The Crystal Empire is but a distant memory. Princess Twilight is forced to survey the nuclear wasteland that, up until a few days ago, used to be a thriving city filled with millions of crystal ponies.
The snow was warm today.
It felt unnatural.
Of all the thoughts that coursed through Princess Twilight’s mind that single offhanded sensation was the most poignant of them all as she stared blankly at the indescribable catastrophe laid out before her.
Nothing.
There was nothing as far as the eye can see.
Less than twenty four hours ago, Equestria had been dealt its most harrowing tragedy to date, perhaps of all time.
It was big.
Bigger than the deaths of Commander-General Shining Armor and Princess Luna combined. For as deeply tragic as their loss was to everypony, they were still only two individuals.
At around midnight the night before, The Crystal Empire vanished in a flash of atomic brilliance born of foul human invention.
Princess Cadance, her teenage daughter, Flurry Heart, and an estimated four million of its crystal pony inhabitants were blinked out of existence as an all consuming wave of nuclear fire washing over the cool night air reduced them to atoms in a single painless instance. All that remained of the empire's once glorious crystalline monuments laid scattered across the irradiated soil in haphazard ruins, melded together and malformed, grim reminders of the civilization that was.
News of the empire’s sudden erasure spread like wildfire across the country, pieced together from the frantic gibbering of a traumatized border guard.
Outrage didn't even begin to describe the surge of emotions that erupted all across Equestria. Horror, shock, righteous anger and more swelled in the hearts and minds of everypony who felt their resolve slowly chip away under the immense strain of repeated defeat after defeat after defeat at the hands of their inferior human adversaries.
To many, the swift and total destruction of the Crystal Empire marked a point of no return for the Conversion War.
This single act had branded humanity so irredeemably vile a creature in the eyes of the ponies that they began to view conversion as less of a merciful gift given to them out of kindness and more a compulsory moral necessity in order to prevent impending doom. Humans were simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist in any capacity anymore. They needed to be converted before the entire planet gets reduced to an inhospitable Hellscape through their hubris.
Twilight’s views on humanity hadn’t changed, if anything they were now amplified. Whatever fledgling interest she had in their latent capabilities as a species that remained from before had been burned away along with her sister-in-law and niece. Her resolve to win the war was the strongest it has ever been in the past five years. But before she could act on her righteous fury, she had to deal with figurative and physical fallout of the empire’s decimation.
It seemed all she did these days outside of her royal duties was grieve for loved ones or quell the panicking masses. First Shining, then Luna, and now, Cadance and Flurry heart. Her family continues to shrink and with each subsequent death it becomes harder and harder to cope with it all, even with the aid of her friends.
The suddenness of the news was the worst part of the entire ordeal.
Twilight was sleeping soundly in her cozy bed after a particularly hard day when Spike came crashing into her room screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs. After calming the young drake she was finally able to make sense of his panicked gibberish, it then became her turn to let out a blood curdling scream.
Two days later, after many, many tiresome speeches and around the clock damage control, the remaining members of the royal family along with a personal retinue of guards traveled to the frozen north to survey the devastation wrought unto them in the name of vengeance.
Princess Twilight, Princess Celestia and Spike stood on the precipice of ground zero. The lingering ambient radiation could be felt faintly singing the ends of their fur and scales respectively.
From one end of the horizon to the other laid an icy atomic wasteland that felt like a whole other world.
Innumerable buildings, once tall and imposing have been brought low. Towering spires of glimmering crystals, architectural marvels of remarkable artisanal feats and breathtaking monuments dedicated to the unique culture of the empire were brought to ruin in a single moment. And with it, the unintentional genocide of the Crystal Ponies living in the city who were blissfully unaware of their own fates before disappearing into the snow.
Stallions and mares.
They didn't deserve it.
Colts and fillies.
They didn't deserve it.
The young and the old.
They didn't deserve it.
The sick and the strong.
They didn't deserve it.
The proud and the meek.
They didn't deserve it.
The beloved and the hated.
They didn't deserve it.
None of them deserved to be consumed by atomic light.
They were as much victims as the humans their country sought to convert. These were ponies with lives and families, hopes and aspirations. They could've been something, somewhere, somehow. And in the same time it took for a single drop of water to fall from a leaf and onto the ground, they were just... gone.
It was all difficult to look at, yet at the same time you couldn't tear your eyes away from it. The cruel howling of the winds over the derelict rubble interlaced with the gentle sprinkling of soft white powdery snow only served to exacerbate the view, forcing those present to break down weeping unblinkingly.
The Royal Guards, strong willed as they were, wept uncontrollably at the unthinkable horror that had beset their beloved homeland. Years of training and experience in the face of war could not have prepared them to witness something so heinous and unspeakably obscene.
There was evil, and then there was human evil. They would openly scream for vengeance towards the heavens were they not so broken by trauma. What words they could find escaped their mouths in incoherent mutterings.
Spike, the youngest of the group, clung to Twilight like a lifeline. Much like the guards beside him, he was bawling his eyes with no end in sight. He stayed quiet throughout the experience, something that took a considerable amount of willpower just to achieve, but felt his lungs burn with the need to let loose emerald fire in anguish.
If there was any moment in time that cemented his distaste for the war, it was having his innocence torn from out of him by the talons of despair.
Twilight wept, but did so speechlessly. She had to be brave, had to be the strong one for Spike. She comforted him in her embrace, struggling to keep it together herself. Her whole body was wracked with torment, something not even the biting chill of the air could accomplish. She wanted nothing more than to rush into the bomb site, to claw at the ground to search for something, anything that belonged to Cadance and Flurry Heart no matter how futile it was, but couldn't for the nuclear fallout would ravage her body.
And so she watched. Burning the image into memory to give her motivation without purpose.
As for Celestia...
Celestia quietly turned away and marched across the snow.
There were no tears, no trembling.
Nothing.
Nothing but cold hatred in her heart.
I like this.
"There was evil, and then there was human evil."
Yeah. See, when the Crystal Empire used its cannon (which, I assume, is similar to a nuke) to destroy two human cities (Mecca and Rome IIRC) presumably killing approximately the same number of people, it was acceptable, because it was done for the right reasons. But when the humans do the same to you, it's the most evil thing possible.
Humans are so evil, that they did not use nukes (of which they have thousands) in the war, even when they were losing, until the Crystal Empire used a similar weapon on humans first.
This is also very realistic. What you do to the enemy is always "a good thing", but if the enemy does the same, it's evil beyond belief.
The Crystal Empire struck first. They resorted to WMD's first. They targeted innocents first. They wiped out cities first. The ponies have absolutely NO Right to feel outraged or victimized by this. They absolutely had this coming and have no right to complain. I have absolutely No sympathy. If anything the ponies should count themselves VERY, VERY lucky that it was ONLY the Crystal Empire. Realistically if an alien species came to earth, then expressed not only the desire, but the capability to bring humanity to extinction. Humanity would have resorted to the nuclear option MUCH earlier. The Barrier can already be considered a weapon of mass destruction and its use showing an active and willful intent of genocide. Humanity has every right to unleash Nuclear Holocaust upon Equestria from the word go.
Ah yes, blame humans while ignoring the fact that it was Equestria who shot WMD first... Twice. And how many innocent died in Rome and Mecca to crystalline death compared to the four million in the nuclear flames?
Hard to think with so much hyppocricy blocking the rads.
Serves them right for what they did to Rome and Mecca.
And as always, they conveniently ignore that every single thing they say is so evil was committed by them first at much greater magnitudes. I'd really like to see that personally thrown in their self-righteous faces.
didn't deserve it? of course they didn't. you never deserve the bad things that happen to you, only other people do. anything bad that happens to the other is clearly some kind of karma. justice, for what they've done in the past, for what other members of their group have done. only the self, and those members of the group that you see as an extension of yourself, can possibly have bad things happen to them that they don't deserve.
your group is made up of individuals, after all, who all have their strengths and flaws and don't deserve anything bad ever. if they do something bad... well, there's a million and one justifications. maybe it wasn't bad, from a certain point of view. maybe they've changed and therefore aren't responsible for the bad they've done in the past. and obviously, anything bad any member of the group does is completely separate from any other member.
other groups, though. they are homogeneous blobs. they don't have any true individuality. they're just the sheeplike masses, and any negative act they do is clearly a reflection of the entire group. of course, positive acts are swept under the rug.
a million and one excuses.
Again, she will ignore who goaded Cadence into using the Crystal Cannon. Or who influenced her policies, including silencing those advisors who were recommending their Princess to drop out the war between Equestria and Humanity before it was too late.
Same with Sunset, Shining Armor and Luna: they all died blindly following Celestia's will.
From what we know what happened to the Crystal Pony survivors ponies are far more susceptible to radiation poisoning. If we had used a second bomb on Canterlot… well we wouldn’t have to worry about integration after a generation. I do look forward to a chapter that covers Twilight finally seeing how hopeless things have gotten, particularly in the final days in Canterlot… maybe sneaking away from Celestias blinding light… to see starvation, despair, and just… emptiness that comes with know that even after breaking every single rule of war… you still couldn’t win.
Not a single word of dialogue from any of the characters... and yet this chapter is a powerful one...
I was surprised with how restrained the humans were in this timeline. Only one city nuked instead of all of them.
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I wonder - did ponies know about human WMDs? They should have, after all, initially the relations were relatively peaceful and information that nukes exist and what they do is publicly available.
So, what did they think would happen after the Crystal Empire used its own WMD? That humans would just surrender seeing their holy cities destroyed? I guess that would be in line with pony thinking (though I wonder if ponies would have surrendered if a second nuke was used on Canterlot - they should, seeing that humans have enough nukes to glass Equestria multiple times and may be willing to do just that).
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I don't remember where it was written what happened to the survivors. If it was worse than what would have happened to humans in that place, maybe it's because ponies don't really know about radiation and how to protect against it. Radiation is not detectable without special equipment (though it looks like ponies can feel it). Still, they went to look at the ex-Crystal Empire without protective gear.
I just want the damn tripods of War of the Worlds to come out of the ground and harvest/vaporize the ponies as their horns flare, with no one and nothing to stop their superior tech, only for human-made EMP bombs to disable their shields... after Equestria's been turned into a cold, and clothing-covered wasteland.
10842549
That part puzzled me too
Why weren't they affected by the fallout despite being so close to ground zero just two days after the detonation?
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They were on the very edge of ground zero which while still deeply hazardous, given Twilight’s absurd mental bank of knowledge, i would assume she likely had some inkling to the dangers of nuclear radiation even if she didn’t fully understand it and didn't push their luck in a disaster zone. They were just there to observe and nothing more. Also, who’s to say the ambient fallout wasn’t an indirect cause of her cancer years down line? Maybe spike as a dragon is more resistant to cellular damage than ponies are. As for Celestia and Twilight, maybe theyre also just as resistant being alicorns, though its difficult to say whether or not its conpletely foolproof. As for the guards, odds are they’re sterile now but are too broken up about everything to care at the moment. Grief clouds judgement
This should have another chapter after it labeled 'Hypocracy' where someone outlines the utter BULL**** coming from Twilight's mouth about it.
'Human Evil and 'Evil'? No lady, the world isn't black and white, it's gray. Your actions using your Crystal Cannon (Which is effectively a WMD in its own right) are as evil as the humans using a nuke because both just killed senselessly.
The only reason why you think you're in the right for the Cannon was that you think you're running some righteous crusade to 'help' the humans. In the end, the only one who can decide who was right and wrong is the winner of it all.
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Isn't it Canon in the Negotiations-verse that Twilight eventually dies of cancer? Maybe the radiation did effect her and it only manifested itself much later.
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Canonically she does die of cancer in future
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Well then there's your answer. The radiation probably did effect her.
Ponies have no right to blame humanity for this, he should have seen it coming, he's lucky it was just the Crystal Empire.
You know what I would think would make an interesting chapter? Maybe during the war or after it, someone still loyal to Celestia sees what humans had to go through during the war (sees the actual facts than any BS Celestia was spewing) and comes to the realization we're no different than them, and they give up their hateful ways.
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Their was a handful of Crystal Ponies who survived, like between a few hundred or a few thousand. But the radiation from the bomb sterilized them, effectively dooming them to extinction. Ponies seem to be more susceptible to radiation poisoning then humans, as many survivors from Hiroshima managed to go on and have kids of their own, to differing degrees of success. Meanwhile one bomb effectively doomed Crystal Ponies.
Honestly, I think it’s a case of Twilight latching onto the last person who’s meaningfully in her life, as she’s becoming increasingly isolated, and dependent on Celestia. Also with how this chapter was worded… did Twilight even realize they were already committing genocide, because it’s sounds like now she’s only deciding it’s the answer. Despite the fact of the constant attacks and growing barrier was designed to do just that… was she really that blind?
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Hiroshima bomb was much smaller than modern weapons, though I don't know how they compare in fallout.
I'm thinking that because of the outrage caused by the destruction of Mecca and Rome, the humans used a big bomb - a few megatons - to make a proper impression on the ponies.
An interesting chapter in the future would be Celestia meeting with her General's, and one of them points out that they shouldn't surrender saying that humanity would just wipe them out anyway, but also points out that they can't continue fighting either, and instead suggests that they just cut their losses and head home, with Celestia being the only one to know that that's not possible, and her trying to rationilise to everypony else why they shouldn't do that.
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In her eyes what the ponies were doing was not genocide, but conversion, there’s allegedly an important difference that she gets and others don’t apparently. she’ll likely break out onto a tangent to justify that claim with whatever it was Celestia fed to her. If she’s a stickler like we know she is in and out of canon then she doesn’t see anything wrong with it on a moral, ethical and vocabulary level. After all, ponies good, humans bad. Therefore, Conversion good, genocide bad. Plus, at this time she’s still in the dark about the conversion process and Celestia’s true intent. And if she feels that genocide is necessary after its driven emotionally by personal grief and less of a conscious logical choice or even an epiphany to the audience.
While a nuke may “seem” like overkill, the Crystal Empire had a super weapon, that in turn was used to destroy Rome’s major religious city’s and monuments, something that gave many humans something to have faith and believe in, and no doubt caused millions of deaths. So yeah, I’d say nuking them back is a fair compensation.
Toollight Toollight. You just don't get it. Once your dues ex machina barrier was gone you were doomed. Ponykind threw humanities kindness to a bunch of refugees away. Ponykind declared a genocidal war. Ponykind threw away the laws of war by targeting civilians with chemical weapons. By the time the barrier dropped you had burned every single reason for ponykind to be spared.
Of course if you were actually intelligent instead of a spoiled teachers pet, you would have learned something from books for once.
Human history is full of aggressors who thought they only needed one big victory to win their war. Hannibal in Italy, Yamato at Pearl Harbor, Wilhelm in France, the Confederacy in the American Civil War, to name a few. Each of them learned too late that the other side was the one that had the stronger will to win.
Maybe you could have learned enough to have realized that passing off humanity is just plain stupid.
Now we just need Fluttershy's reaction to the destruction of Rome and Mecca to reflect this. She was a converted catholic by then, so that combined with the horror of her friends committing something so monstrous could be interesting.
EWBBWD
So, I was thinking; Elysium. The afterlife that those in Equestria believe to be waiting for them. I'd love to hear your (and anyone else's) thoughts on what would happen there. To see what became of those that died, see what happened. What would happen when ponies like Rainbow, Applejack, and others of the Freedom Fighters get there? Would their families lambast them for what they did; continuing on a crusade that was forged from evil, all because they couldn't accept reality? Would they scream and curse at them with all their might? Before leaving them alone for eternity with their sins?
What of those that died in the war because of Celestia's madness? Were they forced to watch and learn that everything they'd believed in, fought for, died for, was a lie? A lie that the pony you worshipped peddled because of their own bigotry and hatred, going against the very principles your species stood for? God, what about Luna? She died so early into the war, the second of the royal family to do so but the first alicorn to go. To see the ponies you swore to protect die fruitlessly and in vain, all because the sister that you loved and had missed for a thousand years... was a monster. Worse than all of the ones you had fought together against for the greater good of your country. And to realize that she had lied to you. Lied right to your face with a smile while preaching that what you were doing was a noble cause. How must that feel?
What about Pinkie and Rarity? They didn't believe in the war, but out of cowardice stayed silent. And that cowardice cost them their lives and the lives of so many others. So many innocents... dead or twisted into a bastardized version of their kind that are nothing but mindless slaves. Maybe it's not fair to pin them for that, but inaction can be just as bad as action. Would they be able to look anypony from Ponyville in the eyes? Knowing that the home and the ponies they had laughed with, cried with, saved from magical threat after threat, were brutally slaughtered and annihilated by hellfire from above... because they didn't speak up?
Just something I've been thinking about.
I want to see reaction of death of Big Macintosh.
I just saying.
A human with a Geiger counter in a full hazmat suit would walk up to them and say "You all have cancer now, have fun" and then walk away. Also you bitch the Humans only retaliated to you evaporating Rome and Mecca.
And there was pony evil worse one yet
"Stallions and mares.
They didn't deserve it.
Colts and fillies.
They didn't deserve it.
The young and the old.
They didn't deserve it.
The sick and the strong.
They didn't deserve it.
The proud and the meek.
They didn't deserve it.
The beloved and the hated.
They didn't deserve it.
None of them deserved to be consumed by atomic light."
Yes they did deserve it I'm sorry for being rude but you support your leader who destroyed three of the most important cities in our world just because her husband died like cmon at least target capital or something
So basically it’s fine when they do it, but when their victims retaliate it’s evil. Hypocritical, much?
Bah! Those ponies get no sympathies from me. They had no right to feel outraged or victimized by what the humans did to the Crystal Empire. When it was they, who where the first to use an WMD, that was the Crystal Cannon.
When Princess Cadence used that weapon to destroy the holy cities of Rome and Mecca, killing twice as many.
The ponies place the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the table in this damnable war and they were utter fools not to think the humans won't pay them back in kind. They had this coming to them and they got what they fucking deserve! So they have no right to complain!
If there's anyone more deserving of their outrage and wrath. It's that solar tyrant Celestia! For manipulating and forcing Cadence into using the Crystal Cannon.
Nuclear - Mike Oldfield (2014)
I know that grief is a natural response and that nukes and the following fallout is unspeakably horrible, but I also know what hypocrisy looks like and how very quickly grief can turn to hate and vengeance.
Loss of life on either side during war is a tragedy, because everyone who died had family and friends waiting for them at home.
A friend of mine once told me that there are no winners in war, only survivors.
The ponies learned a lesson about mutual assured destruction.
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they are genocide the human race