The pony's sniper

by Raizuo

An interlude

An interlude

Ah, before I continue on with the story I should probably inform you about a few things about the place. It shouldn't take me too long hopefully, but it may help you understand a bit more about the place. Lets start off with the most obvious, if they have hooves then why do they have guns? The truth is, it all goes back to a bit of time in the past. Back to the days before the equestrians knew about the existence of gunpowder they utilized the most obvious weapons of the time: Spears, swords, crossbows. The sort of things that have been used before.

All that changed when a unicorn scientist created, or more accurately, accidentally made gunpowder. I couldn't find too much information about the unicorn him or herself but they were the one to cause a small spark of revolution for the ponies.

Gunpowder has plenty of uses today actually: Fireworks, explosives (if only rarely), and sometimes in the occasional mixture. Truthfully the ponies themselves never thought of a gun being possible at the time. Would have stayed the way were it not for a unicorn by the name of Test Shot. Originally he was going to make the first gun that could be used by only unicorns, but he eventually scrapped the research in favor of something else that was more interesting, or perhaps he didn't have the time he really needed for the research.

The research surprisingly didn't end then and there though. The notes of the gun made its way to the west to the deserts of Appaloosa, where it was picked up by sheer chance alone by an earth pony by the name of Colt. His full name was Little Colt, but he was far from little. Upon looking over the notes he decided that he wasn't going to let the unicorns take all the glory for a new invention, and started up his own research. He looked for ways to make it so anyone can use it without a need of magic or mouth to fire the gun. I'll be honest here, he took quite a long time to discover the method of using the gun, about five years to be exact. During that time he did find out how to compress the gunpowder into a smaller projectile, making a projectile that is more dangerous that an arrow from a bow or crossbow.

He also discovered a rather interesting fact: Earth ponies have a slight magical field around the hooves, but it is a passive sorts of magic instead of a active magic such as used by unicorns or pegasi for flight. Upon this discovery, Colt devised the framing of the first ever gun to be usable by any and all ponies. It is what you'd call a revolver, but they called it the Colt Revolver. A high recoil and slightly weighted, but would deal a powerful blow to anyone hit by its projectile. The first use of it was by Little Colt himself when a tribe of buffalo raided the town. Unlike the buffalo you know of today, these ones were extremely violent and were likely to run you over than to talk with you.

The weapon itself was a slight accidental use, but upon firing the revolver he caused the fatality of one of the raiders. The other raiders did not stay long within the town, and Little Colt was hailed by the townsfolk of Appaloosa as a hero. Heroes are the ones who's names are more remembered than those who began it all.

A year afterwards, other ponies have started creating their own sorts of weaponry based off the Colt Revolver. Weapons such as the semi-automatic pistol, the longer ranged rifle which would eventually lead to the invention of the sniper rifle, and even the most conventional weapon that is commonly used by many today: The Bolt.

The bolt is a pistol that fires about as fast as you can 'pull' the trigger, and it is a semi-automatic form of pistol with a frame ranging from either wood to metals to plastics. The most commonly used frame is the metal frame, as it's most reliable for shooting as straight at close range as possible without damaging the frame itself. The bullets and the ammunition would be sold separate from the gun itself, but it is more concerns of safety instead of concerns of race. Even Celestia herself along with her sister Luna acknowledged the danger behind the weapons, but still commonly trained their soldiers in the use of spear and bow. If just for show.

On the subject of Celestia and Luna, both of them realized the dangers of using the modern weapons and drafted up a few laws involving them, stating that killing with such weapons is still equivalent to a murder unless done in self defense. They may not have needed to make them as the ponies are mostly peaceful and would only rarely actively use such weapons, but they agreed that it's a better idea to have such laws in place than to have nothing in place if they became more common.

The other thing in response to the rising wave of gunpowder weapons being used is create a new branch of guards trained in use of it. They knew that if knowledge of the branch got out to the public there would be a possible outrage among the ponies. So they decided to have them trained in the art of longer ranged combat. The branch would be eventually known as the Guardian Angels due to their ability to defend a target at long range without being revealed themselves. In my opinion they are more akin to snipers than they are to angels due to their brutal efficiency at their jobs.
A bit of digging on my part revealed some simple rules of the Guardian Angels:
1. Do not reveal yourself to anyone that you are a guardian angel except when circumstances are dire enough to require it.
2. Maintain a low profile. Don't try to be a hero to save the life of one pony unless they are related to who you protect.
3. The princesses orders are absolute, failure to follow them intentionally is treasonous.
4. Guardian angels may only retire upon reaching a certain age, or health limitations restrict them from their work
5. Only angels may deal with rouge angels. If an angel is suspected to be rogue, you are to eliminate him or her at any cost.
6. Do not harm innocents both directly or indirectly unless left with absolutely no choice.

These aren't all the rules of the Guardian Angels of course but these are the most important ones that are most likely to be followed. A majority of them do try to follow the last rule, harm no innocents directly or indirectly, to a surprisingly high degree. Most of the Guardian Angels distance themselves as much as possible from the civilians as they can, even from the guards as they can. So most tend to lead isolated lives, much to the dismay of Princess Celestia herself. She in a way wishes them to have friends, but they refuse to make them just simply due to the risk that they could become involved if they were close. It's a sad state of affairs that they willingly put themselves in, but it does somewhat help them out when they take on missions in other countries such as Griffonia, Yakkistan, The Crystal Empire, and even further beyond.

Ah, I must have talked your ear off about history and technicalities enough. I shall end my explanations here but I may speak up again sometime later on. Especially considering how Sharp Scope fares in Ponyvile.

Author's Note:

From here on, I'll try to make a chapter every single week. I'll be involving in these interludes if questions in the comments ask of the same thing, or if there's something that I want to expand upon. However this will be possibly the only interlude chapter I'll do for this story.

To be honest this is the first time in a long time that I'm writing a story based off an older story I've written, so I'm going to be blunt. I'll get obvious dislikes from this point on, and will keep getting those since no one will bother to explain why. If you dislike the story for any reason, TELL me why so I can possibly improve upon it. As of this point on, I'll be writing most of this story on my own but I'll be watching the comments and my PM box.

If you feel you could help improve the story in any way, then I'd be happy to talk with you over PM and get ideas or what could be done in the future. It's not entirely set in stone.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Does Sharp Scope sound like Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell series?

[Raizuo]

8087619
As amusing as that idea would have been, I do not believe he would sound like Sam Fisher, Maybe a little bit, but not exactly.