The Sundering of Equestria - A Future History

Battle of Canterlot Part 1 – Assault on the City Walls

It took almost half a year for the Council to amass the necessary forces for the upcoming battle. Most of that time involved organising the rag-tag civilian forces of the revolution into an actual army. By the start of summer 1037LB, a considerable army of approximately 31-34,000 soldiers (other sources suggest their numbers were as high as 40,000 or even 50,000, but these are likely to be exaggerations) had been assembled in the towns north of Canterlot. This force was mostly made up of barely-trained revolutionaries, armed with cheap-to-produce Starbeam rifles, as well as a thousand or so elite troops from Honorary Councillor Luna’s personal guard.

They were led by the pegasus General Ike Trots, an ex-general of the Royal Guard who had defected to the Republic early on in the revolution, and would develop over time to become one of the war’s key personalities. His unpublished autobiography, titled ‘From Sun to Shade: the Battles of General Ike Trots’ and written during the war, has been used extensively by previous historians as a central source. Although it has been used here, Trots’ book has been compared and contrasted with other sources to ensure the most accurate account of events possible.

Facing the revolutionaries, behind the walls of Canterlot, were approximately 18-20,000 troops from the Royal Guard regiments, as well as a hundred or so Solar Disciples and approximately 900 troops from the new Wonderbolt Brigades (an elite aerial force based on the pre-revolution aerial display team of the same name, and whose members were selected for their exceptional speed). The defence of the city was led ostensibly by Field Marshal Dragonfire of the Royal Guard, but in actuality Princess Celestia seems to have had a bigger role in commanding the defenders.

Despite what other historians may say, what followed was the first true battle of the Sundering of Equestria, and marked its turning point from a revolution into a civil war.

The following is drawn from a compilation of sources from both sides.

General Trots ordered the assault to begin at sundown. This would give his troops the advantage of surprise, hopefully catching the defenders unaware, as well as having the effect of weakening the power of Celestia’s Solar Disciples, whose magic relied heavily on light from the sun. This was apparently an intentional move by the rebel commander, since the Solar Disciples were in actuality almost incapable of performing any major acts of magic after sundown. Even today the exact mechanics behind this fatal flaw remain unknown to all but the most dedicated students of magical theory.

The battle began with the Republican artillery opening fire. The choice artillery-piece of the Republic forces at this early stage in the war was the Eclipse Bombard – a modified version of Old Equestria’s crude black-powder bombard cannons, enhanced with the same magic-crystal technology as the Starbeam rifles (albeit on a more powerful scale). Bombards were no longer used by Old Equestrian siege units at this point, as they had long since replaced their simplistic (and, by ancient decree, highly illegal) black-powder weapons with trebuchets. Although many nowadays would consider this a technological step backwards, it must have made perfect sense to the Equestrians of the time.

The opening artillery salvos, as Trots had hoped, took the defenders completely by surprise. Without the sunlight to boost their power, the no-doubt sleepy Solar Disciples were unable to maintain Canterlot’s magical shield, which fell within minutes. Notably, this is one of the few recorded times when Republican artillery fire was actually effective in a battle, and demonstrates the importance of surprise in New Lunar Republic tactics.

Trots then ordered forward his pegasi, followed by his slower-moving ground troops. His air forces, as per the plan, attacked in two highly-dispersed waves, to minimise casualties. His ground forces however, due to the fact that Canterlot was built on the side of mountain, had no choice but to advance in a dense column up the highly-exposed mountain pass.

The plan was for the pegasi to take out – or at least tie up – the defenders along Canterlot’s walls, thereby allowing the Republic’s ground forces to advance unopposed to the city gates. Things did not go as planned for the Republic, however.

The first wave of pegasi, having done the job of drawing the defender’s arrow- and beam-fire away from the slowly-advancing ground troops, suffered heavy losses and was forced to turn back. The second wave, whose job was to attack the Guardsponies on the city walls directly, had almost reached their targets when they were counter-attacked by the Wonderbolt Brigades. An aerial battle above Canterlot immediately ensued.

Although the Wonderbolts were heavily outnumbered by the Republic’s aerial forces, their role – as it soon became clear to General Trots – was to tie up the attacking pegasi. Without them distracting the defenders on the walls, the Royal Guard troops there concentrated their attacks on the still-advancing ground troops. Trots immediately ordered his sorcerers to use whatever magic they could to protect or obscure the advancing unicorns and earth ponies, but the attackers still took inordinate casualties.

Just as it seemed as though the attack would falter, and the Republic’s forces would be forced to fall back, Trots made the decision to commit Luna’s personal troops to the battle. It was a make-or-break point; once deployed, the general had no way of recalling these precious assets, and if the Republic’s army on the ground still failed to break through then the assault would have to be called off.

Luna’s personal guard, however, quickly proved their worth. More skilled and better trained than even Celestia’s Royal Guard, Luna’s pegasi (referred to in the sources as ‘Shadowbolts’; it is unknown if they were in any way related to Old Equestria’s Wonderbolts) joined in with the aerial battle above the city. Within minutes, the heavily depleted Wonderbolt formations were forced to flee, allowing the combined Republican air force to descend upon the city walls.

Meanwhile, the unicorns and earth ponies of Luna’s guard made their way to the front of the advancing column. With their morale boosted by the pegasi’s victory, and the fact that they were no longer under fire from the city walls, the ground troops of the Republic increased their pace. Although they had taken heavy casualties, General Trots was confident that his ground forces could still overrun the city.

When the Republic’s troops reached the end of the winding mountain path, they found – no doubt to their amazement – that the gates were opening for them. Such was the efficacy of the aerial fighters that the rebel pegasi and Luna’s Shadowbolts had completely pushed the Royal Guard from the city walls and actually captured a number of defensive structures along the walls, including the gate controls. Further bolstered by this, the troops of the New Lunar Republic burst through the gates and into Canterlot itself.

Battle of Canterlot Part 2 – Inside the Capital

From one of the towers of the Royal Palace, Celestia and her generals watched the Republican forces charge through the city gates – and into a deserted street. Once it had become clear to her that the walls were going to be overrun, the Princess had ordered most of her forces to fall back to previously-prepared positions (it is debated as to whether this was in reaction to her forces already fleeing, or whether the fleeing was merely an ordered retreat and part of Celestia’s plan). This left the attacking troops momentarily confused, and without a foe to fight.

At the time of the battle, the city of Canterlot was a mixture of long, clear roads and miles of twisting, turning alleyways. From above, the Old Equestrian’s fall-back positions would have been clear as a jagged line of heavily-defended roadblocks, reinforced buildings and recently-constructed defensive towers cutting almost straight across the contrasting spaces.

The Republican forces had by now secured a large area of the apparently uninhabited city, and had sent scouts ahead to identify the defenders locations and relative strengths. General Ike Trots, who had accompanied the reinforcements when they entered the city, now faced a dilemma. Should they march down the open streets and be forced to attack the defenders’ most heavily-defended positions, or should he send his troops through the back-alleys to find the weakest point, risking ambushes and booby traps every time they turned a corner?

Time, Trots’ advisors told him, was of the essence. If they didn’t succeed in taking the Royal Palace by sunrise, then Celestia and her Solar Disciples would be able to draw power from the sun and tip the balance in the favour of Old Equestria. With this in mind, General Trots ordered his troops to assemble on the three main roads that led to the Palace and assault the barricades. Although inelegant and highly risky, Trots hoped that this unusually direct tactic would catch the defenders off-guard and, once a breach was made, they could quickly rush for the Palace.

Unwilling to simply march in thick columns (as they had been forced to do up the mountain pass to reach Canterlot), the soldiers of the Republic advanced down the three central roads of Canterlot in a well spread-out formation. As they approached the barricades, the troops began taking advantage of every building and piece of makeshift cover to protect themselves from the Royal Guard’s ranged attacks. Consequently, the advancing Republicans took very few casualties from the entrenched Old Equestrians, until the time came to attack their positions directly.

In order to soften up the enemy defences before the assault, General Ike Trots ordered his artillery to fire on the toughest of the reinforced barricades. When there was no immediate roar of Eclipse Bombards opening fire, Trots sent a messenger to the last-known position of the artillery to discover why they weren't firing. It was in this way that General Trots and his advisers discovered that the Wonderbolts (previously thought to be completely broken due to overwhelming casualties) hadn’t given up, and had successfully destroyed or disabled most of the Republic’s artillery in a daring rearguard action.

On the advice of the Shadowbolt commander, Captain Darkspray, Trots ordered the Shadowbolts to track down and eliminate the remaining Wonderbolts – although this meant he would be unable to use them in the forthcoming assault, Trots felt that it was necessary to secure the army against any sudden attacks from the flanks or the rear.

The Republican troops near the barricades, however, knew none of this. All they were aware of was that they had been told to wait near to the enemy positions for the artillery to begin firing. Many of them were exchanging beam- and arrow-fire with the Royal Guard when they heard the orders to begin the assault immediately. Somewhat confused due to the change in orders, and concerned about why the artillery hadn’t opened fire, the morale of the Republic’s ground forces took a beating.

Nevertheless, they began the assault.

Battle of Canterlot Part 3 – Charging the Barricades

Much to the dismay of the attackers, however, it soon became apparent that the Solar Disciples had added magical protection to this second line of defences as well. Although these ‘shields’ were nowhere near as powerful as they could be – the sun was still down at this point – the Republic forces were now unable to simply break through them with their artillery, as they had done before. This mean that the revolutionaries’ Starbeam rifles did no determinable damage to the defenders when fired at range; if they wanted to break through the barricades, the Republic’s ground troops would have to fight the Royal Guard at close quarters.

Although there are no sources that explicitly state this, it seems likely that this was Celestia’s plan all along. As this and later battles were to prove, the Royal Guard (despite their comparatively antiquated weaponry) were a truly formidable force in close-combat. Their standard weapons – swords, halberds and pikes – were often enchanted and enhanced at the wielder’s personal expense, making them far superior to almost all of the close-combat weapons any faction was to utilise during the war. To make things even worse for the attackers, due to the Republic’s tendency to use evasion tactics and Starbeam rifles at range whenever possible, most revolutionaries did not even wear armour.

Even though they knew the odds were against them, the soldiers of the Republic very bravely – or possibly very foolishly, depending on where one stands – drew their combat knives or whatever close-combat weapon they had picked up, and charged towards the barricades.

A summary of this action, taken from General Ike Trots’ book and written from his viewpoint, truly encapsulates the tragedy of the assault.

“If I’d known about those shields, I would never have let that attack go ahead. Even today I have no idea what else we could have done, but I would have done something else. Anything else. Even if that meant ending the battle and going home, right then and there, then I would have done it.”

“They were slaughtered. Those brave idiots attacked on their own initiative, didn't bother sending word to their commanders, and they were slaughtered. I figure they thought they could take on the Royal Guard hoof-to-hoof, and, maybe, if we’d trained them properly, they could have. But we didn't.”

“You see, those mares and stallions we sent in to fight – they weren't soldiers. Ah hay, they were practically foals. The real soldiers from who’d defected from the Solar Tyrant, me included, had given them some basic training; how to hold a Starbeam rifle, how to shoot straight, stuff like that. The Council called them soldiers. But the Royal Guard – some of those stallions had been trained pretty much from birth to fight. For some it was their destiny to fight, and kill. They showed our ‘soldiers’ for what they really were – brave idiots.”

“We thought it was the end of the revolution.”

There are no sources describing Celestia’s reaction to the failed assault, but it’s reasonable to assume that she would have been pleased; everything had gone according to her plan.

Battle of Canterlot Part 4 – Conclusion and Losses

The assault on the Royal Guards’ roadblock continued for several hours with no progress made, until General Trots learned of the casualties thus far sustained (and the projected casualties should it continue) and promptly called off the attack.

The Republic’s weakened and severely-depleted ground troops retreated from the barricades, pursued only by the odd beam and the sounds of the Royal Guards’ jubilant cheers. Recently-discovered sources can now confirm that the troops of the Royal Guard were ordered to stay in their positions (rather than the previously-held belief, that they numbered too few to effect a pursuit); it appears that Celestia and the Old Equestria generals believed the New Lunar Republic’s army to be far larger than it actually was, and were awaiting a second assault from fresh troops.

After taking a quick census, General Trots decided that he did not have enough remaining soldiers to continue the battle, and so ordered a general retreat before the sun rose and the Old Equestrian forces could counter-attack. He and the Republic had failed to break through the enemy defences and so win a decisive victory for the revolution. Princess Celestia was still in power, and it looked like what had previously been conceived as a popular revolution had now become a true civil war. Even then, many realised that there would be no swift end to such a conflict. As one contemporary chronicler commented, "Well, I guess it won’t be over by Hearth’s Warming.”

Trots’ book records that, during the retreat from Canterlot, the General was approached by Captain Darkspray and his troops. Darkspray apparently volunteered to lead a small strike force to infiltrate the Royal Palace, while the enemy were distracted by their victory, and assassinate Princess Celestia. Trots agreed, and the Shadowbolts departed.

However, this account is not supported by any other sources from the event, and so is not entirely reliable. If Darkspray did indeed lead a strike force to assassinate Celestia, then he undoubtedly failed, as the Solar Tyrant continued to play an active role in the rest of the war. The account does, however, serve to explain why the Shadowbolts play no major roles in the rest of the war (it is generally believed that the remainder of the force were subsumed into the ordinary forces as officers), so there may be some truth in it.

For General Ike Trots and his remaining forces, however, the Battle of Canterlot was not quite over. After they had made it down the mountain, but before they could make the journey to the nearest Republic-held town, the sun finally rose. Within minutes (and to the revolutionaries’ unbridled terror), a “fleet” of Solar Disciples descended on the retreating army. General Trots records that these Disciples rode on “flying disks” that blazed sunlight – later sources refer to them as ‘palanquins’. The number of Disciples attacking the remaining Republic forces could not have been high, but their offensive spells were so powerful that the retreating army was quickly broken, and many were killed. General Trots talks of “blinding sunbeams… incinerating” his troops, and magical “lightning storms” that “tore up the ground like a gigantic pony would tear up weeds”.

Unfortunately General Trots is the only source we have for this event, conceivably due to the massive casualties the Republic forces sustained, but his account bares many similarities to later battles, when Solar Disciples were used en masse, so it seems likely to be accurate. His decision to fight personally in the rearguard action against them in order to give the rest of his army time to escape, however, is of debatable authenticity.

When General Ike Trots returned to the nearest town (assuming he hadn’t already returned with the main body of his army), he was supposedly accompanied by 313 soldiers. While many historians like to focus on this detail, it should be noted that over two thousand other Republican soldiers also returned alive to other towns and outposts, having been scattered in many directions during their flight.

The total estimated losses for the army of the New Lunar Republic, following the Battle of Canterlot, are at approximately 22-24,000 dead or wounded (including those captured, and subsequently interrogated, by the Celestian government). As well as the roughly 1,500 troops accompanying General Trots after the pursuit, an uncertain number (believed to be somewhere between 9,000 and 11,000) of the main army also survived, thanks to the bravery of the rear-guard. Another three thousand troops from untouched reinforcements also survived, having been held back for the whole battle, but it is unknown if the sources consider these soldiers to be part of the Republic’s army for the purposes of their total starting numbers.

Records here, as on many occasions throughout the war, frustratingly do not differentiate between those who were killed in battle, those who died of their wounds afterwards, those who were wounded and survived, and those who were simply lost. This makes it possible that the actual numbers of true casualties may be either much higher or much lower than stated, but most irritatingly we historians have no way of being sure.

On a side note, most of the Republic’s losses came from the failed assault on the magically-protected barricades, but it is believed that at least a fifth of their total losses were suffered before they had even breached the city’s walls.

The losses for the forces of Old Equestria are even more difficult to establish, however. It is known that well under a thousand soldiers died or were wounded before Celestia ordered her troops to fall back to the second line of defence, but how many were lost during the assault on the barricades can only be guessed at. There is no mention in the sources of any loss of stallion-power following the battle, so we must assume that, whatever the cost paid by Celestia’s forces was, it must have been relatively light – modern estimates put their losses at somewhere around 3-4,000.

A possible clue to the mystery of Old Equestria’s exact losses may lie in a recently-discovered source, believed to be from the diary of a soldier who fought in the Battle of Canterlot – although on which side is unclear, since he chooses not to inform his readers. This source mentions the loss of an ‘Element’, or possibly ‘Elements’, in the battle, but historians are unsure as to exactly what this means. The most likely possibility is that an ‘Element’ refers to a sizeable group of soldiers, like a brigade or a division, although how many soldiers it includes and where an ‘Element’ fits into the army structure are unknown.

To further add to the mystery, this unnamed soldier claims he was “given” an Element by another pony – possibly a euphemism for a field promotion – and attributes his new position to his survival. Since separate sources describe the Element as being “lost” we can either assume that the newly-promoted soldier’s troops were subsequently killed, or that the source is referring to a separate, second Element. This further convolutes the history of this battle as General Trots account explicitly notes the lack of any civilians whatsoever; presumably then, if the second possibility is correct, this Element was lost before the battle even began. Unless of course, one or more of the sources were written in error, which would complicate the situation even further.

Despite the lure of such historical mysteries, it is perhaps best to accept this strange new evidence as unsolvable, and hope that future discoveries will provide new answers to these perplexing questions.

The Changeling Raid

Merely a few days following the Battle of Canterlot, an Old Equestria-held town south of the city would become the site of the war’s second and most-often-overlooked battle. Most previous historians simply skip over it and move on to the major events following the Battle of Canterlot (namely the Siege of Manehatten). In fact, this skirmish is so often overlooked that it does not even have a name; nevertheless, the Changeling Raid is an important point in the history of the Sundering of Equestria.

The settlement of Ponyville – known principally by historians as the hometown of Princess Twilight Sparkle – has been connected with many ancient legends, including many that date from a time before the Sundering. The mythical alicorn known as Nightmare Moon supposedly first appeared there, as did the namesake of Discordianism, the equally-fictitious Discord. Perhaps partly because of these legends (or perhaps, more likely, because of its connection to the deceased Princess Sparkle) Ponyville was a site of great spiritual importance to the ponies of Equestria during the war.

Although we can never be wholly certain, it seems likely that Equestria’s emotional attachment to the place was the motive behind the Changeling Raid there. Possibly drawn by the location’s emotional energy, or intending to strike a blow against Equestrian morale, on early one summer morning in 1037LB, without any warning, roughly three thousand Changelings descended on Ponyville.

Considering that the town had a pre-war population of less than a thousand civilians, this army of ‘only’ 3,000 was clearly supposed to be an overwhelming force against a mostly-defenceless target. A local chronicler and inhabitant of Ponyville recorded that the Changelings, once they had landed in the town (undoubtedly sending the locals running, terrified, for their homes), were interested mainly in “capturing prisoners”. The chronicler records that they did this using a substance known as Changeling Bile; for those unfamiliar with Changeling physiology, this is an extremely sticky material vomited up from a Changeling that, after a few moments, binds the legs of a target (usually a captured pony) or adheres them to a surface (typically the walls or floor) with greater strength than even our most powerful modern super-glues. The helpless pony is then taken to a gathering place (usually a local building or cave commandeered for the purpose) and put with other prisoners, before all those captured are flown back to the Changelings’ Hive in one go.

It seems to have been the Changelings’ intention to capture the entire population of Ponyville, but clearly their leader was woefully unaware of the recent dramatic social and political changes that had been occurring in Equestria.

Barely a few minutes after the Changelings struck, a force totalling no more than 2,700 ponies from the Royal Guard arrived in the town. They had been scrambled from the Ponyville garrison building, situated on the edge of the town, and had originally been put there in order to deter potential Republic troops from trying to take over the (strategically-insignificant) settlement. Suffice to say, the Changelings were not prepared for the Royal Guard’s brutal retaliation against their raid.

Our contemporary chronicler describes how, initially, the Changelings tried to use their standard tactic of swarming the enemy one at a time, and then covering them with Bile. While this may have worked on unarmed civilians or even on the ‘old’ Royal Guard (when they were merely a glorified police force), the new Royal Guard simply slaughtered them. No-nonsense brutality, it seems, had become second nature to the soldiers of Old Equestria.

The Changeling raiding party was led by a tall, slender figure that was clearly not an “ordinary Changeling” – later ponies would name this new caste of Changeling ‘Swarm Commanders’. The chronicler writes that this Commander ordered her troops to withdraw to the edge of town, carrying with them anypony they’d taken prisoner. The Royal Guard immediately pursued them. This unnamed Swarm Commander, hovering on the edge of town and surrounded by her remaining followers, apparently chose to make a derogatory and dramatic speech to the advancing Royal Guard rather than flee immediately.

She was barely into her second sentence when she was unceremoniously shot out of the sky by a magic-blast from an unnamed Guardspony. A number of other Changelings were felled in the same volley, and ensuing volleys killed the majority of the remaining raiders before they could even react.

According to the local chronicler, only a hoof-full of Changelings escaped the massacre, to take the news of what had transpired back to their Queen, and no prisoners were taken (by either side). A small number of the ponies that had been captured by the Changelings (less than a dozen) were killed in the battle, almost certainly by misaimed attacks by the Royal Guard. There appears to have been no formal apology from the Guard for this.

Although this battle – barely a minor skirmish on the scale of some of the other battles during the Sundering – had no strategic impact, it served to prove an important point to both sides involved. The government of Old Equestria now knew that the Changelings had returned and were active, although they were not yet aware on quite what scale. For the Changeling leader, Queen Chrysalis, this raid must have been something of a wake-up call. Although we can’t know for sure (the Changeling Swarm did not keep records, or at least none that we have access to), Chrysalis’ next action against a major population centre was done on a much larger scale, and with more violence, so she must surely have been aware of the two new, militaristic Equestrian factions that were now fighting one another.

It could be said that, from this date in 1037LB, the Changeling Swarm had officially entered the war.