I’ve just been given a most interesting radiogram from the Watchers. Within it is the location of a building used by the Skapatoria for intelligence gathering. Another building to be destroyed I thought, but the message also details a newly started investigation into my mind controlled soldiers taking place at the building. This is a perfect opportunity to see how my control fares in adversarial conditions.

I have chosen this time in the morning, 8:54am as the clock on my desk reads, to open a scrying window into the nondescript building as it should be near the beginning of the workday. I have read of such technology to broadcast images across radio waves as we do with sound, but I have never seen a television myself. I would imagine the experience is much like scrying, though I believe the radio signal can currently only carry black and white images. I don’t imagine such devices to be of much use for me though, as the equipment, as I understand, is quite conspicuous - the antithesis of the invisibility of a scrying window, though I suppose scrying can be sensed if one is so attuned.

I find myself once again using the air as a scrying medium. I did bring my traditional scrying bowl with me to Barrad, but it seems I can’t be bothered to get up to use it. I wonder if godhood is making me lazy. It would take me less total energy to just walk over and use the water and bowl to scry, and yet I have decided to scry from my desk, using the reflections of light off of air particles to scry rather than the less mana intensive task of doing so in the water. Perhaps I simply have assigned using physical energy a higher cost than using mana, as now, only one of those things is finite for me. While mana conservation is an interesting topic, Amdoe’s law states this kind of micro-optimization is ultimately irrelevant, as the mana used is orders of magnitude less than the mana I am expending in order to wage war.

After a small adjustment, I can see through the scrying window an earth pony mare in a cell. The cell is guarded by two zebras who are sitting at a table nearby, playing cards. I would surmise they don’t see her to be much of a threat, as their rifles lay unused leaning on the wall. The mare sits silently, looking somewhat down. It is as I would have guessed. My spell does not provide an antidote for the ails of life, merely a purpose to hold on to through them. How strong that purpose is, I am curious to see.

Two more creatures enter the room. A unicorn stallion in a lab coat is escorted by a pegasus mare as the 2 guards barely give an acknowledging glance from their game.

“Has this one been any trouble?” asks the pegasus.

“Not even a peep,” comes the response.

The scientist then takes this moment to ask, “And where did this poor soul come from?”

“According to the army,” the pegasus takes a second to check a note gripped in a wing,” she was captured near Horsford castle in the west during the first days of the war.”

The imprisoned mare perks up slightly at the reference to herself but doesn’t make eye contact. The pegasus and unicorn approach the cell, the scientist taking a moment to look at her from different angles before his horn begins to glow.

“So, anything of note?” the pegasus immediately asks.

“Hang on a second,” the unicorn says, closing his eyes to concentrate on a spell. My magical senses do not transfer through scrying, but I think it is obvious that he’s performing a standard magical sensory sweep of her body to check both for bodily health and magical anomalies.

“You say she’s mind controlled?” the scientist questions, a puzzled look occupying his face.

The pegasus answers the scientist’s question with another question, “Well, you’ve read the papers, right?”

“I have, but from my analysis, there’s no magic at work here at all,” the unicorn says, dumbfounded.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the pegasus replies, joining the scientist in confusion.

“I’ve run a scanning spell, and I’ve found no evidence a spell has been cast on her. Are you sure she’s mind controlled?” the scientist says, repeating his question with new emphasis.

The pegasus, who I am now confident is a Skapatoria agent, hesitates for a moment before responding, “I thought they all were.” She turns to the mare in the cell and asks in a mocking tone, “Are you mind controlled?”

“I think so,” the mare breaks her silence with, “I wasn’t really a fan of the Pentarchy when I was conscripted, but, one day, we were all called to hear a speech from Viira, and after she spoke, she cast a spell on all of us. After that, I regretted all the previous negative thoughts I had about her, and knew I had to worship her. What else could it be but mind control, right?”

The faces of the duo are mixed. The combination of shock and horror on the scientist is contrasted by the subtly unsettled look given by the pegasus. Their lack of comprehension regarding the situation brings me a sense of satisfaction towards my work.

“Yeah,” the pegasus finally says, “they’re all a bit… weird. You never know what to expect from these quiet ones.”

“What?” The unicorn blinks twice before responding in full, “Er, hmm, well this is certainly not like any spell I’ve seen before.”

“C’mon doctor, we brought you here because you’re one of the foremost minds in Kasa. If you can’t make heads or tails of this, no one can,” the pegasus huffs.

“Hang on, I didn’t say there was nothing we can do,” the scientist quickly replies, “Just because I don’t know exactly what’s going on right now doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out. I just need more data.” He turns to face the caged pony, “So you admit you are mind controlled, but are not bothered by that?”

“Of course not! I know it’s supposed to be evil or something, but how could something so beautiful be evil? I used to be just a nopony farmer, but now I have a purpose!” the earth pony says with a sense of conviction, though her volume doesn’t rise significantly.

“Ugh,” the pegasus vocalizes,” that’s what’s so weird about the quiet ones. They just seem so normal until they say something like… that.”

The scientist’s horn glows again as he looks deep in thought before he concludes his thoughts and turns back to the pegasus and says, “Well Ms. Skies, I can confidently say that I have no idea what has befallen this young mare. You mentioned she was a quiet one? What other types of ponies have you captured?”

“All types. Most I would say are relatively quiet like her, but we have a few very loud ones,” the pegasus outlines.

“And when you say ‘loud’,” the scientist begins, before quickly being interrupted.

“Listen doc,” the pegasus starts, “you probably have a fancy schmancy word for it, but it’ll be best just to show you.”

She waves him back out the room and they head towards another. I adjust my scrying window to follow. This time, the guards are much more alert, standing at attention when the pair arrives in the room. The first to speak isn’t any of the captors, but the captive: a unicorn stallion with an anti-magic collar.

“Hi again Blue Skies ma’am!” he says with an aggressively friendly tone, “Have you reconsidered surrendering to our one true goddess Viira?”

“No, and stop asking,” she replies curtly.

The stallion notices the unicorn in the lab coat and begins talking to him instead, “And what about you? I haven’t seen you here before. What’s your name?”

The scientist opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off, “Don’t answer him!”

“Why, is there some magic with names involved?” the scientist responded with curiosity.

“What? No, it just makes everything he says creepier. I made that mistake and now he won’t stop trying to convert me,” she replied.

“It’s ok good sir,” the imprisoned unicorn continued, “Viira will offer you forgiveness for your transgressions against us.”

“How do you know that?” asked the scientist, “Is that an official policy?”

“Um, I don’t know if it’s written down anywhere,” he responds, “but I know in my heart that it is true! All hail Viira!”

“Yeah, at least the loud ones are obviously crazy”, the pegasus offers. An astute observation from my perspective. I wonder if he is delusional and believes the words he says, or if he is trying to proselytize and is changing his “doctrine” to whatever he thinks would have the best chance of getting him out. Perhaps both. I doubt he was like this when I first cast my spell - it would have been disruptive to the other infantry. My guess would be the stress of being captured and imprisoned forced him to latch onto his belief in me, turning devotion into obsession.

“Again, no traces of any spell,” the unicorn observes, “It’s like they were indoctrinated in a non-magical, propagandistic way, but from what the previous pony said, they are clearly being magically mind controlled.”

“Doctor, I don’t need to know how it works, just how we can beat it,” says the pegasus, “If you can’t find a way to undo the spell, exploiting it will do just fine.”

“Exploit it?” the unicorn muses aloud, “I suppose I have one idea, but I’m not sure how useful it will be. We know-”

“Not in front of him!” the pegasus interjects, pushing the scientist into the hallway and closing the door, “Ok, what were you saying?”

“Yes, well, we know they all share this loyalty to Viira,” the unicorn starts, “It’s artificially strengthened and a driving force in at least some of their personalities.”

“And?” asks Blue Skies, “So far that’s just meant fewer surrenders and a lot of rowdy prisoners. The ones here were deemed less likely to be violent by the army.”

“It should also mean they should easily trust and relate with one another,” the unicorn continues, “A strong group identity like this can’t be formed on nothing. If you were to pretend to be one of them, I’m sure they would tell you whatever you need to know. Tell me Ms. Skies, where did you grow up?”

“Retorno - in one of the refugee camps,” she replies, clearly curious what he will do with the information.

“Ah, my condolences given the occupation,” he continues, “But you know from experience that trust is an important part of these tight-knit communities. I grew up here in Seguro, but in the slums, and I know the difference between us and the more metropolitan elite is the trust in our local communities. I’m sure these farmponies have been trained their whole lives to trust in their communities, and if you were to present yourself as one of them, I’m sure they would be open to it. The universality of those who can claim to be in their in-group is a weakness as well.”

“It’s worth a shot,” says the pegasus. She then closes her eyes and starts taking deep breaths - an acting exercise perhaps? She then tells the scientist to stay put as she enters another room. I move my window again to follow. She ushers the guards out and approaches the prisoner, another unicorn.

“Hey, listen!” she whispers, eliciting a reaction from the unicorn, “I don’t have much time. I sent the guards away, but they won’t be gone forever. Hail Viira.”

“Hail Viira!” the unicorn responds, quietly but excitedly, “Oh my goodness, I was praying something like this would happen!”

“We can’t get you out today, but our goddess needs to know what transmissions your unit received before you were captured,” the pegasus fabricates.

“But why? And why me?” asks the unicorn.

“I don’t have time to get into the details,” the pegasus responds, brushing past her concerns, “Just trust me that you’re one of the only contacts I have, and we need to know what information could have fallen into enemy hooves.”

“O-ok!” replies the unicorn, her doubts quashed, “Um, I think the last trans

There’s no point in further dictating this conversation. They found a way to exploit my spell. I need to contain this before word can spread. At this point, the only pony who knows it works is this pegasus. I will deal with her first.

I grip her body telekinetically through the scrying window, focusing strength on her neck. She immediately wraps her hooves around her neck, noticing the lack of air. I take care to then hold her limbs in place so she cannot produce enough sound with them to alert those outside. I must make sure the captured pony does not scream either - her shock will not last. I narrow a telekinetic edge to a point and gouge a pinprick near an artery. Using the blood, I arrange the text “She lies. Your goddess demands your silence.” on the ground at the unicorn’s hooves. It has the desired effect, and the pony sits, slack jawed, watching the pegasus slowly choke to death while frozen in place via my divine intervention.

With the immediate threat neutralized, I consider my next steps. If I do nothing, the scientist will find the corpse and presume my actions, which would then confirm his theory. I could kill him now, but the same is true for any guards who heard the conversation. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. As they say, information wants to be free. I could use the nuclear option and cause a fission reaction in the building, but the proximity to Seguro’s city center is an issue. I need the city intact to serve me.

A smaller explosion just targeting the building could work, but a single lucky survivor who heard their conversation could be disastrous. I need a guaranteed way to kill every individual in the building right now. Well, all creatures need to breathe. I cast the deadly air spell, causing the entire interior building to become engulfed in a black cloud of dust. I whip the air into a frenzy, increasing its velocity drastically as the cloud shreds its way through the ventilation system. From my now limited vision, I can see the unicorn scientist casting a shield spell to create a pocket of safe air. Before I decide to break it myself, he coughs, weakening his concentration on the spell long enough to breathe in more of the high-velocity particulates. It is a vicious cycle, and he soon collapses.

Once I am confident everyone is dead, I release my spell. It is unfortunate I had to kill my soldiers as well, but the situation demanded it. This vulnerability is partially related to the trusting nature of the ponies I conscripted, but also fundamental to the spell. I require those affected to seek camaraderie in those similarly affected, as I will be casting it across cultures and ideologies who may hate each other, and I can’t have racism and discrimination be an obstacle to serving me. Thus, altering the spell to reduce trust seems ill-advised.

It is fortuitous I was able to witness the birth of this counter strategy. This will continue to be a problem going forwards, but it is not one I have a solution to. My goal must then be to mitigate it. Perhaps spreading knowledge of the potential for the use of deception by our enemies can keep even the more docile of them distrustful after being captured.

For this war, I am confident this interruption in their intelligence gathering will be enough to prevent systematic exploitation for long enough for me to win it. While compromise of low-level soldiers is one thing, I worry about the use of this technique on higher ranking officers, who may have more information. For now, new training is in order. I could simply command my soldiers to commit suicide rather than be captured, but the ponypower attrition rate would be too high given my current low population relative to my enemies. Loss of expertise is also an issue, where it would be better to reintegrate prisoners of war at the end of wars rather than lose their productive capacity permanently upon capture.

The Kasan front in the west is already collapsing from lack of supply. There is some concern for the sea crossing to Ilha Rosca, but it and Seguro will fall. The only concern now is time.

Author's Note

Amdahl -> Amdoe. Man I love puns.