The Equestrian Civil War

CHAPTER 1

NEW LUNAR REPUBLIC TRAINING BASE BRAVO, 2000 HOURS

"Tonight we're going to show you the many ways to kill a pony using a wire."

The lights in the room darkened as Silver Boulder continued to stand, if by stand you mean stay on all fours. He noticed some other recruits roll their eyes, and overheard some hushed whispering.

"Oh, please," The recruit next to Silver whispered, "It's probably some borrowed Solar Empire video."

Silver Boulder didn't care whether or not it was Celestian, (the term for all things Solar Empire related) and he acknowledged the recruit with a slight nod, the collar of his dark blue recruit uniform creasing a little (it was a little tight on him).

The thing that mattered to him this instant was his current lack of apple cider, he hadn't drank it in days, and the effects were starting to get to him.

Basically, feeling like crap. He didn't like to talk about it, hell, nopony ever did, but it was a pretty damn-well known secret that all he was addicted to the stuff. Ever since paying a visit to Sweet Apple Acres last year and buying a cup. He struggled to remember the names of the salesponies who had paid the farm a visit, who were they? Shim and Sham? Bim and Bam?

'Oh, that's it!' Silver thought, 'they were the Flim Flam brothers!' Indeed the world-famous Flim Flam brothers if you remembered their song. He wondered how they were doing these days. Hell, he wondered if anypony outside the New Lunar Republic's military had had a cup of cider in the last year. It was so addicting to some ponys, that it was rumored to have a mind-control drug present in it. Silver didn't buy it. And besides, if the military cared that much about their troops drinks they would have changed them about a couple of years ago. But the military had bigger things to handle, and never seemed to care about the ponys in the ponyholes, they only cared if you were at a desk or a politician. Other than that, you were considered canon fodder.

At least they had the sense to train you, so you might take down one or two of those Celestians with you. Silver almost laughed when he thought of the fact that as the Lunar Republic was fighting for equality for all, they were treating their soldiers as though they were the rumored "Lower-class pony" that the Republic never failed to claim to support.

As he was thinking about this, he almost made the mistake of falling asleep. The reason that was such a mistake was the drill sergeants that were patrolling the area, making sure that you stayed awake with their shock batons. If you were unlucky enough to fall asleep (and that was easy, considering the lack of sleep and that the previous two days had been drill, drill, drill), you were treated to an electric shock that was, in theory, designed to re-energize your systems, but it did more than that. It sometimes would screw up your eyesight, and you wound up all cross-eyed. "Derpy" was the term to describe a recruit looking that way. From where that term came from, nopony could be sure. Of course the batons were universally hated.

Back to the video, Silver thought, 'Must...stay...awake'. He looked on as the video showed Lunar prisoners of war being executed. So the video was Celestian, although he probably could have guessed that by the "neigh's" and the stern looks of the drill sergeants, hooves moving to their batons.

The thought of Celestian recruits receiving the same training as him, hell, probably watching the same video right now, truly scared Silver, though he didn't show it. He maintained a professional blank expression, the kind that the soldiers wore on the recruiting posters.

Although it's hard to look professional when you've just been conscripted. Yep, even though the Lunar Republic had consolidated it's position in Equestria, grown from a small band of terrorists into a real army, and even had it's own uniforms, they still needed more blood, and volunteers weren't volunteering quickly enough, which led to the draft law. Ironically, even when the Celestians called this an "example of Lunar tyranny", they enacted a similar draft law a month later. Who's tyrannical now when you see the enemy forcing 18-year olds into the army and force them to fight, then enact the same law? "The war of the hypocrites" is what they called it.

"Okay everypony, that's it. Now, time to get some sleep! I bet-"

The Senior Drill Sergeant's voice was immediately cut off by the stomping, then the cheering, as the recruits walked into the darkness outside, trying to find their tents.

Time to sleep, but for how long no pony could be sure.

Because next week, they would finish training and go and fight for "Peace, Democracy, and Equality."

And that scared Silver more than anything.