The crisis got itss name when the SS Gorgon, an Equestrian sailing ship was detained at port by Saddle Arabian authorities.
Across the Western Ocean from Equestria, Saddle Arabia at the time, had a strange relationship with Equestria. Today, we know them as a friendly trading nation, whose main export is fine silks and minerals.
Back then though, Saddle Arabia had a stringent religious-based caste system. At the top, the kopatia - the noble-priests, who taught the religion of the Horse God Lintora and also administered the country. The most powerful of them being the Priest-King, who was both the nation’s ruler, and it’s religious leader. The lowest of them being the priest-mayors, who both taught scripture, and governed villages.
Then there were the harmatiea - the warrior-acolytes, who defended the faith, guarded the temples, and manned the war machines of Saddle Arabia. Foremost of them, was the Ship-of-the-line, a massive leap forward in naval technology that could carry 100 cannon.
Then there were the peloliioi - the servants of the Horse God. The standard Saddle Arabian citizen who got to live in the lands, pay taxes, but deserved protection from the harmatiea and kopatia. They were the blacksmiths, artisans, and carpenters. Most importantly, they oversaw the the jihadani.
And the jihadani were the key reason for Equestria’s hostility toward Saddle Arabia. They were Saddle Arabia’s slave caste. They were ‘unclean,’ the lowest of the low, and weren’t even afforded the courtesy of pets. They could be killed, bought and sold, raped, tortured for amusement… all the other Saddle Arabian classes could do anything to them, but usually, they worked them to death.
This of course, presented a problem for Saddle Arabia in the distant past. The jihadani initially made up a good 40% of the Saddle Arabian population, but at the rate they were working them to death in mines, factories and fields, the Saddle Arabians soon found out that they needed to replenish this group… with captives.
Ponies, Griffons, Diamond Dogs, Mules, Donkeys and Zebras found their way into the jihadani caste and for years, Saddle Arabian corsairs would raid the coasts of other nations for prey, but never targeting any one nation too much. After all, they didn’t want to provoke war.
But in 540 AR, Sultan Faisal I, recently coronated at 17 years of age, stepped up the raids as Saddle Arabia industrialized and jihadani deaths skyrocketed. They were being worked to death in mines and factories as the nation industrialized.
Equestria became a renewed target, as unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies could all be used in Saddle Arabian industry for very unique roles.
Of course, Alternia, Voulge and the Equestrian Army and Navy wasn’t going to take this lying down. Many Equestrians were taken in a series of raids during that decade, but the Equestrian Navy inflicted heavy losses on the Saddle Arabian Corsairs.
Two particular battles are rather noteworthy, the Battle of the Yellow Straits being one, where Admiral Hardbeak (a griffon admiral serving Equestria) led his task force of thirty galleons to destroy fifty Corsair ships. He then located a major Saddle Arabian Corsair base on the island of Forhoofsa.
The three-thousand strong Manehattan Rangers under Lt. Colonel Titus Puller and his friend and Legatus (Brigadier General) Quintus Valorus were dispatched to clear the two thousand corsairs out. After an entire day of battle, the discipline and training of the Rangers let them overrun the defenses of the corsairs fort. More importantly, Titus Puller and Quintus Valorus freed nine hundred slaves and captured documents tying the Corsairs to the Saddle Arabian government.
This seizure and defeat allowed the Equestria to force a secret treaty on the Saddle Arabians. The Silks-Pea Agreement. Equestria would not bring evidence of Saddle Arabian involvement in kidnapping its citizens, and Saddle Arabia would halt the slave raids on Equestria… or else.
But the raids had cemented Equestrian opinion against Saddle Arabia and Alternia started giving aid to foreign powers to resist the Corsairs. It wasn’t a violation of the treaty, but it certainly was pushing the boundaries.
If that pissed Saddle Arabia off, Alternia’s creation of the Equestrian Express infuriated them, and this is where we meet the SS Gorgon at the port of Malaga in 580 AR.
The SS Gorgon was ostensibly a civilian vessel. In reality, it was a Royal Equestrian Intelligence and Naval Service (REINS) running the so-called “Equestrian Express.” It’s official name was actually the war-sloop, RENS Gorgon, carrying 18 cannon and a crew of a hundred marines and ponies-at-sea.
The REINS had been established shortly after the 2nd Griffonian War and was already making a name for itself, despite its attempts to keep itself a secret. Alternia had ordered her spymaster Elektra and her two chief admirals: Salted Apple and Widow’s Wail, to combine the semi-formal network of spies, informants and bureaucrats that kept the “alicorn” informed about everything outside her kingdom and within, with the Royal Equestrian Navy. The Navy would drop spies off onto foreign shores, carry their reports, and pick them up, whilst the spies would act as the navy’s eyes and ears. It was a lovely arrangement.
But the reason the REINS had been making a name for itself was because of its operation of the “Equestrian Express,” which essentially was a ring that was smuggling slaves out of Saddle Arabia, and organizing revolts, while providing weapons for said revolts. Of course, most people in the United Parliament knew very little about that as the REINS only needed to report directly to Alterna.
Unfortunately, that list included Rapier Apple, and for good reason. He lamented the slave trade. In fact, he hated it deeply and cursed the Saddle Arabian King quite often. However, he wanted Equestria to have cordial relations with Saddle Arabia and avoid war with the country. The way he saw it, he did NOT want to send ordinary ponies to the horrors of war. All of his grandparents had served in the Equestrian Civil War and the 2nd Griffon War. Two of them never came back, one a victim of the Siege of Baltimare and the other a victim of the final days of Blackfire’s Retreat from the Griffons.
Moreover, he had friends in Saddle Arabia (who had studied in Equestria) and thought that internal change could occur without Equestrian interference. These friends were the peloliioi intellectual, Black Beauty, the harmatiea warrior Mustang and the kopatia noble-priest, Xanthos. Black Beauty and Mustang in particular were young horses who hated the slave trade, and wanted to overhaul Saddle Arabia’s caste system. Xanthos, Rapier knew later, but was more liberal and eager to reform than the rest of his noble caste.
Alternia disagreed completely. She knew the King Faisal I had an iron grip and no horse was ever going to oppose him unless the entire system was brought crashing down. She had considered the losses and high cost in casualties, but to protect her nation from the corsairs that never really went away, she had decided that she would do whatever was necessary to bring change to Saddle Arabia, or if that failed, to crush it. Moreover, a long memory of other broken treaties with other sultans meant she had long made her decision.
History would favour Alternia, and certainly Equestrian public opinion was against Saddle Arabia. While Rapier wasn’t exactly misinformed, he had been fed a more positive view of Saddle Arabia’s society and he primarily saw the burgeoning movement in the castes, that was unfortunately… very, VERY small, not that Rapier knew it. Black Beauty and Mustang were young stallions caught up in a social-political movement and had very little awareness of how little impact they had. Beauty and Mustang also hated slavery with the same passion as Rapier did, which influenced Rapier’s opinion of the situation.
This… is when we get back to the Gorgon crisis. Saddle Arabian authorities had essentially traced escaped slaves running onto the Gorgon at night and wanted to search the vessel.
The captain Gyn Tackle and her first mate, Block of course, refused and produced their false papers indicating they were a merchant vessel chartered by the Equestrian government.
The Saddle Arabians were… not amused. They knew the slaves were on the ship. They suspected the Gorgon had them on board, and while the ponies were very good at keeping themselves calm and confident, they seemed to be in a hurry to get out of port.
Thoroughly sick of the Equestrians getting away from them scott free, the Saddle Arabian naval commander, a noble-priest (kopatia)Tara, did the unthinkable. She blockaded the Gorgon within the port. Tara literally put a Saddle Arabian 3rd Rate, with 74 guns right beside the Gorgon’s berth and refused to move it, citing that the ship had run aground.
Gyn Tackle knew that was just a very flimsy excuse. However, she also knew she was in trouble, and so in the dead of night, sent her pegasus REINS operative and courier, Rainbow Hail to carry a distress message to the REINS. He stole a boat, loaded it with provisions and got to another port. Once he did, he made contact with the local REINS cell, who had a magic crystal ball, which the REINS used to contact Alternia.
Now, normally, situations like these would deescalate with the Saddle Arabians letting the Equestrians go, or the Equestrians releasing the slaves (who would mysteriously vanish out of Saddle Arabian custody a few weeks later)… but Tara and Gyn refused to budge. Gyn would not let the starving slaves go, and Tara refused to let the Equestrians go without imprisoning them.
Into this crisis came Rapier Apple and Alternia. Alternia suggested that they hold firm, and if necessary, threaten the Saddle Arabians with force. Rapier Apple however… wanted to talk it out. He didn’t know the Gorgon had escaped slaves on board and Alternia… didn’t want to tell him. She knew that once he found out, he would insist that the slaves be released in order to prevent an incident with Saddle Arabia.
The pair argued fiercely over what to do, and the intelligent Rapier Apple could tell Alternia was hiding something, so discussions went nowhere, until Alternia suggested that they let the Gorgon be searched, under strict conditions, and the promise that the Gorgon be released if they found no slaves.
Rapier gleefully accepted Alternia’s suggestion and informed the Saddle Arabian embassy. The Saddle Arabian commander Tara searched the vessel to find no slaves. But she did find out that the Gorgon was actually an Equestrian Warship. This displeased the Saddle Arabians, and infuriated Tara, but since there were no slaves… they had to let the Gorgon go.
Everything seemed to have worked out, but then, things hit a snag.
The Gorgon’s crew had hid the slaves by mixing them with their own crew, but also by taking a risk. They had secreted them off their ship and mixed them into the local populace. They had recovered all the freed slaves after Tara searched the ship, but one, a horse, was missing.
And that one missing slave was a spy for the Saddle Arabian Hassassins, their principal spy agency, and he informed his superiors about the Gorgon’s involvement in the Equestrian Express. By chance, he had been thrown into jail when he tried to inform Tara what he found out because everybody thought the scruffy looking horse was just another slave making a nuisance. When Tara finally interviewed the captive, she was furious, both at the horses that had detained him, and at the Equestrians.
Enraged, she took a fast ship, the frigate (40 gun) Halicarnassus and pursued the sloop. A fierce battle broke out between the larger and faster Halicarnassus and Gorgon.
Gyn Tackle and Block were more than up for the challenge though. They brought in their sloop so close, the larger ship was unable to fire down at their smaller ship. Whenever Tara and her horses tried to board, the captain danced the Gorgon out of the way.
But they couldn’t keep up the dance forever. The Gorgon was eventually lashed and boarded by the Saddle Arabians.
Which was when fortune, and advanced planning, prevailed. The Gorgon had been about to rendezvous with another Equestrian vessel, the 36 gun frigate, Cochrane,under Captain Speedy. Closing in on the duelling vessels he announced Tara’s actions amounted to a declaration of war and that the Equestrians would inflict swift retribution.
Tara wasn’t a fool, and so she abandoned the disabled Gorgon and ordered her crew to charge the Cochrane. The tired crew of the Halicarnassus couldn’t keep up with the Cochrane though and Speedy raked the Halicarnassus’s stern and forced the Saddle Arabian ship to surrender.
An uproar spread across both Equestria and Saddle Arabia as the full story, including the part about Equestria actively freeing Saddle Arabian slaves, broke across both continents. The Saddle Arabians were furious the Equestrians had been so duplicitous. The Equestrians were furious the Saddle Arabians had fired upon their ships. The tension between the two nations reached an all time high and continued to rise as events unfolded.
Alternia wasn’t so angry. She knew this clash was inevitable and calmly ordered the return of Tara, her surviving crew and ship, whilst informing her generals to draft war plans. She knew Saddle Arabia would seek reprisals. War would be inevitable and she had long accepted this as a necessary thing if they were to end the Saddle Arabian slave trade.
Rapier Apple was furious though at how Alternia had lied to him, and he was even more incensed when he realized Equestria’s secretive involvement in the Equestrian Express. Historians and political scientists argue to this day whether Alternia was in the right, though, most side with Alternia. The abominable nature of the slave trade that Saddle Arabia engaged in has always been clear to even Rapier’s contemporaries. More importantly, while Rapier’s advocacy of non-interference with other nation’s policies had merit, Alternia’s argument that that pursuit of non-interference should never endanger Equestria’s citizens has pretty much convinced most ponies.
So when the public found out about the full extent of the REINS’s actions, most ponies cheered at the bravery of Gyn Tackle and Block, as well as the skill of Equestria’s navy and spies. The Saddle Arabians meanwhile called Tara a hero for resisting the evil and duplicitous Equestrians and for fighting despite being outnumbered.
Rapier Apple was thus one of the few ponies in Equestria that was angry at Alternia. This dispute effectively ended their romantic relationship. In fact, Rapier nearly resigned as prime minister, but stayed on because he saw himself as the voice of reason against a sovereign who was clearly too ruthless.
But Rapier wasn’t a fool either. He knew that the Gorgon Crisis would provoke a Saddle Arabian reaction whether he liked it or not. However, he believed he had enough influence to restrain the Equestrian government from escalating this further, and his friends in the Saddle-Arabian government told him that they would do their best to restrain their nations. His friend Black Beauty, a peloliioi priest was now a professor at the Saddle Arabians university and a courtier, and was particularly enthusiastic. His harmatiea warrior friend, Mustang, was less so, but promised to do his best. He had become the equivalent of a Colonel in the military and was amassing substantial influence. Rapier’s hopes were on the kopatia noble-priest, Xanthos though, for he was now an advisor to the Saddle Arabian King Faisal I and a friend of the king’s second son, Anwar Sadat, a staunch opponent of slavery.
And… well for a moment, this worked. In 581 AR, an entire year after the incident, Rapier’s work in appointing conciliatory, but firm Equestrian ambassadors meant that the Saddle Arabian ambitions were held in check, but their grievances were mollified, at least somewhat. Sadat and Xanthos ensured that Saddle Arabian ambassadors would be similarly less aggressive, whilst Black Beauty courted the influence of many of the higher ranking pelolliioi and kopatia who wanted to have a more courteous relationship with Equestria.
Alternia wasn’t against these efforts, but privately doubted their effectiveness. Faisal I was still furious at the Equestrians and Rapier, despite his best efforts, was overruled and unable to convince Alternia or her supporters that they should end the Equestrian Express. But while tensions were high, they were stable. Nobody wanted to fire the first shot.
Or at least, that was what Rapier and his friends wanted to think. Alternia and Faisal I were both aware that war was coming.
But nobody quite expected how it would come.