Dawn's Candor

by Clarke Otterton

Historical Note

The expedition Equestria mounted to rescue the seventeen hostages of the collier La Mare was a significant turning point in its history. A peaceful nation for thousands of years, the sheer size of Equestria and the principles of harmony upon which it was founded ensured a form of internal stability that was rarely challenged. When a challenge to the status quo did occur, it was generally internal and able to be solved on a small scale. The return of Nightmare Moon and subsequent coup, for instance, was a short-lived event and ended by a group of only six ponies: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity – the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, brought together by the magic of friendship.

However, while the Elements and their bearers were growing in power during this time, another form of power was reshaping the pastoral valleys and sleepy villages of Equestria - industrialization. The advent of steam as a source of work that could be harnessed was revolutionary in how Equestrian society functioned, particularly among the working earth pony classes. Machines could now do work that previously relied on the backs of earth ponies, freeing them to leave the farms and seek new opportunities in rapidly growing cities such as Manehattan and Fillydelphia. Suburbs, like the fashionable Fetlock, sprang up to accommodate the influx of ponies that took jobs alongside unicorns and pegasi as leaders in technological innovation. To get there, ponies took one of the many locomotives that traveled the rail networks extending to connect all corners of Equestria. By the time Lieutenant Dawn Glean’s detachment boarded the train in Ponyville, ponies were enjoying a period of prosperity and social opportunity that had never existed before in Equestria’s already prosperous history.

There were, of course, many safeguards being enacted to ensure that this prosperity remained in place for the foreseeable future. The return of Princess Luna saw considerable reforms in the Equestrian Armed Forces as she, always the more realistic of the sister monarchs, took to modernizing the long neglected military. The result came to be known as the Lunar Reforms, which were finally approved after a failed Changeling invasion of Canterlot. At the time, the Army consisted of only a few regular regiments – the royal guard regiments of the EUP and regional regiments such as the North Equus. All of these units received second battalions as a result of the reforms, as well as an upgrade from the effective, but antiquated, breech-loaded Mare-Tina to the more ergonomic and efficient bolt-action Lavender-Medford rifle.

The expansion of the Army meant that, for the first time, opportunities existed for earth ponies to join the unicorn-dominated infantry officer corps. Although officership was open to all three types of ponies, the dexterity magic gave unicorns as well as the education afforded them through its study generally gave them those qualities of intelligence and management most desired in an infantry officer. Pegasi, with their aptitude for speed, formed the cavalry while earth ponies, having learned how to handle machinery and understand the land from agriculture, were often relegated to the artillery. Of all these branches, though, the infantry remained the most prestigious and thus most selective on those who sought to enter its ranks. Major Brass Bolt was one of the first class of ponies to do so, although the grapes, cotton, and molasses from his family’s plantations were a deciding factor in his successful progression through the ranks.

Officers such as Dawn Glean were not nearly as common. I must disappoint readers by saying that her character is an invention of fiction, although she is heavily based on the surviving diaries and memory orbs of several earth pony officers. The primary inspiration for her character comes from recently recovered memoirs belonging to Captain Cherry Bounce in which she fondly mentions a lieutenant of hers - the name, though, is unfortunately lost to the scars of age.

She was a rather pretty mare, with a cutie mark that can best be described as the fresh emergence of a new dawn. It is my only regret that our service together was cut short by my injury, but afterwards I was told that she served well in my stead. She seemed an exceptional officer and an inspiration to me to improve my own leadership so that I might be a similar inspiration to my ponies.

Of the historical characters in Dawn’s Candor, those of Applesnack and Big MacIntosh are worth mentioning. Big Mac’s name will be of no surprise; the brother of Applejack, who bore the Element of Honesty, he is here as he was then: gentle, patient, and willing to work hard for what is right. However, I debated including the character of Applesnack in Dawn’s Candor; most of my readers will likely recognize him as Steelhooves, the name he took when he accompanied me and my friends during our mission to bring light back to the wasteland. I wanted to remain true to his character, and thus his memory, but such a thing is hard to do when so much of his service record and that of Big Mac’s were lost first to military classification and later to the ravages of the wasteland. All we know is that the two served beside each other and became close friends.

Through their service they would see a massive change in the Equestrian Armed Forces, and Equestria in general, that started with the expedition to the Zebra Isles. Prior to that operation, most of Equestria’s experience with external threats was contained to her borders in a series of brief skirmishes and scuffles that became known as Princess Celestia’s Little Wars; most of these conflicts lasted, on average, a few hours and, because firearms were strictly regulated, resulted in very few Equestrian casualties per incident. The reemergence of the Crystal Empire and that country’s status as a protectorate led to the several year-long conflict with the Boerperds, which became the deadliest of these encounters as it saw the first time in a millennia that Equestrian soldiers found themselves against a formidable enemy armed with modern weapons. The campaign against the Boerperds was a long affair fraught with hard lessons that forced the evolution of Equestrian tactical doctrine. This campaign, for the purpose of storytelling in Dawn’s Candor, is significantly truncated to only the infamous Battle of Mauder Ridge.

Both battalions of the North Equus did in fact play a role in that battle, but the second battalion’s late arrival on the field is often credited by some scholars as the cause of defeat, while others claim that the fresh unit’s disciplined rearguard allowed the main force to retire from the field without additional losses. It seems that the battalion’s leadership were able to convince their superiors of the latter; within a week, as the arrival of a diplomatic party led by the Element bearers calmed the conflict, the battalion was selected to take part in the developing hostage crisis on the Celestial Sea. The battalion’s participation in the expedition, which was well documented, occurred much as it did in Dawn’s Candor, including the incidental run-in with Imperial Zebra legionnaires.

Although referred to as “pirates” in Dawn’s Candor, as this was the Equestrian word for them, the zebras that operated in the Celestial Sea were in fact well organized and equipped and even possessed their own government, albeit a crude one, based on the Marejathi Confederacy. They considered themselves to be the rightful descendants of this powerful trading empire and modeled themselves as such. The destruction of their strongholds on the Zebra Isles was a significant blow to their operations, but it would take another 13 moons of joint campaigning led by most of the Equestrian Navy and Army before the shipping routes in the Celestia Sea were once again safe. This “little” war, though, did not have a small cost by any measure, and thus the crucial trade between Equestria and her neighbor, the Zebra Empire, became marred by rising prices as well as rising tensions.

The Zebra Empire was a relatively new power compared to Equestria and for much of its history consisted of only a loose collection of independent tribes, principalities, and a few confederations, such as the Marejathi, that were constantly at war with their environments, their neighbors, and often themselves. The ascension of Grevyi to the throne of the Zebra Kingdom was a turning point as during his rule he stabilized then modernized his country on the Equestrian model. Using commonalities in religion and language, he led a series of political and military campaigns that sought to unite all of the zebras under one Caesar seated in Roam. By the events of Dawn’s Candor, his empire had been enjoying a period of hard earned peace. But the zebras were warry of threats to what they had built, and thus the encroachment of Equestrian soldiers on sovereign territory was seen by some zebras as an open act of aggression. The relations between Celestia and the Caesar, though, remained cordial as this newspaper clipping shows:

Wonderbolts’ Heroic Attempt to Free Zebra Captives Leaves Four Dead
This morning, Princess Celestia announced the successful rescue of the seventeen ponies held captive for two weeks by Zebra gem pirates. The Wonderbolts, Equestria’s greatest fliers, volunteered for the secret mission that sent them into Zebra waters. However, success came at a grave cost as four members of the elite pegasi team were killed in the ensuing battle. Thankfully, none of the captives were killed and only one received serious injury.

Throughout this two-week crisis, the Zebra Caesar repeatedly denounced the actions of the pirates and offered support to Princess Celestia; but He denied permission for Equestrian ponies to enter Zebra territories, claiming it would “increase existing tensions” and insisting that His army’s intelligence indicated that the pirates were operating in international seas. The Zebra Caesar continues to disavow any knowledge of where the pirates’ ship had anchored.

Princess Celestia claims that the Wonderbolts’ operation in Zebra territory was the result of a “happy miscommunication” and apologized personally to the Caesar…

The relationship, though, would soon be lost with the untimely retirement of Caesar Grevyi I following an airship accident that left him broken in more than just body. His son, Grevyi II, took his place and also took a radically different approach to dealing with his neighbor. As a military officer by training, he saw the Imperial legions as the answer to his empire’s problems. Using the Equestrian’s prolonged campaign against the Marejathi as evidence that Equestria could no longer be trusted to be a peaceful neighbor, Caesar Grevyi II rallied support for an expanded military and industrial base. He further incited jingoistic attitudes by ensuring that the controversial trial of Equestrian Navy Ensign Xallec’t, who was later proven innocent of conspiracy, was widely covered; the outrage in Roam was not easily forgotten.

Within years, tensions between the two nations were at an all-time high as storm clouds billowed to obscure their shared horizon. Lieutenant Dawn and her friends will march again.

Author's Note:

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I hope all of you have had as much fun reading this as I have writing - it's certainly been an experience, and while I know this story is far from perfect and contains all those little quirks of a new writer, I hope you were still able to find something out of it. Until the next one, take care.

Comments

[EdBoii]

Just finished reading! Thanks a ton for writing this. It was a ton of fun to read. 😎

And hey! It's Cherry Bounce! Yes!

[Clarke Otterton]

10628970
Thanks. It was a ton of fun to write (mostly ) and a good learning experience. I hope to get started on the second book soon, but I also just started a new job so all that time I had is no longer a thing.

[Trooper]

I just finished reading this story. Very well done. I thank you for the time you spent writing it as u most certainly fell the time reading it was well spent. I particularly like the slight twist found in the historical note.