For many years, Equestria has been locked in a deadly war with the Crystal Empire and its brutal overlord, King Sombra. But now, after so much fighting and hardship, the war is over. Equestria has won, and peace has been made. But to accomplish this, Equestria had to do something drastic to turn the tide. Something unprecedented. And as Celestia looks over the ruins of the once-beautiful Crystal Empire, she cannot help but ask herself some very important questions.
Takes place in the alternate timeline shown in "The Cutie Re-Mark".
Chapters (1)
This was pretty good, all things considered. Though I'm also disturbed by the thought that basically Starlight's meddling in time led to a world of Equestria developing nuclear weapons. Wow...
9714860
You do realize the sun itself is a non stop nuclear explosion? Celestia has that power all the time. If she wanted to anyway.
Was it intentional to publish this on the Fourth of July?
Regarding the background - as 9714875 says, I'm doubting whether they even used a bomb; it could easily have been Celestia's solar magic. But either way, the effects are apparently the same.
9714875
9715050
I doubt it was something Celestia had or used regularly, or she wouldn't keep calling it "The Weapon".
Until the Equestrian cold war ponderings, I figured the weapon was Cadance, since she's notably absent and they kept using "It didn't just kill him".
9715091
Uhm... What about the crystal ponies? Do their deaths not count?
9715099
Reasonable for it to mean both, especially considering who she's talking to.
Ah, yes, the morals and ethics of weapons of mass destruction. An analogy to the atomic bomb, in this case.
Morals are confusing enough as it is in wartime, but then the entire enemy force just had to be enslaved, mind-controlled innocents.
I can imagine it. A spell loaded with terajoules of magical energy, all with the purpose of unleashing kinetic and thermal devastation on a scale unheard of before. And if that's not enough, the magic is too much to be directed 100% effeciently, and a lot of it turns into a lasting, swirling, chaotic yet invisible storm of a magical energy field which wreaks unpredictable, catastrophic effects on all in its reach.
9715050 Oh, sorry, I hadn't actually realised that would be the date it was released. It's just that Friday is my usual self-imposed date for submitting my stories. I apologise greatly if the timing caused offence.
9715615 No offense taken at all - I was just pondering whether that was part of the story's message as well.
9715091 Thing is, Celestia doesn't use solar fusion regularly except in the sun itself, or else the world wouldn't still be around. Now that I reread the story, it's less likely given the possibility of other nations trying to seize The Weapon for themselves, but still Luna could take control of the sun, so there's still the possibility others could.
Well, damn. That's a decent Hiroshima.
Now I'm wondering who the Soviet analogues would be, though.
Morals in war. WW2’s worst legacy.
Good story that gets dragged down by its nuclear weapon analogy.
Whoa. That is some real food for thought here. Loved Celestia reflecting on the cost of what was done to end the war with Sombra. And, yeah, the discussion between Shining and Celestia was really deep stuff (appropriately so). Of course, it makes sense to have enough compassion for the enemy to feel really bad about doing something like this when everybody except the enemy leader is a mind-controlled innocent. And, well, yeah, Shining's comments about the survivors is one of the many reasons I would never have the stomach to be a soldier. Of course, one has to wonder what Twilight will go through knowing how much her big brother had changed over the course of the war. Knowing her, she probably got a civilian job at the library knowing only what she has seen in the newspapers and movie theater newsreels. Though, I would have thought she would have gotten into Celestia's school anyway (maybe not as Celestia's personal student, but at least a high-level regular student), since the "dragon egg" thing seemed like something that was more to test the applicants' character rather than their ability (otherwise, there would either be far fewer students or far more dragons).
But I digress.
Anyway, really good job on the exchange and characterizations in this depiction of immediately post-Crystal War Equestria (as far as THAT timeline goes).
Few things are more peaceful than a graveyard.
Pretty good. This to me parallels with when the atom bomb was dropped on Japan. Very eerie and dark. The discussions mentioned shed some light on the minds of everyone that day.
9716029
Russians did not use weapons of mass destruction in war, if You about it. And if You mean the moralists Who talked about the use of nuclear weapon then it could be Andrey Sakharov - The man Who developed Russian nuclear program.