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Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest

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MagusBlack said:
Adding enough pack mentality for the Griffons to latch on to magically speaking?
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Possibly. As I said in my initial post, I just assumed that collective singing in harmony* is how non-ponies need to activate it rather than something unique to the diamond dogs. You could be right though. As Rook said, we have too few examples to really deduce a concrete trigger.

*though saying the word harmony now makes me wonder if Heartsongs are connected to Harmony-based magic

Questor said:
And as the song comes to what you instinctively know to be it's end, every single cannon in your army opens fire at once.

(Tchaikovsky's Revenge: 95+20 (Imperial Heart Song)= 115)
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Just in case any of you don't know what this is referencing, a Russian composer by the name Pyotr Tchaikovsky is (in)famous for having made a song that uses live cannonfire as part of its orchestra. Keep in mind this was before you could record music in separate parts, so he had actual cannons firing off.
 
...How would equestria negaverse react to this?
For some reason I see someone in it posting the Heart-Song of War omake as a joke, only for the nega-gm alluding to a joke roll he/she did inspired by it, and then posting a maretonia war interlude, showing the roll was very high, resulting in a full-blown heartsong. :D
 
Nate700 said:
Changelings, I'm not joking.
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I don't really see what the Changelings would have to gain from it
Ralyx said:
You're assuming he knew. Which he might have, but he also might not have.
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Considering that the only reason this wasn't a total military failure on his part is the giant magic bear that's just erupted out of the ground I'd be shocked if he was just stupidly lucky
Themarineguy said:
Or the ursa just so happened to be right there, and he had it as a panic button should the civil are go horribly wrong for him. And well, our huge force was enough for him to decide to push it.
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That still begs the questions of how only he knew and how his army was able to stop from waking it up
FictionPack said:
I would imagine people would monitor the hibernation locations of extremely dangerous creatures to avoid waking them up early.
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That makes sense but in that case you'd expect any of the Maretonians we work with to have pointed out "By the way, there's a massive magical bear sleeping here so we should be careful"
 
Questor said:
While there are legends of Ursas being slain by legendary heroes in the distant past, none of these stories can be corroborated. The methods supposedly employed to slay them have ranged from leaving poised food outside the entrance to their lairs, cutting them apart from the inside after being swallowed whole, tricking one into fighting a dragon, or just stabbing them over and over until they die.
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And now our Grand Strategy: Group up together... AND HIT IT TILL IT DIES!!!
 
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[ ] Plan Hit It Till It Dies: Order the main forces to pull back, employ mages using fire and Flame Projectors to keep the Ursa Major at bay and direct it's movements if possible. Send in the Black Watch, the Grandmasters and the Inner Circle Knights to slay the beast. Focus all artillery on the Ursa to fire when they have a clean shot so as not to hit our own. Have the remaining Knights focus on protecting the artillery. See if the Canterburians can use their magic to restrain or impair the Ursa in any way they can, even if only momentarily to create openings for others.
 
Questor said:
Ursa Majors are similar to Dragons, in that they are massive creatures that grow larger with age and can hibernate for decades or even centuries at a time. They also possess a measure of inherent magic, though this is restricted to sustaining them, as otherwise they would never be able to consume enough food to fuel their enormous bodies. It also allows them to defy gravity to an extent. They cannot fly, but they can jump far higher than one would expect them to be able to. They are not literally made of magic, and are beings of flesh and blood, though their biology is significantly different and follows different rules than most mundane creatures.

They possess all of the instincts and intelligence of a mundane bear, so reasoning with them isn't really an option.

As for defeats in the past...Ursas, majors or minors, are typically only sighted or encountered once or twice a century, unless someone is unlucky or suicidal enough to awaken one from it's hibernation. They hibernate for decades before awakening for weeks or months at a time to feed upon whatever food sources are closest before returning to their lairs and falling back to sleep. Some theorize that they were put under a curse by Discord, similar to the curse of lethargy that affects the Celestial Dragons of Neighpon. Others say that the Ursas are actually creations of Discord's, mundane bears infused with massive amounts of magic.

While there are legends of Ursas being slain by legendary heroes in the distant past, none of these stories can be corroborated. The methods supposedly employed to slay them have ranged from leaving poised food outside the entrance to their lairs, cutting them apart from the inside after being swallowed whole, tricking one into fighting a dragon, or just stabbing them over and over until they die.
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...Given this we order what magic users we have to bog, tie down, and hinder its movements however possible while blinding/disorienting it. Then have everyone else unload on it as much as possible while trying to keep out of range, using the cannons for as long as safe before pulling back. keeping range/in the air is the best thing we can do for as long as possible, so we need to do that until we have no choice but to Engauge in melee because thats going to be bloody at best and practically suicidal at worst. The only pro we have is that its still a wild animal, if we hurt it enough it will run, eventually.
 
I have an idea....

It is basically a normal bear with massive amounts of magic right?

If so then this is simple. Even for an apex predator, especially one this big and likely unwieldy, IT CANNOT AFFORD ANY INJURY as such will avoid something that is too dangerous looking.


We just need to look really loud and really scary, something it does not want to fight with.

In this circumstance that means a dragon or another Ursa Major.


We make an illusion of an Ursa major and fire off all our canons at it. Bears and other apex predators prefer threat displays and other non combative ways to determine who is dominant.

Now, this thing is here for one of three reasons.

1 pegicles flat out lead it here somehow
2. Is is here because of the large amount of noise and the small of blood.
3. It's den is here and pegicles chose to fight here with expendable troops due to that and it woke up leading to 2.


Threat display should work on all though if it is 3 then bear might be less likely to back down but there is still a decent chance it will even then.


Seriously Questor said it was basically a massive bear mentally which means the same basic logic to stopping a predator should work here


EDIT: In case you are wondering why they cannot afford any serious injury as it would make hunting painful, risks getting infected, and more all of which could EASILY kill an animal in the wild. It's why dominance things are usually all about who has the more X display.

X standing for size, color, or other displays of dominance
 
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So the plan basically boils down to shoot at it with all the DAKKA, while Merlin does the voodoo that he do best, as this is happening Hardbeak and the Black knights get stuck in and chop it up.
 
Kind of hoping we can do the smart thing. If we keep throwing hardbeak at things we might ACTUALLY lose him.

He is getting on in years.... I wonder if there is any chance we could have him start training an apprentice? Maybe an actual martial style we can use to help train up elites?
 
I think a problem is that different bears have different reactions. Grizzly bears are very territorial and respond to threats by standing their ground or charging. Black bears will do fake-out charges and climb trees. Polar bears have been known to track people till they die and then eat their corpse.

Based on this, some strategies are better than others. A common strategy in medieval Europe was to use the charge of a bear against itself. A spear would be braced against the ground by a brave hunter and the bear would gore itself charging. Other hunters would shoot arrows at it while it did this.

Knowing this I would use the Black Guard and wooden obstacles as a sort of spear to distract and gore it. On either side, the ranged units would do ranged attacks. Magic units would be used as support to distract, slow, and generally hinder the bear. Sky units can drop boulders or fire maybe? Regular ground troops would be slaughtered so they are right out.

That or our magic users can terraform a giant stone spear out of the earth with Konrad at the tip :V
 
lockingbane said:
I have an idea....

It is basically a normal bear with massive amounts of magic right?

If so then this is simple. Even for an apex predator, especially one this big and likely unwieldy, IT CANNOT AFFORD ANY INJURY as such will avoid something that is too dangerous looking.


We just need to look really loud and really scary, something it does not want to fight with.

In this circumstance that means a dragon or another Ursa Major.


We make an illusion of an Ursa major and fire off all our canons at it. Bears and other apex predators prefer threat displays and other non combative ways to determine who is dominant.

Now, this thing is here for one of three reasons.

1 pegicles flat out lead it here somehow
2. Is is here because of the large amount of noise and the small of blood.
3. It's den is here and pegicles chose to fight here with expendable troops due to that and it woke up leading to 2.


Threat display should work on all though if it is 3 then bear might be less likely to back down but there is still a decent chance it will even then.


Seriously Questor said it was basically a massive bear mentally which means the same basic logic to stopping a predator should work here


EDIT: In case you are wondering why they cannot afford any serious injury as it would make hunting painful, risks getting infected, and more all of which could EASILY kill an animal in the wild. It's why dominance things are usually all about who has the more X display.

X standing for size, color, or other displays of dominance
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Yeah, I was about to suggest something similar. I am not sure how true the whole "make yourself look bigger than the bear to scare it" thing is, but I was about to ask if we could make a fake big ass griffon using clouds and then make it look real with magic.
 
Bakkasama said:
Yeah, I was about to suggest something similar. I am not sure how true the whole "make yourself look bigger than the bear to scare it" thing is, but I was about to ask if we could make a fake big ass griffon using clouds and then make it look real with magic.
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It can work and does on most types of bears. Doubly so when you are a bear as well

Lurking_Badger said:
I think a problem is that different bears have different reactions. Grizzly bears are very territorial and respond to threats by standing their ground or charging. Black bears will do fake-out charges and climb trees. Polar bears have been known to track people till they die and then eat their corpse.

Based on this, some strategies are better than others. A common strategy in medieval Europe was to use the charge of a bear against itself. A spear would be braced against the ground by a brave hunter and the bear would gore itself charging. Other hunters would shoot arrows at it while it did this.

Knowing this I would use the Black Guard and wooden obstacles as a sort of spear to distract and gore it. On either side, the ranged units would do ranged attacks. Magic units would be used as support to distract, slow, and generally hinder the bear. Sky units can drop boulders or fire maybe? Regular ground troops would be slaughtered so they are right out.

That or our magic users can terraform a giant stone spear out of the earth with Konrad at the tip :V
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As for Polar bears you need to take into account that

1. We are not doing an illusion of a humam shouting and waving their Arms.
2. We are showing a frightened and surprised and overall submissive bear that can make a show of submitting and backing off giving the army a chance to either retreat or advance past the bear.


A bear won't start a fight it doesn't have to and would avoid starting one with another of it's kind since they would be aware of how easily they can hurt them.

And in the wild any injury can be deadly
 
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you know, I'm completely unsurprised by all the variants of "hit it 'till it dies", possibly plus illusion to distract it... but, just for the sake of argument, I'll offer an alternative.

It's probably not viable, but it HAS to be said.

...what if we DON'T fight the giant bear? Like, have EVERYONE run away, and the mages teleport away our artillery, and simply leave the bear to do whatever it wants for the days/weeks until it goes to sleep again? Maybe leave behind food to distract it (though I doubt we have enough food, unless it can eat trees or something...)
 
How high can our pegasus fly compared to the Ursa's reach? The should still be cloud fortifications from Pegicles' army, we might be able to have pegasus use them to hit it with lightning to push it to pursue or escape while being a safe distance away.
 
Pittauro said:
you know, I'm completely unsurprised by all the variants of "hit it 'till it dies", possibly plus illusion to distract it... but, just for the sake of argument, I'll offer an alternative.

It's probably not viable, but it HAS to be said.

...what if we DON'T fight the giant bear? Like, have EVERYONE run away, and the mages teleport away our artillery, and simply leave the bear to do whatever it wants for the days/weeks until it goes to sleep again? Maybe leave behind food to distract it (though I doubt we have enough food, unless it can eat trees or something...)
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That would be preferable if we were on the defensive, but we simply cannot afford the waste of time of backtracking and going around or otherwise waiting out the giant bear.

What was done to Ursa Minors and Majors in MLP canon? Anything we can use there? I mean, I know they probably didn't murder an animal on a PG show but it might still have some useful examples to draw from.

I can't really draw any examples from EaW because Ursa Minors (not Majors) don't really show up there. There's one country that is in-tune with nature enough to train them as soldiers, another country ruled by Unicorns on top that can tame individuals at a slow pace, and then an event Equestria has stating that new technology has made old fears like Ursa Minors into little more than annoyances (paraphrasing).
 
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So what are the odds we can get another heart song going before this thing gets to us cause for the love of hardbeak we could really use it right now.
 
PyrrosWarrior said:
That would be preferable if we were on the defensive, but we simply cannot afford the waste of time of backtracking and going around or otherwise waiting out the giant bear.

What was done to Ursa Minors and Majors in MLP canon? Anything we can use there? I mean, I know they probably didn't murder an animal on a PG show but it might still have some useful examples to draw from.

I can't really draw any examples from EaW because Ursa Minors (not Majors) don't really show up there. There's one country that is in-tune with nature enough to train them as soldiers, another country ruled by Unicorns on top that can tame individuals at a slow pace, and then an event Equestria has stating that new technology has made old fears like Ursa Minors into little more than annoyances (paraphrasing).
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I think Equestria gets a minor event called "Ursa Major Modern solutions" but I always ignore it because it doesn't do anything.
 
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