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In a hypothetical interracial pony-war, the pegasi would almost certainly win. They've got the advantage of continual aerial surveillance, a functionally unassailable home city, the Wonderbolts give them unlimited first-strike capabilities, and most importantly, they can control the weather.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 08:33:40 UTC from web-
@ceruleanspark But! Unicorns can provide wings!
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 08:34:33 UTC from web-
@scribus The Pegasi still have the home-field advantage, as well as more familliarity with aerial combat. Assuming that all unicorn wings are somewhat fragile, it'd probably only take a close-range rainboom or a deliberately targeted hurricane to make it rain unicorns on the fields below.
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@ceruleanspark And that's why RDN is infested with Pegasus ponies.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 08:34:52 UTC from web -
@abigpony You can't hit what you can't see. If the pegasi felt like it they could just blanket the sky in thick clouds and wear out the unicorn forces in a hit-and-run battle of attrition. Also: Just knock Canterlot off the mountain by continually bombarding it with hurricanes, blizzards, etc.
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@ceruleanspark But what abou the unicorns control of magic? Surely they could cast a cloaking spell, or a memory spell, rendering aerial surveillance completely useless. Not to mention countless other spells that could potentially render entire squadrons of pegasi combat ineffective.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 08:38:35 UTC from web-
@gangstashy The pegasi still have that all important first-strike capability. The unicorns cannot defend everywhere at once. The pegasi have the advantage of being able to lead the flow of battle due to their greater reach and speed.
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@ceruleanspark I'm glad you didn't choose to be a Pegasus pony. You'd be reeking havoc.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 08:45:14 UTC from web-
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@shori The way @ceruleanspark's thinking, worries me if he was a pegasus.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 09:06:31 UTC from web-
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@shori You can cuddle me all you want. :3
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 09:09:27 UTC from web
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@pinhooves I think this way all the time! I just don't often get to talk about it.
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@ceruleanspark Assuming the pegasus know where to strike at all. Recon and intel couldn't be counted as reliable, considering that the unicorns, especially powerful ones, would have the ability to alter memories and photographs. And I'm sure a group of unicorns could manifest a rather powerful sleeping spell at an incoming charge, anyways. They'd all drop like stones from the air.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 09:12:20 UTC from web-
@gangstashy Especially powerful unicorns would of course, end up being high-value targets, limiting their usefulness on the battlefield, as they'd essentially be walking around with targets painted on their flanks. Even assuming a unicorn as powerful as Twilight, it's still one unicorn VS the entire focused might of an attacking force. Nopony is that good, even with Twilight's mary-sue powers.
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@ceruleanspark And the Wonderbolts wouldn't be a valuable combat asset? They'd have to have entire divisions of other pegasi running escort if they had a sortie to ANYWHERE. Akin to B-17s, B-23s of WWII, they'd be picked off like flies if they ran any mission sans escort.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 09:32:20 UTC from web-
@gangstashy The difference is that the Wonderbolts are /fast/ in a way that a heavy bomber isn't. Assuming a literal definition of "Best", they'd probably be equivelant to a weaponised variant of the SR-71. In, out and done before anyone even knows what just happened. I imagine they'd be deployed more like a special forces unit, rather than in open combat.
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@ceruleanspark And unicorns would have the same ability. Unicorns already have the ability teleport and surely they'd be able to cloak themselves, as well. In addition, spells exist that allow for them to walk on clouds. Given a powerful enough unicorn, a handful would be able to systematically neutralize supply chains, C2 centers, communication relays, industrial targets and assassinate high-level targets. And all within, literally, a matter of minutes. Even if you just target out C2 and communication relays, you've already crippled their army. Any potential to mobilize would be massively ineffective and even if the opposing force has already mobilized, it would be impossible to relay orders at a rate in which you could successfully mount a counter-attack or even an attack at that matter.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:09:24 UTC from web-
@gangstashy I think (though it's not, strictly speaking proven) that unicorn teleportation has a number of contraints. I don't think it's tap-a-map fast-travel. I think they need to familliar with the location, and I think it's range limited. Given the uniquely malleable nature of pegasus cloud-based architecture, it is entirely possible to completely reconfigure a base on the fly so that any would-be teleporters find they've just teleported themselves into open sky, or the heart of a thundercloud, or something equally unpleasant. The other defense the pegasi have against this kind of behaviour is that there's nopony above them. Their ability to hide stuff on the other side of clouds is unparalleled. You can't teleport to to a high-value location if it's hidden in some obscure corner of the sky.
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@ceruleanspark On both sides, we've completely left out the element of espionage. Who's to say that there isn't a Pegasus supplying valuable intel to the Unicorns and vice versa?
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:21:02 UTC from web-
@gangstashy We've also not agreed on a set tech-level for this conflict.
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@ceruleanspark We've managed to stick, in my opinion at least, to the one set forth in the show.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:42:15 UTC from web-
@gangstashy In terms of espionage, this kind of puts unicorns on the back hoof. Owing to their extremely high destructive power, any forewarning of an attack by them is going to lead to an alliance of the other races to knock them out pre-emptively.
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@gangstashy I think an Earth pony with fake wings and/or a prosthetic horn could play both sides for fools.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:22:58 UTC from web-
@thelastgherkin Totally. Earth ponies win, hooves down.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:42:27 UTC from web-
@gangstashy I originally wanted to be an Earth pony, but my friends suggested I be a Unicorn, which I'm happy with. :3
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:44:26 UTC from web-
@pinhooves I'm totally a pegasus. :3
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 11:15:58 UTC from web
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@ceruleanspark @gangstashy At least! A conversation worth of reading.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:21:25 UTC from web
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@ceruleanspark Ignore the terrible grammar in that, please.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:10:10 UTC from web-
@gangstashy I'm not the "Oh you made a typo your argument is invalid" type.
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@ceruleanspark I'm a frakin' nazi about my own.
Wednesday, 30-Nov-11 10:13:49 UTC from web
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@abigpony Unicorns can change the seasons, but would they be willing to expend resources on maintaining the weather continuously? Even if it wasn't directly effective, it'd be a great way to tie up a bunch of the unicorn's magical resources on protecting their resource base.
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@abigpony Which is why, much like it would be with America in real life, in the event of a war like this, the first action everyone else would take would be to drop all their ordanance on the unicorns to stop them doing precisely that. The second there was even a threat that the unicorns MIGHT do that, it'd be an everyone-on-them scenario to neutralise them before they could.
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