Dear Princess Celestia,
Today, I killed another living thing for the first time. We were patrolling in the jungles, pretty far from the base when we came under contact. Everyone ducked for cover in the muck ditches beside the road we were walking down. I peeked up for a second and saw the silhouette of a Gypt crossing for cover. I didn't even think, I just let a burst fly from my rifle. The thing went down as soon as I pulled the trigger. But he kept crawling, and even at the distance, I could hear him calling out for its friends to help him. One of them decided to, and his brains blasted all over the road.
I'm ashamed to say that I spent the rest of the fight cowering in the makeshift trench crying and covering my ears. Eventually, we got air support and mopped them up. Three of ours needed an airlift out, Scarlet, Abbot, and Tracy. I hear they both lived, at least. War's over for them, though. Goes the same for the Gypts we took down today. One lived and got hoisted back to the base for "debriefing" though I dread what will actually happen to him.
I don't hate them, the Antelopes, not like some of the ponies here. Sure, I'm angry that they attacked the zebras, and I hate that they've hurt and killed ponies that are my friends, but I can't hate them. What's wrong with me, princess? I don't get it, why is it so hard for me to kill them? They wouldn't hesitate to kill me, if they had the chance.
I talked to Dash when we got back from the patrol, about the killing today. I asked if it was normal to feel sick and scared. She just stared into the jungle and told me something I just can't get out of my head. She said "Ponies weren't made to kill anything, let alone something that actually looks like us. And we're the Elements of Harmony, it's even harder for us because of what we have in our hearts. But at some point, you'll get used to it. And when that day comes, I'm sorry." She wandered off somewhere after that.
I hope this war is over soon, princess. I don't like what it's doing to my friends. Rainbow Dash a.k.a "Longbow" is hurting and won't let anyone help her. I don't get to see Rarity anymore, she's usually off in the jungle, playing hunter. Pinkie "Match" Pie has taken it on herself to burn down every tree she sees. AJ just grins at me when I ask her how she handles all this. Poor Fluttershy got taken off the frontlines for being a, as her squad called her, "shit magnet", but now she spends her time around injured ponies. And Spike, my little Spike, spends all his spare time staring at a picture of Rarity, and the rest being the deadliest tunnel raider in the company.
And me, I just can't take it anymore. I want to shoot myself in the leg just to go home and get away from this war. But I can't abandon my friends, so all I can do is hope this ends quickly. Please, try to help us end this war as soon as you can.
Your one time faithful student, now faithful soldier
Private First Class Twilight "Sparkplug" Sparkle
* * *
It was ten years after the return and redemption of Princess Luna. The event that had defined a new age for all ponies. With the Elements of Harmony returned to use, ponies were once again safe from the dangers that couldn't be fought by conventional means. Discord returned, was defeated and sealed again, before being reformed. Queen Chrysalis had come and was cast out, though not by direct intervention of the Elements themselves. And Sombra, the Crystalic Emperor had been cast out, with Cadence becoming the new ruler of the Crystal Empire. Not to mention Twilight's ascension to Princesshood, and the friends subsequent adventures.
It was a great age, and with the prosperity of Equestria, and that prosperity attracted attention. The dragons and griffons sent emissaries and opened diplomacy with the ponies. Meanwhile the ponies sent expeditions far east of their lands, where Zercora had come from. What they discovered was a civilization that they had never heard of before.
The antelopes, while not anywhere near backwards, weren't nearly as advanced as the ponies that now travelled to their lands. But they quickly adapted and learned the pony technology faster than was thought possible. And their land was rich in metals, so trade agreements were set up and open diplomacy between the two nations became the norm.
And then, a discovery was made by a team of archaeologists in the far South of the region, that bordered on an ocean. While excavating what they assumed to be an old village built by the antelopes when they had enjoyed a far more advanced stage of technology, they found numerous odd looking relics.
Large, metal egg-like objects with fins on the back of them, strange mechanisms like oddly shaped tubes with holes in the end and twin protrusions on the bottom. Thousands of small, conical things, two tone in their colour and composed of brass and copper. When the objects were returned to ponydom, scientists quickly set to work on finding out what they were.
The discovery of their purpose shocked the entire nation. A team of unicorn scientists had placed one of the cones inside what appeared to be a loading mechanism on one of the tubes and operated the trigger. The object propelled from what was now known to be a weapon had torn through the thin wall and had killed a pony in the next lab over.
Access was immediately restricted to the military scientists, due to the apparent nature of the relics. Another incident occurred when one of the egg-like objects that was covered in some kind of white substance had been dropped by a dock worker loading it onto a boat for transport back to Equestria. The resulting explosion had set off the other things like it and had sunk the ship. Forty-two ponies were killed.
From that point on, the Equestrian military had taken over the entire expedition, moving large numbers of troops into the region. All excavations were brought under guard, relics found had to be cleared by the engineers, and transfers were all taken very seriously.
Other, much larger, discoveries were made and the level of technology found took on a meteoric quality. Machines that were made to hold dozens of the egg-like objects. Engines that appeared to be attatched to massive wings. Contraptions made to fly like pegasi, but to carry other beings or cargo inside of them. Tracked vehicles with inches of armour plating to protect their occupants.
But the presence of so many foreign troops on their soil had angered the antelopes, whose migration patterns had been disrupted by the excavations. So a resistance was begun. It had started slowly at first, a few thefts of relics, some harassment or assaults against the archaeologists and soldiers, but never escalating to a deadly point. But then the resistance was taken over by a highly aggressive antelope who firmly believed in deadly force to rid themselves of the meddling ponies.
The antelopes had started using the relics they stole against the ponies. The bombs were planted near barracks and detonated, soldiers were attacked and wounded or killed in the streets of the towns. Purposeful traffic incidents became the norm.
So Princess Celestia appointed her sister, who was more experienced in waging war than she was, as the Supreme Commander of the Equestrian Royal Military. Scenes of horrific violence portrayed in the newspapers drove Equestria into a recruiting frenzy, and for a while there was no need for a draft.
So as the minor conflict escalated into a war, the excavations still continued in spite of the risk.
A major discovery was made in the second year of the war. The archaeologists uncovered charts and maps of the region, all previously labeled, and attack plans relating to the region. It had seemed that at some point in the past, a war had already been fought in the area. Who had fought was unclear, but what was apparent was that all the relics uncovered by the ponies were weapons of a bygone era in which a war had engulfed the entire continent.
Equestria's one time allies were drawn into the conflict, though not all had agreed on the same side to support.
The Griffon Kingdom supported the antelopes in their quest to rid their land of the ponies. From their point of view, it was the ponies' fault that the war had started in the first place, by bringing their military in to oversee so much of what should have been civilian work.
The zebras, who shared the land with the antelopes, split as a people, with some joining in the fight to take back their land, but many siding with the ponies, who were seen as a stabilizing influence rather than a demonic invading force threatening their life on the land.
The dragons took a largely neutral stance, as they would not allow themselves to be involved in a conflict that, as their diplomats had said, "only took the concerns of several young species into consideration, rather than the concerns of our world." Though at least one dragon, Twilight Sparkle's young protege Spike, took part in the conflict and was one of the deadliest tunnel fighters alongside the ponies.
And so, as the war progressed and became more desperate, a draft was introduced wherein all ponies, male and female, who were physically well in health and mind, were brought into the military for service.
The Second Vietnam War had begun, lines had been drawn between nations and species. Every day, more young ponies, zebras, antelopes, and griffons, fought and died for an idea they didn't fully understand. They showed bravery that few others had exemplified in the ages since the Rise of Discord.
The politicians and flag officers of each country said the war was nearly won, and perhaps it was from their lofty perspective. But from the poor grunt on the ground, or the pilot constantly flying to battle with a hold full of healthy ponies, yet returning with many injured or in body bags, or the now orphaned child whose caretaker had to explain that their mother or father had died, it was just a senseless fight without end in sight.
And in the midst of the brutal conflict we find the ponies, who barely six months before had been civilians, thrust into a war none of them asked for, fighting for an idea that they just could not understand, with no end in sight.