The war on Scandinavia
When the princesses decided, after much hesitation, to begin the campaign of Scandinavia, they expected it to meet some local resistance, but that it would be worthless and that eventually, most of Scandinavia would be within Equestrian control by the end of the year.
However, the campaign has turned out worse than expected. About the only one which accepted the offer of peaceful expansion was Helsinki, but the expansion wasn’t so easy in Norway and Sweden, where the population resisted from the moment ponies showed up, and while the city of Oslo and the region of southern Sweden were successfully occupied, guerilla campaigning by the locals halted the advance of the union. To be precise, the armies of the union led by Spitfire are held up Oslo and the southern coastline of Norway, where, after the battle for the city brought major casualties, the morale is very low, and the locals have retreated to the mountains and the hills of the countryside, hoping to cut off the major supply lines of the army. Luna secured the south of Sweden, but she is stuck with her soldiers in Vastergotland, where further advances north were met with a series of defeats while fighting for various towns.
There are some good news however. The recruitment program has gone well enough that the army has some fresh recruits to make up for the lost lives in Scandinavia. In addition, the war has served to confirm to some ancient-fashioned generals why the practice of bringing around big armies in one place instead of smaller, more mobile units has been abandoned a long time ago in this world. And of course, it has taught them the importance of urban combat. Finally, a few ponies in the army who were just screwing around with human weapons have figured out how to adapt some of them to battle saddles, but the mechanisms are hardly adequate to be anything more than a gimmick.
Cadance, whose endeavors in Finland have brought fruit, will come to the aid of the soldiers on Southern Sweden, but Luna herself has to go, while her soldiers continue holding their position in Ostergotland until Cadance gives her signal to advance. Officers who fought in the battle of Oslo will also be sent to Cadance, to explain to them what they learnt about urban warfare. Some armies fresh from their victory in Finland (there was some resistance that still needed moping up) will also assist the armies of Oslo in driving back the resistance.
And some thinking for the future has began too. Luna is leading an expedition into Guinea, hoping to establish a foothold on the region for further advance. Seeing the potential Guinea’s endeavor has, Twilight has also commissioned the construction of a few new battleships.
These are the provinces we're claiming, we hope that foreign powers respect our claims to this area.
(thanks Tani for putting this map on Discord)
Crystal Empire sustainable!
Around a thousand years ago, the evil King Sombra was defeated by the two princesses during the Second Crystal War, but this was done not before he placed a curse upon the Crystal Empire, and the Crystal Empire suddenly banished into the snow for almost a thousand years. As soon as the Empire returned, Cadance, helped by Twilight and her friends, defeated King Sombra once again and Cadance took charge of the Empire.
Ever since it reappeared, the Crystal Empire was dependent on Equestrian support to feed its population. Although this worked fine back in Equus, things have become much harder than they were before now that Equestria and the Crystal Empire are located in two separate continents. While the threat of famine has died out, and Equestria sends as much food as they possibily can, the Crystal Empire is still suffering from periodic food shortages, especially on winter, which has led to many crystal ponies to move to Equestria. And things could quickly get grim if a foreign power began to enact a blockade on the Crystal Empire.
This has begun to change, however, as ever since the Crystal Empire reappeared, the greatest minds in Equestria and the Crystal Empire have continued to work on their project of using crystal magic to continue creating fertile land. Now, they can finally say that the science behind the project is complete, and deployment of beacons spreading crystal magic has begun. Although the beacons will take some time to fertilize their land, when they have finished the Crystal Empire will be able to sustain itself when it comes to food.
The wonderful city of Canterlot
(decent res because it keeps getting butchered for some reason)
Standing on the side of a mountain, Canterlot is an eyesore for any armchair military strategist*, but with its white walls mixed with vines, purple and golden rooftops, its ancient libraries, its still-surviving semi-relevant nobility, it’s something to behold for the tourists traveling to the city that truly is far bigger than it at first appears**. Even those who haven’t been able to enter Canterlot itself, at least have many positive things to say about the rustic looks of Ponyville, a village that saw more than a few evil monsters be stopped on their tracks or even reformed completely.
For some years, tourists have been dying to get to visit the legendary settlements, but while humans managed to reach and snap some pictures for their families, the city of Canterlot had too little space for fancy hotels designed with aliens in mind, and the ponies kept scoffing at the humans, as if their mere presence disturbed the princesses themselves.
Princesses Twilight Sparkle and Celestia attempted to haggle with the nobility and the locals of Ponyville for places to build hotels on, but both populations sternly refused to have any more human tourists enter their cities. They believe that humans will only bring crime and chaos into their safe and peaceful communities, and that the cities will become simple tourist centers in detriment of their inhabitants, and other towns in the area have began echoing their dislike to the idea of having humans visit their places too. However, the citizens of Canterlot have, at the very least, approved of the idea of the princesses renewing the architecture of the city, and the best artists have dully accepted commissions to paint great artworks revolving around the daily life in the city.
This endeavor has been, to the surprise of the princesses (and in spite of the obsessions of a young princess), has been finished far ahead of schedule, and Canterlot has finally partly ceded to the pressure of the princesses to at least give permission to a few human photographers to enter the cities of Canterlot and Ponyville to take pictures of the city. These photographers have been nothing but amazed so far at the fantastic pieces of culture and art from an alien world, and combined with the paintings, great amount of revenue is coming into the city from selling great art pieces. It is truly a wonderful, albeit forbidden, city to live on indeed.
*Ignoring the fact that the supports that keep Canterlot from falling from the side of the mountain have been constantly enchanted for century and can stand for a few millennia even if ponykind disappeared, and it can even last months worth of bombardment.
**Yes, Canterlot
literally is bigger than what it appears at first glance.
