<In the ground severed, to the sky together...>
A millennium ago, the Princesses and the self-declared Republic of Petra fought a war of succession in Equestria. The Petrans lost and retreated under the mountains, hidden from time itself. For years, the Petrans have waited to seize control of Equestria. Now Starlight Glimmer's time travels in Cloudsdale have shown them a winning strategy.
Maud Pie, who has Petran citizenship, brings Starlight and Trixie into the subterranean republic. As the situation teeters on the brink of war, Starlight discovers that she helped spark it. Now guilt-ridden, Starlight vows to preserve peace… hopefully without making anything worse!
Story takes place during season 8. Proofread by the amazing Typoglyphic. Creative consultants: The Parasprite and D48.
Good riddance to alicorns.
Verrry interesting although I wonder what makes them think the Alicorns are oppressive, we haven’t seen anything suggesting anything like that from Tia, Luna or Cadence.
Anthracite, that is the wrong way to convince visitors that you aren't warlords-in-waiting.
Yeah, so...anyone getting vibes of those bad guys from Iron Horse?
Also these guys are clearly evil and probably Earth Pony supremacists.
9153675
9153056
fuck it get the napalm
we is gons kill some earth ponies
(I'm the resident unicorn supremacist, so I'm quick to go off when I see people like these. ESPECIALLY someone who steals the name of what should be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.)
9154449
I’ve been to Petra, it’s amazing
9154487
Noice.
9152916
Petra is governed by mortal ponies. It's also a federation. Equestria is a monarchy. A rather benevolent one, but a monarchy nonetheless. The Princesses serve for life... a very, very long time. The Petrans are upset that they cannot get the law changed about golems... because there is no chance to have peaceful elections to replace the leaders who wrote that law. Thus, some of them view violence as their only answer (though certainly not all, the Entrenchment faction wants peace and to be left alone).
9153056
As a living lie detector, Anthracite values honesty and he's not going to sugar-coat anything. That said, I did change the passage to the following:
The ponies who want to attack Equestria are in the minority, but more of them do want to take an aggressive stance towards Equestria in the hopes of getting concession. Maybe even a peaceful reunification. However, a minority would be in favor of war if the negotiations failed. I'm sorry that it wasn't very clear in the original draft.
9153675
I'm not going to confirm or deny it, but I'm curious. What makes you think that?
9156622
Aren't most of these guys Earth Ponies?
9156637
Only earth ponies can make golems to start with. The Petran Republic has a golem-based economy. Most of them are earth ponies, but not all.
As an example, Cloudsdale isn't a pegasus supremacist city. They're not racist against earth ponies and unicorns, it's just that most of them can't live in Cloudsdale nor would want to. Unless they want to plummet to their death when they get out of bed every morning.
9156717
So, a mostly Earthy Pony group wants to take over a country that's more of a mix on other races with a possible focus on unicorn rule. Not sure that's better.
And besides, unicorns and pegasi CAN live underground so I'm not sure the example holds.
9156607
I see, that makes more sense. Please do continue.
(Also noticed how you totally skipped stating Starlight’s age, sneaky sneaky)
9156721
I can't go much further without venturing into spoiler territory, but I will provide one possible political solution. What I personally would do if I were them.
We already do know that Petra is a Federation. Meaning that the constituent states/provinces are self-governing for the most part. As Anthracite said, the Petrans are small in number. So they couldn't likely rule all of Equestria directly even if they wanted to. So if they'd toppled the Princesses they should probably just implement a federation. Let Cloudsdale govern itself, Manehattan govern itself, etc. and then everyone would get a vote for who the president/leader of Equestria gets to be.
If they are indeed consistent with their view of themselves as Equestria's "government in exile" who are legitimate even though they lost the Regal War, they'd do that. Not saying that they will, of course, because rarely does the best political situation ever get implemented. Even rarer does a political party ever live up to its own espoused ideals.
Sure, and there are a few unicorns and pegasi born to earth pony parents. Like Pound and Pumpkin Cake were. That said, Petra has been there for 1,000 years, isolated, descended from the losing side of the Regal War. Who were all earth ponies because they could make golems for the war. Very few visitors from the outside are allowed into Petra, and every visitor is seen with suspicion, even Maud, until they can prove trustworthy. If a unicorn or pegasus wanted to move to Petra, they'd have to A. know about the place, B. get admission and become a citizen, and C. want to stay there once they arrived. Not too many pegasi would want to live where they couldn't fly through the sky. Unicorns, it would more depend on their special talent than anything. Probably why they let in Trixie, because they did need her talents. Of course, she hasn't applied for citizenship, we don't know how hard that would be for her as a unicorn.
9156767
I see. Thanks for elaborating.
Still the bad guys.
I'll be sure to give 'er a read ASAP.
Look, buddy, this is My Little Pony. Any argument that treats "feminized" like a bad thing is going to just automatically be wrong, you dig?
9594839
I don't agree with what Cesium said, he's being sexist by saying that. I'm writing for a point of view that I don't necessarily share. Cesiums argument rests on the princesses not being aggressive enough in defending their people. He incorrectly identifies one of the causes of the problem, but that doesn't invalidate other portions of his argument.
I can easily give the other side of the argument. Cesium uses a heavy-hoofed approach to crush the Crystal Army. I'm sure that given the Petrans superior technology, they could've taken longer to win but inflicted fewer casualties on innocent Crystal ponies.
Petra is (mostly) run by males, and Equestrians is (mostly) run by females. There's a different perspective, and it's one of the many differences between Petra and Equestria. Although not the main difference, and the most powerful pony on Petrans side is Maud who is female. Rosegold runs a successful jewelry business. I think that Cesium has a minority opinion. Ane even he is willing to recognize Spitfire's competence.
9594867
Oh, I was disagreeing with Cesium, not with you. You're fine here. (I'm still not sure where this story is going, though. Petra is having a real hard time making themselves seem sympathetic.)
9594878
Hmm, that's interesting. I usually try to make both sides of my story relatable, and I do give the Princesses ample time to give their argument in the negotiations chapter coming up. Plus I've had Starlight be the moderate voice.
What about Petra makes them unsympathetic? Is there anything that you kinda like about them?
9594932
Honestly, it's probably mostly due to my headcanon about Equestria and the Princesses. I can't see them doing something like this to begin with, so any attempt by the Petrans to justify themselves comes across more as propaganda.
That's on me, though, and there's not much you can (or should) do about it.
This looks quite interesting. The Chrysalis timeline should be pretty easy for the Petrans, and the Nightmare Moon timeline is one they're practically salivating for. Discord is still going to be nearly omnipotent. Flim and Flam might represent a future where they lead some sort of coup against the government with Petran technology. And the burned out husk future could be version where the Petran/Equestrian war really kicks off.
9595429
Thanks for the read, and for the comment!
I'd love to get into every alternate timeline, but I only plan on addressing a few. This part of the story is meant to establish a few points that can be addressed without fighting every baddie we see in that episode. (The main goal is to establish what I wrote about Petra's military in the story's long description on the story main page). Plus, I'm trying to keep the length of my story down for several reasons which I can get into if you'd like. The biggest is my job, and work schedule.
Once the story is marked "complete," I might post a few bonus chapters that go into some detail as to the other alternate timelines, or have some interesting scenarios that I can't really fit into the main storyline. Like "where are they now?" or "what did X do during all this" or "how would a friendly duel between X and Y powerful characters turn out?" The chapter updates would also get exposure for my story after it's complete... many people won't even read an incomplete story because of how many letdowns that readers have had with promising stories. Solitary Locust by my good buddy The Parasprite comes to mind.
I took the exact opposite approach with Brother Against Sister, which is part of the reason why it ended up being so long. I kept all of my ideas in the main storyline, then finished it, marked it complete, and that was that. I'm interested in seeing what a different approach might look like. How would it have turned out if I'd done BAS in 100k words instead of 350k, marked it as complete, and then made side stories out of things like the spy shenanigans with Sparkler, how Ponyville stayed neutral in the face of invading factions, or about half of the zebra stuff, or about Pumpkin and Pound realizing the irony that they had become the opportunistic conquerors that they always hated Blueblood for being.
Would all my readers have tuned out once I finished the story with the Ponyville peace deal, or would they have kept reading just to see me flesh out the world more? Too bad there's no such thing as time travel in real life...
9610571 I can understand keeping it short. I was just throwing out some wild speculation.
I think making separate side stories tends to get more readers, in part because it gives you more chances at the feature box, but I'm not expert.
9610577
I could do some side stories, maybe. I think I tried that with the Griffon storyline in BAS, and it was moderately successful.
I like your speculation, and you have given me some good ideas...