Tear Jerker / The Negotiations-verse

General

• The saddest thing about the whole premise in general is the fact that the war and the immense death, destruction, and suffering that resulted from it could have all been avoided if not for Celestia's arrogance, shortsightedness, and just plain bad decisions.
• Another tragedy that Discord, of all people, addresses is how for all the friendship lessons the Mane 6 learned together over the course of their adventures, none of them were utilized when it came to how they dealt with humanity. Perhaps if they actually practiced what they preached then things might have turned out better for both sides.
• Rarity, Pinkie Pie, the Crusaders, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor, Flurry Heart, and several other beloved side characters were among those killed in the war.
• The Crystal Ponies are entirely extinct as of the series' conclusion. Most died in the atomic bombing of the Crystal Empire (as revenge for the destruction of Rome and Mecca). Those further out survived the initial blast, shockwave, and assorted other effects of a nuclear attack... but were rendered sterile due to the radiation poisoning.
• As pointed out several times in the narrative, all the other non-ponies of Equus that were left behind in the dimensional jump have all died horribly, as the princesses are no longer around to move the sun (which was already dying) and moon anymore. Zecora, Little Strongheart, Gilda, and all the other non-ponies we've met are all dead too. And a later chapter of Choice reveals that any ponies who weren't in Equestria are gone as well.

Negotiations

• After realizing to her horror the true depths of Celestia's atrocities, Twilight gives the go-ahead for the humans to have Celestia executed for her crimes. Her inner monologue declares that all of the love she had for Celestia was gone from her heart at that moment. Broken Pedestal doesn't even begin to describe it.
  Twilight: Kill her... Take her and kill her and be done with it.
  • And then there's this exchange:
  Anthony Doyle: Ms. Sparkle, for what it's worth... I'm sorry.
  Twilight: No Mr. Doyle, I'm sorry... for everything.

Reunited

• Twilight inwardly noting that of all the things Celestia did, the one thing she truly, absolutely cannot ever forgive Celestia for is being directly responsible for Spike's depression (to the point that he cries himself to sleep at times) over the fact that he's the Last of His Kind now.
• The whole premise of the story is Twilight finally reaching out to Fluttershy nearly ten years after their friendship fell apart due to the latter's defection. She's not only deeply lonely and in desperate need of someone besides Spike (who, to reiterate, is in the throes of grief over being the last living dragon) to emotionally support her, but she's also scared that Fluttershy might reject her. Thankfully, that's not the case.
• Fluttershy tearfully admits that part of the reason why she never reached out to Twilight after the war concluded was that she was afraid Twilight still hated her.

Truth

• Celestia's general state in this story. While many of her choices indeed were unconscionable, the fact that most of them were driven by a desperate Race Against the Clock, and the fact that all of her actions led to her becoming the most hated being in the world is still pretty sad considering how she'd been prior.
• Twilight's angry pleas to Celestia to give her some answers. She's described as shaking and crying as she spells out how miserable her life has been due to everything she'd lost in the war and from the weight of the guilt she shoulders from having trusted Celestia, whom she had loved like a second mother, and caps it off by stating that she would've already killed herself a long time ago if she didn't have Spike and Fluttershy to support her.
• Celestia reveals that Sunset Shimmer, her previous apprentice before Twilight, was killed while scouting Earth out, having been ambushed and eaten by a tribe of hunters. She does admit that a desire for revenge did partially motivate her crusade against humanity.
• After finally receiving the answers she'd sought, Twilight calls Celestia out one last time, departs with a bitter farewell, and then runs into a bathroom, seals herself in a magic soundproofing bubble so no one can hear her, and then breaks down crying for hours.
  Twilight: I cried so much I missed her execution.

Useless

• Applejack's inner monologue all throughout the story (especially when she recalls the day of Ponyville's destruction and Applebloom's death).
• Rainbow Dash recounting the battle at Equestria's coast. She witnessed her fellow Wonderbolts getting massacred horribly and became so terrified by the sheer carnage she witnessed that she retreated from the battlefield to save herself. In doing so, she abandoned Scootaloo to her death, and she never forgave herself for this. Her statement at the end seals it.
  Rainbow Dash: I flew like a coward... I let her die... I lost the right to be Loyalty... That’s why I couldn’t just accept we lost... that’s why I told Twilight to kiss my flank... that surrender... what did they all die for then? To me, surrendering is spitting on the memory of all of them... I’d rather die than let them down again...
• Applejack and Rainbow Dash's deaths at the end. For all their stubborn refusal to accept that their "cause" was doomed from the start and the monstrous actions they committed in the name of advancing said cause, it's still heartbreaking to see them both get killed, and in a pretty anticlimactic manner at that. Applejack desperately praying for forgiveness for her sins and hoping to be reunited with her friends and family in the afterlife is the cherry on top.
• It's a brief mention, but Lyra's mentioned to be devastated over discovering that her best friend Bon Bon/Sweetie Drops, whom she thought died when Ponyville was attacked, was the leader of the Equestrian Freedom Fighters all along. It goes to show that the Mane 6 weren't the only ones whose friendships were broken and/or lost in all of this.

Rest

• The whole story is about Twilight dying and Spike having to say goodbye to the last living family member he has left. She fell ill with cancer while working to find a cure for the ponification potion, but went without treatment for two years so she could focus on perfecting the cure.
• When Twilight only has a few hours left, she asks Spike if the ponies and humans will ever forgive her. He carries her to the window, where she sees thousands of lit candles outside, carried by ponies and humans alike in tribute to her efforts to rebuild Equestria after the war, reverse the ponification potion, and create a new future where both species can truly live in peace and happiness. Seeing this makes Twilight shed Tears of Joy and she closes her eyes, ready for her final slumber. Spike's description of how peaceful she looks is the cherry on top.

Future

• As this story takes place about 300 years after Rest, this means Twilight and Fluttershy have both been long dead by this point. And Discord, who is no longer immortal, is slowly dying as well.
• Discord's death scene.
  • Shortly before he passes on, Discord confesses that he had been in love with Fluttershy ever since she helped reform him but made up all sorts of excuses for why it would never work between them, which he regrets to this day. He pleads for Spike to not make the same mistake with Rebecca.
  • With Discord gone, Spike is effectively completely alone as he is the last living being left who has gone through the Conversion War.
• Spike's inner narration reveals that Rarity's life took a huge downward turn after the jump to Earth, where she lost her husband to the war and their foal was stillborn. She then wound up turning to Spike for comfort, leading to them having Sex for Solace. It was Spike's first time and the experience made things awkward between them, with his romantic feelings for her fading away as a result. She then spent a long while being emotionally distant from everypony except for Sweetie Belle, and then Ponyville was bombed, killing both of them along with most of the town. Downer Ending at its finest.
• Spike's inner narration reveals that Twilight had written a suicide note addressed to him just in case Fluttershy refused to forgive her. Thankfully, it never had to go to use.

Warfare

• The Foregone Conclusion nature of this series prequel, combined with how it's told through the perspective of a soldier on the losing side, really makes certain moments hit harder.
• It's especially noticeable on rereads where Halberd's slow descent into utter despair and how he becomes consumed with rage and hatred is just shattering, especially given the way he starts off as such a brightly optimistic true believer in the cause, his country, and the princesses he worships like gods.
• One of Halberd's journal entries after the Battle of Jerusalem shows him having a nervous breakdown as Luna, the mare he holds up as a goddess, is now dead, which not only should be impossible but completely contradicts his religious beliefs.
• The same battle resulted in the death of all of Halberd's comrades, save for his best friend/future lover Thundershot.
• His entry for January 9th shows that despite how much ground the humans have regained recently, he's still hopeful that things will turn around soon, and even expresses excitement over his family coming to visit him after he was shot in his last engagement and had to be hospitalized. Two days later, the Crystal Empire was obliterated in nuclear fire, and his spirit finally broke.
• Upon adding human firearms to their arsenal, many soldiers, including some Halberd knew personally, wound up severely injured or dead by handling them poorly in certain cases. Others, not so much.
• We get a triple-whammy in the entry detailing when he met Scootaloo, now a young adult. It's made all the more heartbreaking due to Foregone Conclusion.
  • She still loved and idolized Rainbow Dash, who wound up leaving her to die after all their fellow Wonderbolts were slaughtered right in front of them.
  • She never hated the humans and was actually friends with several on social media before the war. If only the soldiers who killed her were aware beforehand.
  • She was engaged to Apple Bloom, who later died when Ponyville was destroyed not long after Scoots met her end at the coast.
• Halberd's entry for May 7th has him freaking out terribly as he witnesses the armies of humanity utterly obliterate the ponies' defense forces with horrific and messy results, topped off with Halberd himself losing his wings.
  • Not helping is his later entries expressing hope that Thundershot survived, only to discover that he didn't. His pain and rage towards humanity for taking away the stallion he loved is palpable.
• While he's recovering in Ponyville, Halberd describes his meeting with Sweetie Belle on June 12. She begs him for details about how Scootaloo died, as Rainbow Dash is still too traumatized (and, unbeknownst to Sweetie, ashamed to admit that she'd retreated) to talk about it. After Halberd tells her what he can recount, Sweetie then tearfully states that she wishes the war would just end already and she doesn't care who wins or loses anymore. Halberd then asks her how Apple Bloom is doing and Sweetie can only reply that he wouldn't want to know.
• The general sense of utter despair and hopelessness in the populace in the weeks and days leading to the final surrender. In a manner reminiscent of the final days of Nazi Germany, several ponies have accepted the reality that they'll be losing the war, with many killing themselves rather than face the humans' wrath.
• In the July 7 entry, Halberd writes that when Celestia heard another high-ranking Royal Guard officer had surrendered to the humans' forces and urged her to do the same, she snapped, screaming and cursing the humans viciously. Twilight attempted to calm her down, only for Celestia to lash out at her student and accuse her of failing in her own duty to Equestria for not being able to prevent Fluttershy's defection, as it rendered the Elements of Harmony unusable. Even Halberd felt that went too far.
• The description of Canterlot and the general mood of the surviving populace following Twilight's decision to surrender and the humans occupying the capital. Halberd is so utterly heartbroken by what he sees as the ultimate betrayal that he angrily disavows Twilight while several others (including his commanding officer Hope Diamond) kill themselves over how all the pain and loss they suffered through ultimately amounted to nothing.
• In the end, Halberd, unable to handle Equestria's surrender or let go of his hate, and having crossed the Despair Event Horizon long ago, writes one last entry in his journal and then hangs himself.
  • One of the reasons why he's lost the will to live anymore is that he's certain his family is either dead or been enslaved by the humans... except that it turns out his family survived the war relatively unscathed and later found his journal. His sister went on to marry and have foals of her own, passing the journal down as a family heirloom, with one of her descendants bringing the journal to Spike for him to read. Spike himself can't help but feel some pity for Halberd, with the descriptions of the war being a harsh reminder of his own painful experiences.
  • Adding to that is Spike's educated guess that even if Halberd lived long enough to learn the truth behind Celestia's actions and their horrific consequences, it wouldn't have mattered to him. If anything, he would have refused to accept it and joined the ill-fated Freedom Fighters, in which case he would have died either way.

The Tale of the Broken Soldier

• To disabuse Halberd of the notion that ponies are Perfect Pacifist People, Garen takes him back to ancient pre-Equestrian times and shows him that the pegasi used to execute disabled foals because they were considered useless to their tribe. Strangely, an adult stallion is executed along with them, and the last soldier to throw the last foal off the clouds has tears in her eyes as she does so and stands there long after the other soldiers have left. Garen reveals that the last soldier was that foal's mother, and the stallion was her husband, who she sold out for planning to run away with their son, out of loyalty to their tribe. According to him, she would regret that decision for the rest of her life.

Choice

• The flashback to Fluttershy's defection. While enormously brave (and ultimately the right thing to do), it's clear she's in a great deal of pain over leaving her home and breaking up her friendship with the other Element Bearers.
  • What's worse is that Rarity and Pinkie Pie also had doubts about the war, but Fluttershy was the only one who acted on them and got out before the manure really hit the fan. And thanks to the bombing of Ponyville and the events of Useless, Fluttershy never got to make amends with any of her other friends besides Twilight, and even then, it took five years after the war ended before Twilight finally reached out to her.
• The "Cadence Trilogy" as a whole is heartbreaking from start to finish.
  • The first chapter, "Retaliation", starts off some short time after Shining Armor's death in combat, and it was not a heroic death, either. He got sniped in the head completely out of the blue, making him the first member of the Royal Family to die in the war thus far. So Celestia pushes Cadence, who is clearly emotionally fragile from his death, into using the Crystal Cannon by exploiting her grief and rage to wipe out two cities and kill over 7 million humans. Even worse, she tells Cadence that the humans desecrated Shining Armor's body to push her into doing it, all the while Cadence is covering her ears, screaming and sobbing. It's clear Cadence is uncomfortable with doing this, but feels that she has to, all due to Celestia's refusal to admit that the war is not looking too good in the ponies' favor. What makes it even worse is that in the first story, Twilight recalls that Celestia told her that she was against the use of the Crystal Cannon, which turned out to be a total lie. So, Cadence not only lost her husband and aunt in quick succession and later gets obliterated by a nuke (alongside her daughter and her kingdom) but for a long while, she got all the blame for what had transpired.
  • The second part, "Recursion", takes place shortly after Luna's death. Before Cadence could get rid of the last of the "Big Three" religious cities, Discord sabotaged the Crystal Cannon, leading to Luna's downright gruesome demise in the Battle of Jerusalem. Twilight comes in to try comforting her, but Cadence is just too emotionally exhausted and ground down by everything to even want to be consoled, and instead demands to know just where everything went so wrong.
  • The third and final chapter, "Annihilation", shows Cadence and Flurry Heart's final moments before the nuke hits, and how it plays out is bound to tighten some throats. A few minutes before the strike, Flurry Heart apologizes to Cadence for becoming withdrawn ever since Shining Armor and Luna's deaths and not being there to support her grieving mother. Cadence doesn't hold anything against her and admits that she's just so tired of the war and doesn't see the point in it anymore. Flurry then asks if she regrets starting it, but before Cadence can answer, she sees an object (the nuke) falling from the sky and BOOM.
• "Innovation": We get to see Moondancer, one of the ponies who defected and played an instrumental role in the creation of the Thalmann Generators, wrestle with the same dilemma that Oppenheimer had to deal with upon the creation of the atomic bomb - great scientific progress that will lead to the deaths of thousands, if not millions.
• "Commemoration" has Celestia turn the funeral of her own sister into a propaganda speech about how Equestria needs to work even harder to beat the humans. Meanwhile, the narration lampshades that things are only going to get much, much worse for Equestria in the next year.
  • For added irony, Celestia launched an attack on the city of Berlin with the intention of punishing the German people for the actions of the Third Reich, all the while she's channeling them pretty hard in her speech.
  • Even after two weeks of work from the best taxidermists and funeral preppers in Equestria, Luna's corpse still looks wrong - the proportions are off and the horn is crooked, among other things. This makes sense, given that previously the state of her body was described as looking like ground meat with bits of feathers and fur mixed in.
  • This also shows just how deranged Celestia has become. She used the funeral of her own sister to make the rest of her subjects hate humanity as much as she does. While she was clearly mourning Luna and sought to avenge her, the fact that she would go as far as using the death of her own flesh and blood to further her desire to wipe out mankind is utterly gut-wrenching. What's worse, it is implied in Negotiations that she did the exact same thing when the Crystal Empire got obliterated.
• "Sterilization" shows Twilight dealing with the aftermath of being rendered sterile thanks to sustaining a bunch of severe bullet wounds to her abdomen. The rest of her family, already deeply grief-stricken by the still fairly recent deaths of Shining Armor, Cadence, and Flurry, were clearly terrified for her and can only tearfully hold her as she cries.
• "Teleportation" shows Twilight reminiscing on her plan and attempts at utilizing the Elements of Harmony in order to get Equestria off Earth, and we see the flashbacks of the discussions and subsequent failed attempts that led to her plan being nothing more than a Hope Spot that further strains her relationships with her remaining friends.
  • What takes the cake is her breakdown near the end, screaming at the Elements of Harmony themselves and begging to know why they aren't helping Equestria in its time of need, unable to see that Harmony itself knows that they, except for Fluttershy, have failed to embody their respective Element, and finally breaking down into a sobbing mess.
• "Dereliction" shows how Rainbow Dash's greatest personal shame played out. The Wonderbolts start flying out, ready to fight, Spitfire promises to treat everyone to drinks after their victory... and then they all get immediately overwhelmed by humanity's first strike, getting reduced to pink mist one after the next as the remaining members scramble around in horror and confusion before getting shot down and their remains falling into the ocean. Rainbow Dash is in shock, barely able to process anything, much less Scootaloo screaming and asking what they should do now. Seeing the defense line get utterly massacred and being forced to retreat pushes Rainbow Dash to just start flying off in the opposite direction, ignoring Scootaloo's screams of confusion as she flees for her own life.
• "Devastation" shows how desperate things got in Equestria during the final weeks of the war. At one point, it's mentioned that cannibalism was looking better than eating some of the rations, two refugees are shown fighting over a blanket that's more hole than cloth, and the surviving Elements have begun to turn on each other. It's likely that the humans could have just called off the invasion and let Equestria tear itself apart.
  • Applejack and Rarity's argument is especially heartbreaking, showing just how low things have sunken. Rarity angrily calls AJ out for selling innocent ponies out to the ESS gulags for money while AJ calls Rarity a traitor and spitefully states she's glad Rarity's husband and baby son are dead. After screaming at AJ to get out, Rarity collapses onto her couch and breaks down sobbing, realizing that she should've defected with Fluttershy and now it's too late. And then Heel–Face Door-Slam occurs when she is among the casualties in the bombing.
  • The Bombing of Ponyville itself, seen through AJ's eyes. She first puts her previous vendetta with Rarity aside to try saving Sweetie Belle, only to fail, then sees Pinkie and the Cakes get killed at Sugarcube Corner, and it all comes to a head with her watching Apple Bloom die when a piece of shrapnel embeds itself into her head as the farm goes up in flames. And to add insult to ironic injury, said piece of shrapnel was a golden bit with Celestia's face, one of the many Applejack accumulated double-crossing her fellow townsfolk.
• "Obsession" shows Celestia's Villainous Breakdown in full, and it's not pretty. It's a sight that would elicit sympathy if not for the fact that she brought much of her sorrows (such as the deaths of her family members, the destruction of the Crystal Empire, and Equestria being razed to the ground) on herself. Her snapping at Twilight and calling her a failure, as well as the Stunned Silence that follows, are the cherry on top.
• In "Decision", Discord arrives in Equestria to plead with Celestia to stop the fighting and surrender for the sake of her subjects. He calls her out on her actions with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, pushing her to break down and she ends up indirectly revealing how she lost Sunset Shimmer to a group of human hunters. Discord is curious and tries to ask for elaboration, but Celestia won't go into more detail, prompting him to sadly sigh in resignation at her stubbornness and ask her this Armor-Piercing Question before he leaves:
  Discord: I've never told this to anyone, not even to Fluttershy. But learning about friendship made my life more than just one game after the next. Ever since that day, I've been happier than I've ever been on my own. Your ceaseless lecturing about friendship and harmony...was it all a lie?
• "Division" takes place during the immediate aftermath of Twilight's surrender. Rainbow Dash and Applejack are heartbroken and angered at Twilight's decision, screaming that she's selling Equestria and ponykind out to the humans and dishonoring their dead friends and family members. Twilight argues back that she's looking out for their people's long-term survival and she is just too broken by all the loss and suffering that's occurred and no futile "last stand" is worth how the ponies (herself included) basically lost everything good about themselves in their attempt to convert humanity. It ends with Applejack and Rainbow Dash venomously declaring their friendship with Twilight is over and they'll never forgive her.
• "Revolution" happens after Twilight's falling out with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, when the humans are constructing a settlement in Equestria and are sending supplies to help rebuild Canterlot. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash is drowning her sorrows away and has gotten kicked out of every single bar in Canterlot, spewing vitriol and hate about Twilight and the humans. Sweetie Drops approaches her and recruits her... and we get to see that hundreds of ponies are at the EFF's home base, including some that we know. Rainbow Dash joins the EFF and will bring Applejack onboard to keep the fight going... and thanks to Useless, we know exactly how this will end. This is nothing but a brief Hope Spot for Rainbow Dash before things went From Bad to Worse.

Timelines

• Among those who joined the EFF? Daring Do, Snips, Snails, Cloudkicker, Lightning Dust, Limestone Pie, and Roseluck.
  • What happened when it was found out that Daring Do was a member of said terrorist group after she was killed? The ponies gathered all her books and burned them.
• As the Crystal Empire and some of the surrounding area were completely razed to the ground and rendered both radioactive and unsafe for habitation for at least a couple of centuries, the remaining crystal ponies were granted an entire town which they named Summerland, one of the names for a pre-Equestria religion's afterlife, to live out the rest of their days in peace. They were all sterile and knew that they would be the last generation of their kind, so their new home's name reflected that.
• Trixie's fate is pretty sad too. She survived the war relatively unscathed and later found love with a human woman, only to lose her in a bombing by the EFF. Swearing she would avenge her love, she infiltrated the EFF while feeding information about the organization to the authorities. She's able to successfully warn Twilight of their assassination attempt but got mortally wounded by Applejack while protecting Twilight. Her last request was to be buried next to her girlfriend.

Fallen

• Discord finally confesses to Fluttershy of his love for her as he dies, a heartwarming but sad moment considering his canon timeline self regrets not having acted on his feelings for her before his death.
• "Blind Loyalist": Fluttershy reveals that her family angrily disowned her due to her defection. And even that's nothing compared to how Lyra, Flash, and Moondancer's families all got attacked and killed as "retribution".
• "Broken Diamond": Rarity breaks down as she recalls her pain over losing her husband and son in rapid succession. She rightly notes that she didn't deserve this and Fluttershy even sheds tears for her friend. But when Rarity coldly tells Fluttershy she's glad Fluttershy is suffering over Discord's death, Flutters flies into an Unstoppable Rage.
• "Naive Magic": Fluttershy comes to the same realization Twilight did in canon regarding the destruction of their homeworld and the role she played in it, except her breakdown is far, far worse. She screams and wails in such agony and despair that she ultimately passes out from the strain, begging God to forgive her, all the while her mind is consumed with the images and voices of all those they left behind in the jump.
• "Fake Laughter": Pinkie Pie has fallen deep into the Stepford Smiler routine, treating the war and all the suffering it's caused with an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality. What's worse is that she could tell something wasn't right with the newfoals and knew the war was wrong, but she couldn't bring herself to leave out of fear of losing her friends and her life.
• "Friendly Dragon": Poor, poor Spike. He's seen so many ponies he'd been close to dying in the war to the point that he's lost track of how many funerals he's attended and has to see everyone else fall into disarray, with Twilight becoming so consumed by trying to come up with ludicrous schemes in a futile effort to turn the war around that she won't see reason and Celestia clearly having gone far off the deep end. And then Fluttershy helps him realize that everyone back in their original home dimension is dead, meaning he's the last of the dragons now.
• "Humanity's Sins": Celestia telling Fluttershy about Sunset Shimmer's death. Not only was Sunset her apprentice, but she was also like an adopted daughter to Celestia, making her death hurt even worse.
• "Kindness Caves":
  • Celestia pulls out her final trump card to get Fluttershy to comply and reveals she's captured Fluttershy's human lover Martin and holding him prisoner. Martin's been beaten up some and as she tends to him, Fluttershy reminisces on how their relationship began. She inwardly notes that Discord had encouraged her to pursue her feelings for Martin, so with his Deathbed Confession in Future in mind, this means that Discord pulled an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy while going on to regret it for the rest of his life and never loving anyone else again.
  • Fluttershy, with great reluctance, caves to Celestia's demands. Princess Celestia has won and Fluttershy is surrounded by a populace who loathes and despises her...
• The "Divine Justice" ending:
  • The description of how the other ponies react upon realizing that the other races on Equus were left behind to die in the Equestrian jump. Several scream in horror, others cry in despair, some vomit their guts out, a few faint from the overwhelming weight of it all, and at least one Royal Guard tries to kill himself (with his fellow soldiers rushing to stop him). Pinkie Pie's reaction takes the cake though - she was already pretty broken by the war, but this revelation absolutely shatters her, reducing her into a hysterical and heartbroken mess.
  • Harmony also points out that five of the Element Bearers' successors, being non-ponies left behind in the dimensional jump, are dead, while the sixth, the sole pony among them, is an emotionally broken soldier who resents being made a killer. Moreover, they would've been the ones to find a way to save the Sun from dying and bring a new age of peace and prosperity to all of Equus. This revelation even drives Fluttershy to tears.
  • Celestia's meltdown as she's called out for her actions. She's screaming with the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice, frothing at the mouth, calling everyone else ungrateful and not understanding the weight and responsibility she's shouldered for the sake of Equestria before turning on Harmony and calling them out for never intervening in her own life's tragedies. Yes, she's committed multiple atrocities in this series, but it's still hard not to feel a tiny bit bad for her when she collapses in tears.
  • While several characters who died in the original story survived in this one, that doesn't make their fates happy. Twilight turned herself over to the UN, went on trial, and was sentenced to life in prison, with her only visitors being her parents, Spike, and Fluttershy. Rarity's career was ruined and she fell deep into alcoholism, though she did eventually get sober and managed to pick her life back up, along with reconciling with Fluttershy later on. Pinkie Pie, after spending several years in a mental asylum, went back to the rock farm and hasn't smiled since. Rainbow Dash still joined a terrorist group and went out in more or less the same way she did in Useless. And Applejack, due to being exposed for selling out her neighbors for money, got disowned by her family and then died when the families and friends of the ponies she sold out to the ESS attacked and lynched her in revenge.
• The "Rejection" ending. Celestia takes every pony willing to listen on a doomed last stand against the human invasion fleet. The humans had forty million soldiers, and Celestia essentially ordered every pony capable of holding a weapon into mass suicide wave assaults. In the canon universe, half of Equestria's population died in the war in total, but thanks to this action, coined the March of Fools, three-quarters of them did.
• The "Operation Freebird" ending. Spike dies in this version from fighting against Celestia to both avenge Twilight and buy Fluttershy and her rescuers some time, while Fluttershy's PTSD from her capture and rescue means that she and Martin don't get to adopt their canonical children. In addition, Equestria becomes so fractured from the chaos caused by Celestia's death that it's unlikely that it'll ever be united again. A Bittersweet Ending to the fullest.
• The "Twilight Falls" ending. Twilight Sparkle, broken and driven insane by the death of Spike and regaining the knowledge of what had happened to the rest of Equus, brutally kills Celestia and everyone loyal to her, including Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, in a literal decapitation strike. She spares Rarity, Fluttershy, and Martin and then obliterates Canterlot, and herself, in a magical nuclear explosion that kills countless innocent ponies and the remaining Celestia loyalists, but not before dealing with the remaining royal guards in various horrifying ways and giving out a twisted speech mocking those who cowered under Celestia's leadership. Twilight's fall into madness is as sad as it is disturbing.
• The ending of "Harmony's Chosen, Part 1": Spike, accompanied by General Vakyrie, arrests his former friends on Fluttershy's orders, tearfully calling Twilight out on jumping Equestria to Earth and making him the Last of His Kind.
• "Harmony's Chosen, Part 2" showcases the fates of Fluttershy's former friends and none of them are happy.
  • Twilight pleads guilty to every charge brought up against her and accepts her sentencing of life imprisonment while working to create a cure for the conversion potion.
  • Like in "Divine Justice", Pinkie Pie goes utterly insane from despair and is sent to a mental asylum. No one expects her to make a recovery. Even Maud broke down crying when seeing her little sister like this.
  • Rarity got the lightest sentence out of everyone, with her being sentenced to ten years of community service but her reputation is completely ruined, with ponies destroying all of her stores.
  • Rainbow Dash is given five years in jail and sixteen years of community service. Additionally, due to her abusing POWs during her time as a soldier, she was dishonorably discharged from the Wonderbolts with all of her achievements revoked and forbidden from rejoining it or any other military organization ever again.
  • Applejack was nearly attacked by everyone in the courtroom when her crimes of selling out her fellow townsponies to the ESS gulags for money came to light. Apple Bloom angrily disowned her as her big sister and took her hat away, stating she didn't deserve it. The rest of the Apple Family followed suit (while making amends with Braeburn and accepting his human husband as part of the clan) and Sweet Apple Acres was burned to the ground as revenge for her actions. Ultimately, Applejack was given life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
    • What's particularly sad is that according to Choice, part of Applejack's motivation for selling out ponies to the ESS was to provide for her little sister, as Apple Bloom was the only member of her immediate family she had left after the deaths of Granny Smith, Big Mac, and Sugar Belle. She didn’t tell Apple Bloom they were close to losing the farm because she didn't want her to worry. But to save the farm, she did things that Apple Bloom, or anyone else for that matter, could never forgive, and it was All for Nothing.
  • Apple Bloom also suffers for her older sister's actions. After learning the truth about Applejack's crimes, she angrily disowns AJ as her older sister and even goes so far as to say AJ should've died instead of Big Macintosh as not even he would have stooped so low as to sell their neighbors out for money. And due to the aforementioned destruction of Sweet Apple Acres and the residents of Ponyville passing a law prohibiting any Apple family member from living there again, Bloom is also now a Persona Non Grata to the only home she's ever known and can never go back to it. At least she still has Scootaloo around.
  • Fluttershy gets this as well. She didn't oversee her friend's trial as a judge as she knew her feelings would get in the way of their sentencing. Deep down, Fluttershy wishes to make amends with her old friends and rekindle the strong bond they once had with each other. However, she knows this is impossible as the war changed them completely she can only see them as strangers rather than friends. The chapter even ends with Fluttershy crying in her husband's chest.
• "Harmony's Chosen, Part 3" expands on the former Element Bearers' fates following a ten-year Time Skip. Again, none of them are happy, except Rarity's, as she's able to successfully atone and pick the pieces up.
  • Twilight is able to restore the newfoals' original personalities but can't find a way to restore their human bodies due to lacking the enzyme that Discord's blood would have provided. And while she and Fluttershy do make amends, with the latter making regular visits, it's still bitterly painful for both as it's not the same friendship they used to have.
  • Pinkie Pie is living in a delusional fantasy world of her own making, believing she's still friends with everyone and Equestria never jumped dimensions. Fluttershy was only able to visit her twice and couldn't tell her the truth, not wanting to shatter Pinkie's already fragile sanity further.
  • For mistreating and torturing prisoners of war, Rainbow Dash is dishonorably discharged, banned from entering any military service ever again, and all her achievements are erased. Unable to move on from the war and stuck on her past glories, she becomes a bitter and isolated Jaded Washout who spends her days drowning herself in alcohol, driving even Scootaloo away.
  • Applejack committed suicide in prison, with none of her living family members wanting to take and bury her body. Fluttershy has her cremated and the ashes dumped in a river.

Regeneration

• Pinkie Pie's death. Out of everypony she took the Harmony Cannon's firing and the loss of life to it the hardest. She fainted and as soon as she woke up Pinkie ran back to Ponyville and isolated herself from everypony for days. By the time Rarity went to check up on her, it was too late. Her resulting funeral wasn't much better. Everypony was devastated by her death, even Maud who is usually The Stoic was crying throughout the funeral.
• Princess Luna crying after her argument with Celestia and Twilight in Part 11.