//------------------------------//
// Insert three, something about Alliance army 
// Story: Fall of Equestria: two worlds collide 
// by Gray Kirin 
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08.11.20... from the Accession of the Sisters
Equestria
Time 15:52

Amethyst Prism, the crystal pony enchantress, lightly shoved the pink-maned equa. Pony smiled gently at her companion, encouraging the mint-green unicorn with a warm touch of her side.

"It’s “yours” infantrymen Do you think they will refuse to talk?"

In a small square just down the street, there are five mobile infantrymen from the “guardianship” squad, and four bat ponies. Without taking off their armor and armored suits, they were clearly resting after training, which the garrison had a lot of in recent days. Only the helmets of those who rested side by side on the bench, who had them folded on their backs. Thermos flasks with something floating and sandwiches the size of bricks kept wandering over the hooves and hands.

"Ph-h-hew... and it’s scary and curious to hear first-hand... Will you stay close, Amethyst? As a moral support?"

“What else are friends for, Ivy?” 

With a warm laugh, equa patted the crystal pony on the top of her head and drove off with her to the square, where human soldiers and night guards were chatting. A slight biting cold jumped in her chest, then the burning curiosity of the former guard. Ivy wanted to pass by and talk to the “golems”

The medic who was providing first aid to the freedmen on the slope, “Comrade Shepovalov,” also noticed Ivy and waved to her with a slight smile.
Thorny smiled back and pushed her doubts into the depths of her mind. It’s too interesting an opportunity to miss. Not letting the sprouts of uncertainty break through again, remembering the long-standing training of the guards, Ivy approached the company sitting in the square.

"Comrade Shepovalov! Can I join you?"

"Of course. Fillady, have a seat. A cup of tea?"

In Ivy’s hands and in Amethyst’s hooves, as if by magic, thermos lids full of steaming dark tea and sandwiches the size of half a brick turned out to be. For a couple of minutes, Equa and crystal ponyashka paid tribute to a simple but very pleasant treat.

Ivy kept glancing at the talking soldiers and thestrals. It was almost itchy for equa to ask humans about their service and device in general. But she did not dare, only exchanging short phrases and jokes. Amethyst, noticing this, rubbed her cheek against her friend’s shoulder. The gesture did not escape the sharp-eyed thestrals, and one of them, with a blue mane and fur the color of night clouds, chuckled softly.

“Did you want something, Ivy? Don’t be afraid infantrymen don’t bite while we’re around,"

"Slander! We don’t bite at all!"

"Yes, I want to ask you something. Comrade Shepovalov, how long have you been training? To move like on a slope in your armor?"

"A very long time, but armored suits also have special features. Professional interest, I see?"

"Yes. I was a guardsmare and, looking at you, I think to resume my career."

A joyful hubbub swept through the company. Now both people and ponies looked at Equa with respect and approval. Everyone was pleased to see how a colleague, even a former one, gets back on her feet after suffering injuries.

Blue-maned thestral was all smiles from ear to ear.

"So you’re our sister? Ivy, that’s great!"

Very quickly, the conversation took a turn and flowed much more vividly. It has become easier for Equa to perceive and communicate with both thestrals and people. Ivy literally bombarded the latter with questions about the specifics of the service, organization and training.

Edgar Kingsley, deputy sergeant, told how long training sessions and motorization in armored suits are combined. Infantry “Granites” literally carried themselves, accelerating and strengthening the owner. Controlled through a neural shunt, suits felt like a second skin and did not bother at all, it was only necessary to get used to it a little.

Ivy decided that she wanted such a “Granite”. Kingsley approved and said he would take care of her if Equa seriously decided to join the infantry.

Next, Sergeant Bezzabotny joined in, arranging a small educational program on the organization of the service as a whole.

In the regular army serve only contract soldiers, each “call” for thirty years. The first five years of the first contract are study and preparation. The first year they do not go out on combat missions unless absolutely necessary, giving it to in-depth and very intensive training. Work in a detachment, interaction with equipment and fire support, handling weapons, hand-to-hand combat, engineering, first aid, interrogation methods and much more that a soldier needs.
Absolutely the whole theory is invested in hypnoeducation, along with the soldier’s psychomatrix. And, in fact, five years of “study” are needed in order for the acquired knowledge to integrate normally, take root and become its own experience, which will never leave and will never fail.

After a year of pure training, combat exits begin, the further, the more. The fourth and fifth courses, in fact, already serve as full-fledged infantrymen and marines. In the Navy situation is similar.

After five years of training, active service begins in all its glory. And there’s as lucky as anyone.

The first contract was coming to an end for most of the department. And the sniper Josef Schwartz has already gone to the second one. At the same time, he looked quite young and calmly told that over the past two hundred years, humans have brought their life expectancy to three or four centuries. Unless you catch plasma shoot sooner.

The topic was picked up and developed by Shepovalov, telling about the body modifications necessary for a soldier. Accelerated reaction, strengthening skin and bones, improving muscles, changing the properties of blood and the immune system. The more experience, the more “augmentations” appear in the body. Modifications of everything that is possible are added to the standard ones. Expanding the range of vision and psi perception, implanted processors for working with technology, reinforcement of large arteries with carbon fiber, “microfactories” of nanites lacement  in the body, replacement of bones with artificial ones made of heavy-duty composites, swarms of force field micro-projectors under the skin and many other things that may only be needed and help to last an extra five minutes on the battlefield.

Ivy relived the events on the slope. From what she had just heard, it turned out that going out ten to a hundred caribou for Infantrymen was not even a difficulty, but just a routine. Even putting aside equipment and body modifications, each of these people had twenty to thirty years of combat experience behind them. With an average age of caribou in the watagas of twenty-eight to thirty-five years.

Josef, seeing that equa thinking, calculating something, added that in the Equestrian corps, even among the infantry, there are veterans of the Last War, who are a hundred and forty or a hundred and sixty years old. 

Unicorn tried to imagine what it would be like if the caribou encountered such veterans. And again equa got an emotional “push-pull”. On the one hand, it was pleasant to imagine what such veterans would do with caribou, forcing Ivy to smile after the experience.

And at the same time, a chill ran down her spine from the realization of what kind of war humans could call the Last.

But Thorny decided to ask about her anyway. Semyon Volkov, one of the shooters, surprisingly calmly explained that in that war humanity fought for its existence with its own creators. It began a hundred and twenty years ago, lasted thirty years, the most difficult in history. Then, at the cost of huge losses and efforts, hanity were still able to gnaw out their freedom and completely destroy those who had been feeding on their psi energy for many centuries.

The scale of what was happening was truly cosmic, and the Last War shook the whole society to the ground, leaving incandescent, non-extinguishing traces in all spheres of life. Humanity have remained a highly militarized race, where the army and society are so firmly soldered that borders are sometimes lost.

Ivy refused the proposed historical materials, arguing that she would come to herself properly after the slavery, and only then read the details about the Last War. But if there is a history of peacetime, the history of culture and art, then equa will be glad to get to know them. Volkov was only too happy to give Ivy what she requested.