Human Invasion Fanfic (Writer's block/ plot issues)

[Jeddaven 42]

I've recently been planning out a fan fiction which would revolve around a hypothetical human invasion of Equestria, and a possible sequel involving a subsequent human occupation of Equestria, but, in the process of planning the sabotage that the invading humans would engage in prior to the actual invasion (disabling/destroying the Elements of Harmony, removing the Princesses from the equation, etc.) , I came upon a few questions and encountered some issues in the planning itself. If any of you would be willing to answer some or all of the following questions, it'd be a huge help. Thanks!

 

1. Would it be too much for the humans, assuming that this roleplay takes place far into the future, to find a way to effectively nullify Pegasus weather magic, or various types of magic in general? I've yet to work out how this would be done, so help there would also be appreciated, but I'm currently going off of the idea that magic is psionic in nature, since I really don't have much to base it on.

 

2. Assuming the above is possible, would it too much of a stretch for the Elements of Harmony (the physical objects, not the Mane Six) to be reverse-engineered, or even manipulated to be used against the ponies? I only really mention this specifically because Discord would be a massive problem to deal with for an invader, especially since he's been freed and reformed.

 

3. How would one go about neutralising beings as powerful as the Princesses? Would it be possible to get rid of them using non-magical means, or would some method of manipulating magic have to be utilised?

 

4. How can I avoid portraying the humans as plain old badguys? I want to avoid the typical situation where the invaders are nothing but evil. I'd rather give them reasonable motivation to engage in an invasion, if possible.

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

1) I think you would have a better story if it's not a complete cake-walk for the humans.  They shouldn't be able to just "nullify" magic, especially if they've got super-future-tech.  I think it might even be better if you set the story in the near future.  Modern weapons (tanks, fighter jets, machine guns, artillery, cruise missiles, drones) would have many advantages, such as standoff range (ability to destroy a target from miles away).  If you want to mix things up a little, you could have it so that sophisticated electronics don't work (differences in physics between the two universes), but magic is also less effective against humans and their equipment, i.e., transformation spells like Discord's don't work directly on them.  Creative approaches would have to be used, such as floating balloons over a human force, then Discord turns them into heavy rocks... 

 

2) Before humans could try to reverse-engineer the EoH, they'd have to get their hands on them (or some of them at least), which would mean they've already defeated one of Equestria's most formidable weapons.  Given that the EoH would represent completely alien "tech" to humans from a Realistic^tm universe, reverse-engineering them should be extremely difficult.  On the other hand, the EoH seem to be a close-quarters weapon only.  How would they do against cruise missiles, or JDAM bombs deployed from a B-2 Stealth bomber?

 

3) That should be extremely difficult for the humans, given that the Princesses control the Sun and Moon.  If they kill Celestia, wouldn't Equestria go dark forever, and freeze over?  One possible way to deal with her: hostages.  "Now that we've shown you what a fuel-air explosive can do, perhaps you should consider terms of surrender, before we drop several of them on Manehattan."  Another possibility would be sheer numbers.  A full-scale human invasion would include hundreds of thousands of troops and possibly millions of colonists, spreading throughout Equestria.  There are only four Princesses.

 

4) Let's say one nation discovers how to open portals into Equestria.  That nation starts sending exploratory parties, makes contact, etc., realizes that they've found a "new frontier."  That nation may have peaceful intentions, or perhaps just want to conquer Equestria economically.  Through espionage, other nations (China, Russia, India, Japan, the EU...) learn about the tech and duplicate it.  Heavily populous nations like China and India would have strong incentives to colonize.  The other major powers couldn't just sit by and let them do it without either trying to stop them (at a risk of war) or joining in to get their slice of the pie.  If climate change and resource depletion are threatening to force a collapse of human civilization, the humans could invade out of desperation.  Perhaps many of them could be refugees without any hostile intentions toward the ponies, but coming in such large numbers that they threaten to overrun Equestria.  This would present a conundrum to the ponies: attack them, or try to welcome them with the "magic of friendship," with the downside that the end result would be a predominantly human, rather than pony, society.

 

5) Don't forget wild cards, like the dragons and the Changelings...

Some further thoughts: Equestria is way over-reliant on a handful of exceptionally powerful individuals for its defense.  The Princesses, Shining Armor, Discord, and the Mane Six with the Elements.  11 beings, total.  The Royal Guard did not make much of a showing against the Changelings in "A Canterlot Wedding."  Instead, everything hinged on Shining Armor's ability to shield Canterlot, and the M6 wielding the Elements.  The Guard appear to be mostly ceremonial and bodyguard type forces (guarding doors, etc.) rather than a true battlefield fighting force.  We've seen several times that ponies panic, flee, and hide when faced with a threat or even an unusual entity (e.g. Zecora, before Twilight befriended her). 

 

This means it is quite unlikely that ponies will have any concept of military doctrine or strategy, such as how to organize a combined-arms force, provide close air support or fire support for ground forces, how to operate logistics, supply lines, and a system of command and control, how to conduct a flanking attack, set up overlapping fields of fire, or retreat in good order.  The Wonderbolts exhibit a degree of military culture and discipline, but they're only a single squadron of fliers, trained for exhibitions rather than war.  Even if they pressed all of their cadets into service, they'd have maybe one wing of combat "aircraft," without long-range weapons (cannons, missiles).

 

During the crucial early days of the invasion, the humans would probably be able to establish forward operating bases almost completely unopposed, with platoons of soldiers or Spec Ops teams carrying assault rifles, mortars, and RPG launchers.  Anti-aircraft guns or SAM (Surface-to-Air Missile) batteries would be deadly to most pegasi.  A handful of special talents like Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts might be able to counterattack once they learned how to drop bombs accurately, but as soon as there's more than a few human aircraft able to engage them, human numbers and superior armament would prevail.

 

A lot would depend on how many portals the humans can generate, and how big they are.  Can tanks and aircraft fit through?  What about fuel tanker trucks and earth-moving equipment for constucting forward operations bases on the Equestrian side?  How fast can humans move forces through?

 

Here's an idea, if you want some human heroes: human military people who, as a matter of conscience, defect to the Equestrian side act as "advisors," and help organize the Equestrian forces.

[Silver Letter 1,832]

One way to defeat an invasion would be to have Discord "persuade" the dragons to attack them since they are near invulnerable and are quite powerful. It would give enough time for the EoH to be assembled which could be used to purge that darkness from Equestria while simultaneously sealing the connection between the two universes. Such lowly creatures would never be allowed in such a world. For Equestria, conquest by humans would be worse than a thousand year reign by Nightmare Moon.

[Jeddaven 42]

1) I think you would have a better story if it's not a complete cake-walk for the humans.  They shouldn't be able to just "nullify" magic, especially if they've got super-future-tech.  I think it might even be better if you set the story in the near future.  Modern weapons (tanks, fighter jets, machine guns, artillery, cruise missiles, drones) would have many advantages, such as standoff range (ability to destroy a target from miles away).  If you want to mix things up a little, you could have it so that sophisticated electronics don't work (differences in physics between the two universes), but magic is also less effective against humans and their equipment, i.e., transformation spells like Discord's don't work directly on them.  Creative approaches would have to be used, such as floating balloons over a human force, then Discord turns them into heavy rocks... 

 

2) Before humans could try to reverse-engineer the EoH, they'd have to get their hands on them (or some of them at least), which would mean they've already defeated one of Equestria's most formidable weapons.  Given that the EoH would represent completely alien "tech" to humans from a Realistic^tm universe, reverse-engineering them should be extremely difficult.  On the other hand, the EoH seem to be a close-quarters weapon only.  How would they do against cruise missiles, or JDAM bombs deployed from a B-2 Stealth bomber?

 

3) That should be extremely difficult for the humans, given that the Princesses control the Sun and Moon.  If they kill Celestia, wouldn't Equestria go dark forever, and freeze over?  One possible way to deal with her: hostages.  "Now that we've shown you what a fuel-air explosive can do, perhaps you should consider terms of surrender, before we drop several of them on Manehattan."  Another possibility would be sheer numbers.  A full-scale human invasion would include hundreds of thousands of troops and possibly millions of colonists, spreading throughout Equestria.  There are only four Princesses.

 

4) Let's say one nation discovers how to open portals into Equestria.  That nation starts sending exploratory parties, makes contact, etc., realizes that they've found a "new frontier."  That nation may have peaceful intentions, or perhaps just want to conquer Equestria economically.  Through espionage, other nations (China, Russia, India, Japan, the EU...) learn about the tech and duplicate it.  Heavily populous nations like China and India would have strong incentives to colonize.  The other major powers couldn't just sit by and let them do it without either trying to stop them (at a risk of war) or joining in to get their slice of the pie.  If climate change and resource depletion are threatening to force a collapse of human civilization, the humans could invade out of desperation.  Perhaps many of them could be refugees without any hostile intentions toward the ponies, but coming in such large numbers that they threaten to overrun Equestria.  This would present a conundrum to the ponies: attack them, or try to welcome them with the "magic of friendship," with the downside that the end result would be a predominantly human, rather than pony, society.

 

5) Don't forget wild cards, like the dragons and the Changelings...

Some further thoughts: Equestria is way over-reliant on a handful of exceptionally powerful individuals for its defense.  The Princesses, Shining Armor, Discord, and the Mane Six with the Elements.  11 beings, total.  The Royal Guard did not make much of a showing against the Changelings in "A Canterlot Wedding."  Instead, everything hinged on Shining Armor's ability to shield Canterlot, and the M6 wielding the Elements.  The Guard appear to be mostly ceremonial and bodyguard type forces (guarding doors, etc.) rather than a true battlefield fighting force.  We've seen several times that ponies panic, flee, and hide when faced with a threat or even an unusual entity (e.g. Zecora, before Twilight befriended her). 

 

This means it is quite unlikely that ponies will have any concept of military doctrine or strategy, such as how to organize a combined-arms force, provide close air support or fire support for ground forces, how to operate logistics, supply lines, and a system of command and control, how to conduct a flanking attack, set up overlapping fields of fire, or retreat in good order.  The Wonderbolts exhibit a degree of military culture and discipline, but they're only a single squadron of fliers, trained for exhibitions rather than war.  Even if they pressed all of their cadets into service, they'd have maybe one wing of combat "aircraft," without long-range weapons (cannons, missiles).

 

During the crucial early days of the invasion, the humans would probably be able to establish forward operating bases almost completely unopposed, with platoons of soldiers or Spec Ops teams carrying assault rifles, mortars, and RPG launchers.  Anti-aircraft guns or SAM (Surface-to-Air Missile) batteries would be deadly to most pegasi.  A handful of special talents like Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts might be able to counterattack once they learned how to drop bombs accurately, but as soon as there's more than a few human aircraft able to engage them, human numbers and superior armament would prevail.

 

A lot would depend on how many portals the humans can generate, and how big they are.  Can tanks and aircraft fit through?  What about fuel tanker trucks and earth-moving equipment for constucting forward operations bases on the Equestrian side?  How fast can humans move forces through?

 

Here's an idea, if you want some human heroes: human military people who, as a matter of conscience, defect to the Equestrian side act as "advisors," and help organize the Equestrian forces.

Thanks! That'll be a huge help, and I do now realize that I was perhaps making it a bit -too- easy for the humans, which wasn't my intention. As for the EoH, perhaps reverse-engineering them could be the sort of final, decisive action that the invading humans take, assuming they get to that point, because I really don't see them being able to take care of Discord in any other way. In the case of the Princesses, though, it's probably true that using hostages would be the best way to effectively neutralize them, although, even if they do surrender, what happens next would largely vary depending on what everyone else does. In fact, i can imagine one of the more stubborn Mane 6 or one of their relatives getting a little -too- stubborn for some of the soldiers, or perhaps accidentally causing one of them to open fire and actually inspire some resistance against the human invasion. That all relates to how ponies would feel about surrendering to the influx of colonists and soldiers. Perhaps the humans might even be able to negotiate inside assisstance from the Changelings in dealing with the Princesses, perhaps in turn for big sources of love, even like Cadence herself, although the primarily neutral-yet-desperate jhumans would have issues dealing with a decidedly evil race such as the Changelings.

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

I doubt that the humans would (realistically) be able to successfully reverse-engineer the EoH and put the results to use, because, as invading conquerors, they are by definition not Harmonious.  The EoH only worked because the M6 manifested the relevant character traits.  The trouble with Discord is that his ability to truly defend Equestria is limited.  If he uses his powers too much, he ends up trashing what he's trying to protect.  The Changelings: "They have a world of seven billion souls!  Come, my children!  Let us go through their portals, and feast upon their capacity to love!"  This invasion could turn out really bad for humanity!

[Jeddaven 42]

What about taking apart the Elements in order to find out what makes them tick (so to speak) and creating a facsimile/faux-Elements of Harmony? If not that, some way of defeating Discord that is something other than a plot device? If the human invaders do manage to effectively wipe out resistance as to begin colonization, Discord is still going to remain a thorn in their side as long as he exists. A massive one.

In the end, I guess it might be best to go with your original suggestion, and perhaps also say that human weapons can affect Discord, although only to a very small extent and when he isn't paying attention to whatever strikes him and thus is unable to defend against it.

[--Thunder Bolt-- 534]

Discord appears to be a physical creature when he's manifesting normally (instead of animating his image in a stained-glass window or whatever) because it's possible to trap him by turning him to stone.  So, a sufficiently powerful human weapon, such as a depleted-uranium tank shell, supersonic cruise missile, or laser (e.g. the Airborne Laser) would probably be able to injure or kill him if he could not see or hear it coming in time to react.  Any supersonic projectile (or laser) fired from beyond visible range would reach him before sound from it could be heard (the sound of it being fired, the sound of its rocket engine, whatever), so if Discord is not looking in the direction of the attack, it would have a chance to hit.  Discord tends to move, teleport, change shape, etc. erratically, so he shouldn't be easy to hit.  However, an area-of-effect weapon (JDAM bomb, cruise missile, buried explosive device, etc.) would have better chances of scoring a hit.  Or, the humans could try carpet-bombing (high-altitude B-52s) or lots and lots of dakka (massed machine gun fire, A-10 Warthog anti-tank cannons, barrages of tank and artillery fire). 

 

With a major opponent like Discord, the humans should have to try several different strategies before finding one that works, especially if they're the protagonists.  He should be hard to beat, but realistically, I don't think he would be completely invulnerable to all human technology unless you decide to make him invulnerable for story purposes.  Celestia isn't invulnerable ("A Canterlot Wedding"), and she is a being of comparable "divine" nature.

 

Another possibility, if the humans have allies (a disgruntled pony?) who know about Discord and Equestrian history and biology: the humans capture a Cockatrice and use it to turn Discord to stone.  Or perhaps they can recruit Medusa (she's not directly canonical, but there are plenty of other Greek-mythology creatures in FiM canon, like Cerberus).

[Jeddaven 42]

I don't so much as want Discord to be invulnerable as much as I want him to be a huge thorn in the respective sides of the humans. One of the advantages the humans will have, though, is that they're more worried about keeping the resources they need intact than they are the populace of Equestria, especially since overpopulation is one of the things that drove them to Equestria. The ponies, on the other hand, have one home and one home only. They can't go all-out. Plus, since the RP is taking place in the near-future, the humans might even have access to fusion explosives, plus thermonuclear weapons, so the threat of poisoning the living hell out of what they want is much less, although they'll only really have to use weapons of that level if they're in a -very- bad spot. Otherwise, though, AoE weapons like the MOAB, FOAB, various thermobaric weapons, and even high-yield conventional explosives are probably going to be the big trump cards the humans have, along with standoff weapons and missiles/artillery in general. The humans are going to have a very massive range advantage over the ponies, especially if they're using hypersonic missiles/bombers by the time this 'war' happens. Hell, chances are that the lasers that they're testing against UAVs and railguns might even be viable for military use by then.

 

As for Medusa and the like, I could probably explain why she hasn't been seen yet (or something else that is used) by saying that she was previously imprisoned in Tartarus. The humans might even have an advantage in getting past Cerberus and whatever else because they know their weaknesses, too (assuming they're very much like in Greek myth).

 

Additionally, going off of your prior theory that the ponies aren't generally very trained in the art of warfare (even Shining armor and the Mane 6, even though they've fought villains and can clearly fight, I've yet to hear that they've seen the horrors of war), they'd probably be very easy to scare and intimidate. Even machinery that they've never imagined before, like fighter aircraft, naval craft, and tanks, could be very frightening to any one of the ponies. If you've seen "Apocalypse Now", there's a scene where US troops in UH-1s use "Ride of the Valkyries to intimidate North Vietnamese villagers and Viet Cong by playing it during their assault. Although I'm not suggesting the human military forces play intimidating songs en-masse (unless that happens to be a good idea), propaganda, visual demonstrations of the more powerful human weapons, and other similar things (plus the stuff I mentioned before) could be very good at demoralizing or even routing such a poorly trained military force.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Jeddaven

['NamBrony 22]

First off, I think this is a great idea. Humans always come on the MLP Gmod servers and fuck everypony else over. It pisses me off. 

 

Second of all, AJ would need to be a badass (She's best pony) With like, a lever action cowboy rifle, and a revolver she maybe got from the Humans, and learned to use. 

 

As for the Humans being, well, 'Humanized....' I don't think that would work, as I don't see much reason to invade Equestria XD Except they have a metric ****load of gems and precious stones... As for how they would invade, they could use the portal from Equestria Girls (Some ponies may disagree with this) 

 

I'd love to see Celestia (Without powers of course) Put together an army to defend the country, and have several mane characters 'drafted' and Dash, along with the other wonderbolt reserves rushed into combat. You'd of course have to kill off a few, t make it a bit more emotional. (Just don't kill off AJ, AND Dash.if you wanna kill one, just make sure the other stays alive to feel the grief.)

 

The wonderbolts would go in first, and be killed by the Humans with their technology. then they would steal Human technology,and mount, say, machineguns on the Pegasi. that would be epic. 

 

So ya ^^ I might write a fanfic like this too...

[Bendy 1,821]

Let me guess, in the end when ponies win they kill all humans became humans are 'evil'.

 

All I will say you will get a lot hate for this, these stories aren't liked very much by many.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Rush

[Dovashy 1,734]

Your other questions have already gone into a bit of depth by some other people, and as of now I have nothing to contribute, however in regards to: 

"4. How can I avoid portraying the humans as plain old badguys? I want to avoid the typical situation where the invaders are nothing but evil. I'd rather give them reasonable motivation to engage in an invasion, if possible."

To portray them as not completely evil, you need to show them as not completely evil. How does one go about doing this? 

Their motives: Why do these humans want to colonise equestria? Are people on Earth dying from overpopulation, pollution? Is the colonisation a desperate attempt to save the inhabitants of Earth from certain doom? 

Their emotions: I doubt many of the soldiers would particularly enjoy mowing down innocent ponies with machine guns. You need to show that despite their orders, these soldiers feel guilty deep down.

Their actions: Even the worst of people have their own set of rules, and a moral compass. Even if that moral compass is pretty broken. Things such as sparing the lives of a family, or ignoring that cowering filly in the corner show that despite their actions they do in fact have some form of remorse. 

 

Note:

George R.R. Martin is a very good author, I particularly like how none of his characters, except maybe one.. are completely one sided, and each make bad decisions. Kind of gave me the contributing ideas for your fanfic, but anyways. Happy writing!

['NamBrony 22]

Well, the soldiers would be like the Nazis. not the U.S Army. they'd be the truly evil ones who'd shoot the **** out of the little filly.