Journal of Lieutenant Ivory Dusk.
June 5th, First year of Nightmare, 10:00 AM
War. I never thought Equestria would get into another war in our lifetime, but we just got the announcement an hour ago. Princess Luna has gone crazy, going so far as to attack and openly declare war on her sister, our glorious Princess Celestia. Thankfully, the injuries she sustained were nothing major. If I were to guess, I’d say her biggest injury is the one to her heart by being betrayed by that monster she once called a sister. If what General Seeker told us is true, then she’s hiding her sadness with anger. We all have served under her for long enough to know that the Princess refuses to let anypony see her cry. Tartarus, when her horn snapped in half last summer she just sat there gritting her teeth into a smile while the medics fixed her up. Though looking back at it, I think she was trying to not cry in front of her sister, I guess I can respect that, even if Princess Luna, or Nightmare Moon, if what the reports say are true, turned out to be a bad seed.
June 5th, First Year of Nightmare, 4:00 PM
Celestia’s bloody hooves! The war only started a few hours ago and the Lunar soldiers have already taken control of Manehattan, Trottingham, and Las Pegasus! Reports have told us they’ve stopped just outside the cities and they’ve begun digging entrenchments. To make matters worse, their air forces have managed to get functional light machine guns! Our air forces were smacked out of the sky before they could get in a position to fire their rifles. This must have been something that was planned out, there’s no way this kind of thing could have been spur of the moment reactions from the Lunar High Command. Just why did it have to be Manehattan, the one place Lacey had to be because of the foal. I’ve already asked General Seeker, he said until we can break their defenses we can’t get at the city. He’s ordered some prodding attacks, see how serious their defenses are. At worse, he said we’d have to dig in ourselves, in case they counter-attacked after one of the prods. On the bright side, I’m in charge of two hundred ponies, no pressure, right?
Journal of Lieutenant Silver Star.
June 6th, First Year of Nightmare, 11:00 AM
I can’t believe this is it, war against Equestria. Princess Lu- Empress Nightmare Moon, I’m having a hard time accepting she’s changed but what can I do, has apparently injured her sister in single combat. Almost immediately after she landed in Shadow’s Keep we were flying in to occupy a couple key cities. General Storm must have known something was up because he had us mobilized the day before the war started. There wasn’t even any resistance to speak of, a couple of constables tried to play hero but me and my new command neutralized them. I’ve heard word of some dogfights above Las Pegasus but our newer equipment, stolen from the Equestrian research facility on the Alicorn Mountain, made sure they were quick. We’ve started digging trenches outside the city, Manehattan. Command doesn’t want us to advance too far and expects us to get heavy counter attacks so let’s see what happens. Hail the New Lunar Empire.
June 12th, First Year of Nightmare 9:00 PM
The Equestrian’s have been attacking us for almost a week now. They’re trying to see if our defenses will hold. And have they ever. Between the machine gun nests and the artillery, the Equestrian’s quickly learned to not underestimate us. They’ve been digging their own trenches. Pretty soon no pony will be able to set hoof on the ground between our trenches without twenty rifles firing at them. At least Draco, my newest aid as his predecessor bit the big one in one of the more recent attacks, seems like a pretty nice colt, apparently was a former stage actor and singer, maybe one day I’ll get to hear him sing. Once we walk into the Everfree Castle’s front gate maybe he’ll even sing to the Empress. I might be a little optimistic but from the attacks we’ve been facing, I’m surprised we haven’t won yet. My counterpart must be fairly green; he’s made a few mistakes already. Mistakes that we should have acted on but command has always been slow to take advantage. General Storm’s even come down here already to say how we’re doing everything wrong with how our trenches are set up, saying we should have our ammunition bunkers in the front, yeah like Equestrian artillery won't zero in on that in an instant. The war’s only been going on for a week and already command is incompetent. Oh well, it’s not my place to question their orders, only to do my part in this war. If we’re lucky this war of attrition won’t last long. Hail the Empire.
Journal of Lieutenant Ivory Dusk.
December 19th, Fourth Year of Nightmare 12:00 PM
It’s been four years since this blasted war has started. Four long years. With Hearths Warming and New Years coming up it will make it five. The lines haven’t changed all that much, a few miles at most in other places, here though it isn’t even that much, we haven’t made any major advances, but at least those Thestrals haven’t either. Our days mostly consist of exchanging rifle shots with the enemy with the occasional order to push an attack, such as the one scheduled for in an hour. Even now the artillery and siege unicorns are bombarding the Thestral positions, hopefully, they’ll be able to take out the machine gun positions. Running across noponies land under that kind of fire is not exactly fun, we had to do it once or twice over the four years, especially at the start of the war, when we didn’t know exactly what kind of weapons they had at their disposal. We learned the hard way that they have just about everything that we have, even some slightly more advanced equivalents. At least reports from the neutral medical group, Red Heart, state that the Thestrals are treating the civilians well, maybe there’s hope for them yet. That or Nightmare Moon hasn’t decided to kill them yet. Either way, the attack is about to commence. Hopefully, we’ll be able to make some ground.
December 19th, Fourth Year of Nightmare 10:00 PM
The attack went to shit quickly. The bombardment didn’t do anything except make them bring their machine guns into the trenches. It started out fine, made it over noponies land with minimal casualties and under almost no fire, and even were starting to push into the enemy trenches when they revealed their machine guns. I hate to say it, but I was lucky there were ponies in front of me, or I’d have been mowed down with them. All in all, though, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, we only lost about twenty ponies altogether, a few more wounded. We were relieved shortly after the fight, so I’m writing this in one of the suburbs of Manehattan, a somewhat sleepy little town, given the fact it was converted to the forward headquarters. Unfortunately, our respite will be brief, a couple days. We will be going back to the front and will be there for Hearths Warming, and even maybe New Years. After that, apparently, I’m being transferred to an artillery division. General Seeker came by and told me, I tried to refuse, I couldn’t just leave my stallions here with some new lieutenant, but he ordered me, and I couldn’t really refuse that. It might be for the best, I’m emotionally invested in this fight, the emotionally invested make the stupid mistakes. I’m going to try to make the most out of our respite here, Celestia knows I need it.
