//------------------------------// // The Southeastern Guerrilla War // Story: The Millennium Archives // by Moonatik //------------------------------// “There’d always been conflict, sometimes armed conflict, in parts of Equestria between thestrals and the three tribes during the Celestial Millennium. Though it never got to the level it was in the southeast during the 960s and 970s. Rather than just, y’know, you taking my word for it I’ll start you off with an overview of the conflict written by a Celestial Loyalist newspaper.” Moonatik takes a newspaper clipping out of the desk. “Okay, well, they weren’t officially taking sides, but everypony’s got a bias.” “History: The Southeastern Conflict” by Mint Condition. Written in 982 for the Manehattan Times Almanac. The Southeastern Guerilla Conflict, sometimes referred to as the Southeastern Guerilla War, refers to a violent irregular conflict in Southeastern Equestria - mainly the provinces of Aztlan and Stableside - fought between the Equestrian government and Lunarist militants from ~965 to ~972. The conflict is said to have begun with an initially peaceful Lunarist demonstration at a lumberyard that turned violent and ended with the collapse of the Lunarist militias. The goals of the Lunarists varied, with some seeking the separation of “Tzinacatlia” from Equestria and others aiming for the violent overthrow of Princess Celestia and the establishment of a Lunarist Empire, but they were all united in their opposition to the Equestrian government. All Loyalist groups held the singular goal of keeping Equestria together and asserting Royal authority. The conflict was not a conventional war, but an irregular, low-intensity conflict. Battles were mostly small-scale engagements rather than extensive battles. The Lunarists held territory in the rural jungles and had control of some small towns, but territorial control was fluid and there were rarely any established front lines. Before armed conflict broke out, local governments in the southeastern provinces had been dominated by conservative Tribists for generations despite the significant presence of the thestral minority in the region. Attempts by these governments to solve social and political ills unique to the region, such as wide discrimination against thestrals and prevalent exploitation by business elites, proved ineffective. In the same period, many Lunarist and thestral rights groups like the Southwestern Moonspeaker Conclave (SMC) had grown in response to broad thestral discontent, with many radical insurgent Nightmarists also organising into groups such as the Thestral Liberation Army (TLA) and Legions of Nightfall (LoN). This came with the growth of many Loyalist groups to defend what were seen as Equestrian values, some taking the form of “big tent” political parties like the Southwestern Harmonist Party (SHP) and others forming paramilitary groups like the Warriors of Light (WoL). In July 965, the conflict began in earnest when a Lunarist demonstration organised by the SMC in the town of Molehill erupted into chaos between SMC demonstrators and WoL paramilitaries. After Molehill, the TLA announced that it was uninterested in any solution short of a full government withdrawal from “Tzinacatlia” and began its campaign of violence. The LoN dramatically increased its violent activities in the period too. In 966, violence had escalated to a point where soldiers and Royal Guards from the rest of Equestria needed to be brought in. By 967, things had gotten so bad that direct rule from Canterlot was instituted over Aztlan. On the 7th of November of 969, the main Lunarist militant groups (including the TLA and LoN) formed the Thestral United Front (TUF), ushering in the most intense period of the conflict. Pitched battles were fought between the TUF and the Royal Guard over towns and infrastructure, leaving many injured or dead. Government authority completely collapsed in some parts of the countryside, with the void being filled by paramilitaries. Paramilitaries on both sides engaged in violence against civilians. Perhaps the single biggest atrocity of the conflict was the Guavaza Massacre, which happened on 15 January 971. In an armed attack on a logging town in the Teopixqui Jungle named Guavaza, TUF militants murdered 69 ponies who they dragged into the street to be shot or tortured. The massacre dramatically lowered public support for the TUF, eventually leading to its disintegration. During the 7 year conflict, deaths exceeded 4,000. Killings were perpetrated by all sides, Lunarist and loyalist paramilitaries and the Royal Guard. As many as 30,000 ponies were physically maimed or injured, with countless others otherwise damaged by the conflict. This tragic legacy continues to scar the Southeast even ten years on. “Now that's the Celestial loyalist interpretation. That's what most ponies thought about the conflict from the time it ended up until the Lunar Revolution. For the Lunarist perspective, here's an interview with a Lunarist militant who actually participated in the conflict held at around the same time as that newspaper overview was written.” Interview with Anonymous TLA militant, for the “Baltimare’s Voice” magazine. Interviewer: Before we begin, I think it would be best if you gave some background to our readers. Most ponies don’t know much about the southeastern conflict, even at the time news didn’t reach far out of the southeast. What happened? Militant: Certainly. We call it the Tzinacatl Rebellion usually, but most of those who know about it call it the Southeastern Guerilla War. I got into the fight in 966 and was around until 971. If you’re asking why we fought, it’s because we could only take so much after nearly a thousand years of being treated like shit. Interviewer: What specifically motivated you to fight? Militant: For me it was personal. Many in my family were murdered by Solarist paramilitaries and I wanted justice. More broadly, the industrialists, who still dominate Parliament, were out to exploit the southeastern jungles to fuel their businesses in cities like Baltimare, Fillydelphia and Manehattan. These jungles are abundant with resources, timber, rubber, arable land and the like, but they’re also our ancestral homelands. Many of us are still organised into tribes and traditional agricultural communities. So some big city businessponies coming in to roll over all that so they could make big profits? No, we weren’t just gonna let that happen. Interviewer: Did you try peaceful methods at first? Militant: Of course we did, but the movement soon came to understand that violence is the only language they understand. For all Celestia’s pontificating about peace and harmony, all that means squat when some powerful business interests have ponies standing between them and their profits. As well as all the psychos who just wanted to “kill bats”. Anyway, there were many peaceful thestral demonstrations. Most famous one was at a logging site in Molehill, you know the one, July 965. We call it the Molehill Massacre. They came out in the scorching hot sun to protest, everybat had to wear sunglasses to not go blind. Reason for the protest was that logging rights had been granted to some company based all the way in Manehattan and the locals had no say in it, meaning their homeland was gonna be destroyed. Our guys were peaceful, until the Solarist thugs came out and started a fight. That’s a little trick they always like to play. Say a protest “turned violent” but conveniently forget to say who turned it violent. It was the Solarist paramilitaries, paid thugs of the logging companies. Don’t forget that, don’t leave that out. Interviewer: Were you at the protest? Militant: No, but everyone who was there tells me the same thing. Protest was going peacefully until the Solarists showed up. When you ask the Celestial media, you get any number of stories. Some say we started by being violent, some say we turned violent, some say we turned to violence with the arrival of the thugs, and they’re all wrong. It’s the Solarists who can’t get their story straight. Interviewer: I see. Who were the “Solarist thugs”, here? Anyone specific? Militant: Yes, the Warriors of Light. We called them Lightheads. Basically the absolute worst, insane Celestia worshipping cult. Their stated aim was to “pave the way for Celestia’s holy light in these barbaric lands”, which was a euphemistic way of saying “exterminate any resistance to the state or the industrialists in the jungles so they can continue to do what they need to do unabated”. Their methods were varied, from engaging in direct armed conflict with Lunar militias to “preemptive” arson, displacement, and mass murder in areas populated by thestrals in which the industrialists sought to exploit. It was well beyond what most Solarists or Celestials adhere to, and more than once you had politicians and media downplaying them or disavowing them. Of course they supported them materially so those words meant nothing. Interviewer: Do you draw a distinction between the state security forces, like the police and the Royal Guard, and the paramilitaries like the WoL? Militant: Yeah, sort of. The Royal Guard was, and let's be honest still is, home to some radical elements but they have at least a modicum of discipline. Certain rules of engagement that they generally enforce. You’d need to be breaking laws to get their attention. The laws were all written by and for the industrialists so the state forces and the paramilitaries served the same ponies at the end of the night. Interviewer: Where do Loyalist political groups, like the Southwestern Harmonist Party, fall into this? Militant: Oh, funny you mention the SHP specifically. They’re part of the same general movement as the WoL, a way to organise all the Celestials in the region to make bolstering the WoL’s ranks easier. Their leaders collaborated, they shared funds, and the WoL directly recruited from the SHP membership. Like, there’s some difference between the officials from Canterlot and the WoL, but there’s no difference between the SHP and WoL. They were one and the same. Interviewer: And what do you think of Lunarist groups that advocate nonviolence, like the Southwestern Moonspeaker Conclave? Militant: Their hearts are in the right place, I’ll say that. During the conflict I respected them as fellows in the same struggle. A few of us scorned them. Obviously we disagreed on the question of violence, we saw them as woefully naive when it came to that. Interviewer: Let’s get back to your group. When was the TUF formed? Militant: Oh, the Thestral Unity Front wasn't formed for a while. In the first few years, it was all done through independent groups. I was with the TLA, but I wasn’t there at the start. Not sure when it was formed, I heard it was around 964. Interviewer: What's the difference between the TLA, LoN and such? Militant: The TLA was our group, the Thestral Liberation Army. We focused our activities on targeted destruction of military, state, and industrial infrastructure, and took out those who persecuted Lunarists and thestrals. No random bombings or whatnot. We had specific targets in mind and we attacked only those. Any collateral damage was tragic but unintentional. Whenever we carried out an attack, we'd deliver pamphlets and letters around to nearby civilians, local media, and all that explaining what we did and why. The LoN on the other hoof, the Legions of Nightfall, didn't care about collateral damage. The LoN focused on raiding state weapon stockpiles and seeking to recruit those displaced by Solarist militias into their ranks, with the express purpose of building an army capable of going hoof-to-hoof with the Royal Guard and “cleansing” Equestria of the other three tribes. Interviewer: Cleansing? Militant: Yeah, "cleansing". Or in laymare’s terms, murdering. To call them "supremacist" or "radical" is an understatement, they wanted a strictly militarised society ruled over by Nightmare Moon with a bloody iron hoof, who would use the eternal night to purge the world of all inferior life, leaving only the Empress and her loyal thestrals alive. They had no qualms with attacking innocents who they believed “would die anyway once her majesty returns”. For the first few years of the conflict we wanted nothing to do with them, the way they talked about Nightmare Moon was downright blasphemous. Interviewer: Did you ever target civilians? Militant: If by “you”, you mean the TLA, then no. We went out of our way to make sure innocents weren’t hurt. Interviewer: There’s a difference between innocents and civilians. Militant: If they’re a “civilian” but they directly supported the Lightheads with money and guns, they’re a Moon damned combatant. Members of local government and the industrialists had thestral blood on their hooves and they paid for it. We targeted those, targeted a lot of those. Interviewer: Alright, I won’t press you on it. If you had all these disagreements, why did you ally with the LoN? Militant: In short, they had weapons and we were running out. It was an alliance of convenience, really. We also had popular support, something they lacked. Some of us hoped that the alliance would moderate them somewhat, given we had supporters who were three-tribes ponies. Interviewer: How did the alliance go at first? Militant: Things were on the up. With their arms and their numbers we could match the Royal Guard and easily beat back the paramilitaries. Every militant in the alliance had a good gun by their side with steady supplies of ammo and rations. That’s when we were most hopeful. We could conduct real long term operations and were on the verge of a general uprising. But after Guavaza everything went to shit. Interviewer: Were you at Guavaza? Militant: Yes. Interviewer: What happened there, if you don’t mind me asking? Militant: Guavaza was roughly split 50/50 between thestrals and other ponies, so we, that’s the TLA, assumed it’d be a great target for liberation. The goal was to take over the police and Royal Guard stations, dismantle the logging yard, and issue a proclamation to the town’s residents letting them know they had been freed. That was the plan we proposed to the TUF command, and it was approved. Obviously, not what happened, the LoN had a different plan in mind. Once we routed the police and Royal Guard and were occupied with our main goal of destroying enemy infrastructure, the LoN militants went house to house dragging non-thestrals into the street to be executed. Even some thestrals who weren’t sufficiently Lunarist for them. Even children. Fucking children. The had the gall to say “if we don’t kill them now they’ll grow up to be Lightheads”. I counted 69 innocent dead. Interviewer: Not nice. Militant: You don’t know the half of it. The madness only stopped when we heard what was going on and we intervened to stop them. A fight nearly broke out between us, and let me tell you I was more than ready to shoot those psychos in the head. The LoN militants eventually stood down and surrendered their weapons to us, then both groups retreated from the town. Interviewer: What happened to the TUF after Guavaza? Militant: Media says it tanked our support, but amongst our support base they knew what happened. Ask anypony who was there, they’ll tell you it was us who stopped the LoN. Most of the anger was directed at the LoN. Our leaders weren’t on speaking terms and for all intents and purposes that was the end of the TUF. Interviewer: That was all it took? Militant: Aside from it being a grotesque fucking atrocity, they never apologised and it proved we couldn’t trust them. If they were willing to go behind our backs to murder foals once, how could we know that they wouldn’t do that again? We were supposed to be fighting for these thestrals, for their liberation. One murdered child is too many, as far as I’m concerned. Interviewer: What happened then? Militant: We were then cut off from their ponypower, weapons, and ammo, so we had to continue our campaign with what we had. Our groups did meet one last time, it was supposed to sort out our differences to get back to fighting the war we needed to fight. I was present, mainly to give testimony about who I saw doing what in Guavaza, so they’d know who needed to face justice. But someone sabotaged the meeting, planted a bomb under the floorboards and took out half the TUF leadership, conveniently everyone who most favoured rapprochement. Everyone left instinctively blamed the other party for the bombing and a firefight broke out that nearly wiped out all our leaders. I barely made it out of there myself. Interview: Your whole leadership gone? Militant: Yeah, we were never going to recover after that. Interview: Any thoughts on who the bomber was? Militant: I have my theories, but not nearly enough evidence to point the hoof at any one individual. Interview: Was the end of the TLA and LoN the end of the conflict? Militant: For me it was, at least. I retain my Lunarist convictions but I could tell that the battle in the southwest is long over. Some kept fighting, but with the organisations in disarray and the Royal Guard rounding up the most resilient of us, the writing was on the wall. Interviewer: To conclude, what is your message to readers of our magazine? Most of whom are ponies from the three Equestrian tribes? Militant: My message? For those still willing to listen to words, I’ll tell you that for the last thousand years thestrals and Lunarists have been used by Celestia and her underlings for their own selfish purposes. First we were used to build Celestia a kingdom, then thrown to the dustbin. When we refused such a fate, our princess was banished and our tribe was all but excluded from Equestrian society. In the years since, we’ve been used as a source of cheap disposable labour as our sacred homelands are ravaged to make profits for greedy businesses. If you were in our place, you wouldn’t tolerate it for a second. But we won’t need to tolerate it for much longer, as the night of Her return draws near. This should only scare you if you have wronged us, for when that night comes, she will bear her sword and bring woe to those who tried to crush us into dirt. Thank you for letting me speak. “Well, what do you think?” Moonatik asks. “You know at the time, the journalist who conducted and published this interview was lambasted. Brutally. Got threats made against him. Accused of being everything from a crypto-Nightmarist to a fuckin' communist! How’d they even come to that? Have you met Baltimare leftists? Anyway they got fired after a few too many situations like that, but I heard they were doing well post-revolution.” Moonatik scratches his chin. “Forgot their name, though. Hm.” “Right, so that's all interesting. But if you're after some of the real sauce, stuff that isn't available to the general public even today, take a look at this,” he says, sliding a document towards you. Intelligence report for the Nightmare’s Hoof, by Autumn Breeze. THE INSURGENT SITUATION IN SOUTHEASTERN EQUESTRIA  NOVEMBER 969 SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: Main Lunarist militant groups involved in conflict have worrying and heretical conceptions of Lunarism. Thestral Liberation Army (TLA), the largest Lunarist militant group, is far too compromising with the unfaithful, even allowing ponies to join without ensuring they are committed to Lunarism. Group places heavy emphasis on thestral emancipation and lacks sufficient dedication to Lunarism. Interpretation of Lunarism is borderline Harmonic, and leaders have expressed willingness to compromise with the usurper state. The second largest group, the Legions of Nightfall (LoN), is thestral supremacist and violently genocidal. Their end-goal is the destruction of Equestrian civilization altogether. Both groups comprise the vast majority of Lunarist action in the conflict. Both groups have usefulness in the short term, but should not be trusted as political leaders. Outlooks on success for the militants appear unfavourable. Goals range from a total conquest of Equestria, to independence for the Southeast, to extracting concessions from the state. These goals vary in their feasibility, but it is unlikely that any of them will be achieved in the near term. Despite defeats, the usurper state is remarkably resilient and shows few signs of war-weariness. Most dangerous of these goals is compromise with the usurper, as it risks pacifying the thestral population of Equestria. Arms manufactured in Chiropterra are successfully being shipped to the LoN through covert means, no indication so far that state authorities have drawn a link from the arms to us. Our shell companies in Stableside and Tobuck responsible for transporting the arms have come under investigation, and efforts are underway to misdirect and mislead the authorities away from uncovering our involvement. Agents are ready to eliminate troublesome investigators should the need arise. Radical Solarist groups, such as the Warriors of Light (WoL), present a special opportunity. They are showing the true face of Celestial rule to the thestrals and Lunarists of Equestria, making it more likely that the faithful will be galvanised to action. Increased visibility of their actions along with an expanded scope would prove detrimental to usurper rule long-term, even if it resulted in short-term pain for the faithful and sympathisers Efforts to sabotage the heretical pacifists of the so-called Southwestern Moonspeaker Conclave (SMC) have been successful. Great effort has been made by the Nightmare’s Hoof to expose the moral shortcomings of the group’s leaders to the faithful and to tie their image to militant violence in the eyes of the Celestial public, tarnishing their image in the eyes of all. It and similar groups pose the tremendous risk of terminating the conflict through formal politics and diplomacy, which will no doubt permanently sabotage the goal of securing Lunar rule across Equestria. RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL: Chiropterra should not directly involve itself in support of any group participating in the conflict and should not significantly expand supportive efforts unless the situation radically changes, as we should not show our hoof on a rebellion led by heretics that is likely to fail. Current level of aid to Lunarist groups is adequate. Efforts should be primarily psychological, focus propaganda on exaggerating Celestial atrocities, further galvanising the faithful, humiliating and silencing heretics, and polarising political groups. Additional efforts should be made to sabotage negotiations or communications between the state, reducing the risk of pacifying concessions from being made or accepted. Further efforts to discredit both thestral supremacism and compromise with the unfaithful should be made. “Ooh, the plot thickens! Ahaha!” Moonatik giggles. “Yes, as I’ve said, Chiropterra exists, for one, and they’ve been up to all sorts. Espionage, sabotage… uh, all the other words ending in “age”. Are there any other words like that? Eh, whatever. They were pretty damn dogmatic, as the document suggests, even screwing over their fellow Lunarists if they didn’t match their exact, specific form of Lunarism. Right, moving on.”