//------------------------------//
// 3: The Sunset Rebellion 
// Story: For the Good of Equestria: Shadows 
// by brokenimage321 
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Approximately 500 years later, Celestia has more-or-less got this whole "Princess" thing down. She's settled into a sort of a routine, and she's having fewer and fewer surprises. Celestia has amassed quite a stable of "Students," each of whom are fiercely loyal to her, and who she can trust almost completely--and she's actually founded a school, Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, in a dual attempt to keep herself distracted and to locate more capital-S Students. Further, many of Starswirl's predictions, both political and magical, have come true, which makes her all the more certain that her old enemies will return--but not for a while, at least. 

However, there is one major problem. The Sunset Republic. 

Though they officially disavowed the radical politician who kidnapped Cadance, the Republic has continued to be a thorn in her side ever since. Sunset lands are rich in minerals, but poor in water and good topsoil, so they've had to get clever to survive. Their current leader, "President Sunset," is an Earth Pony who values science over magic. In fact, he claims that magic is cheating--only cowards and weaklings force reality to bend to their wills, rather than work within the rules it has set. Accordingly, the Sunset Republic has advanced very rapidly: it is cris-crossed by rail lines (though all the trains are horse-drawn; steam power is a distant dream), and they have developed black-powder artillery, which they use to intimidate the border towns. 

Celestia has been trying to ignore them for some time, but they continue to needle her. In particular, they're now claiming that a certain fertile valley, on the border between their two nations, should rightfully be theirs, though the citizens themselves heartily disagree. Celestia has tried to be conciliatory, but the messengers she sends to Saddlehorn City, the Sunset capitol, are able to do nothing. None of this is helped by President Sunset himself, who portrays Celestia as a harsh, commanding dictator, one who crushes the spirits of her subjects under her hooves. 

Then, suddenly, Celestia receives reports that the Sunset troops have made a move. They have attacked the valley in question, and are now occupying it; they've killed and/or captured all the stallions in the area, with reports of looting, rape, and torture, especially against unicorns. Local Equestrian troops are trying to hold them back, but they are drastically outclassed, and are barely holding on.

Celestia hears all this, and her calm gives way to a quiet rage. It's time to put the Queen into play.

Celestia assembles the Great Flight, an enormous army of a hundred thousand pegasi, and, using her own magic, leads them across the world. They fly farther and faster than any pegasus should be able to, in a beeline for the Saddlehorn, leaving a trail of fire and destruction in their wake. They catch the Sunset armies completely off-guard, and destroy their ability to fight back, though with remarkably few casualties on both sides. 

[Excerpt: "The Great Flight"]

A great part of Celestia's power comes from the fact that she has "networked" with everyone's minds. Using more magic than she's comfortable with, she's made herself aware of where everyone in the army is at all times, and what they're thinking, feeling, and so on. This allows her to coordinate the entire army very quickly, passing orders almost simultaneously, and receiving scouting reports almost as fast. 

However, Celestia does this at great expense to herself. She has an almost-inexhaustible supply of magic, and more power than anyone else could hope for, but it's barely enough. She's holding herself together with the help of her Honor Guard, composed of sixteen of her hand-picked Students, in whom she has confided her fears.

They approach the Saddlehorn, and Celestia sees that it is fiercely fortified. She orders her troops to attack and overwhelm the defenses, and to do their best to get her to the palace at the center of the city. The fighting is fierce, and Celestia feels every death, but they make progress. 

And then, suddenly, a snag. In front of the palace is an experimental cannon that shoots lightning instead of fire, which can take out dozens of pegasi at a time. Celestia orders everyone else to hang back, then attacks it on her own. The cannon fires, and the lightning strikes Celestia, horn-first, which super-powers her magic. In a surreal, stream-of-conciousness scene, Celestia, in slow motion, uses her new magical power to dismantle the cannon, then destroy the soldiers' weapons. As the cannon explodes in a flash of blinding, white light, Celestia becomes dimly aware that every member of her army, networked to her mind as they are, can see exactly what she's seeing--that is, they can see her scour the Sunset threat off the face of the earth.

Celestia, shaken, lands inside the palace and begins to search for President Sunset. As she does, she thinks back over all he has done--all his people have done--to hurt others. She gradually whips herself into a froth, and, in her blinding rage, she begins to transform: her mane turns to fire, and hot steam escapes her nostrils.

Celestia finds President Sunset in his office. He tries to escape, but she corners him."I am not here to fight," she says, "I am here to end the war."

And then, to his infinite astonishment, she lowers her head and asks him, "Will you accept my friendship?"

President Sunset looks at her like she's lost her mind, but she presses forward: she would prefer a peaceful settlement. She would prefer that they become quiet, friendly neighbors, if not allies. But, even if he refuses, it doesn't matter: the fighting is going to stop. Today. 

President Sunset seems like he's going to give in, but, at the last moment, lashes out at her. Celestia sighs and lights her horn...

A few minutes later, Celestia steps out of the palace, carrying President Sunset in magical chains. She asks her nearby soldiers to round up as many citizens as they can and bring them to the square, and sends the rest to quell the fighting on the walls. After the citizenry are assembled, Celestia informs them that the war is over. The fighting will last until the Sunset troops stand down, but no longer. When that's done, she will allow them to choose--choose who they want to lead them, and what they want their relationship to Equestria to be. "We don't want to fight you," she says, "But you have left us no choice. We all want this to end as quickly as possible, so we can all go back to our homes, safe and sound."

In the middle of her speech, Celestia feels something go wrong in her magic. She turns to President Sunset to see that he has used a magical amulet to break his chains, and is now lunching at her with a magical blade, roaring a battle cry.

And, with a flash of lightning, Celestia strikes him dead.

She turns back to the stunned crowd and reiterates her message: "We won't hurt you, we want this over as much as you do; stand down and let's get this over with as quickly as we can." She steps down from the platform and passes through the silent, stunned crowd. 

As soon as she leaves the plaza, Celestia feels her magic begin to fail. With the adrenaline wearing off, Celestia's impossibly deep exhaustion is starting to set in. She's an alicorn, but she has pushed herself too hard, for far too long, and it's starting to catch up to her. Her Honor Guard catches her as she falls, then leads her to a swanky hotel and frantically begins to argue with the manager before she passes out entirely.

Two weeks later, Celestia wakes up, frail and exhausted, in a room she doesn't recognize. She realizes her Students are there, and they help nurse her back to health while filling her in on the details:

Per her instructions, they've rented her a room in a nice hotel, rather than occupy a room in the palace--she wants to make it clear that, even in her exhaustion, they are not there as conquerors. Though management is charging them through the nose, the people appear to be picking up on the difference.

The fighting has mostly stopped, all across the Republic. There are a few pockets of resistance, but most soldiers stood down when they heard what happened at the Saddlehorn.

As instructed, the Equestrian pegasi used magical scrolls written by the unicorns to create a short-lived portal back to Canterlot, allowing an army of politicans and bureaucrats through. The diplomats have successfully negotiated with the Saddlehorn authorities, who are now pulling together an emergency election to replace President Sunset's government. 

As for Sunset himself: after going through his papers, it turns out that this is what he wanted all along. He wanted Celestia to invade and capture him, all so he could have a chance to kill her in front of a crowd. If he succeeded, then he could march on Equestria unimpeded. If he didn't, however, all his lies and propaganda would turn the people against her even more--after all, she killed a beloved prisoner in public! What sort of monster would do that?

However, he hadn't planned for one thing: the people believed her.

Celestia had planned her invasion very carefully, and fought to protect the common people as much as possible. She wanted to "cut off the head," as it were, but not at expense of the body. Coupled with President Sunset's public use of magic--which, as you remember, he always claimed was "cheating"--public opinion was starting to swing in her favor. 

In the years since, the Sunset Rebellion--later called the Sunset Revolution--became a watershed moment for Celestia. It was seen as a political coup, and a way to bring a substantial portion of the former Alliance back into the fold (as was eventually voted on). It didn't hurt that her display of awesome magical power--witnessed, first-hand, by nearly every soldier and citizen in the city--helped her reputation immensely. In fact, there was a short-lived cult that revered her as "The White War Goddess" (a cult which she, taking a leaf from Starswirl, did not discourage). 

Further, the conflict helped to shape the Equestria to come: soldiers, who had rallied from all over the Alliance, began to think of themselves as fighting, not for their local provinces, but for Equestria as a whole, to the point where now, 500 years later, no one remembers that Equestria is still, technically, an Alliance. 

Further, the close ties between the former Sunset Republic and Equestria changed both landscapes: some Pegasus soldiers, part of the short-lived occupation force, fell in love with and married local Sunset mares. These families tended to gather together, and a few of them founded the small settlement of Las Pegasus, which, with Equestrian magic and Sunset ingenuity, soon became a model for what international cooperation could accomplish. Rail lines, too,  began to spread, not just across Sunset lands, but also Equestria, joining the two countries tighter than ever before.

The last major effect the Rebellion had was more of an ironic one than anything: President Sunset's granddaughter, Aurora Ray, was born a unicorn. Though she never really found acceptance in her own family, she became a famous politician during re-unification, and one of Celestia's most powerful Students. Through her line, many famous unicorns were born--including Sunbolt and Sunset Shimmer, brother and sister, both named for their heritage, who each inherited President' Sunset's pride; Starlight Glimmer, who got his ambition; and Twilight Sparkle, who got his mind for organization and invention (Celestia says this last one with some difficulty--perhaps she can't even say her name).

At this point in her story, Celestia falters. She admits that, though the Rebellion is probably her greatest success--it is the one that still haunts her dreams. Her inaction allowed so many to suffer, for so long, and she still has nightmares of President Sunset lunging at her, and of his wide, glassy-eyed stare after she killed him. 

Try as she might, she cannot rid herself of the blood on her hooves. It had to be done. It had to. But Celestia, even now, would give anything to not be the one who had done it.