The fall of the Empire, the rise of the Legions (Patreon)

On the Day of Doom, more than 4000 balefire weapons were employed against Equestria.  Some were strategic city killers, while others were tactical balefire weapons meant to be employed against military or smaller targets.  Some had been placed in Equestria by agents who had infiltrated Four Stars, zebra sympathizers in Equestria, or even rogue elements in Luna's own government.  This worked to the attack's detriment, as some targets like Manehattan, Maripony, and Cloudsdale were hit with multiple weapons, while others went completely unscathed, leaving a patchwork of areas that would later be exploited by survivors.

But for the zebra, the war was won.  They were the victors.  The armies could go home and deal with the effects of the megaspells that roared through their own territory.  And for a few months, that was what happened.  The imperial army limped home to help the tribes being obliterated by the megaspells.  There was little they could do, besides evacuate survivors to outlying areas and consolidate what remained.

However, despite the clear need for organization in this critical time, the Legions refused to cooperate.  The last order of the Caesar was that the generals were to oversee the Empire, but which generals?  Traditionally, the death of a Caesar meant that the Empire was to go passive; laws would be enforced while the tribes met to elect a new one, a interregnum that lasted weeks to a few months.  Bureaucrats were supposed to keep the mechanism of government clunking along in the meantime.

Now, that tradition failed.  The government was fractured, much of it destroyed.  Many tribes had either lost their elders, or could not coordinate where an election should take place.  Roam, the political, technological, and cultural heart of the Empire was a burning wasteland.  The other major cities struggled with overloaded numbers of refugees and broken supply chains.  And so the generals of the Imperial army instituted martial law.

For six months, fragile stability set in, even convincing many of the zebra populace that the worst was in fact over.  In reality, the Legions were at work.  Each of them driven by a compulsion they could not understand, the Legions amassed their resources in the armies they were attached to.  Then, in the first, hard, terrible winter following the Day of Doom, they struck.  Some peacefully removed their generals for failing to exercise their command.  Others were assassinated by the first legion.  A few fought for weeks, but would eventually succumb to exhaustion.

To mark their loyalty, all army soldiers were given a brand marking them as a member of the legion.  This tended to solidify the legion's authority and helped maintain cohesion as any military opposition disintegrated.  The legions preferred to covert and brand rather than outright kill their enemies, and thus the Imperial army was cannibalized.  The last general of the imperial army, Talladas, surrendered and was branded outside Roam by the Seventh Legion.

When that winter gave way to the hard, cold spring, the Legions had firmly established themselves as in control of the military apparatus that remained.  Their argument was that the Imperial Army had been too complacent and inefficient to respond to the hardships.  However, the tribes did not accept this argument.  The Imperial Army was sworn to protect the people, whereas the Legions' loyalty was to the Caesar, and could be argued only one Caesar at that.  They rejected the authority of these Legions over them.

What followed was too disorganized to be a civil war.  Instead, a constant cycle of rebellion and crackdown emerged in which tribal populations would protest, the legions would brutally suppress the population, and then move on.  Some settlements were more successful at weathering these cycles, and the strongest had army remnants ensuring security.  Thus towns like Green Gap and cities like Bastion were able to avoid the worst of it.  Others submitted to Legionary authority, if only to end the violence.

For three years, the legions worked in concert 'stabilizing' the Empire.  Once again, it appeared as if some sort of civility and civilization would be permitted.  Life under a junta was hard, but it was a life.  However, the legion generals chafed against one and other, and that friction spread to the soldiers they commanded.  The Last Command burned like a brand and all the legions struggled to maintain order.

The generals of the legions met in the Central Empty, neutral territory, to try to work out territorial disputes and establish who had authority over whom.  The sixth and seventh legion adamantly pressed for support given to fight the megaspells.  The first claimed they were the best suited to rule due to their training and equipment.  The fifth refused to transport supplies until their authority was respected.  The quibbling grew until the twelfth pointed out that they were sitting on more than eight thousand balefire weapons and assorted other chemical and biological weapons.

Then they used them.  Ironically, the internal balefire attack was larger, but less destructive than the Day of Doom, due to the size of Zebrinica.  However, while the initial wave was horrifyingly effective, their effectiveness rapidly tapered off as they lost the ability to target and deploy accurately.  What remained of the survivors labelled them the 'Star Legion', for only a Legion corrupted by stars could turn such weapons against their own people.  The struggle against the Star legion was brutal, but short.  The Star Legion had anticipated the others would fold quickly, and when they did not, their supply quickly dwindled as did their means of delivering them.

By this point, any possibility of mending the rift between the tribes and legions was truly ended.  The city of Bastion, which had some means of preventing balefire annihilation, attempted to host a summit to work out a peaceful arrangement in which the legions would control various territory, but leave independent cities like it alone.  This condemned massive swaths of rural communities to the Legions.  'The arrangements' were bad deals, but were preferable to anarchy.  The legions largely accepted the deals simply because after their war with the Star Legion, they needed to regroup and recoup.  For a time, things seemed stable.  Surely with their own domains to govern, the Legions would calm down and let a new Caesar be elected... right?

Sadly, as the tribes tried to organize a new election, the Legions ruined them.  Often, under the guise of 'helping' and disrupting the affairs.  It was in this time that the Seventh Legion started referring to itself as the 'Fire Legion', as they struggled to contain Roam and the megaspell.  Many legions, the first and second in particular, pointed at their legion number as an argument of hierarchy.  Thus legions quickly shed their numbers, with only the first and second retaining them.

Twenty years after the Day of Doom, Bastion made a second attempt at an 'arrangement'.  It was a thinly veiled attempt to install the first legion as the 'executive legion' and was soundly and wholeheartedly rejected.  Some legions didn't even attend.  As always, the question of the final command kept rearing its head.  The arrangement collapsed when the second legion's general was killed.  Many assumed that this would mean the end of the legion.  However, within a day, a colonel assumed the mantle and name of the slain general and would lead their remaining, few forces to stable zones around the Western Empty.

With the collapse of the second arrangement, reality set in.  There would be no stability.  Each Legion would struggle, raid, and attack its neighbors or any unaffiliated power.  Many tribes capitulated, or were slaughtered.  The very few who could resist maintained their independence through careful 'arrangements' that rarely lasted for long.  Any attempt to elect a new Caesar would be disrupted.  The legions had their Caesar, even if it was a dead one.

By this time, every legion had abandoned it's number.  The first became the Gold Legion, based out of Bastion.  The second became the Bone Legion, based in the Western Empty.  The third became the sand legion, operating in Zebrinica's sandy north east.  The fourth became the iron legion, taking over the military factories of Irontown and maintaining a rail network to mobilize their artillery.  The fifth became the White Legion, ostensibly because they saw themselves as 'neutral', though they would come to clash along with the others, and would be based in the north.  The sixth became the Thorn Legion, centered in the south east, and would use its agriculture and pharmaceutical power to enrich itself.  The seventh was the Fire or Flame legion, out of Roam.  The Eighth was the Blue Legion, and all but consumed the Estori subtribe in the southern oceans.  The ninth became the Storm Legion, utilizing what little remained of the Empire's air technology to roam and raid.  The tenth became the Blood Legion, operating out of the north west.  The eleventh became the Green Legion, again in an attempt to remain largely neutral.  Their caravans would operate along the Old Road offering technological assistance to the highest bidder, with their headquarters in the east.  Finally the twelfth was the remains of the Star Legion, which was  virtually extinct, yet still lingered in remote ruins.

From this point on, Zebrinica would only know endless war.