In the Fo:E forum, I was replying to someone who was asking how people have been depicting the zebras in their side stories. So I figured I should include my version as well, in case anyone liked it.

Then I realized that this is actually a pretty solid summary which I should hang on to. So I'm pasting it here for now, and will edit later to make a nice presentation on the zebras. Copy/Paste follows:

For me, they are fully tribal. I'm ignoring the whole Roam thing. I account for balance in other ways. How can a tribal society represent an equal military might against Equestria? By giving them specific and unique advantages that the ponies don't have. The way I see it, the primary advantages of the ponies are direct unicorn magic and pegasus mobility combined with advanced technology and powerful leadership. The disadvantages are the Equestrian military being spread too thin due to the lack of skilled soldiers.

On the flip side, I depict the zebras as more experienced in warfare due to having won a bloody war some 80 years ago against the minotaurs. I have them as superior to ponies in hoof combat, so any 1:1 melee fight, the zebra would likely win. I've got their homeland set in the southern jungles where navigation would be difficult for outsiders. Being tribal, I'm going with the zebras being highly superstitious and ritualistic, oftentimes putting principle over pragmatism. They'll do things like form blood oaths or vengeance killings when someone they are loyal to has been killed.

For weaponry, I've given them mostly enchanted bladed weapons as well as sniper rifles which seems to fit their style and history. They also have a nasty assortment of advanced magical trinkets they can build. The war they previously fought was against the minotaurs, who had no tech and no magic, but tremendous brute strength. The zebras had to learn to engage at a distance if they could, since a close encounter would not often go well.

The key balancing factor for the zebras, the way I depict them, is from the Black Book. I find it unlikely that the zebras, being tribal, could rival Equestria's technology efforts as the war progressed. With the Black Book's powerful dark magic incorporated in any number of ways, this would allow the zebras a specific advantage in fighting the ponies by using creatively dirty tricks, potions, enchantments, and so forth. Giving the zebras an assortment of unique and alien (to ponykind) warfare options is a fun and interesting way to balance them in war.

I depict the zebras, prior to the minotaur war, as tribal and more focused on highly skilled hoof combat (martial arts) as far as their fighting experience goes. They knew how to brew various potions, but nothing with significant potency to have military application. When they were invaded, they were nearly wiped out. But during that war, the Black Book was written, giving them secrets which sharply turned the tables where they nearly drove their enemy to extinction. This dark magic was then celebrated and incorporated into all aspects of zebra potion brewing and magical practices.

I'm thinking a bit more organized than the typical impression of a tribal society. Like my zebras have a military structure consisting of their version of common soldiers, lieutenants, and commanders.

Common soldiers, I often refer to as "blade soldiers" because they primarily fight melee with hoof combat as well as bladed staves. Sometimes these blades are given shield-cutting enchantments, which are detrimental to unicorn shielded positions if they can get close enough.

I haven't named the platoon sized unit, but this would have a commander and perhaps one or two lieutenants depending on the size of the unit.

Some original stuff I've come up with is the War Council, which is a central agency within the zebra governing body. The War Council is in charge of all wartime operations and under them are the Shamans who specialize in developing practical applications (weapons, tools, etc) that are derived from the dark magic the Black Book has provided. This can often include the magical equivalent of biological and chemical warfare. On occasion, Shamans will accompany a zebra military unit in the field, providing unexpected magical advantages to that unit. Zebra shamans are mostly employed in the research division of the War Council.

In large scale operations, there are also deployable weapons. Two of these would be balefire launchers and "Seekers". The balefire launchers are mostly to get the balefire eggs far enough from friendly forces before they explode. Balefire eggs default to a thirty-second detonation, though they can also be hooked up to a delay timer for special purposes. Seekers are an original anti-air weapon I've given them to counterbalance pegasus air-superiority. I've got a pretty detailed writeup on how they work. They are terrifying.

Additionally, there are the Dragonriders, who maintain and ride war-fitted dragons. I'm thinking that the zebras are capable of subduing the free will of the dragons (since dragons are sapient), essentially turning them into war mounts. Without doing this, it would be difficult for zebras to bribe dragons into cooperation, given that Equestria is the gem-rich nation.

Lastly, I've got the Elites, who are the highest ranking field officers. These zebras are exceptional fighters, possessing formidable hoof and blade combat skills. They also carry a variety of advanced weaponry and tools such as shield cutters, invisibility cloaks, and balefire eggs. Elites are the only field officers permitted to operate solo. They can remain in deep cover for months, carrying out their personal missions or a mission from the War Council. Elites also have an assortment of Commanders and Loyalists who report to them. Commanders would extend the Elite's influence to multiple military units, allowing them to carry out more complex operations. Loyalists are the extended eyes, ears, and arms of the Elites, operating in non-combat situations usually blended in with civilian populations carrying out the wishes of the Elite they are loyal to. If an Elite is killed, the Loyalists will attempt to exact vengeance on whoever killed them (and usually their family as well) Because Elites operate more or less with autonomy, there can be rivalries between them. The War Council does not interfere with these conflicts, which can often end badly for one of the rivals.

One complexity is the existence of the Equestrian zebra ghetto of Zebratown. Here, most of the Equestrian zebra citizens are in the process of moving to this one location beneath Canterlot. There is a movement among Equestrian zebras to oppose the war, making these zebras attractive targets among the enemy.

So while there is a fair bit of structure in the military caste, the general citizenry is tribal, and the military structure is largely influenced by their tribal culture.

5724075 ..............Holy shit, there are two things about that causes me to say that. One, that is a big summary of your view of the zebras. And two, I cannot call it a coincidence right now. Most of the stuff here about the zebras sans anything related to F:oE obviously are headcanons of mine in a story that I haven't even published yet and mind you, my story's headcanons were already prepped up long before you wrote this. Just... what?

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Advantage of this tribal structure is that there is only the vaguest of established doctrines. This would make the Zebra extremely unpredictable in combat. Different tribes would have developed different and varied styles of combat, some favouring range while others excelling in bladed weapons.

One unit idea I had was based of the Persian Immortals. Faced with power armour these Zebra are selected for their mental focus and pumped with a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs. The idea being that their regenerative abilities out-strip an opponents means to fight them. Decapitation, explosives or energy weapons being the only way to bring them down.

5724075 Not really relevant but how is the structure of the higher levels of government organized here? Who calls the shots? I mean you mention a War Council who I assume lays out the strategy of the war but who do they you know... counsel?

Perhaps what I am getting at is when the decision was made to go to war with Equestria who made that decision? I can't imagine that it was put to a public referendum... if it is a true tribal society it can't be democratic in a large scale.

Is there a king , an emperor, a chief chieftain ? Again It doesn't seem that this would be a very centralized society. But it does seem to be a large society, capable of going to war with Equestria, which ( perhaps incorrectly) we all assume is the most powerful nation on this planet. Tribal societies tend to be much more small scale. This attribute CAN make tribal societies hard to defeat.... when you invade them. One of the reasons why it is so hard to end the war in afghanistan, for example, is because from a political point of view there really is no such thing as AN afghanistan, instead there are hundreds of little tribal warlords. This leads to never ending byzantine labyrinths of intrigue in which your ally today will be your mortal enemy next week. These kinds of societies CAN be mobilized into large scale conquering empires if there is a brutal enough dictator like a Saddam Hussein.. but take away that particular leader and well look at Iraq now, everything crumbles because it was based on fear and or adulation of a particular personality. I would not recommend doing this though, because this requires both a hyper hierarchical society and a cult of personality style of government. Which means that your zebra characters would carry around pictures of the Great Leader and invoke their name, and if you do THAT half your readers will expect the climax of the story to be a final boss fight between Nyx and Generallisimo Zebra, and will be ticked off when they discover your climax is the furthest thing possible from that. So yeah no hyper powerful dictator here.

So then what.

Two possibilties: 1. a theocracy, with the most powerful shamans ( the ones closest to the black book) holding the reigns of power. The go to real life example here of course is Iran. The thing though is, that Iran is NOT a tribal society, it is very much a traditional "volk" nation state that has existed in some form for 3,000 years. If you had traveled through the middle east in 1800 A.D you would have found nothing distinctively Iraqi about the territory of moder Iraq but you could easily tell when you entered what is now Iran.

Perhaps a better example is Saudi Arabia. Saudi WAS a tribal society well into the Twentieth Century when it was unified under the Iron Heel of Ibn Saud. Thing is that Saudi Arabia does this( maintain unity) in three ways... first it is a Theocracy under Wahhabi/ salafi priestly control, second it is a brutal dictatorship under the house of Saud and their security apparatus and third ( perhaps most importantly) it has all that oil to buy complacency from otherwise potentially disaffected tribes within its territory. Hmmm.... weren;t the zebras making money selling coal to Equestria until the war began? maybe the Zebras are what Saudi Arabia would become if all the oil went away and they blamed a foreign power for its disappearance... perhaps using a unified attack on the country that " stole " the fossil fuel ( or stopped buying it) as a mechanism to maintain unity and keep the tribes from breaking away from central control.

If you go this route though, make the royal house very weak though,( with the clergy/ shaman class using the dark power of the black book to stay on top of society) again to provide a contrast with the ultra powerful and centralized control that the royal sisters have and to set up a contrast with Equestria and to manage the " final boss fight expectation" mentioned above.

The second route is perhaps the most natural one, a loose confederation of tribes like the Iroquois nation or countless examples in the history of west africa ( especially pre colonial Nigeria). The only issue with this is that in this kind of scenario you kind of expect the Equestrian intelligence services, if they are in any way competent to sow discord ( pun not intended) amongst the different zebra tribes to break centralized control and weaken the zebras and perhaps have even some of these tribes ally with the Equestrians ( see the Sunni Awakening in iraq circa 2006-2009 for a real life example of how this plays out). Problem is doing this puts you right back in the labyrinthine byzantine Double cross infested world of never ending intrigue you see in the modern middle east.

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In regards to the fall of Iraq, I'm surprised at how well this was predicted in Star Trek: TNG in the episode called "I Borg". The Enterprise, in typical well-meaning but somewhat ignorant fashion, decides to "liberate" the Borg from their collective. Losing their enslaving hive mind, however, revealed a fundamental problem in that they had absolutely no sustaining infrastructure which could operate in the vacuum left by the freedom they were granted. As a result, they became a twisted, chaotic, new and unpredictable threat. Sounds amazingly familiar, doesn't it? I Borg aired in May of 1992.

Also,

If you had traveled through the middle east in 1800 A.D you would have found nothing distinctively Iraqi about the territory of moder Iraq but you could easily tell when you entered what is now Iran.

I suppose this is dependent on how the remnants of the Babylonian and Persian empires have faded into the subsequent culture. The Persian empire conquered the Babylonian empire, which probably explains what you said above. I haven't studied it extensively, so I don't know offhand what became of the Persians.

Your post-Saudi analogy is truly intriguing. Like incredibly insightful and quite possible as a hypothetical reason for both the zebra war and the pre-war trade agreements which mirror the oil trade in real life. However, I do think I'd like to (if possible) avoid as many real-world political analogies as I can. This does a few things in my favor. First, it simplifies things. Second, it protects me from misrepresenting anything. I'm not much of a student of world history apart from specific branches of it. It's just not my thing, though I realize this is like candy to you.

The simplification angle means that I don't have to let the description of their politics dominate act two (which it could if I let it. I can restrict the scope to providing a brief history from the Minotaur War onward. The protection angle means I have the freedom to make things up in whatever way works for the story. And it can be intriguing, sometimes, to see something original depicted in fiction. Something which hasn't had a chance to exist in the real world yet.

So to answer your question, I'm proposing two theoretical systems of government which I... don't think have existed in human history yet.

One: The Benevolent Dictatorship. And of course, this would be Equestria. I can get into this when I do the "Let's Meet the Royal Sisters" thread.
Two: The Martial/Tribal hybrid. This would be the zebra nation. I'll make some shit up as I type and we can see if it's possible to stitch it together properly.

Okay, so the zebras were at one time a legitimately normal tribal society. But they are not humans, so they aren't necessarily prone to some of the more ugly aspects of human tribal cultures. What unified them was their common value in tradition and mystical arts. They were never very powerful, but they built an elaborate, yet insular society and practiced magic in such a way that benefitted their lifestyle. Internal conflict would have been kept at a minimum mostly due to their unified frame of mind.

For this phase, I'm suggesting a society much like what we see in the movie Avatar. Perhaps even including their lush, exaggerated environment, living in enormous trees and being adept to the jungle -- not necessarily a jungle like any earth jungle.

Then, the minotaurs invaded. And they were both powerful and aggressive. Without use of technology or magic, they plowed straight into the zebra nation, creating havoc. The zebras had nothing to defend against this threat. Their combat experience was of very limited use against a foe with the physical strength to dismember zebras with their bare hands. The zebras were going to lose.

In the middle of this, we have our curious zebra alchemist, Ziph, who discovered the tip of Hyperion's horn in the Everfree Gorge. This led to Hyperion possessing him and the creation of the Black Book.

Prior to this, however, the zebras were losing badly. Though tribal, they recognized their imminent destruction if things didn't change. They decided to form a unified War Council, which would try and organize their war efforts. It helped, for a time. In the sense that they were not losing quite as badly because they were better organized. They did what they could to ensure their survival despite the grim, inevitable outcome. They learned what they could about warfare, specifically that which involved sneak attacks, ambushes, sniping, and anything else that could keep the minotaur strength out of direct contact with their soldiers.

So this would have been an entity specifically designed out of desperation. They would have taken on the entire responsibility for wartime affairs, insulating the population from the burden of deciding how to protect themselves. In effect, it had autonomy, but not rulership over the people themselves. The people were still tribal. But this War Council ran itself and answered to no one. Its understood purpose was strictly military, and its members were committed to the survival of the zebra people.

Additionally, the War council was not comprised of zebras who practiced any sort of Rome-like structure. They were still zebras, and as such, still practiced the same beliefs and traditions as the civilians. Their military structure was rudimentarily hierarchichal (as necessary for proper organization) but not nearly to the degree we've seen rise from the Roman systems. There would be the Elites, the Commanders and Loyalists, and one or two middle-ranks along with common rankless soldiers. There would also be specialists such as Dragonriders and Shamans.

Late in the war, when things were quite desperate, along came Ziph with his Black Book. This changed everything, as it placed insanely powerful magical secrets from Hyperion himself in the hooves of the zebras. Using this, they jumped fully in, employing everything they could against their foe. During this time, the R&D division of the War Council was hard at work finding practical applications for the magic the book contained. Nothing was off the table, including potential WMDs. This led to the experimentation with magical bio-warfare such as the plague of Act One. The plague, of course, nearly got away from them, infecting quite a few zebra communities and creating the psychopathic cannibals we see in the story.

Eventually, the minotaurs were soundly defeated thanks to this magical advantage. The minotaurs simply had no defense against alicorn magic, though to be clear, this does not access the Aether. It is simply ridiculously-advanced conventional magic. After the war was won, the War Council was kept in place because they essentially saved zebra society. The dark magic from the book became incorporated into everyday magical practices such as potions, enchantments, and whatnot. This artificially brought the zebras into a competitive position on the global arena... if a conflict should arise. Their previous (and somewhat recent) experience in a prolonged and desperate war, combined with ancient and incredibly powerful magical secrets, boosted their culture to a sort of "advanced tribal" state. Still, there was no central government. But the War Council, as an entity, was not an insignificant force.

By the time we get into the modern age with the pony/zebra war, the War Council is once again calling the shots with the conflict. But the fact that they are fighting fellow equines, and particularly the fact that it is not entirely a defensive war, does not sit well with much of the population. The War Council has also had to decide if some zebra civilians are not to be trusted if they have too close ties with zebras living within Equestria. Such is the case with Zecora's sister, for example. Her extraction should be a tense and exciting moment.

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Prior to this, however, the zebras were losing badly. Though tribal, they recognized their imminent destruction if things didn't change. They decided to form a unified War Council, which would try and organize their war efforts. It helped, for a time. In the sense that they were not losing quite as badly because they were better organized. They did what they could to ensure their survival despite the grim, inevitable outcome. They learned what they could about warfare, specifically that which involved sneak attacks, ambushes, sniping, and anything else that could keep the minotaur strength out of direct contact with their soldiers.
So this would have been an entity specifically designed out of desperation. They would have taken on the entire responsibility for wartime affairs, insulating the population from the burden of deciding how to protect themselves. In effect, it had autonomy, but not rulership over the people themselves. The people were still tribal. But this War Council ran itself and answered to no one. Its understood purpose was strictly military, and its members were committed to the survival of the zebra people.

Interesting.. so what you are saying is that there was no actual overarching government until the Minotaur war.....and the Confederation of the tribes IS the "war council" ...in other words the war council is the closest thing there is to what in the United States we would label the " federal level" of government.

That's cool and all.. but here is the thing... you stated that the war council was strictly military.... so uh ...who struck all those trade deals with Equestria? Was there a federal level kind of organization that did that... or was it a tribal level thing, or perhaps it wasn't regulated all and it was completely laissez faire with equestrian entrepreneurs meeting with their Zebra counterparts.

Again who decided to go to war wit equestria and why? A trade dispute is not an existential threat the way the invasion by giants who will rip you apart is. Who motivated the zebras to band together and fight Equestria? how was consensus built? What was the propaganda mechanism?

Certainly Equestria did some misteps with the raid on that ship and later the massacre of the refugees outside Littlehorn... but while I am sure this would cause the kin of those zebras to seek revenge... why would zebras from another tribe feel the need to join in? To use historical examples when Andrew Jackson massacred some Cherokees the sioux did not come to the rescue... when the King Leopold of Belgium massacred millions of congolese, tribesmen from Cameroon or Kenya or Nigeria did not fly to their aid. Why would there be unity? I can tell why there would be unity when the Minotaurs invaded because they were an existential genocidal threat...but Equestria? Again tribal societies are hard to invade... but they do not make good invaders.

So why are they so unified.

Assume through a Cosmic Joke your humble correspondent is ponified and ends up In Equestria. The Equestria of your story mind. And then because this is a cruel cosmic joke after geeking out over meeting Nyx I get appointed the head of The Equestrian Intelligence Services Foreign Division. As i sit behind my desk pondering how to write when I have hooves as opposed to hands ( again cruel cosmic joke.. my handwriting was already bad enough) I get to work. realizing I am now the head of the pony version of the CIA/MI6/the FSB formerly known as theKGB/Mossad i lay out my grand strategy to undermine the Zebra menace. And it is the oldest strategy in the book " divide and conquer". I see before me an invading nation.... but really it isn't a nation at all... more like an invading ethnicity ( insert your Trump immigration joke here... on second thought dont). I mean they only JUST became a federal level state, and they did so simply because they were forced to to so or face genocide. They probably have long valued local autonomy. They are an independent local based people who have historically been very decentralized. They share a culture and a religion and those are crucial steps in the development of a volk, the classical antecedent to a nation state, but they are just barely that, and are probably centuries away from organically becoming a nation state.

In other words I see no reason why I can't peel away some zebra tribes away from the confederate control of the war council.

here is how I would do it. I would hire some zebraologist ( think the university professor version of our pal Daisy) to tell me which Zebra tribes traded the most with equestria before the war and also to tell me which zebra tribes have lost the most warriors in the fight with equestria. I would assume the tribes that traded the most would have the most to gain from my "deal" ( restored trade ties) and those who lost the most warriors would have the most to lose ( the honor of avenging their fallen kinfolk) I would then target those tribes with relatively high pre war trade relations with Equestria and relatively low warrior casualties. I would go over to the zebra ghetto under canterlot and recruit those zebras whose ancestors immigrated to equestria from my list of targeted tribes. Through their kinfolk I would begin backchannel commmunications with their tribal elders.

Tell me why my plan would fail. Why would I fail to get any zebra tribes to break from the war council and come to their own peace agreements with Equestria?

Don't tell me that every zebra in the world would see this as dishonorable treason. These are living thinking beings not monoliths. If every Zebra in the world viewed dealing with the Equestrians as dishonorable there would be no friendly zebras in the world and since I know that friendly zebras appear later in your story then it is logically clear that it is possible for Zebras to break with the War Council. I want you to tell me why the war council is able to keep most of the tribes in line given that the conditions of the War with Equestria are so markedly different than the war with the Minotaurs ( ie it is a war of offense not defense and there is much less of an existential threat. From My end I think the answer lies in the Shamans and the powers they got from the black book ( hence why I keep calling it a theocracy, since in a tribal world magic would be viewed more as something coming from the spirit world, as opposed to a technology, which is how magic is viewed in Equestria) But I want to hear you expand on this.

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Sorry I haven't replied yet to the above comment, but I thought you should know that we had a rather productive brainstorming session on Discord today. I saved the chat here.

What I'll need to do is go over the whole thing again and pull out all the final conclusions on things. Hopefully, answers to your questions are in there as well! Pawz has helped a lot in fleshing out the plausibility of the zebra scenario which I've cooked up.

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Also, I'd probably be willing to pay money to watch you debate with a couple of the die-hard "Fo:E has no faults" people in the Fo:E forum! Holy cow, you've got a talent for analyzing a scenario such as this.

One of the main points to make, of course, is that you're probably right if we were to apply human history and attributes to the zebra war scenario. And these problems exist in Fo:E as well, not just my story. Fo:E has it easier though because it does not go into details about the early war. It simply says that it happened and provides peripheral and circumstantial details. The ins and outs of the governments at the time are not expanded upon. My task is harder if I intend to justify the scenario fully. I think, as you do, that the solution must lie with the theocratic angle. The Black Book is what saved the nation in the previous war. It stands to reason they would embrace whatever it has to offer and incorporate it into their society. This shows up even in MLP's episode where Zecora gives Twilight that memory potion that "only responds to alicorn magic" (this is a clue). What would a zebra be doing with such a potion?

In terms of unity, I do think it's plausible that the zebras as a whole are not unified in the war against Equestria. Since the Black Book is intelligent, containing Hyperion's consciousness, it would carry his agenda to destroy ponykind. That alone is sufficient to justify the intensity and longevity of the zebra war if not its instigating factors. If many within the War Council are influenced by this book, they would be powerless to have an independent, more rational agenda. And perhaps the civilians themselves would be divided regarding the war. There could be a combination of propaganda coming from the war council and some sort of martial enforcement or simply saying "we're having this war, and that's the end of it". Without a federal govt to keep them in check (and this likely means a federal govt makes the scenario less plausible), I'm guessing it stands to reason they would be largely unopposed apart from scattered voices of dissent. Likely, there may be those who simply do not question the war council's wisdom, since it got them out of the previous predicament. And being highly traditional, I suppose there would be a lot of natural resistance to change.

As a side note, is it still a theocracy if there actually is a tangible divinely-powerful being with agency and a plan? As opposed to a "religion" where the people simply make a best-guess as to what their higher power wants. I'd say that religion would still apply in this case, since the zebras are not actually aware of Hyperion directly, and because of their penchant for superstition and mysticism, they would very likely make up a variety myths surrounding the Black Book.

As a side note, is it still a theocracy if there actually is a tangible divinely-powerful being with agency and a plan? As opposed to a "religion" where the people simply make a best-guess as to what their higher power wants. I'd say that religion would still apply in this case, since the zebras are not actually aware of Hyperion directly, and because of their penchant for superstition and mysticism, they would very likely make up a variety myths surrounding the Black Book.

The term " theocracy" really means " rule by priests" NOT rule by theology. As long as the priests are in power i guess it is a theocracy even if they really behave more like ministers for their dark demigod than well... priests. As you point out the everyday zebra does not know that Hyperion is calling the shots

I'm reading the thread you saved and working through it. I laughed at the fact that the acronym you give me sounds like a military or intelligence organization since in the second post I roleplayed a director of an intelligence agency ( also you can just shorten my userame to "northernsong" even I have double taked and wondered who OANS is hahaha my username is a reference to a beatles song, not in any way meant to be mysterious or poertentous)

so I'm just going to start posting snippets of the conversation i find to be of interest.

Celestia violated Zebra territory when she sent the Wonderbolts in which managed to piss off the Zebra Caesar
Recon-Today at 9:09 AM
See that sounds more intereseting than gems/coal
Though if they had a preexisting trade agreement...
And then the conflict caused both sides to say "Well screw this agreement then"

Interesting, though this is clearly not the way you are going with the story since again this is a strongman approach that demands a MUCH more centralized structure than the one you want for your zebras.

seem to remember something about Equestria initiating a trade embargo but my memory is a bit hazy

.. which makes sense because it would parallel the lead up to Pearl Harbor. Okay so this is off of memory so pardon if I get a detail or two wrong.

Essentially Japan had spent the five years previous invading China , Korea, and other areas adjacent to china ( I think Indochina had already been invaded). Anyways in fall of 1941 Japan bombs one of the UK colonial cities in the area ( either Hong Kong or Singapore, or it could have been both I don't recall) This prompts the United States to cut of basically all trade with Japan. Which Is bad for Japan, cause Japan has no Oil and it needs oil to keep running its massive war machine and the US was one of the main sources of oil for japan.. So Japan takes a look at the Dutch east Indies( today Indonesia) and the UK colony of Malaya ( today Malaysia)... which have oil. And decides its going to invade. But Japan figures the US is clearly backing the UK and if bombing one of its cities casued an embargo invading an entire peninsula that is a british colony might well generate an even sterner reaction from the US. So it decides that move one will be to destroy the US pacific fleet so as to buy time, so by the time the US gets enough not blown up warships together Japan will have completed its invasion of the Malay and dutch East indies. This was the goal of the attack on Pearl Harbor, to knock out the US pacific fleet long enough so that Japan could invade regions that had this primary resource ( oil)... one of whose main suppliers to Japan previously had been the US itself.

The thing is Japan did not invade the hawaiian islands. My point here is the zebras REALLY must need this magical gems AND the only source of these magical gems must be deep within Equestria itself. This has to be something they cannot source from anywhere else.

Still though... if you absolutely need something that someone else has... would it not be in their best interests to do whatever it took for Equestria to knock off their trade embargo? Like negotiate negotiate negotiate? Invading for this reason alone only makes sense if either a. The zebras consider themselves MUCH stronger than Equestria... and given that the equestrias rulers can control celestial objects that is an astounding claim or B. The zebras for some reason ABSOLUTELY MUST have complete physical control of the mine deep inside of equestria that is the only source on the planet for these incredibly crucial gems.

which tends to happen in banana republics who began as a primitive society inserted into the modern world

OH HI! I actually was raised in, and my father was a relatively high ranking government official( head of the customs agency, undersecretary of state, and then finally literally the job Steve Bannon has now and David Axelrod did for Obama, karl rove for GWB etc for a president of the country) for the specific nation, ( Honduras) that the term " banana republic" was created to describe. I am quite literally from teh "OG" banana republic and( admittedly as a child) was privy to its highest politics at the most intimate " the secretary of the treasury is coming over for dinner" level.

Here is the thing, while banana republics tend to be dictatorships, these are very weak governments that tend to fall to internal infigthing all the time. Honduras in its 200 year history has had more than 150 presidents. seriously. there were entire decades where the average dictatorship lasted like six months, and was then replaced by a new dictator that also lasted like six months.

The KEY thing is that these banana republics whether literally banana like Honduras or a fossil fuel extraction based economy banana republic like Nigeria, are in thrall to foreign powers. More specifically the heart of power lies in an extremely corrupt deal between the government elites and a FOREIGN COMPANY that is the one actually profiting from the extraction of the resource. In Honduras for sixty years ( roughly 1910-1970) the country revolved around the relationship between the government and the standard fruit ( chiquita)and united fruit ( dole) companies. In Nigeria political life has revolved in the relationship between the government and Shell, several small african diamond producing nations had this with DeBeers, heck the american Sugar company essentially ran Cuba in the earliest part of the 20th century and so on....

So they are not going to be invading anyone. If the Zebra nation became a banana republic when it began selling coal... then it's relationship with the ( foreign by definition, presumably Equestrian) Coal company would roughly parallel that of say nigeria with shell oil co... the Zebra government will essentially do whatever teh coal company wants as long as the bribes keep flowing into government elites pockets.

BUT WAIT.... what if there was a revolt against the company? While the elites profit from the deal, there are mass movements, especially among labor unions in just about every banana republic I know off that views banana republics as a form of explotiation and economic imperialism. And so every so often there are moves to kick out the company and nationalize it's holdings. These events usually fail... once the foreign company is kicked out the main client country ( from which the company originated) just stops buying the product and then there is no market to sell to until either the company is let back in or some backdoor arrangement is reached ( say for example PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company that was technically nationalized and socialized but was the main source of wealth for corrupt elites from the sixties through the nineties. Hugo Chavez actually rose to power by promising to finally run PDVSA according to its socialist charter and spread the earning to the population the way the charter said it would.. and then failed spectacularly when the idiot literally fired all the engineers, and put in literally his campaign activists to run the company causing the infrastructure to literally collapse and production to crater. ) Succesful versions of this backdoor arrangement is precisely how most middle eastern oil states ( saudi qatr kuwait the UAE etc) have historically run... the government " owns" everything but all the extraction is actually managed by US/UK/French oil firms who can do what they please as long as they feed spectacular profits to the sheiks and princes.

But what if there is a revolt against the company that failed in the short term.. but became THE DOMINANT political issue in the nation for decades.. causing a mass movement and revolt against the nation that put in the company, so that the nation that the company was associated with became , over decades " the enemy" in the eyes of the masses.

This country exists. You have heard of it. It remains a massive thorn in the side in the country that the " company " came from originally.

The name of this country is Iran. There once was a freely elected Prime minister named Mossadegh. He nationalized the holdings of the "company" which you would now know as BP of deepwater Horizon infamy. The British called their buddies in the USA, and the CIA engineered a coup that led to the strengthening of the Shah, basically transforming him from a western style constitutional monarch into an authoritarian LouisXIV type who got to sit in bejeweled thrones and torture opponents as long as BP and Texaco got to exploit the oil.

And all the while , for more than twenty years, a group of Shia Islamists lead by Ruhollah Khomeini pointed to this banana republic arrangement as the very definition of immorality and sin and humiliation....

Of course...the problem is that it takes DECADES for this kind of resentment to grow... and it helps if the company is particularly egregious ( like say orchestrating coups.. and even then Guatemala which also had a coup of a popular elected leader by the CIA at the behest of the " company" did not go full hostile towards the US the way Iran did)..but still it is an interesting model to look up... perhaps hyperion and the use of magic could help explain the speeding up .

More notes to follow as i continue reading the convo you linked me to. For now I need sleep.