The Equestrian Herald
Brave Guards apprehend trio of criminals
Exclusive interview with Pvt. Red Tape, one of the five ponies responsible for apprehending the infamous griffon crime band known as the Forest Claws. For more details flip to pages 6 and 7.
Crime rates continue to plummet
In a recent report from Chief Justice of the Crown, the Equestrian Guard continues to measure less and less crime happening despite the country’s rapid expansion. For theories and statistics see page 8.
In historical turn of events, Crown approves griffon immigration
When asked, the lucky griffon, named Gavallo, refused to comment in detail. He merely claimed it was Harmony itself that wished to see him move to Equestria. See more on page 9.
A story which started out as merely an attempt to practice writing fight scenes.
Mildly inspired by (though completely unrelated to) the works of Captain Neckbeard.
Thanks to /fimfic/ and Equimorto for proofreading.
If you'd like to borrow an OC or two, letme know via PM.
Interesting beginning, can't wait to see what comes next.
Never thought my stuff would even mildly inspire someone. But that feels pretty nice. Thanks for the plug, Filly!
But let's see what pony SWAT can do.
FLASHBANG!
They were played like a damn fiddle!
excited for more
"We got you ten to one!"
"I like those odds."
...is it wrong I kinda want the griffons to have won instead now?
11357457
I'd have to ask, "Why?" They were ready and intended to murder a helpless and bound pony simply to cover up what was originally a petty theft, then a kidnapping. Even the one older gryphon who didn't go outside to do the deed would have been guilty of felony murder. What part of three gryphons with military training murdering an innocent civilian would count as a "win"?
11358269
Oh, trust me, I don't deny the griffons did wrong in all of this too. But the pony "solution" to it isn't anymore right either, and I would argue would have the more far reaching consequences due to the many implications. The story even outright calls their approach to be problem an overreaction...and the ponies didn't care.
The griffons were not good guys, no. But I'm kinda left feeling like the ponies were the real bad guys here nonetheless.
11358305
I'm not certain I see how the ponies were in the wrong here, especially to where "the ponies were the real bad guys here". They had an informant among a group of violent career criminals for several months, keeping an eye on them but apparently still feeding them valuable targets to rob during that time. The ponies set up a sting, and even though the gryphons had already extensively beaten their kidnapped pony, they didn't take action until Ginerva was literally seconds away from cutting that pony's throat open. They had enough ponies on-site to be able to capture the gryphons non-lethally, even though Gerard wounded several ponies in the process. Gavallo got an immunity deal in exchange for providing information on said group of violent criminals, and was effectively given witness protection afterwards as well.
The only negative thing was the pony (oddly) mentioning to their confidential informant that she was surprised at "the damage" inflicted on the "second gryphon" during the capture, who I'm assuming was Ginerva, the gryphon who repeatedly pushed for murdering their victim and who had actually tried to murder said pony about a minute before her capture. This is also said after the fight scene where we are explicitly shown that gryphons can still fight very effectively without being able to see, even with just their claws and talons. Rather than speaking with her troops, officers, or whatever structure they have about their actions since she wasn't there to see them, she makes third-hand comments about their actions to a foreign national after having read a summarized report. That entire portion felt very clumsy and forced, but even then, she expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome and says they have a ways to go.
What was it that the ponies did that made them worse than the gryphons?
11358345
The griffons were, at the end of the day, just a trio of thieves. Two of them were just interested in the thieving and not the attempted murder that followed, one of which outright refused to have any part in such an act and arguably only attacked the ponies that came to arrest them out of self-defense. Further, the attempted murder only came about due to the logistical problem of their target not having anything of worth to steal, and that happened precisely because they were given phony information so to set them up. Had it not been for that, it might have never elevated to attempted murder on their part (though we'll never know now).
Really, the better plan should've been to just set up the thieves to steal a valuable that had a hidden tracker planted within it, to use so to lead them back to their hideout, where the ponies could've stormed and arrested them off-guard. It wouldn't have required so much theater and dramatics, so much high-tech equipment, risking a pony's well-being and even life to serve as bait, or even anyone to be seriously injured at all, if any injuries were made at all. Honestly, this was all a matter the normal pony police should've been able to handle.
Instead, we got a very shady black-ops sort of operation that was overzealous, openly admitted to use excessive force, and openly admitted to using all of these griffons as pawns so to both justify it, and to push forward their agenda so to be able to continue doing such actions, all without the public ever hearing a word about it, and thereby getting no accountability over whether or not it was the correct course of action, and even implied they were possibly doing it without government supervision (e.g. the talk about "handling" these sort of things so the princesses themselves do not have to be "concerned" with it themselves), and proceeded to severely punish all three thieves (despite only one being the one really pushing for the excessive violence herself), buried the evidence of it, and blackmailed the well-intentioned griffon who helped make the sting possible into covering it up when he realized how excessive it all was by threatening him if he didn't. Plus the boss lady spoke in a rather discriminatory manner towards griffons in general that I did not care for.
In short, it gives the pony participants of this manner a very "we're going to take the law into our own hooves here and nobody's going to stop us" sort of attitude, and I question whether their intentions are really pure, let alone just, because of it. If anything, I fear it would only fan the flames for the criminal underworld by making them feel all the more threatened by this new force of power that's proven it's not afraid to get down and dirty to get them, even if it means bending a few of their own rules to do it, making them only more likely to respond in turn.
And I don't think it needed to come to that point. The only "hero" here was Gavallo, who seemed to have genuinely trying to do a good thing, but was instead exploited to further a dark something I can't blame him for ultimately wishing he had made no part in.
11358754 (emphasis added to distinguish your post from story quotes)
All three of them were interested in the thieving, and all three of them were complicit with the murder that was about to take place. Gerard might not have wanted to do the deed himself, but he still did nothing to stop it from happening even though he knew with certainty it was going to happen and that it went against his so-called honor. That's felony murder, which Gerson also would have been guilty of if he wasn't found to have committed murder as well by holding the pony up for Ginerva to cut her throat. Their motivation for murdering the pony was not out of anything "logistical", but purely to avoid consequences for their actions.
The information they were given also said the pony was completely defenseless.
If they had stolen more, they would have had an even greater incentive to leave no witnesses behind. If they had robbed a pony who wasn't defenseless, or something with guards, none of them would have batted an eye at killing everyone who tried to defend themselves there because it would have been acceptable to their 'honor'. They were not just some petty thugs who got in over their heads, but violent career criminals with a known history.
They were also known to the public at large. Check the long description of the story.
Except that in the fight between Gerard and the ponies, as I mentioned, we are explicitly shown that gryphons are effective fighters even while unable to see and without any weapons but their talons and claws, and can hear individual ponies at a distance, to say nothing of a band of normal ponice trying to sneak up their hideout and then fighting all three gryphons together inside an enclosed space where they had access to weapons. And even then, whether there was a "better" plan or not is inconsequential, as no bystanders or civilians were harmed or put at risk. The plan itself was flawless, and resulted in the capture of three violent career criminals who were willing to murder to cover up petty theft.
A lot of this is simply wrong, though. We don't actually know that excessive force was used; that was said by Cavallo to the pony, after he made some assumptions from having heard some other ponies talking about what they had heard from the ponies actually there.
“Yes, ma’am (fourth-hand information). From the little I’ve heard from the others (third-hand information), the squad was quite appalled with the state you were found in (second-hand information), ma’am, so their hooves may have slipped a few times (assumption and inference by Cavallo, not stated).”
The Princesses are not the sole bodies of legal jurisdiction; governments have hierarchy and steps of both authority and jurisdiction. The Princesses are also immortal monarchs with absolute power over their nation. This is not Earth, which I feel I need to remind you; even then, does a Prime Minister sign every parking ticket? At the time of Season four Episode one, we are explicitly shown that the entire military structure of the Royal Guard and the civil service freezes when the Princesses are unavailable. This is an obvious and glaring vulnerability to the entire country. There is nothing unreasonable about tiered accountability, and there is nothing that says the ponies are operating without any accountability; you are making assumptions. Especially since, without any accountability, there would be no funding or operating with other parts of the Equestrian government. Fifty ponies working for several months, which seems to be their entire group since this was the pilot operation to see if it worked or not, using gear that lets them see in the dark (as if Pinkie doesn't casually show off her NVGs), does not come from nowhere. The implied prison, dungeon, or place of incarceration would not accept and support three random gryphons that appeared out of nowhere and without correct paperwork.
I really don't find imprisoning violent career criminals caught in the process of attempting to murder whoever-this-pony-was to be "punished severely" or excessive. You calling them thieves changes nothing here, nor does your emphasis that only one of them was really pushing for it and the others just agreed and assisted with it. They were complicit and culpable, and felony murder has long been an established crime.
There was also no blackmailing of the "well-intentioned" gryphon; he had been working alongside the known group of violent career criminals, casing and identifying targets for them to attack. He was a criminal as well, and as I said, he was getting immunity and witness protection as a result of turning in the three other gryphons. He didn't seem to understand what immunity and witness protection actually meant for a criminal like himself, which apparently prompted the pony to either break operational security and blab the entire details of a covert operation to a career criminal or to give a 'big villain speech' to put things in terms he would understand, and this is the part that felt very clumsy in the story.
Up until this point, he has been a career criminal working with other career criminals targeting a nation he is not a citizen of and whose citizens he views as prey acceptable to eat. After this point, he's an informer who sold out his former partners in crime by feeding them bait for a sting in order to get legal immunity and witness protection for himself, and yet is somehow still so attached to his former comrade "being hurt" during the process of being captured while trying to murder a bound and helpless witness, that he's willing to forego his immunity, witness protection, and immigration to Equestria all so he can say, "My violent career criminal partner was injured while trying to murder a ponice officer after I sold my partner out to said ponice officer! Scandal and villainy, I won't stand for this dishonor!"
It's clumsy, and a little ridiculous. I also don't see where "boss lady spoke in a rather discriminatory manner towards griffons in general", and can only assume you mean the part where she called Cavallo on his ridiculous behavior in her office as being amusing, which still doesn't fit.
Yeah, none of this happened. Just flat out, none of it happened. There was potentially one rule that was broken, the third-to-fourth-hand information we hear about Ginerva's capture but never see and never hear about from anyone who was actually there. The rest of it is pure conjecture. The op was explicitly stated to be a test run, to prove to someone further up (accountability) that the unit could operate effectively and correctly. The pony we see appears to have power over the actions of her (troops, officers, ponice) and is dissatisfied with their performance regarding Ginerva; since they answer to her, and she seems genuine in her reaction, this would at worst be 'growing pains' and not "we're going to take the law into our own hooves here and nobody's going to stop us". She's going to curb that behavior and bring it in line.
I wouldn't have classified anyone here as a "hero". Cavallo was, as mentioned, a career criminal who sold out his partners in crime for legal immunity and witness protection, didn't seem to understand what that meant, and started wanting to have his cake and eat it too. It's good that he chose to sell out his criminal partners, but by no means whatsoever was he a good guy with anything like noble intentions or ideals. He was out for number one, and that happened to involve apprehending three violent career criminals during the attempted commission of a murder.
There's really not anything to support "the ponies were the real bad guys here nonetheless," you know? I think you're trying to draw too many assumptions and conjectures into it.
11358896
No, I agree, no one was actually the hero here, and I feel I should clarify that I never meant to imply that the griffons shouldn't still receive due justice for their crimes, regardless of how I feel their arrests were executed. And maybe I am over-anaylzing it all, trying to find demons where there aren't any (at least none intended by the author), but that's part of the reason why I broached the matter in the first place.
Still, something about how it all went down leaves a bad taste in my mouth, that how the ponies handled it wasn't necessarily the best answer, particularly how four ponies were still injured that I don't think needed to. And I still maintain my alternative plan would've worked--just once you've tracked down the hideout, use the flashbang to catch the gang inside unawares precisely as they did in-story, and snag them while their disoriented--the story states this worked perfectly for their plan, so there's really no reason it wouldn't have worked for mine either. Besides, if these griffs were dumb enough to miss how they were obviously set-up for this in-story, then they're dumb enough to fall for the tracker plan too.
Anyway, it just...all feels shady as all heck to me, making these pony authorities seem more nefarious than praiseworthy here. And maybe that's just a sign the story's flubbing getting the intended points across and muddling the whole matter unnecessarily for the reader, but if so, then it's still worthwhile for me to point it out for the author's reference if that is indeed the case.
But in any case, I'm not invested enough in the matter to keep arguing the point much further than this, so I'm willing to drop it at this point. I don't really see much to be gained from pressing it further anyway.
11358931
Fair enough then. Thank you for the discussion.
That was a good story.