The Earth Ponies built a mighty fortress-city with most of the farms inside. The Unicorns paid Pegasi mercenaries to steal some food, since the Unicorns and Pegasi, without the Earth Ponies’ natural magic, couldn’t grow enough food to survive. Because the Pegasi were able to fly over the walls, they were able to steal some food, but the Earth Pony guards quickly took most of them down, due to superior numbers and constant vigilance.
And so this siege continued (the Unicorns once or twice tried to smash through the walls with magic, but the walls were grounded against such attacks, and the magic flowed harmlessly into the ground and was neutralized).
One day, the Unicorns gave their final ultimatum: Return to your farms or we will not raise the sun. Earth Ponies, stubborn as they are, declined this offer. Better to die a free pony than live as a slave. Dark days ed, until finally, driven to desperation by hunger, the three tribes finally decided to meet and work out an agreement….The rest is, as they say, history…
@Mayojar77
You do realize they can threaten MAD by refusing to cultivate food :V Earth ponies have the endurance to outlast the other tribes without food.
@Mayojar77
Drainage underducts can counter floods not dangerous enough to wreck the ecosystem. Furthermore, the Pegasi might think twice ing enough water to permanently change the landscape. Can’t farm on swampland.
Also, mountainforts means room for Devices and Dorf style doomsday machines and traps. If the Pegasi can’t flood them out normally they’ll have to resort to other means.
Probably the most effective siegebreak they could wield would be a lightning bolt big enough to split the mountainfort’s earthbone walls. That would be difficult to control, and a backfire would mean the complete devastation of their own forces by lightningbolt.
@aceofscarabs
That WAS them in their threatened mode. Unicorns of that era were far from intelligent. They’d argue about which shoes to wear while their house burns down. Some probably did.
@aceofscarabs
Still, mass flooding in an enclosed space (like an underground cave inside a mountain) can easily turn the tide of any battle. And what can a large enough band of Pegasi do with a minimum of effort?
@Mayojar77
So, they enslaved disinherited unicorn nobles and weaker unicorns, huh. Might work if they have enough unicorns under their command, which would be dicey if the more powerful Unicorn houses decided their power was being threatened and they put aside their internal squabbles to unite against the Pegasi military.
@Mayojar77
Furthermore, all the Earth Ponies need to do is transition from normal crops to weather-proof ones (like the mushroom crops of dorfs) that can be cultivated in their mountainforts, and make sure it would taste foul to pegasi and unicorn alike, then just starve them until they become less aggressive.
@Mayojar77
The Unicorns would not have willingly worked with the pegasi either. Most Unicorns may not have strong magic individually, but united they can use some pretty fierce combined-arms spells that make the weather attacks pegasi employ look weak.
A single unicorn with fire affinity can make a moderate flame of varying power. Gather around 20-80 unicorns with fire affinities and you can get some nasty Meteor/Meltdown tier fireballs.
@aceofscarabs
Which is where the ‘master race’ thing comes in. Evidently, the Pegasi managed to use Unicorn Conscripts to flush the Earth Ponies out of their mountains (bonus points if it was with actual water) and then cut them off from their supplies of black powder (which would be useless in the event of mass flooding).
@Mayojar77
Wouldn’t have been possible. Earth Ponies would have discovered black powder and adopted guerilla tactics, as well as mined out mountainhome forts dorf style.
@Burmecianblue
Yeah, but if you read the thing, it implies that the saddles were used by a race that wouldn’t normally use them. Ergo, Pegasi managed to conquer both the Unicorns and the Earth Ponies at the same time some time in the past.
simple. the Diamond Dogs were the slavemasters.
I can confirm that that is the best fic.
Well then they would starve together.
Boatmurdered, but with less fire.
>implying mud ponies can go longer without food than anypony else
@aceofscarabs
Then the mud ponies’ mountain redoubts went Boatmurdered
The Earth Ponies built a mighty fortress-city with most of the farms inside. The Unicorns paid Pegasi mercenaries to steal some food, since the Unicorns and Pegasi, without the Earth Ponies’ natural magic, couldn’t grow enough food to survive. Because the Pegasi were able to fly over the walls, they were able to steal some food, but the Earth Pony guards quickly took most of them down, due to superior numbers and constant vigilance.
And so this siege continued (the Unicorns once or twice tried to smash through the walls with magic, but the walls were grounded against such attacks, and the magic flowed harmlessly into the ground and was neutralized).
One day, the Unicorns gave their final ultimatum: Return to your farms or we will not raise the sun. Earth Ponies, stubborn as they are, declined this offer. Better to die a free pony than live as a slave. Dark days ed, until finally, driven to desperation by hunger, the three tribes finally decided to meet and work out an agreement….The rest is, as they say, history…
Kinda hard to grow food when your fields are under eight meters of water.
You do realize they can threaten MAD by refusing to cultivate food :V Earth ponies have the endurance to outlast the other tribes without food.
Earth Ponies aren’t known for architecture. That is something we know well.
Good point, although the surviving Unicorn Houses would be smarter about the situation.
Drainage underducts can counter floods not dangerous enough to wreck the ecosystem. Furthermore, the Pegasi might think twice ing enough water to permanently change the landscape. Can’t farm on swampland.
Also, mountainforts means room for Devices and Dorf style doomsday machines and traps. If the Pegasi can’t flood them out normally they’ll have to resort to other means.
Probably the most effective siegebreak they could wield would be a lightning bolt big enough to split the mountainfort’s earthbone walls. That would be difficult to control, and a backfire would mean the complete devastation of their own forces by lightningbolt.
That WAS them in their threatened mode. Unicorns of that era were far from intelligent. They’d argue about which shoes to wear while their house burns down. Some probably did.
Still, mass flooding in an enclosed space (like an underground cave inside a mountain) can easily turn the tide of any battle. And what can a large enough band of Pegasi do with a minimum of effort?
So, they enslaved disinherited unicorn nobles and weaker unicorns, huh. Might work if they have enough unicorns under their command, which would be dicey if the more powerful Unicorn houses decided their power was being threatened and they put aside their internal squabbles to unite against the Pegasi military.
Furthermore, all the Earth Ponies need to do is transition from normal crops to weather-proof ones (like the mushroom crops of dorfs) that can be cultivated in their mountainforts, and make sure it would taste foul to pegasi and unicorn alike, then just starve them until they become less aggressive.
That’s why I said ‘Unicorn Conscripts’. It was not their choice to make.
The Unicorns would not have willingly worked with the pegasi either. Most Unicorns may not have strong magic individually, but united they can use some pretty fierce combined-arms spells that make the weather attacks pegasi employ look weak.
A single unicorn with fire affinity can make a moderate flame of varying power. Gather around 20-80 unicorns with fire affinities and you can get some nasty Meteor/Meltdown tier fireballs.
Which is where the ‘master race’ thing comes in. Evidently, the Pegasi managed to use Unicorn Conscripts to flush the Earth Ponies out of their mountains (bonus points if it was with actual water) and then cut them off from their supplies of black powder (which would be useless in the event of mass flooding).
Wouldn’t have been possible. Earth Ponies would have discovered black powder and adopted guerilla tactics, as well as mined out mountainhome forts dorf style.
Yeah, but if you read the thing, it implies that the saddles were used by a race that wouldn’t normally use them. Ergo, Pegasi managed to conquer both the Unicorns and the Earth Ponies at the same time some time in the past.
If anything, saddles restrict Pegasus the most.
I can’t see why they would avoid that joke.