The Crown
It took two days for the fleet to be replenished, a lengthy process made far longer by the lack of proper barges and lighters. In normal circumstances that would have given the tired sailors a chance to roam through the back streets of Manehattan, enjoying the local cuisine and the hospitality of the mares in the local brothels. There was no chance of that now, not with most of the city lying in varying degrees of ruin. If any occupants of those brothels had survived the invasion, then they were most certainly engaged in more wholesome activities now, helping to rebuild the city and make it liveable once more.
That would be a far harder job that would last an enormous amount of time compared to the resupply of the fleet, but every pony-hour of labour devoted to loading the ships meant one less devoted to the city, and each crate of food or sack of coal that was diverted meant fewer resources for the occupying forces. But such had been the order from the princess, and so it was done, with as much speed and efficiency as could be mustered. Most of the ponies performing the tasks were not trained stevedores or sailors and that only added further delay to the process, much to the frustrations of the ships' officers. At least the Zebras had been faster, even if the quality of their coal was a lot lower than that from the rich Equestrian coalfields.
Though the small fleet had been away from home port and home waters for some time, they had not been totally idle while they were across the sea. At Grand Admiral Bluewater's direction, the corvettes had performed coastal patrols inside Zebrican territorial waters in search of any potential human threats. They had found nothing, no trace whatsoever of human activity, either from the Imperials or from their mutual enemy. That meant one of three things; either the humans were unaware of the existence of either the continent or the Zebra nation, highly unlikely given their position in orbit and their advanced technology; they were intent on wiping out the larger military powers first before moving on to the Zebras, a possibility; or there was something present on the main continent, in Equestria or the Griffon Kingdom, which they desired to possess or destroy, but which was not present on the other, smaller continent.
Bluewater and his sailors did not know exactly what that might be, but he had been quickly filled in by the Princess upon visiting the palace. Either they were after the Elements, or they were after magic itself, possibly in the form of the royal sisters, the most powerful magical beings on the planet, or perhaps merely through mass harvesting from any number of ponies, similar to how the Changelings might seek to extract love energy.
A great many developments had occurred while the fleet had been out of harbour, and Celestia had insisted to him that his sailors only needed to know the bare minimum in order to operate effectively and carry out her orders overseas. Too much information delivered to them too quickly could lead to panic, she had said, and of course she was right. Keeping discipline on board the ships of the fleet was as important as it was in any other branch of the Equestrian military, and panic was the worst possible emotion for a military unit to suffer from. Love and faith would drive them on, hate and anger would spur them to greater efforts, even fear could concentrate the mind and body with a fierce sense of wanting to live. But panic, panic rendered ponies ineffective at best, and useless at its absolute worst. It made effective command and control all but impossible, especially if the officers were afflicted by it also. Coordination between units was extremely difficult, it was hard to hold a defensive line or to press home an attack if units were stricken with panic and falling back without orders to do so.
Thus, the fleet would sail with most of its crews still in the dark about the true extent of the calamity which had befallen Equestria. Manehattan's capture and half destruction was clear for all to see, but news about Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, and Ponyville was suppressed, kept quiet, with only the senior officers being told of the scale of the occupation and the nature of their work with the Imperium to counteract their mutual enemy. Such secrecy was not common among the Equestrian military. Historically, their officers and commanders had been open regarding military and political developments that would affect their units either directly or indirectly, such as the Zebrican development of chemical weapons and their consequent deployment. The circumstances now were different.
The threat posed by these humans was potentially on a par with anything they had experienced before, if not even greater. Not merely in the sense of the firepower they possessed, and had unleashed on numerous occasions, but also in terms of their mere presence, their mere existence. The denizens of Equestria and its neighbouring states had long laboured under the illusion that life on their planet was the extent of it anywhere in the universe. Only those with an astronomical bent such as Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna had seriously considered the possibility of the existence of life beyond the stars beyond anything as a possible costume to wear on Nightmare Night. Now, here they were, aliens among them, above them, all around them, working with them as well as opposing them. A more bizarre set of circumstances would be hard to imagine.
Thus it was that the fleet, finally provisioned and with its commander back aboard, weighed anchor from Manehattan Bay and set sail once again for the land beyond the sea, to the Zebrican Kingdom, on the orders of the Princess herself. Their journey might turn out to be pointless, or it might have major implications. They had to determine, once and for all, without any doubt, if the Changeling Hive was real, or if it had been identified in error. If it was occupied, or abandoned. The most important questions of all had to be answered; was Chrysalis there, and whether she was or not, where was the Element of Magic?
Princess Celestia had many things to think about, to worry about. At the best of times, there had always been innumerable tasks facing the regent of Equestria. In peacetime, most of them were mere trivia, and in truth could quite capably be left in the hooves of one of her countless underlings. Only tradition tied her in to many of the events she attended, opening ceremonies she presided over, and minor quibbles she was called upon to mediate. Other tasks had always been her purview because they were serious, demanded immediate attention or otherwise held a national significance. In wartime, these naturally multiplied.
Firstly she had to consider the relations between Equestria and her human allies. However temporary that truce might end up being, it was holding for the moment, and that was a reason to be thankful, if not quite cheerful. While Celestia knew that she could use her powers of control over the sun to destroy their fleet, she was under no illusions that their ships, though fewer in number now than when they had arrived in the system, could do cataclysmic damage to the nation before they could be eliminated. Potentially, they could even possess weapons unknown to her which could have the power to destroy the entire planet, either physically or by way of rendering it uninhabitable in some fashion. Their atomic weaponry, capable of destroying a city in the blink of an eye and unleashing energies only she herself could match, had been referred to as 'crude' by both the Lord-Admiral and the cleanup team who had been assisting in Canterlot. If that was the Imperial definition of crude, what exactly did they consider to be a sophisticated weapon?
Keeping the balance between trusting the humans, letting them carry the weight of cleaning up the mess that their fellows had unleashed upon Equestria, and keeping them at a safe distance with a healthy amount of wariness, was not easy. The Lord-Admiral seemed trustworthy enough, but the Princess still knew relatively little of human culture and societal norms. It was entirely possible that he was lying through his back teeth to her the entire time, secretly manipulating her without her knowledge, guiding events to his own ends in a most Discordian fashion, though without the use of magic. It was equally possible that Celestia's own attempts at just such subtle statecraft were proving entirely successful, and that the Lord-Admiral was the one truly being manipulated by her. She had gotten that impression several times, only for some curve ball to come seemingly out of nowhere and make her question the truth of the matter once again.
Piled atop the strange new alliance was the fact of what they were allied against. These humans had a dark counterpart, those who had turned to embrace chaos and disharmony, something the ponies were familiar with, though not quite in the same fashion. The Imperials referred to them as the 'Archenemy,' a strong term but one which, given what Celestia knew of their history, seemed fitting. They had betrayed their species and their leader, a pain Celestia knew only too well. But whereas she had accepted her sister back to her bosom with a full pardon, making her family once again, the human Emperor never got the chance, instead being forced to kill his son, to destroy him utterly, before, apparently, falling into a state of near-death for millennia since. The traitorous followers of that son, Horus, were still roaming the galaxy today in search of blood, in the service of their new masters, the so-called Gods of Chaos.
How real all of that was, Celestia did not know. But it was certain that the human enemy had been able to somehow summon or conjure up a variety of strange and sickening creatures which had never been seen in Equestria before. Even Alicorn magic would struggle to simply create life where there had been none before, suggesting that the foul creatures were not being created, but rather transported from somewhere else; 'The Warp,' the humans called it. These beings had carved a deadly swathe through the ranks of the Imperial forces, though they had wilted and withered before the power of the Princess. If they came from some other planet, or from some other dimension, no doubt greater threats could follow. They were, perhaps, the source of the disquiet both Celestia, her sister, and Twilight had all reported feeling, deep down at the back of their minds, ever since the invasion began.
As if that were not enough, there had been reports of increased rebel activity out in the west, an area thought to be safe from the human enemy. No landings had been made out there, but pony outlaws and traitors were roaming with relative impunity in the deserts. That was nothing new, but they seemed to be emboldened by the relative lack of military presence. One of the armoured trains had apparently been ambushed and derailed, according to a report reaching her from Vanhoover, by a large and organised group of rebels who made use of captured military hardware including artillery pieces. That was a worrying development; rebel groups normally operated with small cells and used small-scale raids on outlying villages or outposts as their modus operandi, having neither the numbers nor capabilities for attacking anything larger. This assault on such a potent symbol of Equestrian military might was concerning, both in and of itself, and because of the potential for such unrest and rebellion to spread as a result of the invasion.
To top everything off, the old enemy had returned. The Changelings, even after the destruction of their Hive, were not finished. They had not gone away. Chrysalis was alive, and she had the Element of Magic in her possession, just to complicate matters. If this new Hive in the jungle turned out to be the new home of the Queen and her drones, then Celestia would have had no hesitation in simply requesting that Lord-Admiral Marcos obliterate it from orbit, if not for that confounded Element. Yes, they had rescued Twilight from the volcano Hive, for which Celestia was eternally grateful. But without her Element, Twilight was just another unicorn like any other, albeit one with above average magical power. The Elements themselves could not function without all six of their number being present. Even a single one being missing, or stolen, in this case, rendered the entire setup useless. The golden necklaces were just meaningless trinkets without any value until their missing member, Twilight's diadem, was returned to their ranks. It had to be found, and recovered, but Chrysalis was hardly likely to simply give it up. She knew that the Elements were a means for the ponies to defeat her, to destroy what she had worked to build. The Elements were fundamental magic, and they were powerful, almost impossibly so, even more powerful than Celestia or Chrysalis themselves, which was why they were a danger to the Changeling Queen. That was why they had to be kept and had to be guarded. Obviously the protections provided for Twilight had been inadequate before, but now all of the remaining Elements and their bearers were under double guard, triple whenever they left the palace. Hopefully it would be enough, but it would all be meaningless if they could not recover the Element of Magic.
Many times in the past, Celestia had faced down foes which were new to Equestria, but never had there been a set of circumstances quite so complex and confusing. A single threat, no matter how powerful, was infinitely more manageable than four separate and distinct sources of aggression. Equestria, as had been clearly demonstrated, was not even remotely equipped to fight two of those sources. The humans and their dark counterparts presented an existential threat and one that was quite unlike anything Celestia had seen before. The very outlook that she, and by extension the rest of Equestria, would have to hold from now on had changed completely. The Lord-Admiral had told her that it was possible that, even if they defeated the enemy and the fleet withdrew, it was always possible that some other Imperial force could visit their planet at some point in the future. That was not a thought to be relished. From what he had said, it was likely that many, if not most, other fleet commanders of the Imperium would either obliterate their civilization from orbit without so much as a second thought, or invade in an attempt to sweep the planet clear of natives, much as the Chaos forces had tried.
Having to plan for threats from beyond the planet itself was not something to which Celestia was accustomed, save for preparing for her sister's return from exile on the moon. Their arrival had not been foreseen; there had been nothing in the ancient prophecies that spoke of hairless beings, or alien Diamond Dogs, or anything that resembled the humans or their ships. They came from a place beyond the realm of magic, where magic did not spread and could not see. The prophecies, such as the Mare In The Moon, relied on magic as the very basis for their function. They could not predict events from outside of those places that magic held sway, and without them, even Celestia could not predict events that might unfold hundreds of years in the future. If she could not predict something, then she could not plan for it.
It was possible that, without magic being so prevalent in Equestria, technological development might have been massively more advanced that it currently was. Resources were plentiful, as was knowledge and expertise. There were many highly intelligent pony scientists and engineers, though many of them used magic to aid with their designs and constructions. If a lack of magic had concentrated minds on the need to, say, mechanise agriculture in order to feed a growing population instead of using earth pony magic to boost crop yields and unicorn magic to automate ploughs and packaging of goods, then tools and vehicles might have been developed to achieve the same results. The only sphere where technology marched ahead was in the military. Internal combustion engines for airships, long range guns, steam turbines for the Navy, new machine-rifles for the infantry. Without magic, if all efforts were focused on technology instead, how much more advanced might Equestria be? Could they have even been at a level where they could fight off these humans, in space as well as on the ground?
Such thoughts were fine for idle minds to dwell on, but Celestia's was far from an idle mind. Regardless of what might have been, the reality was that magic offered ponykind its only realistic method of salvation should the humans renege on their truce and turn their weapons against Equestria. The military could not stand against them, even if they had been at full strength, which they were most decidedly not. Only the Princess and the Elements could defeat them, and even the Elements were a doubt. The human ships were in space, and, so far as any pony knew, the Elements had a decidedly limited range.. If they were on the ground when used, there was absolutely no guarantee that their effects could even reach orbit to threaten the human fleet, even assuming their effects were enough to disable or destroy the gargantuan craft which hung high above, still visible through a telescope at night, as clear as a bell.
Celestia gazed down from the windows of the Celestial Tower, the highest point in the palace and the city, along with its twin, the Lunar Tower, a short distance away. She could see Canterlot spread out below, most of it still empty, the streets coated with radioactive dust in stead of busy ponies going about their lives. Many had no lives to live any more, at least beyond the useful busywork assigned to them by the palace staff and guards. Every civilian had been pressed into service in an attempt to restore the city, or at least the palace, to working order. There were young and old, mare and stallion, unicorn, Pegasus and earth pony, battle-hardened veterans and newborn foals. They were all her responsibility. The Princess had always kept them safe. She had always kept Equestria safe.
Even now, in these most troubled of times, there were cheers in the halls whenever Celestia passed by. Soldiers saluted, foals smiled, civilians bowed. Despite the damage done to Equestria, faith in the Princess still held firm. Even though, as far as many of the civilians must have been concerned, she and her sister had abandoned Canterlot and seemingly fled, when they had relocated to Cloudsdale in an attempt to both protect the Elements and stabilise the situation and re-establish some sort of control over the unfolding invasion and chaos. Celestia would protect them. Celestia would provide for them. That was how it had always been, and that was how it must, surely, always be.
It was far from being that simple, the Princess herself knew. But she would most certainly do everything in her considerable power in order to live up to their expectations, and to the ideals by which she had always ruled. But the burden she carried was a great one. The crown she wore would always be heavy on the heart, though light upon the head. The responsibility was hers to bear. For a thousand years it had been hers alone, but now that she once again shared it with her sister, it hardly seemed to make the weight any lighter. For her subjects, it was an almost impossible thing to imagine. The personal responsibility not just for the personal safety of each and every one of the millions of inhabitants of Equestria, but for their prosperity, opportunity, their very development as a species. The economic, social, political and military future of Equestria and, by extension, all of the other species on the planet, depended entirely on what Celestia decided to do. That was how it had been ever since she first wore the crown.
Perhaps one day, that crown would be passed on to somepony else. Celestia already shared duties with her sister, but while there was a civilian government beneath them who oversaw the day to day running of Equestria, the power still remained squarely in royal hooves. That would never change, despite what some of the pony rebels and anti-monarchists who were roaming the deserts might wish. Celestia would never give up power, not because she craved it the way Queen Chrysalis did, but because she knew that there simply was nopony else who could take over the reins as head of state. Leading Equestria did not simply mean bureaucracy and attending fancy balls and galas. Anypony could do that. There was far more to it than that. For one thing, whoever was in charge had to possess enough physical power to fight, both to keep the nation safe and, indeed, to keep their own throne safe from usurpers. There was a reason that only Celestia and Discord had ruled Equestria in the last several millennia. Only someone with the power of Discord could have overthrown the royal sisters, and only the royal sisters could have overthrown him in turn.
Princess Luna was the only other possibility to be ruler of Equestria, and while she technically was a co-regent with her sister, Celestia was very much the senior sibling in every respect. That was partly down to being older than Luna, but there was also the more sinister note that had crept into the relationship between the royals and the populace since Luna's betrayal. Not everypony trusted her; even those who did trust the monarchy in general, and Celestia in particular, still had their doubts about the former Nightmare Moon. It was an understandable concern. They could not be entirely certain that she did not still harbour whatever dark forces had driven her to treason, somewhere deep down inside her psyche. There had always been grumblings, right since the day she was banished; Celestia should have killed her, many said, even if she was her own sister. Too dangerous to be left alive. That argument had been made every time the Princess had defeated a great and powerful enemy, that banishment or imprisonment was not enough, too risky or simply not befitting their crimes. Celestia resisted such calls, especially those that concerned Luna. It was not her way to kill where something else would suffice.
At least, that used to be the case. These human enemies had come to Equestria purely to spread fear, purely to kill and maim and destroy. Even Chrysalis and Sombra had carried out their actions for a reason beyond merely some base instinct for violence. Such attitudes were completely irredeemable. There was no possibility of persuading one of those slavering fanatics to give up their ways and repent their actions. They had come to destroy Equestria, and for that, they had to die.
That was why she had ordered public executions of some of the captured enemy, right there, in the palace courtyard that she was looking down upon from on high. It had not been the easiest command she had ever given, but it had been, she felt, necessary. This was a struggle for survival unlike any Equestria had ever faced, and the ponies, military and civilian alike, had to be made aware of that. The difference had to be pressed home to them, made clear in their minds. If this enemy won, they would not be left mostly to their own devices, as ponies had been under Discord, nor would they be imprisoned and enslaved as ponies had under King Sombra. They would be killed, slaughtered mindlessly and wholesale. The evidence was there for all to see, if they could only see what had happened in Manehattan, Baltimare and Ponyville. Celestia hoped that Twilight understood that. If she were, one day in the distant future, to become the new leader of Equestria, then she would have to learn, the hard way if necessary. Sometimes, brutality had to be met with brutality in return. That was a decision that Celestia knew and accepted, but having to make it was the cost of wearing the crown.
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
1,003 users online
87,082 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
For Celestia, she should be saying it isnt Execution, as that way lays Darkness, but giving Mercy to the Untreatable Dying Rabid? As that would give Chaos Forces the most offense?
How many chapters long will this story be?
10093357
That might be how she would present it to the public if they found out about it!
10093482
Hard to say, but there will be plenty more chapters to come in the future.
Still don't like how Celestia treats Twilight like she is worthless without those trinkets. Twilight probably one of the most talented and powerful unicorns period.
I assume Celestia hates representative democratic government because otherwise, she won't just vomit several paragraphs of self-entitled monarchial nonsense.
10095859
She's not treating her like she's useless. She's trying to protect her. Yes, Twilight can be a capable combatant, but if she dies, who would replace her to wield the sixth Element? I know Celestia CAN do it, but that's not how the Elements are designed to be used. They're meant to be used by six different ponies that embody the elements, not by Celestia alone. The way I view it (your headcanon may be different) is that the Elements can be used by a single pony who is powerful enough, but at a reduced level of effectiveness. They would be more powerful with six different users, so Celestia needs to keep those ponies safe.
Think of it as Twilight being an aircraft carrier without its aircraft. Yes, the carrier can still defend itself to some extent with anti-air missiles and point defences, but it's lacking its most powerful weapon.
And given that Equestria is an absolute monarchy so far as we know, ruled by magical beings of absurd power, I don't really think a democracy would work for them very well. Do you really want the defence of the nation against Discord/Tirek/Sombra/Storm King tied up in committee meetings and debates on the floor of the chamber?