Prologue: Our Glorious Revolution or: A History of Bloodshed
Fallout Equestria: Revolutionary Fervor
Prologue: Our Glorious Revolution or: A History of Bloodshed
A gryphon barges heavily through a doorway, he is a massive talon, his size magnified by the gray power armor he is harnessed into. Around his neck is slung an AGR-82, an assault rifle of gryphon-make, with an underslung 12-gauge shotgun. A wickedly serrated machete hangs at his waist within easy reach.
The gryphon pauses just beyond the threshold of the door to take in his new surroundings.
The room he’s found himself in appears to be little more than a small maintenance closet. It’s walls are concrete but riddled with cracks and fractures, betraying the age of this place. Metal storage racks line two of the walls, all stripped bare of whatever had been stored here in the past. In one of the danker, more moist corners of the room is a foul smelling cluster of glowing blue mushrooms, their light casting an eerie blue tint upon the walls.
The heavily armored talon turns about, reaching out and shutting the door, leaving him alone in the mushroom-lit room. After that hebarred the door by dragging a heavy-looking metal trunk to keep it shut and to ward off any potential eavesdroppers.
Stepping back into the middle of the room, he plops down onto his rump and fiddles with his helmet for a moment until he is able to pull it off with an audible *POP*.
The gryphon grunts in the act, muttering low curses about “shitty prototypes.”
Without his helmet, his russet plumage is visible, and so are the dull gold hue of his eyes. His wings are also russet, and his fur is a dirty brown, though still entombed in his armor as it was. His beak is black with many rough crags and pock-marks, and several large scars carve bald rivulets through his face and neck, where feathers would be otherwise.
His feathers are glistening somewhat from the condensation of his sweat and breath under the helmet.
He heaves a tired sigh, resting his eyes as he runs an armored claw through his crest feathers, “Fuck me. I need to get my shit straight. . .”
One of his eyes pop open and he moves his claw off the top of his scalp and down to one of the saddlebags at his side, slipping his claws into it and retrieving a small metal and plastic device. A tape recorder.
“I must be real desperate,” The gryphon starts, speaking to none other than himself, “If I’m actually thinking about mouthing off to a plastic box.” He holds the recorder in front of him, staring down at it as if it were his only friend in the world.
He hesitates for only a moment longer before clicking the record button, taking a second to figure out what to even say to into the thing, “Uh. . . Hey. The name’s Huskarlar. Huskarlar Hrörrsson, or ‘son of Hrörr’, for those of you not hip to the traditional conventions of Gryphon names. I get that Huskarlar is kind of a mouthful, so feel free to just call me Huskarl. But not Husk. By the gods, I’ll tear your fucking spine out if you ever refer to me as Husk.” The Gryphon, Huskarl, growled lowly into the machine.
He stops to calm himself down, scratching at the back of his head and letting his eyes slide shut again, “Sorry. I’m a bit on edge after some bad shit that went down. I’m just trying to get my thoughts straightened out. . . I need to make a decision soon. It’s a tough one.”
“But let’s. . . Let’s set that aside for now. First I want to ask you, my listener, whoever you are, a question or two: Have you ever believed in something so resolutely that you were able to drop everything, put your life on the line and fight for it? For a belief? Have you fought a war over it? For years? From the time you were only a child? Have you ever felt all the pride of your comrades plus your own burning like a world-fermenting flame in your craw -- stomach for ponies -- for being apart of something far larger than yourself? A crusade for good so, so much larger than yourself?”
“Pause the recording if you have to mull those over for a moment, I won’t blame you.” By the end of his barrage of questions, the gryphon’s tone is strained with pent-up frustration, “Now, after you and your friends had won out, and it seemed as though you’d made it to that ‘happily ever-after’ part of the book that ponies love so much, was it all torn away from you in a moment? By the betrayal of your closest, dearest friend?”
“I doubt many people, ponies, gryphons, or zebras have had all that happen in such a specific sequence, but I’m sure at least one of you can relate. . .”
“Back to reality. Yelling at you did quite a bit to bring down my dander. . . But you don’t know what in the hells I’m even talking about, do you?”
“Fuck. Alright. . . I’ll start from the beginning. The very beginning, so we’re all on the same page here.”
~<>~
Many roads lead to and from the Equestrian Wastes. Many of them -- or what’s left of them -- are little more than charred and fractured slabs of concrete and blacktop. Many, once well traveled sites along the road lay buried while others are bare and exposed to the beating of the wind and weather. Several of them, however, still give some semblance of direction, be it either by the twisted metal fencing which, by some absurd chance, still stands, or perhaps enough of the actual road is lucid enough to follow it’s length.
Equestria Route 9 is among that group.
As soon as people began to move around on the surface, the roads once again served as the beating veins of the region, as in days long since passed. Wanderers, raiders, caravans, everyone had, has, or will make use them.
Equestria Route 9 is one of the most traveled these days. It carves a wending road throughout the breadth of Equestria and leads out into the lands beyond. It’s still-standing overpasses and long stretches of concrete can lead one to just about anywhere. Fillydelphia, Manehatten, the ruins of Canterlot, you name it, and Equestria Route 9 will probably spew you out within a reliably close proximity.
Billboards with the faded, but ever-watching eyes of the Ministry Mares cast their gaze upon it, and those who wander along the Route stare back. Haunting images of the past captured in monolithic reminders of what was lost.
Take the Route east, then north where it cuts through the burnt husk of a once great city, several klicks from the border. It is here that our story takes place.
Though ruined, the city was not dead. As life began to take root in the Wastes again, and the roads once more saw activity, the city experienced a resurrection of it’s own.
First it was just the caravans. Intrepid pioneers of commerce who followed the road into the city and cleared the way through. Clearing aside the rubble, flattening out the way a bit, and driving off the nasty beasties that happened to be prowling about in the low places. All this when they could have just gone around.
Ponies could be stubborn like that.
Now caravans constantly came through that nameless city. North to south or vice versa, going every which way, save for further into the ruins which remained untouched by all but the most brave or foolhardy.
Time passed and word spread of the Route. However, the message somehow changed along the line from, “Hey, there’s a safer way for you guys to follow north! Get onto Route 9. It’ll take you through a city that’s been pretty well cleared, and then it goes on to the border from there.” To, “You hear about that old city on Route 9? They say that caravans pass through there all the time. Heh. Easy pickings.”
Bandits and raiders and all assortment of unpleasant types made their way up Route 9, venturing slightly deeper into the ruins to lay in wait for the caravans which would most assuredly go through.
When they did, the caravans caught a nasty surprise in the form of ambush from every direction.
Dozens of caravans were hit by these enterprising ambushers. The first few were taken totally by surprise and slaughtered. Eventually, however, a few did survive to spread the word. And spread it did.
From then on, the city was known as Ambush Alley, and the caravans learned to take the time to go around. As much of a hassle that was.
Time marched on, as it always does, and the Route through the city dried up. Despite this, the Ambushers hung around, using the city as a base of operations, a spring-board for knocking over the caravans passing through area and returning to the city with their loot and captives.
Aware of the plight of the caravaneers around Ambush Alley, several mercenary talons recognized an opportunity and banded together to do something about it.
The impromptu mercenary army descended upon Ambush Alley, engaging the raider hordes that had cropped up within the city in tight urban combat. Block-by-block. Street-by-street. Building-by-building. Explosions and gunfire rocked the decaying buildings. The streets were choked with the tangled bodies of combatants (mostly raider fodder) and ran red with blood.
The fighting lasted weeks, and the death tolls for both sides were abominable, but at the end the mercenary army had won.
Weeks were spent hauling the bodies over into a valley a short distance from the city and just ditching them there.
After that, they began to sort the place out and turned it into a proper outpost. Several more blocks were cleared out and converted into the required facilities: barracks, armories, and the likes. They erected a wall of scrap at the entrance and exit with gates under constant guard.
Soon it was made good for caravans to come through, with a slight toll, of course. Most would argue that a safe haven on the road was worth more than a few caps.
Years passed and Ambush Alley only expanded out further into the city-proper, as more people, ponies and gryphons alike decided to set up shop, settle under the protection of, or even join up with the mercs.
The once small outpost burgeoned outward until the entire city was a walled stronghold, and an ardent example of the resolve of the Wastelanders.
There is a saying, though, that unfortunately seems to hold true no matter where or when it is applied. Despite the best effort of any number of determined folk. Despite however good a thing may be. Despite the prayers from generations of citizens... “All that begins must end.”
Up until this point, numerous individual bands of mercenaries worked together in a loose confederation. As time passed, and their ranks swelled as well as their coffers, tension built. Each warband was still sovereign in a way, and there was very little still holding them together in that time of relative plenty.
Many of them tried to win dominion over the others. They all wanted a bigger piece of the pie -- that is to say -- all of it.
While it was clear that the strain was there, no one knows exactly what caused the final tug that snapped the chain. Even less than that, no one could say who had done it. Regardless, everything went to shit as soon as the first shot was fired. Ambush Alley was torn asunder by a brutal, factious civil war.
In scope, the battle to claim Ambush Alley in the first place paled in comparison.
Firstly: it wasn’t a single group of hardened and disciplined mercenaries curb-stomping some rabble of banditry -- here, all sides were of approximately equal strength and skill.
Secondly: The fighting was no longer contained to a small, cleared out area of the city -- now, the whole of the city was open and populated. The gryphons controlled hardened locations along the walls as well as reinforced locations in the highest parts of the tallest buildings that you could only get to through a few, easily controlled access points, if you didn’t have wings.
Heavy rope bridges linked the buildings of the “Upper City” giving the gryphon elite an advantage over the rabble below since they could move supplies unhindered from one location to another, well out of the range of the small arms fire that most ponies could offer up.
The advantage didn’t last for long.
The earth trembled before. Now it quaked under the destruction of this conflict. The air was turned into hot lead soup. Entire buildings were leveled. Blocks were shelled, then gassed, then burnt with napalm incendiaries, then shelled some more. Thousands of innocents were displaced by the fighting, their homes either destroyed or simply made too dangerous to hang around.
A great number of the inhabitants of Ambush Alley simply fled; packed up and dispersed back into the greater Wasteland.
In the face of this annihilation, one company managed to outmaneuver the rest and finally the conflict was brought to a decisive close. The Blitzwings, led by their gryphon warlord Stannizslaw the Uniter, subdued all the rest.
So it was that Stannizslaw named himself Voivod, or, supreme warlord of Ambush Alley. Ambush Alley, which he promptly renamed to Stannizburgh.
As in the past, the bodies -- if they could still be recognized as such -- were thrown into the nearby valley.
The damage took years to repair, and the larger buildings which were lost couldn’t be replaced, but what could have been done was done.
The most important outcome, however, was this: the different warbands, whose allegiance had in the past laid with their own leaders, were forcefully assimilated into a single cohesive fighting force.
The Gracious Voivod Stannizslaw proved to be as competent an administrator as he was a warleader. The gates were open to trade once more and people settled down to replace those who had fled. He implemented several systems to help his city recover: he encouraged outsiders to settle down with several different initiatives, such as tax-breaks and even subsidies for poorer families. He also subtly hinted for Gryphon families to breed by offering bounties for each cub they pumped out, which greatly helped the Gryphon population to recover from the heavy losses they’d taken in the previous conflicts. Most controversially was his outlawing of explosives larger than grenades within the city limits, after the devastation that had been wrought by high-grade bombs during the fighting.
Stannizslaw reigned long and well for years, until his twilight years were upon him. His age, it seemed, did not take well to him and his mind left him. Slowly at first, then, seemingly all at once, he was off his rocker.
He abused his unquestioned authority and cracked down, hard: banishing traders, arresting his own people, executing his soldiers at the slightest provocation, and other heinous acts.
Grievance swiftly grew under the iron-shod fist of Stannizslaw. Orphans whose families were taken from them by the Voivod’s orders, soldiery who became increasingly distressed by the wrongs they committed against their own people, citizenry who now lived in constant fear of persecution. Rumors began to spread. Whispers of revolution.
As soon as it entered Stannizslaw’s ear he’d gone berserk. Curfews were enforced under penalty of imprisonment or death. Speaking one’s mind was suddenly dangerous, as the guard was ordered to zero in on ‘traitor-speak’. Each day, dozens of ‘malcontents’ were chosen practically at random and marched out of the city and to the valley to be executed. To dig their own graves, and to be gunned down into them. The place would come to be called Dead-ditch Valley, thanks to it’s history.
Fear and distress among the people quickly ignited into riotous anger. It was true that a Revolutionary Movement had been brewing in the underbelly of the city. Slowly and carefully growing, probing further out with it’s tendrils. Finalizing the words of their Manifesto, ‘Liberty, Brotherhood, Equality.’
All at once, though, the chain snapped and open rebellion was called and again Stannizslaw’s city was embroiled in civil war. On one side: The Voivod’s loyalists, a hard core of the military.
On the other: about a third of the military and most of the citizenry.
Regardless of the fact that most of the population threw in with the Revolution, the first seven months of the conflict saw it nearly quashed. Their leader was dead and many areas of the city were cordoned off and surrounded by Loyalist forces, simply hoping to win out by besieging the rebels.
The Rebels were saved, however, once their new leadership was organized. With great stealth, most of the rebel forces slipped into the abandoned sewage system beneath the city. When the Loyalists finally moved in for the kill, they found the rebel strongholds abandoned, and that now they were surrounded.
The Rebels had gone beneath the Loyalists and crawled up out from the sewer behind them when they advanced.
In the desperate battle that followed, the Loyalists managed to breakthrough the Rebel lines and withdrew into the Voivod’s palace -- now a fortress in it’s own right -- and held the Rebels off until the situation was stabilized.
After those opening maneuvers, the action boiled down into a bloody stalemate that lasted years.
With the majority of the city under Rebel control, it was largely a hopeless cause for the Loyalists. Regardless, they held out until the last round of ammunition was spent and the last scrap of food was devoured and gone. In the end, it was either capitulation or death. The Voivod demanded death -- demanded that his warriors gave the last full measure of their devotion in the defense of their leader.
The Loyalists choose surrender, piling up their weapons at the entry of the palace in the early morning and prostrating themselves to the Rebels as they swarmed the palace courtyard.
That next day, the Voivod was paraded through the streets in shackles and with clipped wings. Even as they dragged him along, beating his large, aged form with clubs and lashing at him with whips, he frothed at the beak as a wild animal, roaring curses against his rebellious subjects.
By the end of the week, Stannizslaw’s angry mug was stuck on a pike outside his palace.
Author's Note
Shout out to Kkat for making Fallout Equestria! I'd also like to thank Tofu, the author of Fallout Equestria: Outlaw for pushing me to finally try and fan fiction, and of course, my beautiful editor/pre-reader Jaded Pony!
