Of Starships and Golden Armors

by Devona

Interval 2 - Part 2, World War One

Princess Luna floated idly in the darkness, waiting for something to happen.

Stanley had not been lying - the Simulation really felt as if nothing existed but her, in a world devoid of any physics at all.

Wherever Luna tried to turn her gaze, she was met with the same sight: complete darkness, and not even her own body could be seen.

Truth be told, Luna had no idea if she was even turning around or not.

After a while however, a few lines of some unintelligible alien text suddenly appeared right in front of her eyes, and a familiar voice resonated through the void.

"Welcome, Your Highness, Princess Luna, Diarch of Equestria. You may recognize my voice as that of the Republic of Sol Artificial Intelligence's commonly known as 'Selina' - or, in short, the one present at Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Martin's side during all our talks so far," the voice introduced itself, right as the foreign text disappeared, once again drowning Luna in blackness. The Princess remained silent.

"You can speak now, by the way," the voice sounded once again, this time with a much lighter demeanor. Luna could swear she could hear a chuckle at the end of the statement.

"Oh, that's... that's most welcomed," the Princess responded, not sure what to say. "We... we greet you as well."

"Well, thank you!" Selina replied. "Now, without further delays, we'll be jumping right into the first scenario. I will be accompanying you throughout all your experiences here, as Stanley himself doesn't have any hardware that could allow him to join us. Is that alright?"

Luna tried to nod, but realised nothing like that was really possible in the 'Simulation'. Luckily, Selina must've had her ways, as before long she broke the silence once again.

"Perfect! I'm initiating the generation process now, then. I apologize, normally it would be instanteneous, however we lack any more powerful computers at the moment," she stated matter-of-factly. "In the meantime though, do you have any questions?"

"What would we see?" immediately asked Luna without even a thought.

Selina let out a quiet, yet friendly chuckle. "A good question, naturally... remember when you asked us how humanity could handle the violence it's currently going through?"

"I do."

"How they - we - were able to switch to the lives of... just fighting back?"

"Are we going to be answered?" Luna cut off with a question of her own, hoping to push the talk forward.

"To a degree," replied Selina. "Not directly, however."

Luna rolled her eyes. "What will we witness, then?"

"Earth," Selina stated, weirdly cheerfully.

Luna attempted to raise an eyebrow. "'earth'?"

"The human homeworld, like Equis is for ponies, griffons-..."

"Did you not state it to be Sol?" Luna cut the AI off, a tinge of precautious suspicion in her voice.

"Sol is the star system in which humanity originated," Selina stated without a second of delay. "Earth is the planet, the third within Sol. You are familiar with the concept of star systems, yes?"

"We are," Luna answered surely, instinctively attempting in vain to straighten her posture, not sure whether to feel offended by the suggestion or not. "We... we have simply assumed our own to be the only in existence. Art... art the world and plane named differently, then?" Luna changed the topic back, confidence having faded away.

"They are. Historical reasons, mainly cultural. Systems are associates with the star, not planet."

"Will we just be gazing at rocks, in that case?" Luna asked sarcastically.

"Not if you don't wish to. You'll see Earth, only not at present, but rather quite some time ago."

"And that is?"

"A little more than four thousand years. Four thousand two hundred and seventy seven, to be exact," declared the AI without a budge in her voice.

For a moment, Luna was at a loss of words. It took her a couple minutes to formulate a response. "T-that is longer a time than Equestria herself has stood!"

"I didn't know that."

"How shall antiquity the likeness of this assist our questions?" Luna continued, ignoring Selina's remark.

"Of that... you will see," the AI answered with a chuckle, immediately followed by a short sigh. "The scenario is generated and waiting. Are you ready to begin?"

"We are," Luna said confidently, and the world around slowly faded to nothing but whiteness.

---

Upon thrusting her eyes open, Luna was met with a rather familiar sight. All around, separated from each other by vast plains, shacks and houses adorned the landscape. Their dimensions were a little weird, sure, but besides that, nothing here seemed alien, to the point where Luna began to wonder whether she was truly seeing 'Earth'.

Curious, the Princess took a step forward, discovering her body was now back. Not thinking much of that fact, Luna resumed her trot, deciding to near one of the 'human' houses.

It was really nothing out of the ordinary. The building was a white-walled bungalow with a roof made out of what appeared to be some kind of wood. The whole thing looked as though it had been assembled out of pre-made cuboids, so regular was its shape, and the coloring scheme was without a doubt much more dim and uniform than that applied to pony houses, but other than that, it was easy to mistake the building for something constructed in Ponyville, Fillydelphia or Baltimare.

Aside from the strangely tall and thin doorframe, that is.

A doorframe... without a door?

Curious, Luna sped up. Nothing to shield an entrance to a residential building? Surely there was some...

Oh. Curious, certainly. Very curious, but... what, and... what? Why?

Just a small change of angle revealed the ghost house's true nature. A few hoofsteps, and through the empty windowframes the opposite wall could be seen.

Or at least it should be seen, as there was nothing there. The other side of the roof laid in ruin, with only a few random, protruding wooden planks remaining. The walls were scratched, little paint left on the inside. The whole floor was covered with dirty, mixed and shredded earth, unfamiliar debris and remnants of... something.

In short, the house was a ruin. A complete and utter ruin, destroyed beyond habitability, with loads and loads of sharp shrapnel and debris, which apparently nopony had bothered to remove.

A ruin set up in a perfect way to look kind of normal from the one angle Luna had come from.

Fighting against confusion, Luna sat down by one of the structure's walls.

What was all of this about?
Was this really the right location?
The right... time?

Just before the Princess could continue her march, a familiar voice came from just behind the left wall.

"First impressions?"

Immediately, Luna turned to face Selina. What she'd seen however, she could never have predicted.

There, a few meters away, stood a pony. Not a weird, floating symbol, nor some abstract screen, not even a human the likeness of Stanley.

No, a pony - a pony so perfect it almost seemed real. It DID seem real, even though it couldn't be in this world - which in itself did not exist.

Yet there she stood, a white, brown-maned unicorn mare so tall that she almost surpassed Celestia, and clearly Luna herself. On her flank, a cutie mark comprised of weird alien symbols was the only thing betraying... anything. Truth be told though, Luna had seen far stranger cutie marks during her lifetime - both Day and Night Courts had a habit of luring in some... interesting personas, from time to time.

As the Princess struggled to piece everything together, the newcomer took a step forward. "Welcome again!" she exclaimed excitedly, waving to Luna with her hoof. "Selina here. What? Did I... did I mess something up?" she continued, looking her pony form over with worry.

Casting stray thoughts away, Luna shook her head. "No, it is alright. Surprisingly... accurate. How did thou...?"

"This is all simulated, remember?" Selina laughed. "Computer-generated. I can do whatever I want, and I figured this would simply be most familiar," the AI explaied, stretching out her enormous wings.

Hm. So not just a unicorn, as it might seem.

"Oh, right..." Luna replied, casting away the final strains of confusion. Looking at the vast, lush fields once again, the Princess changed the topic. "What is all that? What shall we grasp from these dwellings?" she asked, gesturing to the ruin behind her.

Selina's cheerful expression wavered. "This? You mean this place?" Luna returned a nod. "You are on Earth, near the small town of Fleury. The year, in human calendar, is 1916. You've travelled 4277 years backwards... or, in Equestrian system, about 4222 years."

"We understand, however what shall we 'see' in here? The sights present are very much akin to our own."

"Nothing yet. Take in how our world used to look like in the old times," Selina chuckled, but her tone betrayed she wasn't joking with the suggestion.

After taking another long gaze over the horizon, Luna glanced back at Selina, uncertainty painted all across her muzzle. "We understand not. Our conclusion remains. Equestrian soil resembles thi-... your world greatly."

"You do understand, then," Selina nodded with a smile. "Yep, it's very similar, more than you might think, considering how other planets we've found look like," the AI chuckled. "But that's only right now. You see this house?"

Following Selina's hoof, Luna found it pointing at the ruin behind her. Unsure of where her companion was going, the Princess slowly nodded.

Selina didn't wait a second more. "Well, let's just say it's simply a... prelude."

Without delay, the AI's horn glowed with a snow-white aura, clearly imitating pony magic, and before long, the bright light engulfed everything in sight.

When it subsided, however, Luna was suddenly met with an entirely different landscape.

In place of the lush grassy fields, shredded ground remained, wet and muddy, scattered with polluted ponds, violent holes and loads of undefined metallic shrapnel. Even the few remaining wooden stalks from the former bushes were broken and obstructed, to the point where they too almost resembled spears with their sharpened ends, ready to kill on demand.

At first, the uneven ground suddenly materializing beneath her own hooves made Luna falter, but she managed to catch herself just in time. Glancing back up, the Princess looked once again.

She looked at the weirdly coloured rivers which substituted previously beautiful streams, with clumped boulders of mud right in their middle and wooden planks zig-zagging all around, connecting into makeshift bridges and paths in the process.

She looked at where she remembered copses and forests covered the land under their lush, green canopies, only to see everything gone, and just a few barren, dim stubs stretching to the skies in their place, if anything at all.
Leaves, just as grass, became a faint memory.

She looked frantically around the landscape, at where she remembered houses used to stand. There must be something, right? Where would they go? Where would a building go!?
But there was nothing there. A lone wall or two, occasionally a bit more, but often nothing remained at all.

Taken aback, confused but most of all terrified, Luna desperately turned to Selina for answers.

What was happening?

How did this happen?

There was nopony to do anything...

Not in a long time did Luna feel such fear. It wasn't a fear of an adversary though, neither was it of monsters, dark magic or any terrible fate - either her or anypony else's.

No... it was something entirely different - one could even claim it wasn't fear per se.

With every glance at the landscape Luna felt this world, so similar to Equestria, float further away from her.
With every look taken, every turn of her head, she felt more and more separated... lost.

Lonely.

Cast into a catastrophe, with nopony else to mourn the unknown with her.

It was a fear of... loss... inability to control something she should... or maybe not.

Maybe it was truly no fear at all? Maybe it was... something else?
What, then?

Luna's thoughts were in chaos. Questions on what happened to these calm plains were interwinded with completely unfamiliar feelings, not even once experienced in the more recent centuries of her life, and that was enough to briefly send shivers down the Princess' spine.

Out of grasp. Unable to control.

That shall not happen. We shall-

"Well then, now you see," Selina's voice sharply thrusted Luna out of her thoughts. "That's your answer if you still want it. That's how we've adapted."

"I... I do not understand," Luna replied, still confused. "What transpired here?"

"Most of your questions over the last few days seemed to assume that the Swarm was some kind of rarity. Stanley has already made sure to kind of clarify the matter, but we thought we'd close the topic for good," Selina said, nearing the Princess. "This," she gestured at the desolate fields. "Is war."

Silence.

"Thou were invaded before...?"

"Yes, we were, but I don't think that's what you truly meant with that question. Humanity had not met any other sentient species before 2389. Add one more year, and you have the first invasion," the AI clarified. Luna raised an eyebrow.

"Have thou not said this was... nineteen... eighteen?"

"Nineteen sixteen, but yes. No invasion here."

"So... how..."

"It's an inside war, dear!" Selina chuckled. "You're looking at a battlefield of the First World War, waged between human factions. My point is, as you don't seem to have deduced it, that we had both time and opportunity to develop our ways to survive, to switch to a lifestyle surrounded by such conflict. That's how we adapted to the struggle against the Swarm. We'd have told you directly, but, you know, a nice history lesson can always be used. Besides that, the Corps want to put a much greater focus than stated in protocol on 'familiarising you' with our reality, and we're happy to oblige, as they have more authority than myself when dealing with purely diplomatic matters, at the end of the day. Oh, and also, you've expressed interest with the concept of battle and advanced warfare, so we're kind of getting a two in one here anyway," the AI chuckled again in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Apparently however Selina's data regarding pony psychology was still quite lacking, as her calculations evidently failed.

All Luna was doing, was slowly shaking her head in deep thought.

"I... this is a human battlefield?" Luna asked, more genuinely surprised and without belief than truly terrified or shocked.

"And old battlefield, yes," Selina nodded, as she followed the Princess' gaze. "Is something not right?"

"What kind of clash could bring about so much destruction? How... how could it transpire like so?" Luna asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

This wasn't simply damage - all wars and battles were destructive.
This, however?

It was as if the land itself got molded, shredded and turned over. Nothing remained, not an inch left unscathed, spared of the enormous, bleeding wounds which covered everything that eye could see.

War was one thing. It existed as more than a concept, and that was unfortunate, but also known.
It was obvious.

But war like that?

It was something else. It was as if though, while locked in duels, the fighting warriors targeted more the ground itself than their actual adversaries.

And then, just them, it clicked.

There were no duels. This war, this battle so very ancient, must've already been fought like those Stanley would often describe.
It must've been an instance of advanced warfare.

Just... just like Selina said...

Hence why the land suffered so much.

Hence why everything was barren and shredded.

There were no duels, no warriors clashing with each other. Not truly.
This was warfare with cannons and armored, metal walls. Guns which threw lethally sharp lead at incredible speeds, bringing about death from beyond sight.

This was warfare where predicting enemy moves on micro, but also macro scale was leagues more important than in battles Luna had been familiar with before.

Warfare so incredible and fascinating, with so much options and possibilities, so much sophistication... but at the end of the day, there was no doubt - here, you fired to defeat your foe - it was the only goal, after all.

And the foe did not exist in a void.

Here, victory came first, and lands - plains, forests, cities - were just chess boards on which to achieve it.

Chess boards...

Chess boards so fascinating with their complexity... but, apparently, so very scarred when zoomed in on.

Cruelty of war had already began to evade Luna. Constant talks revolving around nothing but combat helped plant a seed of tactical fascination in her mind.

Clashes ensued. Clashes between every idea Luna genuinely tried to adapt to ever since her return from banishment, and the true pull towards these unique, ultimate mind games.

Clashes ultimately resolved by a compromise: there was nothing wrong with the concept of strategy itself, right? The theory brought nothing with itself.

It wasn't bad to be interested.

It wasn't bad to be...

It wasn't... it truly was not.

Was it really not, though?

Not really waiting for any word from Selina anymore, Luna continued gazing at the once beautiful fields.

This wasn't destruction like she had imagined. This was just... beyond...

It was different.

"The same kind of clash that happened here," Selina's voice helped to stop Luna's train of thought. "At the time, this was the largest conflict humanity had yet known, but as scale changes, everything follows suit," the AI glanced between Luna and the space in front of her with uncertainty. "Are you gonna go further?"

"May we ask you a question?" Luna replied instead as she quickly turned to face Selina, ignoring her previous words.

At first seemingly surprised, Selina slightly retracted her head. "Hm. Of course, ask away. I'm... kind of here precisely to answer, after all," she chuckled, sitting down next to the Princess.
The AI's eyes glistered with sincere compassion and friendliness, willingness to help at a moment's notice - whether genuinely or just as a part of 'building better relations' with the ponies, Luna couldn't tell.

"You... you mentioned the humans waited long for any contact with a species different from themselves," Luna began. "And that once their search was over, not a year came by before you... you fought a... war. Were... were they and this attacker..."

"One and the same species? Yes."

"Why with such history, with thine own meeting like so... why do you behave so friendly towards us?" the Princess uttered her words with but a tinge of curiosity; besides a small fraction of suspition, only plain neutrality could really be heard in her voice, overflown with thoughts.

Selina remained quiet for a while, returning her gaze forward. Her mane's lack of ethereal flow made the pony, even though an alicorn, entirely devoid of any majestic aura. Right now, in contrast to Luna, she simply looked lost. "Exactly... because of that," the AI eventually answered. "When we made our first contact, we had just come out of a very bad period in history. The Republic of Sol was a young, unstable country. This species - the Chirr, by the way - caught us in our weakest moment. The war that ensued was nothing but a mistake - a result of the Chirr's own problems home, pressure to colonize, and one incompetent commander, who decided his small, mainly civilian colonisation fleet could bring down an entire race, strong or not. It was simple for things to escalate, and having experienced it... we didn't want you to have it the same way we did. We wanted you to have it better, to remember this moment as a great, bright point in your history, instead of a starting date of an invasion," Selina explained, sending Luna a small smile in the process. The Princess responded with one of her own.

"Thank you, then. Really," assured Luna. "If thine words are true... then we believe it to be most appreciated," the monarch continued, but immediatelly internally face-hoofed after realizing how bland it must've sounded. Eager to excape from the matter, Luna quickly went on to change the topic. "You... are a machine, yes?"

"I feel offended," Selina chuckled.

Luna rolled her eyes. "Thou knows what I mean."

"Yeah, I believe so. I do am a machine, to be sure - doesn't it sound nice, though? 'Beware, for here we comes, mechanisms devoid of bounds!'"

"We cannot argue," Luna chuckled. "However, if thine nature is like so... can you... succumb?" the Princess asked slowly, with hesitation in her voice.

Selina, in turn, didn't seem to mind. Whether to give Luna confidence or just because so was her nature, she replied matter-of-factly. "Die? Not of old age, no. If you mean to ask-"

"Were you here," the Princess gestured at the shredded landscape, "when this conflict first transpired? Perhaps when... when these... 'Chirr'... came?"

Selina almost burst into full-blown laughter. "Please!" she exclaimed. "I'm not that old yet... we'll see if I ever am," the AI wiped her eyes with her hoof, before turning to Luna once more. "Yeah, you did mean to ask it. Nevertheless, no. We... at this point humanity had yet to develop its first AIs... and quite some time would pass before that."

"If that is so, how then did the humans harness the power to leave so much destruction?"

"Simple: it's far easier to do."

"What would constitute the need? A cause sufficient to spew terror on scale such as this?"

For a short while, Selina remained quiet. "Get comfortable," she eventually began with a small chuckle. Luna tilted her head, but before she could ask anything, the AI continued. "You can't simply say what caused the First World War. Its outbreak was the climax of various processes, which were gradually unfolding over the previous century, even longer if you want to be more thorough. The formation of countries in modern understanding, age-old rivalries now formalized with the growth of diplomacy. Undecided arguments from before, the rise of nationalism and a multitude of interwinded treaties between important countries meant that once it got hotter..."

"It escalated."

Selina nodded. "Yes. Quickly."

"Why were no attempts at peaceful resolution undertaken? Was there no hope?" Luna asked in bewilderment.

"It's much more complicated than that, but just condensing things... first, there were some attempts, just didn't end up paying off. Second, that's not really how it works," the AI began explaining. "Social tendencies over the world were seeking national greatness, and they determine much of how you see and comprehend things. Noone knew war would look like this, as it never had before. At this point, conflicts between states were running high, as more recent developments only allowed their scale to grow. The populace doesn't think that way, however - they have no way of doing so. Because of that, when an opportunity appeared, everyone jumped on: to avenge previous losses, for their own gains, for traditions, for progress, national glory, humanity... everything. Old ways of thinking just kind of collided with a world after a period of massive development, both technological and social, which not everyone really understood yet."

"But... why..."

"As I've said, you can't truly list the causes of World War One, nor almost any other important event. To get a genuine idea of why this conflict began, it's not enough to be able to describe how Earth looked like prior to it and say what that meant for the future - no, you need to honestly know the social tendencies back then and understand how they worked. Sorry if it sounds confusing, but that's the best way I can answer your question."

Luna pondered Selina's words for a while, returning her gaze to the ruined landscape. She felt strange, but also very relieved. The Princess couldn't say she would ever have thought about a whole war created by such intricate dealings, she couldn't say it even sounded realistic.

When presented as a fact, however... it seemed possible. It seemed familiar and relatable.

The humans... they've suffered so much because of simple mistakes. Because they hadn't realized that what they were doing would, just in their situation, steer their world ever closer to war.

They wanted, each and every one of them, the best for all. They surely did, how couldn't they, right?

And yet they were wrong in the end. They've done something evil beyond scale, but it was a result of a long, irreversible series of unknowing mistakes.

It was tragic, yes... however it was just a mistake. An error.

And... and creatures make mistakes, right?

Luna kept looking at the destroyed treeline, still considering what Selina said could lead a species to such destructive violence. It seemed very, very unfamiliar, not really possible... and yet she could see it. Actually, somehow, comprehend. It made sense.

"We... I understand," Luna stuttered quietly, but Selina had no problems with catching it all.

"Good then," the AI answered with a chuckle. "I can't lie, that makes my job a lot easier."

Luna snorted; it was obvious that Selina was trying to lighten up the tense mood, but to tell the truth, the Princess didn't mind at all - going along with it wasn't even much of a decision.

Meanwhile though, the AI continued. "Are we gonna be staying here some more or moving on? The choice is all your, of course," she asked smiling.

Luna glanced at the fields for the last time. "I... I think enough has been seen. We shall move on further," she said after a while. Selina sighed.

"Alright," she acknowledged. "I'm generating... the next plane. Until it's ready however, we'd like to show you one more thing."

Luna tilted her head. "That is?"

"You'll see in a second," Selina winked as she stretched out her enormous wings. "Oh yeah, by the way, you can fly here."

With one massive, decisive flap, the AI took to the skies, briefly disappearing from view. It wasn't long until Luna found her dancing silhouette once more, though.

The Lunar Princess carefully stretched her wings out, confusion painted across her muzzle.

Without the suggestion, she would never even have thought that flight could possibly not be working - why wouldn't it, after all? Casting her brief confusion away, Luna flapped her wings, and before long she was already nearing Selina's position. As she approached her however, the AIs horn once again got enveloped in a bright aura and suddenly, like before, everything drowned in whiteness.

---

Luna blinked, than again and again, trying to clear her vision from the remaining light.

Selina was gone, and the Princess had once again been left alone. Instinctively, Luna looked downwards through the thick clouds, back at the shredded fields of Earth.

What she saw however, sent shivers down the Princess' spine.

Below Luna, the previously dead plains were now teeming with life.

All across the sight, giant patches of ground were being thrust into the air among a myriad of shapes and colors.

Small, bipedal silhouettes - what Luna assumed to be humans - frantically moved about, while little streaks of light zoomed over the barren grounds separating the half-open tunnels these warriors remained in.

Once every often, a few would jump over the edge and dash forward, only to be met with a sea of flames or struck with the zooming lightnings, letting out a crimson fountain gefore joining the multitide of twisted, pale bodies already on the ground.

Suddenly, a big green-yellowish cloud rose over the terrain, slowly drifting to the opposite side of the makeshift barricades. Luna had no idea what this phenomenon was and she could only guess why all the humans quickly covered their faces with some weird-looking cloths as it approached.

Grey, metal bricks of gigantic proportions rolled over the battlefield with a loud rumble, only to be lit aflame by a salvo originating from a familiar-looking shape of cannons, just much less ornate than the ceremonial ones adorning the Canterlot Castle.

As smaller explosions threw rocks and shrapnel airborne, the few walls still standing here and there - a proof that this was indeed once a town - rarely held long before falling down as well.

Initially, Luna could hardly breathe at such a sight, gazing at it as if in a trance.

She had already realized this war had to have looked similarly, but being able to describe it simply wasn't enough - witnessing the slaughter almost first-hoof... it was something else, something different.

The land has been nothing but wasted. And all these people?

Every human on the field, all of them faced something Luna could never have imagined to face; and with so many cooped up just in this one town... how would all not fade into oblivion anyway, with no chance to truly live their lives?

The ones on the ground, lying in the rugged sea of mud between the two main trenches - these humans were dead. Not wounded, like ponies would often be, no - DEAD. Their consciousness didn't exist. Period. DEAD. Lifeless.

These humans were the ultimate symbol of what had transpired on the fields below, if one dived deep enough to understand it.

They have been killed. Erased. Destroyed. Annihilated. Removed.
Their awareness, knowledge, memories... deleted. They were no more.

These humans, in the purest, most complete, utter and literal meaning of the word, have been destroyed.

And yet - yet! - however desperately she strived to, Luna could not truly feel the terror. Shivers traversed her spine, shock, fear and disgust at the horror and violence shook the Princess' body, but with every passing second, they very slowly drifted away, as if being gotten used to.

Luna knew such violence was terrible and evil. She knew these fields were a prime, albeit unfortunate, example.
She really knew, whenever she came back to the matter, thought about it, there was genuinely no doubt. That however was not enough to overrule what the Princess felt, what her mind instinctively made her feel before she could even take to logic.

And that feeling - it was far, far too mild.

And Luna knew it. Luna realized it contradicted what she knew. She was aware, and yet the feeling persisted, every single time.

Suddenly, Luna found herself fighting against tears.

Was this why she had so easily been driven into madness?

Had she been destined to such fate?

Because she was unfit? Unfit in Equestria with such a mindset, clearly dangerous for Harmony? Mind with any space - willingly or not - for such violence and chaos?

And if it was so... was she destined for another downfall once again...?

Clenching her teetch, Luna began rising above the clouds once again.
She knew none of her worries was the case - it couldn't have been, it really couldn't. A single thought, a suggestion of yet another exclusion was enough to ignite such feelings.

As Luna ascended though, she suddenly felt strange, progressing calmness emanate through her body.

Oh, how good did it feel to for once float without a worry, to truly use the life.

Why... why did she feel that way, though?

After some time, Luna understood - or at least she thought she did.

The higher she flew, the more space separated her from the bloodbath below, the different the view became.
The higher the Princess went, the less destruction she could see, yet the trench lines, walls and houses remained. She could clearly see groups of humans dashing and later retreating, well-defined cannon positions fire once here, then there. She could see which points were more built-over, where there were more, and where less soldiers, sometimes even - if Luna got lucky - who was in which squad, judging by them attacking together.

Every time there was a development - a cannon turned, a steel brick advanced, a squad of humans ran across the field - she could see.

See where the number of defenders decreased, and hence where some would be redirected from. What squads would resume attacks after a cannon turned away, and what that meant for the rest of the frontline - and how it would adapt.
Which humans would dash when and where, and how they would - or at least should - fare.

Sometimes Luna's predictions would be busted, usually they'd be confirmed. However, the Princess couldn't help but feel some of the human decisions were... idiotic. Stupid, and obviously so, simply from a logical standpoint.

Most of all, though... Luna could see even more.

She saw the entire line in front of her at once. She saw each position, each squad she knew about and those she naturally suspected as well. She could see when and where to attack, how the enemy would react to every variant she'd try.
Luna could see what effect each action had, what effects these effects had, and how they'd impact further efforts. She had multiple assumptions as to where and how organized the enemy was, and for every version there was an action plan, an obviously visible backup detailing what to do if the plan failed, how to adapt to rapid changes and switch strategies should the enemy turn out not the likeness Luna had assumed them to. Then, a hundred versions of follow-ups to evey follow-up regarding what to do next, and next, and next, to achieve objectives most flexible and shift between goals, adapting to a new situation.

All of that Luna knew, of course, if she had assumed her own assets and their capabilities correctly - that is.

That however, she cared not for. Right now, the Princess bathed in her newfound chess party, her new favourite puzzle, until she understood.

This was it. Beautiful, almost like stars dancing on the night sky, gently, in a sophisticated way, and yet under Luna's control.

From her present angle, the battlefield really looked like a chess board.
Luna felt calm, as she had once again felt what she already had before, albeit never so fully.
From this perspective, it was easy not to notice the violence and death, to let it out of grasp.
Here, it was only strategy and tactics, a mind game above all others, the ultimate one.

One thought of the horror was enough to light a spark, though.
How could she forget the terror? Should she forget? Should she...?
If this made her forget, did it not push towards it?

How could she forget? Should she?

Once again, however, Luna could hardly help but prioritize her previous 'compromise', which now more than ever seemed to be correct - seemed to make sense.

If she was only interested in the concept of military strategy itself, there was nothing bad with it, right?

Luna would not get an opportunity to ponder the question long, as with another brief flash, the world around her began dissipating.

As it gently disappeared however, one last, small thought swung in the wind.

Right... right...

Author's Note:

Comment your thoughts!

Sleep deprivation is killing me recently, but here you go, another chapter!

More soon, and meanwhile - stay pony, my friends!

Comments

[Devona]

Saying 'hi' to break the silence...
Well, hi!

[Jean-luc Picard]

I really like where this story is going! Very enjoyable read so far!

[Devona]

10294962
Thank you, Sir! It's an honour, Sir!

[Teraunce]

Good story so far. Can't wait to read more.