What if Equestria Won the Great War?

[Chaotic Dreams]

Hello, all. It's been a very long time since I've been active in the community, so I very well may not be posting this in the right place or in the right way. If so, I apologize. 

Nevertheless, I've always wondered what if might be like if the pre-war world of "Fallout: Equestria" had endured rather than given way to the Equestrian Wasteland. Although the Wasteland lends itself to countless entertaining story ideas, I personally have found what little we know of the pre-war world to be just as interesting. As we heard in the unveiling of "Fallout 4," one of the greatest things about the universe of Fallout was the world that existed before the bombs fell, and I believe the same applies to wartime Equestria. 

Of course, in order for the Great War to have ended in something other than megaspell exchange would require changes to the timeline. Thankfully, in the parallel alternate timelines we can create through fiction, just such changes could make for an interesting variant on the familiar FoE world we all know and love. For example, what if Fluttershy had been convinced not to share megaspell technology with the Zebra Empire, or had been prevented from doing so in some other way? What if the Littlehorn Massacre had never occurred, or at least not in the same way? What if Equestria managed to somehow overpower the Zebra Empire before the war escalated to apocalyptic extremes and subsequently occupied the nation, or vice versa? What would the world be like due to these changes? 

If you think this alternate timeline scenario sounds interesting, please tell me what you think might be interesting to see happen. What other alternate timelines can you imagine? Would you want to see any such possibility further explored in a full story, and if so, what exactly would you want to read?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, basically, the first question you gotta ask yourself, as you alluded to, would be:

What's the point of divergence? What changes so that "bombs fall, everybody dies" doesn't happen?

Then, once you've established that, the answer will vary quite a bit depending on what your headcanon regarding "what Wartime Equestria actually was"... well, is. Or which body of works you include in "headcanon" (FoE only, or other FoE-fics as well?)


There's a few parameters you've gotta establish before you can start running with the flow.

[O. Hinds]

Welcome back. :)

And yes, what Harmony said.

[Chaotic Dreams]

What would be your parameters, in that case?

[Icy Shake]

I don't think it works very well if you diverge from FoE's timeline until at least a while after Littlehorn. Celestia's abdication and the changes in government, and society, are where I think the real meat of this sort of thing lie. Until then, you have some differences in tone (less after the yaks were a thing and threatened war), but nothing all that different, and no big changes for the key players like the Princesses or the Mane Six; everything could return to the status quo ante without particularly great impact, at least on the larger scale of the setting as a whole.

[CD]

I'll use the megaspell leak as a point of divergence here for myself.

Fluttershy is discovered and arrested before being able to divulge the Equestrian megaspells. Although facing treason charges, she is let off relatively mild by Luna's government because she does not want to face a rebellion of the Ministry Mares. This saves Fluttershy from the firing squad and lands her in prison, commuted to house arrest when the war ends and the danger of further leaks is diminished. Although upset that Luna would punish their friend, the other Ministry Mares feel equally betrayed by Fluttershy and remain somewhat in the middle, but continue to perform their duties.

Without zebra balefire bombs, and internal security stepped up in wake of this scandal, Equestria remains on the offensive as the war slowly shifts in their favour. With the introduction of power armour, the Equestrians now have elite shock troops. And the anti-material rifle whose plans were originally stolen remain in the super-duper top secret filing section of the Ministry of Morale when zebra attempts to steal them are found out. Breaburn and Ironshod Firearms end up of Pinkie's shitlist party pooper list. With the technology advantage on their side, the Equestrians gain ground too fast for the zebras to regain momentum before the end, and their capital falls into Equestrian hands.

Despite the decentralized nature of the zebra nation, with Equestria in control of their major population and industrial centres, zebra resistance becomes anemic and ineffective against the Equestrian warmachine before Equestria unilaterally imposes peace conditions on the defeated empire. Its factories are disassembled and shipped over to Equestria while its mineral rich lands are annexed, leaving only a rump state of impoverished wilderness and pastoral communities. Its population living on newly annexed land is deported into this client state, sans the coal miner population who must now dig up their fuel for Equestrian industries. The Zebra Empire becomes entirely dependant on Equestria for anything that is mass produced in factories. The crushing debt to pay for indemneties bankrupts the empire and ensures it never recovers to wage war on Equestria again. The country becomes a third world nation plagued by overpopulation, starvation, crippling poverty, instability and trade deficit.

The religious equation of Princess Luna with Nightmare Moon by zebras is recanted by some 'leading scholars' the Ministry of Image was able to pull out of their hat and the cultural obstacle to peace with Equestria is slowly being removed in militarily occupied zebra territory amidst heavy censorship and over the top propaganda claiming the ponies are zebrakind's friend, Princess Luna most of all. Some wise women and sages among the zebras continue to hold on to their old beliefs, but they keep this knowledge contained to remote villages for fear of a visit by Ministry of Morale ponies. Guerilla commandos holding out in the jungle claim not to have forgotten 'the truth' as well.

In Equestria, the victory brings a strong sense of nationalism and superiority over the zebras. Zebras and zonies or 'encouraged' to leave by proud and patriotic citizens to go live with their own kind in the jungles. Luna finally becomes the popular ruler she wanted to be, and spares no expense in hosting annual victory parades and lavishing the nation with war monuments to remind her subjects of her triumph. The once well-liked Celestia fades into the background as the loser sister and the princess who allowed Littlehorn to happen.

The Ministries remain in place, since especially Morale and Image prove useful in the war's aftermath. The Ministry Mares however leave their positions disillusioned and wondering at what point they lost eachother. Mad at eachother for allowing their bonds of friendship to deteriorate, at Luna for taking up their time for the war effort, but mostly themselves for not doing enough to prevent the suffering that had happened. They visit Fluttershy every once in a while to make sure her isolated confinement isn't hurting her, and their keep in touch with eachother. But their friendship is never quite the same. They all die of stress or old age, alone without family and a lot of regret.

The peace is only periodically interrupted by high profile acts of terror by vengeful zebras not willing to let go of the humiliation their nation suffered at the hands of ponies. Ministry of Morale surveilance cannot prevent these civilian casualties, proving Ben Franklin should have been a pony. At the higher echelons, acts of terrorism are cynically exploited to excuse punitive expiditions on the Zebra Empire to keep it under the crushing hoof of Equestria's military might, or pass draconian laws curtailing civil liberties or zebra/zony rights. Such as criminalising miscegenation and enforced segregation.

And that's it for the bleak, back to 1950 scenario. I might think of what would happen if the zebras had won instead, and I doubt it would have been prettier in that case.

[O. Hinds]

And the anti-material rifle whose plans were originally stolen remain in the super-duper top secret filing section of the Ministry of Morale when zebra attempts to steal them are found out.

When did they steal it?

[Icy Shake]

I don't remember them being stolen, at least in FoE or PH. I think it was, or at least think there's every reason to believe it was, a simple matter of convergent development since both sides needed anti-machine (robot, Ranger) weapons. AJ just threw a fit when she found out someone was working on them for Equestria because . . . she's stupidemotionally compromised by her motivation for starting the Steel Ranger project in the first place, I guess?

[CD]

I don't remember them being stolen, at least in FoE or PH. I think it was, or at least think there's every reason to believe it was, a simple matter of convergent development since both sides needed anti-machine (robot, Ranger) weapons. AJ just threw a fit when she found out someone was working on them for Equestria because . . . she's stupidemotionally compromised by her motivation for starting the Steel Ranger project in the first place, I guess?

I don't find it stupid in the least. Why should Equestria develop a weapon that can counter its own power armour? You're just putting the technology out there for the enemy to steal and copy without it giving you any advantage because it's not the enemy that's using power armour. If the US developed a missile that can shoot down supersonic jets when they're the only ones using them, you'd look stupid if a Soviet spy took that technology and the USSR declared "Ha! We stole your tech, we can shoot down your planes now". The anti-material rifle may or may not have been in development by the zebras already, so whether keeping it behind lock and key would have prevented the technology from being used is debatable, but there was no reason to make it more widespread by building them at Ironclad Industries/Ironshod Firearms. You only play that card when you need to counter something the zebras developed that requires anti-armour weaponry, and they don't appear to have favoured those tactics.

[Icy Shake]

As I recall, they needed an anti-armor rifle for use against the zebras' robots.

[O. Hinds]

I bring additional data!
(Also, I'm a bit low on sleep at the moment.)

“On one hoof, I couldn’t really blame them,” SteelHooves admitted. “You wouldn’t either if you saw some of the robots the zebras had begun to deploy on the battlefield.”

I found myself nodding, despite the ache in my heart for Applejack. I remembered that tank-like sentinel robot in Four Stars. I’d fired on it with armor-piercing bullets from a sniper rifle at a distance of yards, and only a precision shot to a volatile area had managed to stop it.

“But I knew how bad that hurt her, and how deeply personal she took it. Only made it worse that she had family in Ironshod. Whole thing just about tore her apart…” He nickered behind his helmet. “Damn thing was, the zebras came out with armor-piercing ammo a few months later anyways. Not as effective as an anti-machine rifle at taking down my fellow Rangers, but a well placed round from a rifle could punch through a Ranger’s helmet.”

[CD]

I bring additional data!
(Also, I'm a bit low on sleep at the moment.)

“On one hoof, I couldn’t really blame them,” SteelHooves admitted.  “You wouldn’t either if you saw some of the robots the zebras had begun to deploy on the battlefield.”

I found myself nodding, despite the ache in my heart for Applejack.  I remembered that tank-like sentinel robot in Four Stars.   I’d fired on it with armor-piercing bullets from a sniper rifle at a distance of yards, and only a precision shot to a volatile area had managed to stop it.

“But I knew how bad that hurt her, and how deeply personal she took it.  Only made it worse that she had family in Ironshod.  Whole thing just about tore her apart…”  He nickered behind his helmet.  “Damn thing was, the zebras came out with armor-piercing ammo a few months later anyways.  Not as effective as an anti-machine rifle at taking down my fellow Rangers, but a well placed round from a rifle could punch through a Ranger’s helmet.”

That's fairly easy to miss and with the comparison between the factions in Fallout and Fallout: Equestria suggesting the Zebra Empire is China, I had assumed like the Chinese the Zebras were not relying on robots as much as the Americans (for whom Mr. Gutsies and Sentinels weren't all that common either).

At the same time, I would think spark grenades would have been a decent alternative to anti-material rifles. And though the armour piercing bullets are said to be effective, Steelhooves still adds the caveat 'well placed'. That's basically how Littlepip and other ponies manage to come out on top of any encounter with Steel Rangers.

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