Crash and Burn

     Rebellion number one. Lead by a headstrong young pink mare who refused to keep her bloodline going and tried to overthrow the Empress. Refused to let husband leave for military draft. Executed for treason.

    Rebellion number two. A group of stallions and mares, about ten strong, which wasn't a very sufficient amount of ponies to start a rebellion with, going on strike and murdering guards. Executed for murder and treason.

    Rebellion number three. An underground group called themselves 'The Fangs of the Serpent'. Infiltrated by guards, executed for murder, treason, destruction of personal property, and robbery. They'd had a lot riding on them when they were still alive.

    She'd crushed all these and more, but her incredibly foalish subjects wouldn't stop! Well, she couldn't call them foalish, let alone incredibly foalish,  they had the courage to become a rebel and work against her in the first place. That probably took a lot of guts, seeing as she was the only pony in the world who could boast killing Nightmare Moon and be telling the truth.

    Other than that, it was an annoyance. Little rebellions popped up all the time, so she began segregating her subjects in to heavily protected communities of loyalists and forcing those un-loyal to her into the sewers. Those forced into the sewers were separated if they were a couple, and young and still impressionable foals were taken from their parents and raised in the loyalist communities, to ensure that the rebellious generation was eradicated.

     However, she also sent guards into the sewers to kidnap pregnant mares and newborn foals weaned off their mothers' milk. The foal was allowed to stay with its mother until it was weaned, then it was taken and the mother was back to the sewers. All anti-loyalist unicorns were marked by magic-negating rings on their horns, and anti-loyalist pegasi were similarly marked by clipped wings.

     It was a drastic measure in some eyes, but she knew she was doing the right thing to protect herself and her loyal subjects. From time to time a hiccup appeared in the perfect planning: pregnant mothers hiding and raising their foals up to two months after the date when they would be snatched, guards being kidnapped and tortured or killed in the sewers, attacks on the loyalist communities, and so on.

      But thirty years after the new laws were set in place, the Empress reached the end of her rope. It had to stop. There would be no more rebellions when she was done with her subjects. All those in the sewers that weren't pregnant were taken to the magical experts she had hired, and with a couple spells they were reduced to their base instincts: survive and mate.

      A massive structure was formed where loyalists could get jobs to breed new loyalists according to the Empress's agenda, taking the former anit-loyalist ponies and breeding them in padded rooms with no windows or sharp objects. Then she began to slowly ease up on her hold over her empire, making the guards more relaxed with the ponies and sure enough, it only took fourteen years before the sewers were thriving again, full of ponies ripe for the taking-or breeding, as the case may be.

     Yet again, this group was reduced to bare, primal instinct and integrated into the current breeding population. Then Bellatrix pulled back on the reins, so to speak. She repeated this process over and over again, making sure not to inbreed, and found a surprising trend: the ponies bred from the former anti-loyalists were more loyal than the so-called 'loyalists'.

     So she set herself to work again, creating new 'loyalist' communities, except she filled these ones with ponies who came from the breeding stations that had been popping up all over her empire. She doubled her population in fifty years, leading to a show of military might when she conquered the buffalo lands and used magic to make them more hospitable, the same with the arid deserts and dry plains of Zebrica.

      Luckily, Saddle Arabia and The Griffonian Republic didn't know they were next on the hit list. Thirty-four years, one month, and twenty-seven days. Piece of cake. She now controlled the whole planet, even its future generations. In her giddiness, she threw a massive, world-wide gala among her old loyalist and new loyalist cities. The whole planet was slowly engulfed by white and gold above while more tunnels were dug in the muck and filth below the surface.

       It would only be a matter of time before she found the reason she needed to eradicate the entire population of the underground cities. And when that time came, she would be ready.