, and possibly find allies and friends to stand alongside them. Who knows what they will actually find?

This story is a sequel to Armor's Game

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

Canterlot has fallen. The Element Bearers have fled Ponyville. And now civil war ravages Equestria as the traitor and usurper Blueblood seeks to conquer the rest of the realm. Standing against him is a scattered army with divided loyalties and uncertain leaders. Yet even as the ponies' armies are arrayed against each other, in the black north beyond the Crystal Empire, savages and demons and worse are poised to invade Equestria, and few soldiers can be sent to confront it.

The war for Equestria rages, but if the Crystal Empire falls, nopony will live to claim it.

Map

War is ruin, predicted and then remembered as glory.

The Changelings and their vengeance-mad Queen grow ravenous in the south. Nations all around gaze hungrily at Equestria. In the north, beyond the Crystal Mountains, an unfathomable menace sends even the fiercest Diamond Dog packs fleeing before it. In Canterlot, a capricious Prince lusts for absolute power.

Against it all, Equestria stands toothless. Fearful for his country and thirsty for vengeance against Queen Chrysalis, Shining Armor desperately tries to convince Princess Celestia of the need for an Equestrian Army. Yet even as plans are made to march against the Changelings, the means for his triumph may have been delivered into the hooves of Prince Blueblood, who will risk everything to seize the crown he deems rightfully his.

Map
Royal Equestrian Army order of battle

5000 years ago, the alicorns invaded the planet for the first time. 1000 years ago, the celestial alicorn sisters staked their claim over the pony tribes. Then the Everfree burned, and now the Empress of Equestria rules alone. Celestia may reign, but she does not rest, for ever are there terrors lurking: Things great, ancient, and inapproachable, older than the alicorns.

It is an age of great advancements in Equestria. Gunpowder, oceanic trade, and new ideologies have shifted the balance of power and pony attitudes to the powers that be. The alicorn ordained hierarchy is challenged daily, as bitterness grow between the insecure knights and nobles, and the resentful burghers and commoners. Though many speak as though as if the Equestrian universal peace is already a dead letter, desperate reformers fight their own battle to preserve their princess's empire.

But it is not by mortal striving alone that the wheel of history is turned. The supernatural adversaries of Celestia's reign have returned at last, to conquer ponykind for themselves. Nightmares return to stalk under moonlit skies, but they are just the first and do not even bear the deepest grudge.

In an age of growing crisis, will the ponies be found wanting? Will the princess herself be found wanting? Will naked ambition, arrogance, and evil shatter the very concord of the tribes? It is a fraught time to live, where the pony world faces both peril and possibility. The ponies, the alicorns, the monsters- all have but one goal, to survive and see the world remade to their desires.

Twilight Velvet has lived in this changing world long enough to despise it, while Twilight Sparkle is just coming of age in it. Shining Armor thought he found his place but discovers all is not as it seems. This pony family, divided by duty, may effect the world more than the even their alicorn sovereign, if they can survive being close to power. Surely fighting ponies and monsters alike is worth it when there is a nation and a future to win.

Author's warnings: This story has many original characters, a fairly complex plot and lore, and is very long. A story that started as me trying to write Game of Thrones with MLP ponies has grown up with me and has come to include many of my interests in political philosophy and history. I'm committed to finishing it before taking what I learned and writing this story in its own setting, however long that takes.