Title:           Total War Equestria
Author:          Anonymous
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/wMtBZGK6
First Edit:      Saturday 5th of September 2015 09:48:25 PM CDT
Last Edit:       Saturday 5th of September 2015 09:48:25 PM CDT

Humans.
>They're a strange kind.
>Long ago, over one thousand years ago you organized a relief effort to help the struggling biedial race after a volcano had erupted by their largest settlement.
>In one day, more than half of humanity's numbers were wiped away.
>The king himself stood before you, tearful and frantic, he growled and grunted.
>Starswirl was the most fluent in the human language and did his best to translate the undying gratitude King Anonymous had for your kind.
>Any need you had of humans would be provided gladly.
>It took so long to convince him that you had no desire for repayment.
>That what you did, the months of recovery work, was done out of goodwill.
>You still remember the moment.
>King Anonymous' eyes shifted to a stern glare, "Th-thaaank Ooo. Weee not f-forgot." he said with what little Equestrian he knew.
>You didn't think much of it at the time.
>Humans were very far behind in terms of advancement after all, what could they possibly offer?
>It wasn't surprising to think that way back then, given that they were a relatively new species in Equus.
>For almost a thousand years, the humans remained silent.
>Toiling away in their recovering lands, far from the political fronts happening between you and the four other major races.
>Tensions rose, and alliances were made.
>Then came the breaking point.
>Diamond dogs had been tunnelling under Canterlot.
>The destruction wreaked by their ally, Queen Chrysalis, was made even more effective when the entire city collapsed on itself.
>She was ultimately repelled back, but it came at a very heavy cost.
>Thousands of your little ponies were killed in the assault.
>Your outlying lands were low on soldiers and susceptible to attack on border towns.
>It was then, that the humans stirred.
>And what they did was completely unexpected.
>They helped.
>All of them.
>Humanity appeared as a wave of restoration, relief, and comfort over the ravaged beach that was yours.
 
>Their medical treatment was more effective and precise than any the most skilled unicorns could muster.
>Arcane engines that were smaller, efficient, and more powerful than ever thought possible were instrumental in moving mountains of debris.
>They had created armour that imbued them with strength that surpasses even the minotaurs to dig graves and find survivors.
>Ones without armour simply worked twice as hard to make up the difference.
>All of them toiled for weeks, repaying a debt that you never demanded of them.
>Men and women, even the children befriended and comforted the foals who had lost their families.
>It was then that you understood the meaning behind their old King's broken words.
>The humans worked closely with your priests to ensure that nopony was forgotten nor disrespected.
>When you gave your speech to mourn the losses, they wept alongside your citizens.
>Their pain was just the same as your ponies, it was not from sympathy or empathy that their tears found their origins.
>It was from memory made purpose.
>Memory of loved ones lost forever, of cradles left empty from so long ago.
>By the time a meaningful amount of griffon allies could be brought in, there was little work left to be done.
>The bodies were all healed, and even more so were your souls.
>The devastation you felt was patched soon after by the human's efforts.
>As a unified front you launched an attack on the Diamond Dogs and Changelings.
>The humans pushed along as well closer and closer to the front lines, but they refused to take arms.
>Instead they evacuated civilians.
>Treated wounds.
>Everything they could do to alleviate pain.
>The battles got bigger and bigger, and humanity did what they did best.
>It mattered not what side the wounded were on, they healed without question because we were all sentient, and all sentient beings had a right to live.
>Humanity sent in medics and priests with bibles, bandages, and defensive equipment to face the horrors of war.
 
>And they healed.
>Sometimes, they died when caught in the crossfire.
>Even still, they patched up the injured without fear and evacuated the rest.
>Humans were staples in every single army on every side that would have them.
>To have a human medic nearby was to know in your heart that you would live to see your family again.
>Their burning passion for life, their iron stomachs for the gory life on the battlefield, all of it was an extension of their core belief.
>The debt they believed they owed was not extended to only you, but to all of Equus.
>Humans paid back that debt tenfold over.
>There was no need for humans to build a military aside from policing their own people.
>Only once did humans come under attack from a rogue faction of the splintering Changelings.
>The retaliation from every bordering nation regardless of race was so severe that it effectively killed of that branch of the Changelings.
>It was not an attack born out of fear that humans would rescind their aid, it was instead because they had become a race that was respected the highest next to ones own.
>The youngest race, who had less advancement than even the Zebras, has come a long way in merely a thousand years.
>And they chose not to use their power to attack, or engage in petty squabbles.
>Instead they devote themselves, their lives, to serving others.
>They bleed, so others don't have to.